Category: упражнение

WED WKOT

Followed same routine as MON WKOT, added a bit of weight where I could, added reps where I couldn’t. According to my somewhat arbitrary accounting, Wednesday’s workout increased total workout volume by 5.86% over Monday. Pretty good. Making progress. Total time was about 110 minutes, very little dilly-dallying but I did try to get 2.5-3 minutes rest between sets.

My overall goal is to keep increasing *weekly* volume indefinitely because that is a somewhat arbitrary measure of overall progress but easily quantifiable.

Felt a weird twinge in the lower right ab/groin area doing Zercher squats. Not painful but something felt off. Gonna have to pay attention to this. Also didn’t really fully extend the Overhead Presses so need to pay more attention next time. Otherwise everything went rather well if I do say so myself.

Felt pretty good all day after Monday’s workout, started feeling increasingly sore Tuesday, felt better this morning before working out, so the DOMS were rather limited. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

MON WKOT

Did first proper workout with new weight set. Switched things around a bit, did 4 sets each major exercise. Did Zercher Squats instead of Front Squat, put on some more weight for these, definitely felt it. Felt pretty good overall right after the session, definitely have that post-workout “flavor” in my body, not really a feeling of fatigue but that buzzy, spicy, electric feeling that comes with proper exertion. Total session time was almost two hours though maybe 10 minutes was helping change out a furnace filter. Or rather “supervising” the effort by which I mean standing around doing nothing.

Now just gotta wait until Wednesday. And eat food. And rest.

Back on the bandwagon

Image stolen from the Dick’s Sporting Goods website, used for illustrative purposes.

Got a 300# “Fitness Gear” brand Olypmic barbell set from Dick’s Sporting Goods the other day, total cost $225.69. Pretty happy with it. Wanted to get a new barbell set for a long time now and realized I’m not getting any younger, etc. so now’s the best time to get started.

Did the first workout with it yesterday. Pretty light workout, mostly to get reacquainted with barbell work after a couple-few years of calisthenics. The workout consisted of a warmup set and 3 sets each of the following:

  • Overhead Press
  • Front Squat
  • Bent Over Row
  • Deadlift
  • Pushups
  • Farmer’s Carry

Normally one might suggest a different order to the lifts but there is a method to this madness: The OHP is first so I’m not too tired to lift the bar above my head, Front Squat second so I’m not too tired to clean the bar to the starting position, Rows next, again so I’m not too tired to get the bar to the starting position. Deadlifts come before Pushups because I want to have enough strength for them and my Pushup strength is already pretty developed compared to the other exercises so I try for failure here since the likelihood of serious injury from this exercise is minimal. The Farmer’s Carry is just to polish off the forearms and really make them burn.

I intend to continue this routine at a relatively light weight 3x/week for the next 4 weeks to improve form and build up connective tissue strength. At that point I suspect my connective tissue will be strong enough to switch to a different program to focus more on heavier weights. Also, at that point I plan on acquiring a rack and bench.

Still sorta wiped out, but for other reasons

Haven’t slept well the past few days. Yesterdays’s Wednesday workout didn’t go particularly well, only did 2 chin/dip/hamstring sets and called it a day. Gravity was high and energy was low.

But not all was lost! Got Stargate SG-1 seasons 1 and 2 from the library, and “Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series” which I hadn’t heard about before yesterday. Looking forward to watching it but think I’m going to wait until I watch the original Twin Peaks again then the follow-up movie Fire Walk With Me to put everything into its proper context.

Wiped out

Did three standard rep sets of exercises today instead of four half-plus-two sets, skipping the ab-wheel rollouts because I was too wiped out after everything else. The rows were especially difficult because my upper body was already fatigued from the chin/dip sets. I had originally planned to start incorporating handstands again but I just didn’t have enough left. We’ll see about Wednesday.

