Me

2012-05-07 workout – Wendler 5/3/1, cycle 9, Press 1

/ hsoi

Why dawdle? Let’s get to business!

“Week 1”

  • 5 Reps – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2×10/5×45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x5x105 (work)
    • 1x5x120
    • 1x6x140
  • Work Asst. – Chin-ups (supersetted with work Press)
    • 6 x 1 x BW
  • Asst. #1A – Press
    • 5 x 10/10/10/8/8 x 95
  • Asst. #1B – Wide, pronated grip lat pulldowns (supersetted with Asst #1A)
    • 5 x 10 x 100/110/120/130/130
  • Asst. #2 – Triceps pressdowns (EZ-Bar)
    • 3 x 12 x 50

I know. This is supposed to be cycle 8’s deload week, but I opted to just forge ahead with my new plan. On the one hand, I’m excited and curious to see how it will work out, on another I do need to see how it’s going to work out. With my need to figure out a schedule that works for the new job and my life, I really need to figure it sooner rather than later and a week of time “lost” in this figuring doesn’t really help me. We’ll see if I live to regret this. 😉

Now on that front, this worked out alright. I did spend less time in the gym, about 10 minutes less. So it’s not a huge gain. But every minute counts and 10 minutes saved is 10 minutes earned, to borrow a phrase. Plus I think there may be some ways I could tighten things up further.

For example, note that I only got 6 reps on my last work set, and I had to work to get it. Granted I wasn’t taking HUGE rest periods — up to 5 minutes — and that certainly impacted my ability to hoist more weight for more reps. I of course have been wondering about a reset, and this makes me think yes that’s going to need to happen. But one workout and one datapoint is hardly enough. Wait until the cycle is done before I make that call.

But then on the assistance work, the pressing worked out about the same, which I was happy with. A little harder because again I’m being tighter on the rest breaks, but I am happy to see that 60% is still workable. In fact, if I do reset, I might consequently jack my assistance weights up to 70% to compensate! We’ll see.

Now on chins. I can do more than 1, but I opted to only do 1 because the moment my arms touched the bar I remembered why I didn’t do this in the past — my shoulders didn’t like it. Going from the pressing up to then the pull of gravity down, my shoulder did not like that. So I figured to ease into this. Try one each set and see how it goes. It wasn’t ideal, but I can remember how to take it a little easy, ease into it. It’s all coming back to me now. So when I do Press again, I’ll try 2 and see how it goes. Just work into it all.

Pulldowns… I think 130 is going to be reasonable weight… it’ll be tough and require me to work at it, if I do 130 across.

And the pressdowns felt so different. I’ve been doing with the rope for so long, switching to the bar felt weird, especially since it added in a balance factor. 🙂

Anyways, I did like it. I do have to remember when I walk to make sure my walk is brisk. That will help both on the time factor, and the warmup/cooldown front. Brisk, John, brisk!

I’ll say this tho. If this does not work out sufficiently for me, I wonder if I might try switching to Wendler’s 2x/week template. Of course the gains will be slower, but if it works out, it works out. It’s on my mind to think about, but I need to see my present course through.

Onwards.

Fun with SleepWatcher

/ hsoi

I do the majority of my computing work on a MacBook Pro — a laptop computer. The primary reason for a laptop is portability. Sure most of my work gets done at my desk, but sometimes I have to move or want to move. But moving isn’t always so quick and easy because I have lots of things hooked up to the MacBook Pro, like an external FireWire hard drive so I can run Time Machine backups. Trouble is, you can’t just yank out the cable for the disk, you must eject it, then you can remove the cable, else you could risk corruption of the data on the drive. Of course when you’re in a hurry to get out, or just consider we all get absent-minded from time to time gee… this is a pain in the neck and wouldn’t it be nice if we could automate it so we didn’t have to worry about it! Isn’t that what computers are useful for?

As I searched about for a solution, I found a little app called autoEJECT. It’s not bad, but after using it for a few days it just didn’t work like I needed it to. It did unmount things fine, but it failed to mount my FireWire drive. It has an option to “Force Mount”, which I then enabled but when I did so it mounted everything including the secret hidden partitions Apple has for recovery and booting. This is not desired as that 1. clutters things up, 2. exposes volumes that you do NOT want to risk to change. Even then it was a little quirky in how it would remember volumes to mount and unmount and just got in the way more than it was being useful. I figured there had to be a better way.

I found something called SleepWatcher.

SleepWatcher is a system daemon that watches for various events on the system, like sleep and wake, and allows you to execute scripts in response to those events. The app isn’t for novices, and the author actually goes out of his way to make it a bit complicated to use because it’s not a tool for the masses to use. But if you know what you’re doing, it can be useful. So I figured to give it a shot.

