Lasting Happiness

Saturday: over slept and missed my window to get in my planned long run. Squatted instead.

Bar, 65, 85, 95, 115, 135, 145x 4; 165x12* new 12 rep max.

Squats felt good for first time in weeks— probably the result of a very low mileage week.

Bulgarians and HLR 3 sets of 12

Some PT for hips and feet.

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8 miles. Rained the entire time. A storm is rolling in but I made it home before the worst of it.

I failed again at practicing taking in nutrition while running. I also don’t eat before I run. I really need to work on this, if I want to complete an ultra. But running fasted ensures that I don’t have stomach problems. And my body is fairly well adapted to it. I don’t really feel bonky at all until I’ve run for more than 2 or 2.5 hours. Still I know that I must take in nutrition and water early and often if I want to be able to be on my feet for hours at a time. Next time!!!

Legs felt ok after squatting yesterday. That was a happy surprise.

Since I am prioritizing the running, i had planned to do my long run on saturdays and squats on sundays, but maybe I can switch those for awhile. I squat poorly when I do so after running long and I don’t enjoy it. It would be nice not to lose all my squat gains while pursing the running.

Bench maybe later.

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I did bench yesterday, but it went so shockingly poorly that I have had to retreat into the brush to lick my wounds.

85 is supposed to be light weight—double digit almost 20-rep amrap set light weight. I managed 8. :confused:

I am neither fat nor a man yet I did 3x 8 fat man pull-ups. I don’t know the right name is for these. Hanging rows?

3x8 v ups and some PT stuff.

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70 min run
12x 5 pull-ups; missed rep 5 on set 13
MP bar, 55,65x5; 75x3; Bar x25

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Can relate. If I don’t do some sort of horizontal pressing twice each week, my bench regresses. Maybe following your military pressing with dumbbell presses, push-ups, and/or dips will get your bench moving again. I enjoy pairing military presses and either incline dumbbell presses or push-ups.

Inverted rows is another common name. If you have a stool, chair, box, or similar to put your feet on, the range of motion and core exercise effect improve.

Freakin’ sweet. Your volume on both is greatly improving.

Good ideas. Bench isn’t a priority right now. I was hoping I could maintain doing just the bare minimum. I expect that last workout was just an anomaly. If not, I might have to give the lift a bit more attention.

Yes, I’m trying to improve my work capacity with some low intensity volume. I actually enjoy that kind of training. So, I am having fun right now.

Thanks for the support!

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Deadlifts: 195x5x5
HLR 10 sets of 7.

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Thursday: run 84 minutes

Friday: week 1 amrap pull-up = miss at 9. It was close, but I didn’t get my chin over the bar. I want to be able to do a lot of pull-ups but I also want them to be pretty. The old gymnast in me lives on.

Historically, I would expect to be able to do a clean set of 10 based on my volume on Tuesday. That is, if you can do 10 sets of 5, you should be able to do a single set of 10. 10 sets of 6= 12 and so on.

I think the formula is still good. More likely, I am not fully recovered or I am resting too much between my Tuesday sets. I will have to watch the rest time more closely.

It’s fine. This is just week 1. I am giving myself a year to try to reach my goal. 51 weeks to go.

Bench: work up to 85x12. Not great but better. Vups and PT stuff.

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Last week training:

Pull-ups: 71 reps completed in 12 sets (lots of rest)
Amrap pull-up test - 10 (not done on training day)

HLR 80 reps completed in 10 sets (average rest)

DL 195 x 25 reps completed in 4 sets (very little rest)

Squat: 155x 21 reps completed in 3 sets (very little rest)

Yoga: none

Bench: none

MP: nope

Running: a bit of left ankle pain: 19 miles — 4 days.

I need to do yoga. I’m indifferent about bench and MP.

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I’ve been logging here for almost a year now. Time is relentless!

I recently started trying to log my training weekly to gain a different perspective on it. Am I progressing or am I just forever circling?

This wasn’t a good week for strength—deadlifts and squats in particular sucked. Last week over several sets I pulled 195 for a total of 25 reps. This week I pulled it for only 2 reps and then called it a day.

Squats too—instead of squatting 155, I dropped the weight to 135 and did 4 sets of 8.

I don’t think my strength levels have ever been so volatile.

There was no great increase in my running mileage this week. Last week I ran a total of 19 miles —this week was nearly the same at 18.5.

I was (mostly) successful in adding volume in my pull-up training but I had to add a 13th set to do that. Total reps 78. I confess that I am feeding my ego here and resting a lot between these sets. While I used to complete 10’sets in an hour or so—now I am taking closer to 2 hours to get my 12+ sets. I will need to shorten these rest periods. But that kind of improvement doesn’t delight me —like being able to do more does…

What else: I did bench 95x3x2; drop set at 65x20

MP: 65x3x5 sets.

