I made a mistake today. I mentioned that I hadn’t done Kalsu in a while in @T3hPwnisher’s log, and today I was thinking about it and felt guilty for avoiding it, so I went and started (did it with two 40# kettlebells), and took 40 minutes to finish it, meaning I probably need to do it again and get better because I had at least 3 rounds scattered in that were just burpees. Anyways, about 4 minutes into it, my thought was “it felt SO much better feeling guilty”, and 20 minutes into it I was genuinely in a bad mood. I got 2 10’s out of the way first and that was a really dumb idea because then I managed like 3 before the next round, then I managed to go up to 5 for a couple rounds but had to do 3’s and 2’s a LOT. Anyways, it was a pretty bad effort, haha.
Oh man, 10 from the start is absolutely brutal. Always good to dip back to Kalsu to remember why you don’t do it more often, haha. Great showing dude!
4 days ago I took off from the gym and everything, 3 days ago I did my heavy upper/pump lower, 2 days ago I did a 25 mile bike ride, yesterday I did lower body muscle rounds, and today was upper body muscle rounds. I’m slacking on my logging, but it’s not from being bored with the program, it’s just that I’ve settled into a very nice routine, I’ve got all my numbers in my head, and nothing jumped off the page. Fortitude Training continues to be a great, customizable program. Probably the best hypertrophy program I’ve ever run.
Just finished my final for Anatomy and Physiology II, which I was really stressed about and just holed myself up by my computer studying for hours and hours and hours the past couple weeks, and I pretty much aced it. Finishing with a high A in the class and maintaining my 4.0 GPA, and now have a month off from school until I start clinicals in January. I am so fucking psyched about how everything has gone. It’s been such a long road from when I thought I couldn’t possibly ever get a do-over with school. Always told myself, I don’t have the money, my kids will make it impossible, my job will make it impossible, etc. but I managed to push through, get into nursing school, and ace it along the way. Was also invited into the international honors society, and am applying for scholarships for next semester.
Gave myself a congratulatory bro day, aka arms, shoulders, abs.
Smith machine close grip bench (obviously the weight is lighter, I just call it what it would be on normal bench)
135x20
185x15
225 2x10
Cross Body Hammer Curls
30s 10 each arm
40s 10 each arm
45s 8 each arm
30s 20 each arm
SUPERSET
Overhead tricep cable extensions
“8” 3x10
Diamond pushups
3x10
SUPERSET
Close grip underhand chins
3x10
EZ Bar curls
60 3x10
Lateral Raises
15s 4x25
Lateral raises lying sideways on an incline bench
10s 3x10 each arm
DB OHP
40s 3xfailure
Lying leg raises
4x20
Med ball crunches
4x20
Planks
3x1 min
That’s awesome brother. I daresay its inspirational. Sounds like you’ve earned your mini break
Today: Loading sets for lower, pump for upper
Smith squats
275 2x12 ouch
Leg Press, close stance
490x12
Lying leg curls
130x12+3 assisted negatives from my wife
Adduction triple rest pause
125x12, 8, 4
Incline bench
135x25
Lay Pulldowns
“12”x25
Hammer strength row
2 plates x25
Hoist chest press
180x25
Great work balancing, and excelling, with it all!
Nice work with the training and study mate, but disappointed you didn’t add calves to your bro day 
My gym’s daycare was closing early today and I didn’t know, so I had 40 minutes to bust out a workout.
Settled on 4x10 @ 200 with the SSB, followed by:
Leg Press
200x15
290x15
380x15
470x12 drop to 380x16 drop to 290x14 drop to 200x34
Rest on the way up was pretty much loading plates and taking 5-10 deep breaths, on the way down it was just getting up, stripping the plates off and lying back down.
Good way to get a workout in when crunched on time and the gym is packed. ~30 seconds rest on the SSB squats.
You’re a monster my man
Well done
Thanks, dude. I’m enjoying watching your sub count climb on YT. Breaking through 1K is cool, hope to see that become 10K next year.
Today: Upper body muscle rounds
One arm cable rows kneeling behind the seat pad on the seated cable row (longer ROM)
“5” 6x4
Lat Pulldowns
“12” 6x4
Rope Pullovers and Rope Rows
Superset - 4 pullovers to 4 rows, 6 times
Seated Cable Fly and Seated Cable Chest Press
22.5 per handle 10 presses to 10 flys, 6 times
Hoist Chest Press
180 6x4
Muscle cleans to strict press, one motion
115 6x4
Lateral Raises
20s 1x56 rest pause
Got my booster yesterday and did a 20 mile bike ride right afterwards.
Hit me like a ton of bricks at 1am, and I’ve been half dead all day. Starting to feel a bit better. Didn’t expect this, as I had like no side effects from the 2nd shot. Oh well. Immune systems are cool. Will get back at it tomorrow.
Been very quiet mate, hope all is good. Happy new year.
Totally thought I replied to this, but happy new years, bud.
