Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis

[quote]barbedwired wrote:
Some of the best natural athletes I know I have either been prone to Injury …or… depression. Both of which has caused many restarts or… complete stoppages In their sports/training.

Get your self healthy man. W.e it takes. .including time off. Your 70 plus year lifespan- yeah that… 6 months or so to heal is a spec of dust timewise. We live in a now world with zero patience that makes u think different from that perspective.

Im not a foam roller yoga specialist. But I agree …certain mobility and… activation exercises help keep me together and progressing.

  • I static stretch the night before.
  • agile8 / activations before lifting.
  • eAch person has their own needs find yours.

Note- Kelley starrett is top notch…but you’d be stretching 13 hours EACH day if you followed all his advice…Srs.

We all have lulls. But re surface w. Even more energy. I dont even compete. I just literally enjoy it for what it is…

[/quote]

My plan is to take all of my experiences, all of my studying, and all of my resources to overhaul my plan to make a comeback.

More disciplined, more planned, and more emphasis on form.

I am going to go to great lengths to have my form looked at by professionals.

I have been going through my log, and I cannot believe how terrible my training consistency has been, and just how beat up I was becoming.

It has also become apparent that I was doing too much “other stuff” and not focusing solely on becoming stronger. This will change.

My back is very, very slowly improving, but I feel stiff from not being active. I am going to have to restart with at least a week of full body stretching and GPP.

I’m going to rebuild from the ground up with a new focus. I can lift to look good when I am done with PL.

I have been trying to treat myself well, and keep focused. I have 5 weeks until school is over. It is my major focus at this point.

I feel tired 24/7, I am eating one protein shake a day and one fast food meal at night. I am completely alone, and my apartment is a dump.

My life is out of control.

I think I am just going to take a break from lifting due to stress. I will explain my story after I graduate. It has been crazy, and I just need to get out of this phase of my life.

Thank you all for reading!

Can you exchange that fast food meal for something healthy with more greens made at home occasionally?

Get plenty of sun too. Always good for the mind and body.

nothing wrong with taking a break brother!

[quote]raven78 wrote:
Can you exchange that fast food meal for something healthy with more greens made at home occasionally?

Get plenty of sun too. Always good for the mind and body.
[/quote]

I have no means. I am just beat up, stressed out, malnourished, lonely, and working my ass off to finish school.

[quote]zenontheterrible wrote:
nothing wrong with taking a break brother! [/quote]

I am going to restart and rebuild.

I am going to try to get my frequency up.

I am thinking that 1-2 weeks of GPP and stretching, followed by 5-10 weeks of starting strength, followed by 5-10 weeks of the texas method, followed by 5 to 10 cycles of my own programming should be good.

I will strive to improve my body composition as well.

So weeks 1-2 will be GPP and flexibility.

Weeks 3-13 will be increasing tolerance.

Weeks 14-24 will be transitioning.

Weeks 24-35 will be specialized.

After 35 weeks, I will lean up and look to schedule a meet.

Be careful with that planning.

I get that everything else is out of control, and it’s something to hold on to, but you don’t want to end up beating yourself up down the road if/when things don’t go according to plan. Perhaps build a plan for this week, execute it, do the same next week, execute it. Find a more flexible rhythm, and get back the feeling of having actually accomplished something each session and week.

In all seriousness, you’d probably be well served talking to a counselor. Your school probably has such a program. A lot of the things you’ve said remind me of certain periods in my life. It helps to have someone who can challenge your perspective.

I realize you don’t have much time, but spend a few minutes a day focused on improving something. Each day you should do something to make you a better person than you were the day before. Whether that means you learned something new, or helped someone out with something, or read that book you always meant to read, or whatever. The little things start to add up. Everything else might be bad, but at least you have that one thing you did today. And yesterday. And the day before that.

How is your sleep?

Still having some back discomfort.

It is slowly subsiding.

I am going to focus on leaning up and getting down in weight for a while.

No weights for now. I will log lifts when they start. I think I am going to drop a few lbs.

I’m not sure why, but for some reason my back was almost pain free, and then a couple days ago it tightened back up again. Kind of felt like it did when I injured it the first time.

Oh well.

Weight is down to the mid to low 190s depending on the day.

Hey Trivium!

Holy smokes. It has been a while, hasn’t it?

If you happen to read this, I have still been training hard and I am currently playing football. When football ends I will probably get a microdiscectomy surgery in order to eliminate my sciatic pain. I got an MRI over the summer an I have a herniated disc at L5-S1 which is causing the pain down my right leg. Once I get the surgery done I will be back on the path to getting stronger and better. I think I’m going to follow Christian Thibaudeau’s “Complete Power Look Program”

It’s been a while, but I am back.

Who knows for how long, but for now…I am back.

I’ve been through some major life battles in the past few years, and I am in the middle of some others.

For now, the goal is to dominate calisthenics. To do them strictly and under control. I will be manipulating volume, rest, and frequency to force adaptation.