Yoga once!

I don’t know what I am going to do next week. So this act of logging weekly—I am not sure what it does for me either. Do what you can. Give what you have to give. That is my training plan. :confused: Blegh.

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Congrats on a year of logging! I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving again.

That’s often been my training plan too, and I find it uninspiring, too. What are your training goals? How can you reach them while juggling the rest of your daily activities? Is weekly logging better or worse than more frequent logging? It seems to me some assessment will help you.

Good questions. I am more focused on running and other BW exercises right now.

I had thought I would compete in powerlifting again, but I am not really feeling that anymore.

Since my focus is on the distance/ trail running, pull-ups and a few yoga poses, I am a bit less motivated to log and a bit less motivated to train the powerlifting lifts. I think I am done benching! At least, I’ve happily skipped it these past weeks.

Nothing else remarkable to report, my pull-up amrap set is stuck at 10. I’m doing a better job fitting in yoga. I’m trying g to add mikes but i am having occasional pain in my feet and ankles. So lots of small setbacks but hopefully some incremental progress. :slight_smile:

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Week 6;

Total miles in Nov-70. I ran 80 in October but that was too big of a jump from what I had been doing, and I spent a lot of November negotiating various aches and pains. The plan is to try to increase my total
Mileage by about 10% a month. Hopefully, I can stay healthy while doing that.

This week/ week 6

Mon: deadlift 180x20

Tuesday: 5 miles; Bulgarians 3x15; pull-ups 30 reps

Wed: 0

Thursday: 6 miles;pull-ups 45 reps

Friday: squat 125x 12

Saturday: 6 miles; MP 55x12; yoga;

handstands* I plopped on the press negative, but this is the first time I’ve been willing to go for it at all. So that is some kind of progress.

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Week 7:

Monday: The force of the early morning rain was greater than the water pressure in my house. I delayed the run and deadlifted first.

This should have helped my Deadlifts…

Last week I handled 180x 20 beautifully. Today I did 190x8 and that was challenging. The recovery problem is real. No more 20 rep sets!

Alex viada has a recent Instagram post that discusses strength training for endurance athletes. I’m doing a lot wrong.

Trying to follow some of his advice, I began the process
Of adding triple extension work—cleans and push presses. I am not comfortable with this movement pattern. I did a few reps with 55lbs. Hilarious. Sometimes I forgot to push press. And none of my reps were fluid, I always hesitated with the bar at my shins. I’ll get it. I’m a bit of a slow kinesthetic learner, but i still like skill building. It quiets the mind.

Then 5 miles in a steady but comfortable amount of rain.

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Back to contemporaneous logging?

Today:

Pull-ups: amrap in 20 minutes= 46* I think I could do more if I were more strategic and didn’t fly so close to the sun—aka failure.

Bulgarians: 4x12

20 min yoga and PT stuff.

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Hooray!

This sounds like one of the “tests” Jim discusses in 5/3/1 Forever. I might have to try this sometime.

You totally should! It was good to mix things us up for me. I was engaged and curious through the test. And using time as a metric gives me a new way to see progress—which I like and need.

With the volume of pull-ups you’ve been doing, I bet you’d kill that challenge.

Here’s how my reps broke:

8,6,5,4,4,4,3,3,3,2,1,3

I think starting with 8, for me, was a mistake—like going out too fast in a 5k.

I think he also has tests for pushups and dips in X minutes, maybe ten or something like that. Different standards for bodyweight and for weighted vest added. Could also be interesting to try once in a while.

Going for max reps on pullups takes a lot out of me also. If I tried this test, I’d probably try to stick with straight sets of 5-6.

I think the Russian fighter pullup program was laid out nicely. It definitely raised my ceiling by a few reps fairly quickly, and I liked that it didn’t take much time to do. The volume sneaks up on you though.

Good analogy. I’ve been there before, hahaha. During my fastest 5K I also PRed my mile time… on the first mile. Unsurprisingly, the other 2.1 miles felt like death.

Wow that’s really going out too fast! It is seriously one of the worst things you can do to yourself. Glad you lived. :slight_smile:

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Took yesterday off. I’m really in a funk at work. I need to get over it. Signed up for some extra work today. When you feel like giving up, dig in.

I ran today. 5 miles. The hills felt formidable. Head down, shortened stride, slow turnover, I was barely moving forward. One part of my brain, the pessimistic part, was focused on my slow pace and annoyed. But the optimistic part of my brain reassured, reminding me that each small slow step mattered and would add up and bring me to the top.

So I ran, doggedly, Slowly, and shittily. Feeling both crappy and pleased with my performance.

Pull-ups: week 7 amrap 12. I’ve been stuck at 10 for the past three weeks, so this was very welcome.

Then easy volume +48 reps

Supersetted with some squats at 95. My legs are :frowning:

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