Appreciate the check-in. Family visiting constantly over holidays, work, and life in general. Been pretty consistent about the gym during all of it, I’ve pretty much just gone every other day, alternating upper and lower workouts, fortitude style, and thrown in runs and bike rides as necessary.
Tomorrow’s my youngest’s birthday, I’m just putting the finishing touches on the house now so he can wake up and have that excitement for his birthday (or Christmas) that I remember having, haha.
K, back to logging.
As I said before, my routine has changed a little bit, but it’s still mostly fortitude-style - i’m on an upper - cardio/conditioning/abs - lower - cardio/conditiong/abs - repeat schedule. Lots of drop sets too.
Just logging working sets as usual.
Hammer Strength Plate Loaded Row
3 plates and a 35 per side x11
DROP SET
3 plates and a 35 per side x7, 3 plates x12, 2 plates x20, 1 plate x10 (5 sec negatives on last set)
Close Grip Pulldowns
“14” x12
DROP SET
“14” x9, “10” x20, “6” x10 (5 sec negatives on last set)
Cable Flys
“12” 2x12
Smith Machine Incline Bench
225 x12
DROP SET
225 x9, 185 x10, 135 x15
Lateral Raises
Pump sets with 20s of 2x25
Got a bunch of cardio in as well - my son started indoor soccer yesterday and he wasn’t the worst kid in there, but there were a couple kids that were MONSTERS. I asked him if he wanted to get a bit better. He said yes, so I got him a new ball and some drill cones today, and we worked on some stuff for an hour. I’m pretty decent with my foot-eye-coordination and can juggle the ball 20 or so times without much problem, so I’m at least good enough to teach him some stuff.
One of the biggest problems when searching for instructional videos on YT for kids is that most of the videos are super athletic parents with even more athletic kids who have been doing this stuff since before they could walk and are monsters at it. That’s great if that’s your kid, but it honestly does me no good to see your perfectly disciplined 5 year old slaying soccer skills without losing attention for a millisecond, while I struggle to get mine to look me in the eyes for 5 seconds sometimes. I found a couple great videos where the parent was clearly teaching a child for the first time - having them not listen, mess up a ton of times, wander off in the middle, etc. - and I was able to teach my kid those drills in the same manner.
Anyways, fun stuff.
Mate it’s great that you are getting into football (sorry can’t call it the S word) with your son.
At that age just some simple drills like;
2 touch - trapping the ball and kicking it back
1 touch - kicking it back without trapping it
Left foot right foot. Pass the ball back and forth to each other but alternate left foot right foot. Do this one quite close together cause he will likely not be great with his less dominant foot initially. (He can also do this on his own if you have a wall he can kick against - give him a target of how many kicks unbroken and have a prize)
Set up a goal with 2 cones, pass the ball to him from the side (as if you were crossing it) and get him to control it and score a goal. As he gets better have him walking in to meet the pass and control and score and then progress to running slowly in to meet the pass.
You can then move into dribbling skills, passing and dribbling, dribbling and shooting.
Every 5 year old soccer game I’ve been too (and the ones I played in at that age) pretty much consisted of a pack of kids running up and down the field kicking the ball in any direction when it came near them. And sometimes moving to the next field over because they were so focused on stomping on each other’s feet lol
Sometimes a 5 year old is just naturally gifted but I always question the motivations behind the parents of the children you saw in the videos. Like, who’s this for? Them or you? I remember one kid who was always a beast at sports, and seeing him crying in the parking lot after a game because, while he was very good, he lost and his dad chewed him out after that. Made me want to make sports all about fun for my kids until they get to the point themselves where they want to be competitive.
Hey man!
It’s funny you mention the “S” word - my kids and I watch American Football every Sunday during the seasons, and today was the day I explained to them that the rest of the world refers to Soccer as Football. They were confused at first, but it wasn’t hard to explain that calling the sport where you can only use feet in most situations “football” makes more sense than giving that name to a sport where you only use hands in most situations. I lived in England (Bristol) and have been to Australia as well as a lot of other places. Us 'Muricans do silly things with words (and units of measurement).
The decent video I found featured a British guy doing “boxing” with his kids, which was that, plus besides passing we worked on running after the ball, stopping it, and kicking it back the other way. He managed a real smooth transition of running after the ball, jumping with his left leg, tapping it to a halt with the right leg, and landing in a sideways position before kicking it the opposite way with the lead leg.
Nice, dude - he is, like all kids, mostly interested in shooting.
I’m letting him dribble and just mess around about the house at the moment - it’ll probably end with a broken lamp eventually, but I’m really subscribing to the idea that drastically increasing the amount of times he touches the ball with his feet will help everything.
I played Soccer (sorry) when I was a kid, and I didn’t play on teams for long but always played pickup games and can still juggle, shoot, and dribble decently, and just have decent foot-eye coordination (probably too much hackey-sack during my stoner days) in general, so fortunately I can show him up at the moment, but he’s a great hands-on learner and was eager to just keep at it today, so hopefully that sticks.
Really appreciate the advice, especially the shooting drill - I can guarantee that’ll be his favorite tomorrow.