Log - 2010/12/07

Blending Size and Strength

Week 1/12 - Day 2/4
Tuesday: Light Lower Body and Abs


Unilateral leg press
    1x25 with 45lbs
    1x20 with 45lbs
    1x15 with 90lbs
Dumbbell stiff leg deadlift
    3x12 with 30lb dumbbells
Barbell walking lunge
    2x30 was called for in the program. I was using the bar and was only able to do:
         1x30
         1x16
Seated calf raise
    3x20 with 45lbs
Crunch
    3xfailure (failure ended up being ~18 crunches)

Goal next week is to complete all sets and reps as called for by the program.  I did better in this one than in yesterday's, but was still unable to complete the day.

Upper body still sore from yesterday, lower body already feeling sore by the time I went to bed.

On another note, got PowerDrive in from Biotest.  Used it before this workout, feel that it helped me to complete what I did, as I felt more energized and focused when I got there.  Other supplementation is the same as it has been.

Log - 2010/12/06

Exam Week

This week is the week of exams at school, so my schedule is really crazy, and on top of that, I have to fit in time for last minute studying.

Even so, I've felt motivated over the weekend to start actually doing something instead of going into the gym and prety much just going through the motions like I have been.  So, even though this is finals week, I decided to go ahead and start a program.

If you read any of the old posts on this blog, this program will sound familiar, as it's the Blending Size and Strength program from Testosterone Nation, developed by Dr. Clay Hyght.  When I've done this program in the past I've noticed gains very quickly, as well as feeling like I had my butt kicked in the gym.

So, without further ado, today's workout:

Week 1/12, Day 1/4
Monday: Heavy Upper Body


Barbell bench press
    Warmup with 2x5 with 155 lbs
    6x3 (6 sets of 3 reps) with 175lbs
T-bar row
    6x3 with 125lbs
Standing barbell shoulder press
    5x5 with 95lbs
Pull-up
    5x5, I was unable to complete all the reps in this, I ended up doing:
         3x5 with Bodyweight-25lbs (~205lbs)

The program also calls for these exercises:
Skullcrusher 3x5
Barbell curl 3x5

I was unable to continue after the pull-ups, and had to leave.  I felt like I was going to throw up after all that, and could barely move.

My shoulder was aching pretty bad for the rest of the day, not a pain like a normally have, but a sore type of pain, and I was sore all over by the end of the day.

Next week's goal is to try the workout again with the same weights and try to complete it.

Log - 2010/11/30

Weightlifting Class

Woke up really early today and couldn't sleep, ended up tired throughout the rest of the day. ALso ended up showing up to class 30 minutes early.

Leg Press:
    1x24 with 90lbs
    1x20 with 180lbs
    1x12 with 270lbs
    2x8 with 360lbs

Took a nap in the afternoon

Log - 2010/11/29

Racquetball class today.  Played for about 45 minutes.  It wasn't actual game play, but just playing around hitting the ball, which still consisted of quite a bit of running.  Ended up quite winded in the end.

Log - 2010/11/18

Weightlifting:

Just did leg press today, spent a lot of time on it though, felt really good afterwards, besides the having trouble with stairs part. Anyways, breaking it down:

Leg Press:
     1x32 with 90lbs
     1x28 with 180lbs
     1x16 with 270lbs
     2x8 with 360lbs
     1x4 with 450lbs
     1x6 with 450lbs

I haven't put 450lbs on anything in a long time.  Felt good. Real good.

On an unrelated note, my shoulder's been acting up all day.  Dull pain.  Hope it goes away soon.

Log - 2010/11/17

Racquetball class:

Two games, ended the doubles tournament.  Played for about 50 minutes straight.  Lots of running, not much winning.