I may or may not log my workouts in incredible detail.

Here is the plan…

Push/Pull/Legs

Ring Dips
Pike Press
Push Up

Chin Up
Inverted Row
Face Pull

Single Leg Step Up
Nordic Curl Progression
Hollow Hold/Leg Lift/Hip raises
Plank

It feels good to be back.

1 Like

Legs
(Felt OK today. Late night workout that I just finished up.)

-Single leg step up on a 16 inch box-
6x10
(These were done as strictly as my lack of attention would allow me. No attention paid to rest.)

-Glute bridge leg curl-
3x10
(New exercise here. Actually felt a little pump in my hamstrings with this. I wasn’t sure that I would get that with bodyweight only exercises. I don’t have any way to do glute ham raises, or Nordic curls at this time, so I am glad that these worked out.)

-Abs-
Have I ever done abs in this log? I cant remember, and I am not going through my log to check. Fuck abs. (I know I am wrong to not do them, but I am still a meathead. I actually get a pretty good ab workout with all of the other moves I am doing anyway. I am sure that over time I will add some kind of abdominal bullshit because I should for…reasons. That day is not today.)

Thanks for reading everyone. Consistency is the next battle here in this log.

We will rebuild. Not sure if I am ever going to touch a weight again at this point. Only time will tell. This was good enough for tonight.

Push
(Felt very good today. Had some extra motivation going into this workout. I didn’t think that I was going to feel good when I woke up, but proved myself wrong.)

  • = PR set.

-Ring dips-
7*/6/5/5
(When I started these 3 weeks ago, I was struggling to even get 1. It was humbling. Then 3 was hard. I want to be to 10 reps by the middle of the year. Sets of 10 by the end of fall.)

-Pike press with feet on a 16" box-
10/10/10/10

-Push up-
10/10/10/10/10

Feeling good. My legs aren’t sore at all. I am going to start doing Push/Legs/Pull/Legs, and volume is going to go waaaay up on leg days. Weekly volume will increase as well with increased frequency.

The reason I quit lifting last time was that I kept hurting my back, and I couldn’t do squats/deadlifts. With all of the other BS that I was going through, and had yet to go through, I just walked away because mentally I was getting beat. I was obsessed with the numbers, and was impatient. Many battles later, I am much stronger now mentally, I am less willing to accept being beaten.

Every workout becomes more fun. I am gaining some weight (+1 lb this week from 2 weeks ago. It might just be food weight to be honest), I am adding reps and volume to sets. Rest times are decreasing some. Form is good, and with a true pause where possible.

I don’t know if people approach calisthenics like I do, but this is the only way that I know. More volume, more reps. Set PRs. Every rep paused and dominated when possible.I feel like most people just do tons of reps, bouncing up and down as fast as possible, and don’t focus on quality form, tempo, pausing, getting a pump, contracting the muscles. (Not that I am a super pro at this or anything, I just try to get better every time in these areas.)

I am quite interested to see just how far I can take this.

Workout from 3/24/19.

Legs

-Single leg step up on a 16" box-
10/10/10/10/10/10/10 (2 minutes of rest between sets. I am learning that doing these with a good tempo such as 1/1/1/1 is the best way to go here)

10 (I thought I was going to do more sets. I did 10 more reps for a total of 80 reps, and felt like my legs had an OK pump. Keeping my knees over the outside of my food really helped as well.)

By this time I was tired. I sat down to take a break and woke up the next morning.

Such is life when you work and travel all the time.

I took the following day off due to it being a Monday and I had to get some catch up work done at my job.

Today, I maybe feel a bit of soreness??? I am going to keep building volume and frequency, as well as keeping a slow tempo and limiting rest.

Pull

-Chin up-
11(PR)/10/8/7/5

-Inverted row-
10/10/10/10 (Best form I have ever had with these here. Straight legs.)

-Face pull-
10/10/10

This was a marathon lift.

Legs

-Single leg step up on a 20" box-
10x10 on each leg.
(I am really doing my best to figure these out, but something just feels off about them, and I don’t know why.)

-Glute bridge with leg curl thing?-
3x20
(I am not sure what these are, but they feel like they are causing a burn during the set, so that is good. I hope that I can progress to Nordic curls after this somehow.)

Push

-Ring dips-
6/6/6/5/4 (First set felt shaky like I was swaying back and forth at the top. Took a lot of time to get reset at the top. I really fought for the 7th rep, and just couldn’t get it about half way up, so I failed it.)

-Pike press with feet on a 20" box_
15/10/10/10/10

-Push up-
10/10/10/10/10

I should do legs later today, but I have to drive back to Ohio to spend the day with family. Tomorrow will be a long day alone doing stuff at home, so there may be 2 workouts that happen.

This week just sucked the life out of me. I am not sure how to find the energy/motivation to get these done. The workouts are getting easier. I just need to be more consistent.

I certainly feel like I am getting results though.

Maybe I need more motivation?