Wednesday = Leg Day

About to watch the Celtics game, digesting some turkey meatballs, and downloading some Alice in Chains for the gym tomorrow night.

Pretty intense morning with a lower body workout. I’m too tired to post the numbers, but did 4-5 sets of deadlifts, machine squats, stiff-legged deadlifts, hamstring curls, and calf raises. I read a quote recently, “the rep you don’t do is the rep that makes you grow” and I really tried to apply that today to my workout. I pushed out each set until I could not possibly do another repetition, and my legs were popping as a result. I’m already uncomfortable standing and walking, especially on my right side, which tells me I slightly pulled a couple of muscles, but no big deal. It’s more important that I pushed really hard rather than leaving a couple of reps in the tank. I’ll hit the arms and shoulders hard tomorrow night.

Upper Body Tuesday

Didn’t let the long weekend get me out of my groove. Had a really great workout this morning and really got after it. Totally zoned in.

Upper Body:

1A) Incline Dumbbell Bench: 65s x 4 sets x 5-7 reps

1B) Pullups: bodyweight x 4 sets x 2-4 reps (really hard today)

2A) Barbell Push Press: 115-130 pounds x 4 sets x 5 reps

2B) Barbell Shrugs: 135-205 pounds x 4 sets plus 135 x burnout

3A) Cable Rows: 110-120 pounds x 4 sets x 4-8 reps

3B) Diamond Pushups: bodyweight x 4 sets x 12-15 reps

4) Incline Dumbbell Curls: 25s x 2 sets x 8-10 reps

My arms were shaking all day today, though after a long, sad day at work for reasons I can’t write about, I wanted to go back and workout more.

Went for a couple of long walks this weekend with Jaylynn which were very nice. I prefer taking walks in the scenic Pine Hills of Plymouth, but Berlin works fine in a pinch. About 45-60 minutes for each one.

Ate pretty well for a weekend, and Memorial Day Weekend at that. Only ate out once at Uno’s, other than that some light breakfasts, light snacks at lunch, and shrimp and turkey burgers at a BBQ yesterday.

Thankful it’s a 4-day week. Back at the gym tomorrow morning.

Shoulders and Arms

A late workout tonight after a 12-hour work day. I didn’t even have to drag myself there, it felt like a sanctuary locked away under my headphones after a stressful day of work.  Anyway:

Shoulders:

-Hammer Strength shoulder press: 4 sets x 4-10 reps

-side delt raises: 3 sets x 10 reps

-reverse pec deck: 3 sets x 10 reps

-shrug machine: 4 sets x 6-10 reps

Arms:

-bicep curls w/ straight bar: 4 sets x 6-10 reps

-reverse forearm curls: 4 sets x 4-10 reps

-tricep pressdowns: 3 sets x 6-10 reps

-tricep extension machine: 3 sets x 6-12 reps

Nothing super complicated, just a good old fashioned bodybuilding-style workout. Definitely enjoyed it. Looking forward to next Thursday night.

Leg Day

Legs this morning:

-Deadlifts: 4 sets x 5 reps

-Squats (machine): 4 sets x 5 reps

-Romanian Deadlifts: 4 sets x 5 reps

-Calf Raises: 3 tri-sets of toes in-out-straight x 12 reps

*plus 30-minute walk around the neighborhood when I woke up

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I know I reviewed the NIN album last week, but I can’t emphasize how compelled I am to listen to it.  It’s the first thing I think about listening to when I grab my iPod, and I still think Reznor completely mailed it in.  I am mesmerized.

Monday Upper Body Workout

Hit the gym at 8:30 this morning and had a great workout:

Superset:

-4 sets of incline dumbbell bench/pull-ups

Superset:

-4 sets of barbell push-press/dumbbell shrugs

Superset:

-4 sets of cable rows/diamond push-ups

*plus 20 minutes incline treadmill walk

Everything in the 4-5 rep range. Going to be sore tomorrow, especially because of the pull-ups.  It’s been ages since I’ve done those and they are by far the best back builder.  I felt energized yet really sleepy at the same time, and I was practically falling asleep standing up at work.

Good day of work. Got through all my patients in great time with a couple of hours left over for notes and organizing.  We’ve been getting some better admissions lately so there is more really skilled therapy to do.  It’s starting to pick up pretty well.

The Slip

Trent Reznor is giving away Nine Inch Nails’ new album The Slip at their website for free.  I downloaded it last week and haven’t really listened to much else since.  It sounds like the kind of album that he would give away for free, as it’s basically a carbon copy of Year Zero that sounds like it was made with fewer computers (probably just a Casio keyboard, fuzzbox, and ProTools) and everything from the beats to the artwork to the album title feels like it took about 5 minutes to come up with (sort of the Amnesiac to Year Zero’’s Kid A) I definitely wouldn’t call it a great album or even a very good one, but I can’t stop listening to it for some reason. I get up at 5:30, come down to the computer, and put it on. It’s hypnotic to listen to in the morning.

The best songs are “Discipline,” “1,000,000,” and “Letting You.”

Legs

Did a leg workout this morning:

-4 sets of leg press

-4 sets of stiff-legged deadlifts

-3 sets of calf raises

-45-minute walk

Two workout updates

Tuesday is blogging day.

Did legs last Wednesday, a few sets of heavy machine squats, stiff-legged deadlifts, and calf raises. Hurt to walk for several days.

Didn’t go last night but went into work late and hit the gym this morning for another upper-body session. Did 5×5s of chest, back, and traps, then hit the road because I somehow didn’t have time despite not getting to work until 11 AM.  I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow.  Good thing I went because after not going yesterday I wasn’t too optimistic about this week.

Eating reasonably well.  My new favorite food is roasted broccoli.  A few spears covered in EVOO and salt and pepper, baked in the oven at 400 for about 20 minutes till they are brown.  They taste like burned french fries and are awesome.

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Ate at Vinny T’s in Worcester for Jaylynn’s birthday, 16 of us in all, and the service was terrible.  We were sat down in the function room with a bunch of other large parties with one exasperated server.  No draft beer, limited mixed drinks, wrong drink and food orders, an hour-and-a-half wait for our food, and just overall disinterest from her.  She didn’t even seem to care, we under-tipped. Not going back there, that’s for sure.  Jaylynn had fun at Irish Times afterwards (I managed to resist any drinks at the bar, I get sick to my stomach just thinking about having a beer in that setting. Must be a mental thing), so the night was not a total loss.

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Already planning a personal day for when Madden 09 is released. The thought entered my head yesterday for some reason and I became giddy.  I’ve already drawn it out in my head: I’ll work the day it’s released (August 12), then take the next day off. I’ll wake up, go to Borders, get the largest mocha and biggest breakfast sandwich they sell, then race home, park the recliner in front of the big screen, set my iPod on shuffle, then just go nuts with franchise mode all day, taking a break only for a walk or two.  I’m looking forward to this day second only to my wedding.

Sleep Through The Static

OKAY, peeps, we are back.

Back in the gym, back in the mindset…at least for now. I know I’ve said that about 5 times during the past few months.

Had a great weekend celebrating Jaylynn’s graduation from MGHIHP with her Doctorate of Physical Therapy (she’s so much smarter than me it’s not even funny).  Went out to eat three separate times (all on her parents’ dime, too) to the Lotus Blossom for Chinese, Bullfinch’s for Fillet Mignon, and Gibbett Hill Grill for Prime Rib.  Quite the experience.  Not sure how we’ll go back to The 99 and Papa Ginos after all that, but whatever.

My gym drought is over. I went tonight and did a few 5×5s of upper body stuff:

-Incline Dumbell Bench 5×5

-Cable Rows 5×5

-Barbell Push Press 5×5

-Dumbbell Shrugs 5×5

Felt pretty good.  I’ve decided to screw a program for right now and just go to the gym and have fun.  Granted it’s hard to have fun when you don’t know anybody at the damn place and loathe its clientele, but I screwed around and did some stuff I wanted to do to feel bigger again.  The only semblance of routine I’m going to have right now is doing an upper/lower split so I’ll go at least twice a week and lift pretty heavy, sticking to my 5×5 sets.  I’ll do supersets if the equipment is available but otherwise I’m not going to kill myself over it. I need to start going for walks in the morning again, too, so I’ll do one of those tomorrow.  I’m off from work tomorrow (at least for going to Bourne, I have to drive to Andover for another mentor meeting), so I’ll do a lower-body session after I get back from that.

Otherwise things are good.  Look for more workout-related updates.

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Got Jack Johnson’s new album Sleep Through The Static and it’s not bad.  Other than two or three songs, it hasn’t really grabbed me, but certainly very pleasant to listen to.  I think this album came out in February, even though it should be illegal to listen to Jack Johnson albums between September and April.  It is strictly summer music.  If I were you I would check out “Go On,” “Angel,” and “Adrift.”