It’s time for a new log. The last 3 years have been rough. Lots of injuries resulting in significant loss of strength. Poor movement and mechanics. Poor programming. If it could be done wrong, I did it wrong. There was always one common theme: too much work, not enough recovery.
However, the last 2 months have been a different story, and I fully expect all of 2019 to be a fun progression back to strength, athleticism and the lean & mean machine I know I can be.
My keys to stay healthy:
Always RPE7-8.
Which means…no grinding.
Deload every 4 weeks for at least 4 days consecutive of no weight training.
Fatigue management – both mental and physical stress.
Prehab/rehab work of some kind everyday. Doesn’t have to be a lot, but it has to be something.
January will be full of Dr appointments for my heart, most nobably my heart catheter ablation on 1/21. Hopefully after that the afib and aflutter will be a thing of the past. I shouldnt have to refrain from activity for long. Perhaps a week. So I’ll take a few weeks to get back to baseline, then start building again.
Training will continue to be a 4x per week upper/lower centered around the big 4 movements. Bench, Squat, Deadlift and OHP. I will cycle between 2 blocks of volume/Hypertrophy work (double progression) and 1 block of strength work (rep maxes). I plan to hit the track at least once per week and work on 100s, 200s or 400s with the occasional mile run thrown in. The bulk of my cardio however will be a lot of walking. I love walking.
So I feel pretty damn recovered, since I’ve been sleeping in and on vacation. I’m going to run this volume phase up until my ablation procedure, then take that week as a deload. After that I’ll start rep maxes. This upper/lower split is def offering more recovery. Especially after 2 days off consecutive, I’m ready to roll. I could have hit 4x8 on with 170 today, but it would have pushed the effort close to a max on the last 2 sets, and rep quality would have suffered. Not happening. Really looking forward to squats tomorrow. If they feel like last week, it’s going to be a good one.
Axle RDL
55x12, 75x12, 105x3x12 - I keep screwing up the loaded weight on Axle RDLs bc of the 25lb bar weight. Meant this to be 125.
RFESS
10x3x15 - why are these so hard! Oh the burn.
Hollow Hold
3x
Ab Wheel
1x20
Back to 225, it was a solid quick rep. May stay here next week. Depends on how I feel. I need to take more time in between reps to reset and brace properly. I default to flying through the reps. Will probably do 4x6 with 175 or so next week and build that to 4x8 the following week.
Walked about 6 laps with 3 sets each of side planks with abduction and Copenhagen side planks thrown in along with 2x50 lateral shuffles really focusing on pushing hard with trailing leg.
Then 5 100M repeats up to about 90%.
So the real cool thing: no glute pain/strain. In the past I’ve always felt my glute start to strain in a 90% ish sprint. I suspect all the rolling with lacrosse ball and roller in figure 4 all across the glutes/hams have improved their pliability.
After I stretched some and did some easy PT.
Then, the real workout. Cleaned out and washed 3/4 of my gutters without falling off a 25’ ladder. Win. Would have finished but ran out of light.
Ring Pushup
2x15, 1x10 - moved these down to about 5" off floor, much more difficult, slow concentric
-with-
KB Curls
Leaning Band Lateral Raise
3x20
Not my best day. Operating on little sleep (3 hours or so, bad night) and after a long work day. One of my sales reps resigned Monday, so dealing with delegating his workload, taking some on, and kickstarting the hiring process. So, probably should have either moved this to tomorrow or taken a deload, as I pushed a little harder than I should have. Still, kept a few reps shy of failure, but I just wasnt strong. Mental game was off too. I bumped to the 70s on incline, and I noticed some shoulder pain in my right shoulder. I immediately noticed I was flaring my elbows with a flat back. Wtf? Anyways, on the next two sets I fixed that and the sets felt much better. Probably need to put a watch on the right shoulder though. Feels a little off. Hopefully nothing.
@kckfl349 Thanks much, glad to hear some success stories. It’s been rough. Not ever knowing when it’s going to strike has me constantly living in fear. I dont sleep well anymore in part bc of it too. It likes to start up at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. Straight terror.
W5D4 - 1/3/2019
Warmup with rolling and some hip circle work
Low Handle TBDL
95x5, 135x5, 185x5, 185x4x15
Front Squat
95x2x20
Spanish Squats
20, 18x20, 26x10, 44x10
Another shit night sleep. Got home 6pm after being in the office all day. Nearly scrapped the workout, but really wanted to get some exercise. So cut the weight back and hit reps. Also, set a 50 minute timer including my warmups to finish this workout. I’m going to take another look at my workout structures. Might change some stuff up. Want even more simplicity and do not want to workout more than about 50 mins. Max 1 hour.
I feel like my workouts should be an hour or less too. That seems like plenty of time for warm up, lifting, and 10-15 minutes for conditioning. I’ve been wrong so far though. I spent an hour on warm up, conditioning, and two exercises yesterday. Something has to give and it will probably be the Limber 11. I can do a dynamic warm up on the track in 7 minutes or less.
Crossfit makes total sense to me too. Strength, speed, athleticism all in one. Sign me up. You can have it all, just have to program it according to your fitness level.
I question whether or not the regular gym folks at the CrossFit box have it all. The ones we see on TV definitely do, but they’re pro’s. They do multiple workouts a day. Watch Froning on Netflix. He just hangs out in his gym and makes up workouts with his brother.
I look at the WOD’s quite often at a couple gyms and the bodybuilder in me can’t accept their training. I think they severely neglect the posterior chain. The only exercises they do are pull ups (usually kipping), rowing, and deadlifts. I just have a hard time accepting that that is enough for all of the muscles in the back. Maybe it is, but it’s so different from the way I’ve trained I can’t accept it.
And I’ll just rotate through. Some weeks I may get 4 or even 5 days in.
However, my plan is to just hit 2 big exercises hard (superset of course). If I have time or energy then I’ll do one more superset of single leg/joint work. Effective but very abbreviated warmup. This means all PT will be done at another time or off days. It will get done though.
Here’s some of my thoughts to rotate through:
Legs:
Back squat/RDL (db or bb/axle)
Front squat/RDL
Power clean/rfess
Tbdl/rfess
Tbdl/Spanish squat
Chest/Back
Floor press/row or chin
Bench press variation (flat, incline or decline)/row or chin
Bodyweight workout for reps – i.e. ring pushups/chins
Shoulders/Arms
OHP variation/lateral variation
Arms ss
When I get home at 6pm+, the last damn thing I want to do or have energy for is some complicated long workout. However, I can get myself excited for a quick high intensity 30-45 min max uncomplicated workout.
And, it should help me recover. Cutting more of the bullshit out.
For some reason, the powerclean/rfess combo sounds awesome!