Of course, SleepWatcher itself isn’t what does the voodoo. You need scripts.

This website listed a couple scripts.

His sleep script was:

#!/bin/sh
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to eject disks'

and his wake script was:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/diskutil list | \
 awk '/Apple_HFS/ {print $NF}' | \
 xargs -I{} /usr/sbin/diskutil mount {}

Those are reasonable starting scripts. I thought about changing the wake script to just look for my one volume, because as it is now is ends up mounting all my partitions. Since they’re already mounted it really makes no difference, but it’d just be more efficient to scan for my lone volume. Still tho, this is useful for being complete.

The sleep script I modified slightly based upon what I found here. The change I made was simple:

#!/bin/sh
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to eject (every disk whose ejectable is true)'

which works a bit better in my situation. Granted, this will kick out optical discs, but as I rarely use them it’s not a big deal to me. The author also notes how this will not work if the Finder isn’t running, but I use the Finder and it should always be running (else there’s a problem).

Along the same lines as these is this hint from Mac OS X Hints, but he takes some vastly different approaches in what is selected for unmounting and what is selected for mounting. Not exactly what I want, but it shows what else you can do.

Anyways, SleepWatcher is pretty nifty and reading the code seems to be pretty well written too. Cheers, Bernhard Baeher!

Where to go next

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I had to run this morning so I couldn’t write much, but I’ve got some time now to write.

As much as I have enjoyed doing the Wendler 5/3/1 “Boring But Big 3 Month Challenge”, I’m going to have to shelve it. The workouts are taking longer, mostly due to the extended rest periods necessary between sets, and even reps!  With the new job I can’t be as leisurely with my schedule, time is more important than before, so I need to adjust in order to get my workout times down. I just can’t make my needed schedule with the workout length I presently have.

That said, I really have appreciated the challenge, and am bummed to not finish the last month. Being forced to make assistance work weights at ever-increasing amounts was a good thing. It really pushed me and gave me a different perspective on things. I’m sure 70% would have been very eye-opening for me. I’d like to try going back on the challenge sometime in the future, just have to wait until the schedule can handle it.

So what’s my plan?

Well, what’s my goal? I have no specific goal, like training for a meet. It’s just about getting stronger, bigger, and maintaining good health. So Boring But Big remains a good template. In fact, I’m going to mostly keep the template used by the challenge, just adjust it.

Here’s the layout:

Day 1

Press, superset with chin-ups (supinated grip)
Assistance press, superset with pronated grip lat pulldowns (grip width to be determined by what pleases my shoulders)
Triceps pushdowns, cambered bar

Day 2

Deadlift
Assistance deadlift
Hanging leg raises

Day 3

Bench Press, superset with dumbbell rows
Assistance bench press, superset with face pulls
EZ-bar curls

Day 4

Squat
Assistance squat
Something for abs… maybe just good old sit-up, over the swiss ball for better range of motion

So you can see, it’s still BBB, but the traditional style of doing the main lift then doing the main lift again with lighter weight. I’m wanting to see what difference this makes vs. the mixed approach the challenge takes. Volume, y’know? Plus the assistance work is essentially the challenge’s work, just shuffled around on the days a bit.

I’m also supersetting all upper body work. I need all that back work, so might as well compress things down with supersets. Wendler always said that every pressing movement should be superset with chins, so this is getting truer to his approach. I’m also trying to superset the exercises that seem most opposite/complementary to the main movement. This, plus trying to keep rest periods during assistance work to 2 minutes at most, is where I hope to gain some time improvements. I’m also hoping this might tax my aerobic system a bit more.

On weights, I’m going to stay at the same working maxes for cycle 9 as I used on cycle 8. I’m changing up enough other things, plus I’m going to add back in doing rep maxes on the final work sets. This should be enough to give me a good work this cycle, plus help me determine if I’m really at my max level and truly need a reset, or can keep going. Weights for assistance work will be somewhere in the 50-60% range. I’ll probably start with 60% and adjust as needed. I’ll be resting less, so 60% may be a bit much, but I’d rather let the first week miss some reps and then I’ll know better how to adjust in the following weeks. And yes, while I usually stick with a weight value during the whole cycle, I will adjust immediately on this to find where I should be, if the weights are too far off. I still want the assistance work to be hard.