Log - 2010/11/16

Weightlifting:

Incline bench press:
     1x10 with 95lbs
     1x5 with 115lbs
     5x5 with 125lbs

Leg Press:
     1x24 with 90lbs
     1x20 with 180lbs
     1x16 with 270lbs
     2x12 with 360lbs

Log 2010/11/11

Weightlifting:

Leg Press:
     180lbs for 16
     270lbs for 12
     360lbs for 8 (2x)

Lat Pulldown (underhand grip)
     1x{5, 5, 5, 5}
     - Total: 20 reps
     - Weight: 170lbs

Dumbbell Bench Press
     1x{5, 5, 5, 5}
     - Total: 20 reps
     - Weight: 65lb dumbbells
     - Warmup: 50lb dumbbells for 10 reps

Log - 2010/11/15

Racquetball Class:

Played two games, back to back.  We're in a doubles tournament (in class) right now, and we won one game and lost the other.  I ended up doing a lot of running around, because my partner is incompetent and won't hustle to get to the ball.

After that walked a little, not sure if the rest of the day will bring more exercise, but I doubt it.

Log - 2010/11/10

Racquetball Class:

Played two games today, lost both.  Did quite a bit of running around in them though.

Log - 2010/11/09

Weightlifting:

Deadlift:
     1x{9, 8, 8, 8, 8}
     - Total: 41 reps
     - Weight: 155lbs

Decline Dumbbell Bench Press (neutral grip)
     1x{8, 8, 9, 8, 8}
     - Total: 41 reps
     - Weight: 50lb dumbbells

Lat Pulldown (neutral grip)
     1x{8, 8, 8, 8, 8}
     - Total: 40 reps
     - Weight: 140lbs

Log 2010/11/08

Racquetball Class:

Spent about 35 minutes playing.  We started a doubles tournament today, and we won our game.

Other than this, I've done a good bit of walking today, but haven't had time to make it to the gym other that for class.

Log - 2010/11/01

Racquetball Class:

Spent about 30 minutes playing today, wasn't as hard of playing as I've been doing though.


Other:

Lots of walking, more so than normal.  Have a dog (Ollie) with me this week, and he's keeping me fairly active.

Log 2010/10/26

Weightlifting Class:

     Cable Row (Straight Bar, horizontal grip): 1x5 with 120lbs
                                                                     1x5 with 140lbs
                                                                     5x5 with 150lbs
     Lat Pulldown: 1x6 with 120lbs
                           1x6 with 140lbs
                           4x6 with 150lbs
     Cable Row (Close Grip; Vertical): 4x5 with 120lbs
     Hammer Curls: 1x10 with 25lb dumbbells for each arm

In other news, I've been feeling slightly sick lately.

Log 2010/10/25

Racquetball class:

Do to being out of the tournament, there was not a chance for me to play racquetball today.  So, I lifted weights during class instead.

     Rack Pulls: 1x8 with 135lbs
     Deadlift: 1x5 with 135lbs
                   4x5 with 185lbs

Log - 2010/10/21

Weightlifting Class:

     Leg Press: 1x8 with 90lbs
                      1x8 with 180lbs
                      4x8 with 270 lbs
     Reverse Hyper: 5x5 with 50lbs
     Lunges: 2x10 per leg with 30lb dumbbells in each hand.

Log - 2010/10/20

Racquetball class:

Played about 20 minutes, to finish up the game started on Friday.  I lost, but had a good time, and got a good 20 minutes of sprinting in.

After that, there wasn't anything for me to do in class, so I went upstairs to lift:

     Bench Press: 3x8 with 135lbs for speed

     Seated overhead press: 1x10 with 30lb dumbbells, 2x5 with 40lb dumbbells

     Incline Press: 2x5 with 40lb dumbbells

     Incline Press (with less steep incline): 2x5 with 40lb dumbbells

     Bench Press: 2x5 with 40lb dumbbells

     Everything after the initial bench press was done as one big superset, with minimal rest between sets.

Log - 2010/10/18 - 2010/10/19

Monday:

Racquetball class, no play time.

No time to make it into the gym outside of class.

Tuesday:

Weightlifting:

The gym bought a Reverse Hyper machine, made by Westside Barbell.  I've always wanted to try one of these, so I tried it today.  It is very difficult, and will take a lot of getting used to, but I love it.

     Reverse Hyper: 5x5 with 50lbs, held at top for as long as possible on each rep
     Dips: 4x5 bodyweight

Log - 2010/10/13 - 2010/10/14

Wednesday:

Racquetball class: Continued in-class tournament by playing one game.  Lasted about 30 minutes, and we didn't finish.