Aujourd’hui, j’ai réussi…

Today I succeeded. Did four half-plus-two sets of everything. Felt pretty strong everywhere but still feel like I had a good workout. The ab-wheel rollouts are improving, definitely feeling it in the right places this time, that is, in the ab muscles rather than the spine and in a good, non-injurious way.

Probably undid anything good by eating Long John Silvers for dinner though. Speaking of which, while I was waiting for the three “Two fish, two hushpuppies, fries and coleslaw” platters I remembered that LJS used to put their kids’ meals in a cardboard basket container shaped like a boat, and you’d get a cardboard pirate hat. It was weird sitting there in the restaurant remembering that, like it was a more significant and important memory than it should have been.

Apparently they don’t even have kids’ meals anymore, at least not at the Pambulon Heights region location.

Working on working out

Doing the Wednesday workout, doing four “half-plus-one” sets of each exercise. This should “work out” to a greater volume of movements, though not by much since I’m not doing the extra reps in the final sets. On Friday I think I’ll do “half-plus-two” sets instead for even greater volume.

So far did the chin/dip/ham-curl sets. Got a little pump, and a little fatigue.

Finished the row/pushup sets, went for broke on set four of each.

Did one double set of ab-wheel rollouts, just went for it. Probably gonna lay off of doing more today to see how it feels tomorrow.

Mediocre sleep

Didn’t sleep that well last night, been sorta tired all day. Could probably zonk out right now at 6:27 PM, but I’ll try to stay up as long as I can. Would rather go to sleep for the night than take a 2 hour nap and spoil my sleep for the rest of time. Or the rest of the week at least.

Did my Monday workout except for the ab-wheel rollouts which I’ll probably do soon, maybe in a half-hour or so [EDIT: ab-wheel rollouts are done now]. Still got some fried chicken and mac & cheese from dinner sloshing around in the stomach so don’t really want to stir it up more than necessary.

Didn’t add any new exercises today, didn’t feel up to it. Didn’t even really feel like doing the workout at all due to the poor rest last night but I got most of it done anyway. Spent most of the day messing around online and playing Borderlands 2 and Talos Principle VR. I’ve had Borderlands 2 for a few years but never really played it until today. Pretty fun! Got some DLC for it early this morning and let it install overnight.

I’m thinking for the Wednesday and Friday workouts this week I might switch up a bit and do 4 sets of each exercise with fewer reps per set, but with greater volume overall.

Friday workout, not bad so far

Started the “workout” by mowing the lawn. Since I have a Fitbit now I usually track mowing as a “workout” activity out of general curiosity. I forgot to start the tracker for the first part of the lawn, up until I filled the grass-clippings bag the first time. Apparently from that point when I started the tracker it took me about 16 minutes to finish mowing and I burned around 162 calories. Probably not that many calories burned in actuality though. Wonder how many calories the lawnmower burned…

Did the 2 sets each chinups/dips/hamstring curls, got an additional 2 reps on set two of each! Feeling really good about that.

Later, two sets each foot-elevated bodyweight rows/pushups, back to normal on the rows, did two extra clean pushups on the second set then hit failure on the third extra. I don’t actually remember the last time I did a set of pushups to a proper failure. Felt good though, pushing the boundary. Still got the ab-wheel rollouts to do, gonna hit it *lotato though.

*Tater-later, potato-lotato *chortle*

EDIT: finished the ab-wheel rollouts, did two sets but noticed a tweaked feeling as if my lower-right back was slightly out of alignment, didn’t want to push it so I stopped once I finished the normal sets.

Higher gravity today

Did someone turn up the gravity today? Doing my Wednesday workout, completed the 2 each chinup/dip sets and sliding hamstring curls, these went ok but the row/pushup sets were more difficult than they were last Monday. I feel heavier. Wasn’t able to match the same clean rep numbers but still achieved my goals for the day. Ab-wheel rollouts went ok, but still not as easy as Monday. Now that I’ve completed the session I feel more “fatigue” than “post-workout”. Some days are like that though.