I also opted to mix it up just a little more. I’ve been doing DB hammer curls for a while, so let’s try barbell and using the EZ bar to involve a little more forearm. I’ve also used the rope handles for a long time for triceps, so let’s try using the EZ bar for some variety. One exercise exception is ab work. I just can’t do the ab wheel… it makes my head explode in a bad way. So traditional sit-ups may have to suffice. But I’d do them over this swiss ball, since the gym doesn’t have anything like a Roman Chair.

I’m hoping this will allow me to continue along making the same sort of strength and size gains, or maybe more. 🙂  This may last for just 1 cycle, I don’t know. It’s a transition and adjustment for me, and I may need to tweak it further to make it suit my needs. I may also see that I need to reset my weights, and that’s acceptable as I’ve been wondering about that… but at least now I’ll have a better idea of the need for and then perhaps how much to reset by.
Life’s so much more fun when you look at it as a journey. 🙂

2012-05-04 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 8, squat 3

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Go to gym. Set PR. Leave.

“Week 3” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • 5/3/1 – Squat (working max: 280#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x5x140
    • 1x3x170
    • 1x5x215 (work)
    • 1x3x240
    • 1x3x270 (PR)
  • Foam Rolling

Need to get going earlier than usual this morning, so it’s a “jack shit” kind of day.

Went in, set squat PR, left. Well OK, I foam rolled some before leaving. 🙂

Comments.

I was falling forward on the last set, but it’s not too surprising for that to happen on “max weight”. Still, things to work on. The gym owner spotted me this morning and was mentioning keeping abs really tight. As I think back yeah, I’m not 100% sure where my Valsalva was regarding my belt and everything…. I was focusing so much more on 1. hip drive, 2. arm drive, that I think I forgot everything else. Rep 1 was bowling shoe ugly, but I cleaned up the other 2 reps; still not perfect, but better. So, things to work on.

I am also thinking that yes, I’m going to stop the challenge and switch up to a template that might make my workout more efficient. I’ll have to detail it later tho… gotta go.

2012-05-02 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 8, bench press 3

/ hsoi

Not feeding ego is the take-home from today.

“Week 3” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • 5/3/1 – Bench Press (working max: 230#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x95
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x3x140
    • 1x5x175 (work)
    • 1x3x200
    • 1x3x220 (PR)
  • Asst. #1A – Press
    • 5 x 10/10/10/10/8 x 95
  • Asst. #1B – 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows (supersetted with the Press)
    • 5 x 10 x 70
  • Asst. #2 – Rope Triceps Pushdowns
    • 3 x 12 x 50

I thought about doing 225# today. I’m “right there”, why not, right?

Well, why? It’s purely an ego thing. As I thought before, I might stop the challenge due to the new job situation and try a different workout setup that might get me in and out of the gym a bit faster. And I thought if I did that, I’d probably keep my weights the same that cycle as the cycle just prior. So that would mean if I did this next cycle, I’d keep benching at 220 and the “2 wheels” milestone would be put off for another almost 2 months.

But the reason for that? Nothing but ego… eagerness, impatience, and ego.

220 is still a PR for me. Why should I skip it and rush ahead? If there was a legit reason, like I was prepping for a meet and needed to work up for that, that’s one thing. But here? Nothing but ego.

Like Henry Rollins said:

Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

And I remember this… this very thing from Rollins kept going through my mind as a counter to my desire to rush into “2 wheels”. And it’s a good lesson… the restraint, the self-control, that far more important to have. Sure I WANT the 225, but it will come; maybe not when I want it, but it will come so long as I perservere.

First day down

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Don’t worry… I won’t write about work all the time. 🙂

But first day today was pretty cool.

Got right into code, with the project lead explaining the app architecture, which is all pretty sound. Then I dug through the codebase and it’s pretty straightforward. I like it because it’s simple, seems to be well-written, fairly understandable. Not much in the way of documentation or comments, but most is fairly easy to figure out. This is a very pleasant and welcome change compared to some codebases I’ve dealt with in my past.

Lots of process changes too. Using GitHub, Heroku, different bug tracking, different tools (like DropBox), new workflows. Just a lot of new ways to do things. Today was a HUGE dump of information and process, and I know I won’t remember it all. But I’m diving right in… got a few easy bugs assigned to me to help me get my feet wet and start to learn how things work, and in handling those all the process stuff will come to make sense. Slow but sure I’ll get there, and I reckon by the end of the week should start feeling comfortable.

There’s a lot of things I’m going to have to get used to and adapt to, not just in terms of the work itself, but the new people, new environment, new everything. I’m the FNG, and all that comes with that. 🙂

But I can say… I really am liking the people. The other 2 devs that I work directly with, we seem to be hitting it off fairly well already. They’re both wicked smart guys, funny, laid back, and just good geeks. At one point one of them pulled out the old iPhone lightsaber app… and then I pulled out mine, and we geeked out for a bit. In so many ways, the people you work with make all the difference as to whether the job is good or bad… and I think this is going to be good.

I’m debating if I should bring my Nerf Raider in….

To you, my readers, thanx for the support. Things will be different, but I’m just going to enjoy the ride. 🙂

A new journey

/ hsoi / 10 Comments

Today I begin down a new road.

I spent the past (almost) 12 years working for one software company. It started at a small house, which was acquired some years ago. The small house was great. I remember choosing it for the intangibles it offered, because while the pay and some other options were less than some other offers I had, the fact it was so “family” just drew me in. But then, acquisition, and corporate culture changes as it always does. And while all things weren’t bad, the road the company is going down and the road I wish to go down are no longer the same path. So it’s time for me to move on.

I’m joining a small company here in town doing iOS programming. I’m quite happy about that. The future is mobile computing, and I’m happy to be a part of it… especially since I can continue to be an Apple fanboy (been one since I was a kid, with Apple II’s… learned to program on a //e). 🙂

It’s going to be a lot of changes in a lot of ways. I think one of the more interesting ones will be joining a small company. I’ve been part of “large” companies for the majority of my career, companies with at least 3 digits worth of employees. This will be the smallest I’ve ever worked at… maybe 15 employees. It’s going to be different, it’s going to be some adjustment. But I think it will be great to be able to make more impact and not have to fight such a tide of corporate red tape all the time.

This is part of what I was alluding to in a prior post about a big change in my life. Schedule changes… I’m working with people all in my time zone, instead of west and east coasters. Have to adjust to these differences and so yeah… maybe my workout plan will have to change. We’ll see. There’s just much to figure out.

I’m nervous. I’m excited. A little scared too. I’ve had a lot of “known comfort” for many years. Most people I know have changed jobs numerous times while I stayed at the same job for 12 years. In some ways, I just don’t know how to be the “FNG“, other than to shut up, do my work, prove myself, and exceed their expectations. It’s going to be weird in a lot of ways… but I am hoping the changes will all be for the good, even if right now it may not seem it. There’s always something to learn, something to gain, some way to grow. Just have to seek it.

We’ll see where this leg of my journey takes me.

 

2012-04-30 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 8, deadlift 3

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

PR days are always good, tho today didn’t start out the best. 🙂

“Week 3” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • 5/3/1 – Deadlift (working max: 335#)
    • 1x5x135 (warmup)
    • 1x5x170
    • 1x3x205
    • 1x5x255 (work)
    • 1x3x290
    • 1x3x320 (PR)
  • Asst. #1 – Squat
    • 5 x 10/10/10/9/9 x 170
  • Foam Rolling

I have a lot of things on my mind, and obviously they were occupying me a little too much.

I left the house without my lifting belt.

I didn’t realize it until I was almost at the gym.

I walked home, got the belt, walked back. Yes I was annoyed with myself, especially for being so distracted and being too “future preoccupied” instead of dealing with the present. But… it was just a little more walking, more conditioning, more aerobic, more warm-up. 🙂 Gotta find a way to put a positive spin on it, right?

Deadlift was good tho. I really felt in the pocket and all the lifts felt good. The 320 didn’t even feel all that heavy… well ok, it was heavy, but it didn’t feel heavy-heavy. I felt I could have done a lot more reps, but the program says no. 🙂

Squatting… man, that kills me, but this has really been good for form improvement. I’m happy with that.

So apart from starting out on the wrong foot, things went well.

What was I thinking about? Well, lots of things, but one thing that’s really been on my mind is what to do after the challenge is over. I think I know how my plan will proceed.

But here’s the interesting thing.

I’m thinking about stopping the challenge.

Tomorrow starts a big change in my life, a change that affects a lot of things. The 70% month of the challenge will be very time consuming, and I’m not sure I have the time to do it. My workout time needs to tighten up. So that means more supersetting, that means dropping the weight on assistance work slightly and decreasing rest between sets. I need to really be able to get in, work, and get out, in as little time as possible while still getting a quality workout. The way the challenge is laid out? It just won’t work.

I am not happy about it… it feels like quitting. It’s not, in that I’m not quitting because things are getting tough and I’m wussing out. It’s a matter of my life undertaking a massive change, and I have to roll with the waves and adapt. I refuse to stop working out, so I just have to find how to make things fit. I’m not sure I’ll stop the challenge, as that particular thought only crossed my mind a few hours ago. But I do need to think about it and give it proper consideration. Once things settle down, then I’d like to revisit the challenge because I can’t say I’ve done the challenge and met the challenge, until I have. And I hate leaving things half-done…. that’s something that’s plauged me through enough of my life and in recent years have rallied against. So we’ll see. I don’t have to make the decision yet.

Interestingly tho, this might be alright in other ways. This 60% month has shown me a lot, especially in terms of how hard it hits me. That, plus less rest, that will be brutal… and might help me in the fat-loss department too. This big life change is going to bring some interesting issues towards sticking to diet, so I want that to afford me more opportunity to tighten things up more. Who knows…. it might be the better decision. Much to think about.

2012-04-27 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 8, Press 3

/ hsoi

Set a PR, but it was downhill after that… 😦

“Week 3” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • 5/3/1 – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x5x120 (work)
    • 1x3x140
    • 1x3x155 (PR)
  • Asst. #1A – Bench Press
    • 5 x 10 x 140
  • Asst. #1B – Chinups (supersetted with Bench Press)
    • 5 x 3/3/2.5/2.5/2 x BW
  • Asst. #2 – Face Pulls
    • 3 x 12 x 65
  • Asst. #3 – DB Hammer Curls
    • 3 x 10/9/8 x 35

Setting a press PR is cool to me. Yes, the bar speed is slowing down, but the lifts are solid. 155 for 3 reps is good to me.

But after that, things sucked…..

Bench press was OK, but I totally brain-farted and forgot to superset with chins…. so I did chins alone, but geez look at that! Regression. I don’t know what gives. Again the half reps mean that I got most of the way up, used my foot on a bench to get me all the way up, then a good long negative on the way down. I dunno… off day I guess.

I also notice that on curls I’m not progressing… not that big a deal, just an interesting observation point.

Today started to make me wonder if, after I finish the Challenge, I might want to reset. Wendler reports that most reset after like 5-8 cycles, and after I finish the Challenge it’ll be 9 cycles. But I don’t know, we’ll see what happens when I get there. One thought is I might not want to reset just yet… do one more cycle that allows rep maxes and really see if I need it, because if I’m cranking 3-5 more reps than prescribed, I don’t need to reset. Or it might be that I reset on certain exercises, like press and squat. A bridge to cross when I get there.

I’m happy for the PR, just wondering why chins sucked so badly.

2012-04-25 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 8, squat 2

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I didn’t do jack.

“Week 2” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • 3 reps – Squat (working max: 280#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x5x140
    • 1x3x170
    • 1x3x200 (work)
    • 1x3x225
    • 1x5x255
  • Foam Rolling

Slept in, need to be somewhere this morning, so I had to do “jack this” this morning.

But it was good. I got to really concentrate on squatting, which I needed.

I’m really working on my form. Am I getting low enough? If it feels like “ass to grass” then I’m at least breaking parallel… it feels too deep to me, but no, it’s just right. What feels “right” is too shallow. Out of the hole, “hip drive”, like Rippetoe talks about. As soon as I start out of the hole with the hip drive, have to be careful about back angle, so the “tuck chin” cue comes in, and I repeat… that makes a HUGE difference to me. But the one that I’m now trying to get added more into the mix is arm drive.

Rippetoe talks about keeping your elbows back because that naturally tightens up the shoulder and upper back area, which is good. But all the powerlifters talk about getting your elbows under the bar and driving them up when you come out of the hole. On the surface, this doesn’t seem right to me… physics, “equal and opposite reaction”, and if my arms push up, isn’t that going to somehow cause downward force and thus work against my legs? I’m not arguing with the powerlifters because they know more than I do, but on the surface it doesn’t jive with me. Still, they say to do that so… I do it. And I can see a HUGE difference. What happens is I start out of the hole and think “hip drive”, then an instant after that it’s “tuck chin”, and now I’m on my way up and THEN I remember the arm drive…. and boy, it makes a difference. It really helps.

On the 255 today, it was tough, because I’m trying to not just move the weight through space, but maintain this better form, and so it’s harder! I start to bring it up, it starts to get heavy, remember to involve my arms, and that gives the boost needed to get up. It was cool.

I do need to work on the cues being simultaneous, not sequential… that I should be pushing with the arms right out of the hole. But I’m getting there. Things are coming together, slowly. 🙂

Oh, and since I knew I was doing jack, I opted to let myself “rep max” today and got 5. I was happy with that. I could have muscled out 1-2 more, but it would have required sloppy form and I wasn’t interested in that. I visualized 5 good reps, and I got 5 good reps.

Next up…. PR week. 🙂