Thursday:

Weightlifting:

     Pull-ups: 3x1 with bodyweight
     Pull-ups (eccentrics) : 4x3 with bodyweight (jumped to top, and lowered self slowly for each rep)
     Cable Row: 4x6 with 80 lbs
     Hammer curls: 8x3 with 30 lb dumbbells
     Face pulls: 10x3 with 30 lbs (on cable row machine)

Log - 2010/10/11 - 2010/10/12

Monday (10/11/2010)

-Racquetball class, played for about 45 minutes, ended up running around much more than in most games.  Very winded by the end of it.

Tuesday (10/12/2010)

- Weightlifting class
    - Dips: 6x4 with bodyweight
    - Bench press: 3x8 with 135lbs
    - Dumbbell flyes: 3x8 with 30lb dumbbells

Log - 2010/10/04 - 2010/10/08

Due to the amount of work I had to do for school, I didn't have much time to get workouts in this week, and the only time I spent at the gym was for my classes.  Even this didn't really work out as planned though.

Monday:

Racquetball class.  Showed up early and ended up playing for about 1hr15min

Tuesday:

Weightlifting class.  We had a lecture, which took up the entire time, then  had to get to my other classes.

Wednesday:

Racquetball again.  Played for about 45 minutes.

Thursday:

Weightlifting.  Once more we didn't have time to do any actual lifting.  We had a lecture, followed by a test.

Friday:

No phys. ed. classes, no time to get a workout in.

Since this isn't a game weekend, maybe I can get something done this weekend.

Log - 2010/10/04

Today I wasn't able to get a second workout in at the gym, so I just did it here at the house.

This morning:

Racquetball class, consisted of about 30 minutes of playing, since the lectures at the beginning were longer than normal.

This afternoon/evening

Planks: 4 for 2 minutes each
Push-Ups: 50 (total)

Log - 2010/10/01

First off, I've felt really pumped and energetic all day.  This feeling needs to continue.

This morning, after my first (and only) [real] class of the day, I went to the gym to get my daily dose of racquetball practice in.  I brought my headphones and phone with me today, and listened to Pandora the whole time, and it made the 45 minutes go by extremely fast, I thought I had only been played for about 15, even though I was so exhausted.

I found that I was a lot more consistent with my playing today, which is good.  Consistency has always been my problem in tennis, and it's been a problem in racquetball as well.  This daily practice seems to be helping a lot.

After my lab, I went back to the gym to get some lifting in.  Since I didn't feel that yesterday's lifting really did much for me (really, I was just pumped and wanted to train lower body again), I did basically the same workout.

Squats: 5x5 with 135lbs (focusing on really pushing out of the hole, going for speed on each lift, really got my heart pumping)

Rack Pulls: 3x5 with 225lbs

Rack Pulls: 1x8 with225lbs (used straps for this one, my hands were tired. The straps allowed me to really pull with all I had and get a few more reps out)

Excited to see what next week holds for my training.

Log - 2010/09/30

Today's weight lifting class didn't really consist of much.  Here's how I spent my time:

Squats: 5x5 with 135lbs
Rack Pulls: 4x5 with 225lbs

I never have liked squats.  Really need to do them more often.

This evening, after dinner, I went back to the gym, and got some racquetball practice in.  I played for about an hour, and was thoroughly exhausted by the end of it.  I plan to continue this daily practice as long as I can, hopefully I can keep it up until the tournament in a few weeks.

The "1000lb Club" and Racquetball

At the gym a few weeks ago, I noticed some new things on the bulletin boards.  The first one that caught my eye was a new "contest" that the campus recreation department is doing.  The goal is to list 1000lbs combined in three lifts. The lifts are the classic bench press, squat, and deadlift that are staples in all powerlifting competitions.

There is also a "500lb club" that the rules state is for women, but since I first saw the board, they've added quite a few more pictures, most of them for the "500lb club" and all of them are men.  I'm not sure what's going on there, but they got their 500 lbs in two lifts, bench press and their choice of squat or deadlift.

Before I stopped lifting for a while, I had a total of around 800 lbs for the three lifts, which I feel is very respectable, especially considering I did it at 17.  Since then I've lost a lot of strength, but I hope this program stays around for a while, because I'd like to try it out.  It'll take time, but I know I can do it.

As a side note, one of the people listed as having done at least 500lbs over two lifts had 185lbs for their deadlift, and I believe 335 as their bench.  This is terrible.  The only reason your bench press should be stronger than your deadlift is being paralyzed from the waist down.  I mean, if you can bench over 1000 lbs, it's understandable that your deadlift might not be as high, as you've devoted your life to having the highest bench press weight in the world.  At these weights though, I find that completely unacceptable.  People just don't train their legs enough.  They don't train them because most people don't enjoy leg workouts, they're hard, and they'd rather have a huge upper body. News flash: Try and show off around any real muscle-heads and you'll get laughed at for not training your legs nearly as much as your upper body.


In other news, there will be a racquetball tournament on campus in a few weeks.  Apparently the winners in the past have always been in the racquetball class for the semester.  I hold no illusions as to my skills in racquetball, but if I can, I plan on participating in the tournament, for fun and the extra play time it will give me.  Winning, or even doing really well, would be awesome, but I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment there.

Log - 2010/09/29

This morning I had Racquetball class at 11. For 50 minutes we played Cut-Throat, where there are three people on the court, and the person serving is against the two who aren't. I suppose you could say it's like king of the hill on Halo. Anyways, we didn't keep score, but I did a lot of running around during the time we played, and worked up a good sweat (not hard for me to do).

At 5:00 I went back to the gym, since I was still on campus. I decided to spend some time practicing my racquetball skills on my own. 30 minutes were spent doing various drills and such. I ended up running around a lot, because I'm not accurate enough to hit the ball back to myself.

After those 30 minutes I went up to the weight area to lift a little. My shoulder was pretty beat from all the racquetball, so I didn't plan on doing much, and didn't want to hit lower body, figured I'd save that for tomorrow, since I'd done what amounted to a lot of sprinting over the course of the 80 minutes of racquetball I played.

What I did:

Dips: 5x3
Face-pulls: 8x4 with 40lbs.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to wear me down so that I wanted to leave. I'm pretty proud of myself for getting two decent workouts in one day. Now I just have to keep up the good work.

The Past Week in Review

Sorry for not getting any updates posted last week, forgot about the fact that I'm supposed to be updating this blog again.

Anyways...

Last week:

Monday: Racquetball
Tuesday: Weight Lifting
Wednesday: Racquetball
Thursday: Weight Lifting

I don't remember exactly what I lifted, I know I did squats on Tuesday, and I did some upper body stuff on Thursday. Memory's hazy.

Anyways, Today is Tuesday!

Yesterday (Monday, just in case you're lost already) I played racquetball in class, for about 45 minutes.

Today, in weight lifting, the area that the instructor wanted us to work on was out core. He talked about the core for about 50% of the class time, so we didn't get as much time in for actual lifting as I would have liked. I think he's a little too fixated on the core. Anyways, the workout:

Planks - 5 for 45-60 seconds each
Deadlifts - 5x6 with 135lbs.

I alternated planks and deadlifts. I don't typically do direct ab work, since I don't typically do direct anything work, as I'd rather do compound movements and get more bang for my buck, but the planks did their job. The great thing about planks is I can do them anywhere, just like pushups, which I love doing.

On to various injuries, ailments, etc...

My shoulder hasn't been bothering me much at all over the past week, which is really nice. Other than that, not much to report on that front.

In other news, I haven't been really congested, but I'm feeling just a tiny bit congested and such. Hoping I'm not coming down with something, because quite a few people around here have gotten colds, and I don't want to be sick.

Weekends

The gym closes here on weekends where there is a home game, meaning working out is that much more difficult. Also, had family in town this weekend, so I didn't do any working out.

Ate a lot more than I should have this weekend, and most of it being things that weren't the best for me. Was it worth it? Definitely, I love food.

I'm planning on going to a walk this evening after it cools down a bit outside. I'm pretty sunburned from sitting outside at the game from 11-4 yesterday, and the sun just makes my skin feel like it's burning even more as soon as I go outside (feels like being a vampire).

Anyways, tomorrow begins a new week, one in which I intend to get quite a bit of exercising done.

First Workout Log in a While

Wednesday (9/15/2010)

Had an hour of racquetball today.  Shoulder started to act up halfway through class, took it easy for a few minutes and was able to finish without any problems.

Also walked a mile to and a mile from lunch, in addition to other walking done throughout the course of my day.

Thursday (9/16/2010)

First class of the day was weightlifting.  I don't really have a program I'm sticking to right now, so I'm just going with what he says we're going to focus on in class, even though we don't have to do so.  Today's focus was "shoulders."

I start with a couple warm-up sets of strict military presses.

1x10 with the bar (45lbs.)
1x10 with 65lbs.

Then I proceeded to do 5 working sets:

5x6 with 85lbs.

After this I moved on to front raises.  Due to an old shoulder injury, certain movements cause me some discomfort, this movement is one of them, so I went very light.

2x8 with 15lb. dumbbells (this is for each arm)

Even though I thought I was going fairly light, I had a little pain in my shoulder after the front raises.  I had expected it to happen, but it wasn't unbearable.  My plan is to slowly ease back into these movements that have caused me pain since I hurt my shoulder, so I can try to regain some of the mobility in these areas that it is lacking in.

Lastly, I did facepulls with a rope handle on the cable row machine.

3x8 with 50lbs.

My shoulder felt much better after this, and didn't bother me at all the rest of the day.

So Here's How It's Going to Work

Instead of feeling like I'm spamming my own blog with an unnecessary amount of posts, I plan on consolidating multiple days into single posts, most likely I'll do two days for a log post.

In addition to this, I'll have a weekly "check in" going over some stats and such.

Monthly I'll try and do a "strength test" and check my 1RM in multiple lifts, to see if I've improved.

Scattered throughout this all there will occasionally be short topical articles.

I'll start with the log tonight! See you then!

Let the Torture Continue

Hey! Look! I'm doing it again, another "It's been a while since I last wrote something, I promise to do better this time" post.

Nope! No promises this time! Now, time to cut the chit-chat and get down to business.

Currently I'm taking a racquetball "class" on Mondays and Wednesdays.  This is part of my attempt to get back in shape as well as have a stress free (and relieving!) class.

But that's not all!

I'm also taking a weightlifting "class" on Tuesday's and Thursday's! Amazing, I know!

The reason I put "class" in quotes is because, to be honest, all we really do is play racquetball and lift weights.  Sure, we talk about things for about five minutes when we first show up, but after that, we're free to do our own thing.

It's fantastic!

Over the summer, I took several classes, and was able to lift fairly regularly.  Now though, I'm practically forced to train, and I love it!  I'm still not as strong as I used to be, but I'm coming back quickly and I plan to surpass the old me as soon as possible.

Now, there are lots of sites on the web where you can get information from people much smarter in this area than I am, so for the most part I won't be writing actual articles.  Instead, I'll be using this as more of a public training log.  As I can, though, I'll keep things interesting by posting information on topics that I want to learn more about myself, and learn about them through the writing.

That's all for now!

Getting Back Into a Rhythym

A common theme around my training blog seems to be departing from blogging and taking the time off of my training as well. This trend continued the last time I stopped blogging when Torture Training was hosted elsewhere.

Since the last time I blogged many things have changed, I've gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of muscle mass, and ended up a lot more busy with a lot less free time. Compound that with not working at the gym anymore, and well, I just haven't had an excuse to blog about my training, since it was nonexistent.

I'm working to change this though! This semester/year one of my new years resolutions was to get my health back under control. Last semester my health and everything else seemed to deteriorate at the same time. I have a workout partner this time around, so he's keeping me motivated, and I just got fed up with getting out of breath climbing the stairs to my room.

We're only on our second week of working out so far, but I feel we're off to a good start. I haven't kept track of weight or sets/reps the past three workouts, but here's a general rundown of where we stand: