Dance Machine

I’m sitting at Jaylynn’s kitchen table at 7 AM getting ready to drive to down to the Cape for work. I’ll probably be in around 9. I had to come up here last night so we could go to Worcester for dance lessons for the wedding. Though I shouldn’t admit it, I enjoy it so far. It’s a lot of fun and it makes her happy. We have a ton of work to do, so we set up 4 more lessons (we’ll probably need more) but we’re motivated to work hard and practice.

I think tonight is a shoulders/arms workout, but I’ll have to check my PF program. I don’t think there are any overhead presses in this workout if I remember correctly, so it should be interesting.

As I fill up my iCal with rapidly approaching events (2 weddings in two weekends, dance lessons, etc.), I’m not going to have much time for the gym. I think for the next few weeks all I can hope for is 3 workouts per week.

Physique Formula, Day 2

Just got back from the gym and just watched John Lackey blow a no-hitter against the Red Sox.

PF Day 2 was a lower body day, and it was pretty hard. The front squats were abysmal as you’ll see:

1) deadlifts:

• 225 x 8
• 245 x 6
• 275 x 4
• 225 x 8
• 235 x 6
• 235 x 4

2A) front squats:

• 135 x 4
• 135 x 4
• 135 x 1 (terrible)
• 95 x 6 (terrible)

2B) stiff-legged deadlifts w/ barbell:

• 135 x 6 (easy)
• 155 x 6 (easy)
• 175 x 6 (easy)
• 195 x 4 (kind of hard)

3A) seated calf raises:

• 45 x 15 x 3

3B) seated calf raises w/ toes in:

• 45 x 15 x 3

4A) leg extensions:

• 100 x 8 x 2
• 125 x 6 x 2

4B) seated hamstring curls:

• 100 x 8 x 2
• 110 x 6 x 2

I followed that up with a shake, stretching, and foam rolling. Deadlifts and front squats on the same day were brutal on my lower back. Not sure how that’s going to work from now on. I definitely could have lifted more weight but I felt it so much in my lower back that I didn’t want to hurt myself. I might have to go back to split squats on this day instead of front squats. I do need to do more front squatting if I’m ever going to get stronger in my legs, so I’ll find a way to work them in one way or another. Maybe during the next workout. I’m also not crazy about doing leg extensions. I’ve had problems with those in the past and I don’t want to hear my knees crunching with every rep, so I’ll probably switch those for lunges or step-ups. Overall it was a very good workout, a little over an hour because I didn’t always stick to the 30-second rest periods. On deadlifts and squats I’d rather rest until I feel I’m ready for another set.

I’m toying around with my front squat technique, as I’ve had little success in recent months trying to do those properly. I can’t do the clean grip because it really hurts my wrists and I can’t do the arms-crossed grip as it kills my shoulders. This time I used my lifting straps as handles and tried it in the clean grip and that worked okay, though it could be better. A lot of things could be better.

In any case, I got through the entire workout and pushed myself to keep going when I wanted to stop. A moral victory.

Prepping…

Turns out I messed up yesterday’s workout and skipped an exercise in the middle of everything (dumbbell flies). Making sure that doesn’t happen tonight. I’m taking more time to write out the plan before I go. This will be the first time I’ve front squatted in a while so we’ll see how that goes.

Watchmen & Pumpkins

Ever since seeing The Dark Knight last weekend, I’ve been obsessed with the trailer for Watchmen, the 2009 movie based on “the most celebrated graphic novel of all-time,” and something I hadn’t heard of before. From what I can gather from Wikipedia, it’s about a group of superheroes (intentionally or unintentionally based on more popular heroes like Batman and Superman) with names like “Rorschach,” “The Comedian,” and “Dr. Manhattan” based in 1989, the end of the Cold War.  I can’t tell who’s good and who’s bad, but it looks badass.  The song accompanying the trailer is “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” by Smashing Pumpkins, a 10-year-old song that has delightfully made its way back to popular culture. If you haven’t seen the trailer for Watchmen, here it is:

The Physique Formula, Day 1

I bought a new training program today, Jimmy Smith’s Physique Formula, which I’ve been waiting for for a while. I’ve listened to Jimmy on the Fitcast and on his own podcast, “How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat,” and I’ve always enjoyed his philosophy when it comes to working out. He focuses on a combination of full-body and bodybuilding strategies, which in my mind have always made the most sense and gets me to the gym.

I just did the first workout of his Advanced plan (I may not be advanced but it’s what I wanted to do) and it was hard, effective, and a lot of fun. Here it is (the abs part is modified because I hate the goddamn Swiss ball):

1A) incline barbell bench: sets of 8, 6, 4, 8, 6, 4
1B) bent-over single-arm dumbbell rows: sets of 6, 6, 4, 4

2A) incline skullcrushers: sets of 8, 6, 6
2B) seated cable rows: sets of 8, 6, 6

3A) cable crunches: 3 sets of 12
3B) twists with 25lb plate: 3 sets of 20

This only took me 45 minutes and I had my shake immediately after. My entire upper body had a great pump after this. It felt good to go back to supersets and some upper body stuff in one workout. It also felt good to just look at the page in my journal and see what I needed to do next, rather than look around the gym and try to find something open.

A very good workout. I’m already over my fat feelings from this morning. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

Monday Morning…

It’s Monday Morning, I’m sitting in Panera in Kingston with a cup of coffee and my computer. I have to go to Andover later this morning for a meeting, which is great. I’ve said it a million times, I love having these monthly meetings. This feels like a personal day.

I initially came to Colony Place to get my oil changed but they didn’t have enough techs at Wal-Mart, so I’m killing time before heading to Jiffy Lube. Plus I wanted to be one of those people who works on their Mac in a coffee shop. I have petty goals.

It’s going to be hard to get to the gym 4 times this week because of personal stuff. Jaylynn and I have dance lessons Wednesday night in Worcester and Dan & Karen’s wedding is Saturday with the rehearsal dinner Friday night. I’m shooting for three good workouts.

Maybe it was only the three workouts last week and no cardio, but I’m starting to feel like I’m gaining fat again. That has to be expected when I’m trying to gain size, but now I almost can’t wait for September 1 when I start lifting and dieting to lose weight again. I’ve got 6 weeks to get as lean as I can get, and I want to be as close to perfect as I can with my approach. It is strange that I spent all fall and winter trying to get lean and then use the summer to add mass (usually it’s the other way around), so I’m sure that’s part of my struggle. Losing fat was the priority based on where I was last summer (my all-time high of 231 pounds). I got so used to eating low-carb during the fall that I knew exactly what I was going to eat every day. Since then I haven’t really had a set eating plan. It’s been a lot of the same stuff with oatmeal and wheat bread mixed in. Now that I’ve been eating more, I’ve sort of adopted the philosophy of eating as much as I want, especially after working out (I’m probably taking in over 1000 calories after my gym sessions between the shake and the meal an hour later). After losing so much weight that is hard to deal with at times. The thing about it is, I look better, I definitely look more muscular (especially in my back, arms, and shoulders) but I only weigh 195. That means I’m gaining muscle mass and somehow losing fat. It definitely doesn’t feel that way.

In any case, I’m rambling. Off to really start the day.

NEW COMPUTER AHHHHHH!!

LI bought a Macbook yesterday (actually I bet correct myself before I get slapped…I bought Jaylynn’s and my new Macbook yesterday) and I love love love it!!!

Since my laptop died in March I’ve been contemplating what I would replace it with, but never quite thought I’d actually join Apple’s unholy army of self-satisfied hipsters. The sirensong was too strong.

I feel like this computer has already raised my standing in society up a couple of notches. I’ve already started using their buzz phrases like “everything is where you think it should be!” and, “Macs are so intuitive!” I need to go back to drinking Peet’s Coffee, buying fair trade, wearing a fedora to the park, listening to Sigor Ros while wearing a Ramones shirt, and never working out again (basically doing everything according to this website) to complete the lifestyle I’m going for here.

I’m not a big computer guy. I can get around on both PCs and Macs and solve some simple problems just through basic logic, but when it comes to RAM and Hz and graphics cards, I don’t know nor care enough to make decisions based on that. I just think Macs are better-looking and generally smoother. iPods and iTunes are asthetically the coolest things ever created, and they are really just an extension of Macs. I bought your basic white 13.3″ inch Macbook because I couldn’t quite rationalize going as far as the Macbook Pro (nothing about me is pro). I think this will do just fine for Jaylynn’s and my basic needs of internet, email, and iTunes. I’m definitely going to use some of the cooler features such as the camera and iMovie for potential video blogging (if you think I’m not going to flex my biceps in front of this thing, you’re out of your mind). Garage Band is really cool if I were still interested in podcasting (which I’m not). iWork is a really cool Office-like set of programs for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations that actually looks a lot better (and was a lot cheaper) than buying Office (one of the features of Pages is a template for a screenplay, which means I should probably write a screenplay). I also got a free HP printer/copier/scanner, which we needed anyway.

Molly potentially got the better end of the deal with her free iPod Touch. She set that up yesterday and it’s just about as badass as we had hoped. The internet looks amazing on it and the touchscreen is so cool.

I had to work in Falmouth for 4 and a half hours last night to make some extra money to cut down on the cost of this thing, but I’m lucky to have the luxery of doing that.

All in all, yesterday was great. The sun is a little brighter, music sounds a little better, and the clouds are a little fluffier. One more step up the social ladder.

In other news, I finished The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, which is a book basically anyone will love. Told from the perspective of a dog, it’s both a sad, funny, and heartwarming book reminiscient of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Check out the premise and reviews on Amazon. Now I’m moving on to the book version of I Am Legend and then Guns, Germs, and Steel plus a couple of dysphagia textbooks I should have bought in grad school but can now expense them. (See, when you own a Mac, you must always be learning!)

Peace.

Legs

Just got back from a very hard but incomplete workout. I decided to do more sets of deadlifts at 5 reps, so after 8 sets of those I was already really tired:

deadlifts:

• 135 x 10 x 2
• 225 x 8 x 2
• 245 x 5 x 4

bulgarian split squats:

• 30s x 8 x 2

Aaaand that’s about it. I felt nauseous and didn’t want to puke on the gym floor (it must have been that energy drink I’ve been needing to drag myself there on leg day), but at least I got a lot of volume in on the major lift of leg day. My plan is to do 4 or 5 sets of 5 reps on deadlifts and try to add 10 pounds a week (245, 255, 265, etc.) rather than go up to sets of 2 and just keep adding weight. I’m sure my form isn’t perfect, especially as I go heavier and heavier on the first rep. After the wedding I might do a structured program to just focus on getting stronger for a while. I would ultimately love to deadlift 405 pounds.  That’s a pretty legit number.

I learned of a side effect of beta-alanine: serious skin tingles.  On my workout days I take 2 pills before and 2 pills after, but on my off days I’ve been taking all 4 pills at once.  Last night my skin had such pins and needles it made me feel like I was wearing wool pajamas. I did some research and it turns out it’s not an allergic but a normal reaction with beta-alanine, but I think I’ll space those pills out throughout the day to avoid that.

Tuesday = Back..sort of

I did get to the gym last night after a long (though good) day of work to do back, but it didn’t really go the way I planned it. I hopped on the pullup bar and did a set of 7 reps and while I was resting and writing in my notebook, some other guy put a couple of handles on the bar and started doing hanging leg raises. He asked me if I was on it but with his headphones on apparently misunderstood me when I was said it was in use. I didn’t feel like arguing with the guy lest I look like an ass, so I scrapped pullups and did Hammer Strength rows before doing some other stuff. The workout was as follows:

low iso rows:

• 225 x 10 x 2
• 245 x 8 x 1
• 255 x 6 x 1
• 265 x 5 x 1

T-bar rows: (I LOVE these)

• 135 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 185 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 225 x 10 x 1
• 275 x 6 x 2

So other than the set of pullups at the beginning and a couple sets of close-grip chinups at the end, that’s really all I did. I wasn’t feeling great either, and the guy who took my pullup bar just through me off. I still did a few good heavy sets and my back is sore today, so some progress was made. I have to say though, I wish I could get more than 7 pullups at this point. That’s 3 weeks and I’m still stuck on that.

I’m not going to the gym tonight. I worked 11 hours today and I’m exhausted, not getting home till almost 8. I don’t have to go to Falmouth tomorrow (though I will pick up a few hours of bonus on Saturday. BTW I won the Genesis summer raffle for June, a $100 gas card!) so I’ll be able to do something at the gym tomorrow night. That leaves me with potentially Saturday afternoon as the time to get in my fourth workout of the week.

I really have to stop doing these 10- and 11-hour days soon. The new therapist is starting to get a little more settled but the workload is still pretty big, plus the paperwork is still overwhelming.

Anyway, that’s about it for tonight. I’m going to read and go to bed.

Chest + Rambling

Yesterday at work actually went pretty well. I did the new evals while giving the new therapist most of the treatments for the day, which left me by myself most of the time and I got a lot done. So while not perfect, the work week is off to a good start.

Chest last night was really good, too:

inclines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 170 x 3 x 1 (easy)
• 195 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1

declines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 215 x 2 x 1 (actually pretty hard, but I left a couple reps in the tank)
• 230 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1 (surprised I got that much)

flat dumbbells:

• 65s x F x 5

incline Hammer Strength machine:

• 135 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 185 x 7 x 1
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 185 x 5 x 1

dips:

• bodyweight x F x 3

Numbers went up on the major stuff, though I still don’t know if I should be doing more volume, which is why I threw in some more incline stuff at the end. At this rate, in a month I should be done 215 for sets of 3 on incline and 245 for sets of 3 on decline. Not quite my old form of 245 on incline and 275 on decline, but it’s getting there.

Other News and Notes:

• I’ve been coughing my lungs out since Friday despite physically feeling better from the weekend. I don’t know what this is but it doesn’t feel like a regular cold. A lot of people at work have been sick. The cough is brutal.

• Jaylynn called in sick Sunday, so later on that day we saw Dark Knight. Definitely a very good (not sure I want to call it ‘great’) movie and Heath Ledger was awesome. The more time that passes from seeing it, the more amazing his performance was. All I can talk about right now is Batman and Batman villains. I sound like a child. “…and Batman did this and this and this, and he can do this and this, and he has the Batcycle which does this and this…” Molly and I have been hypothesizing and reading rumors about the next movie in the series and who could be the villain. The two I’ve read so far are Daniel Day Lewis as The Riddler (not happening) and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin (brilliant!). Despite that it’s all I want to talk about, I still think I’m in the camp of the movie almost living up to the hype.

• Some trailers I’m excited for: Watchmen and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Definitely in a sci-fi mode.

• I don’t think I’m going to go into work till 9:30 today when I have a patient scheduled. I just want to relax for a bit.

• Listening to so much Lil Wayne recently, both Carter II and Carter III. It took me a while to buy him as a great rapper, especially since my only real exposure to him since “Tha Block is Hot” and “Get Off The Corner” were his garbage verses on Kanye’s “Barry Bonds” and Jay-Z’s “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” However in anticipation for my New Orleans trip I figured I’d get reacquainted with Lilweezyana, and man is he good. I still don’t quite get why Time is writing features about him and I don’t know how he sold 1.1 million albums in a week, but I’m now in the Pro-Weezy community.

• I’m about 50 pages away from finishing Jared Diamond’s Collapse, a book I’ve spent the better part of a month trying to get through. It’s about this close to reading a textbook, but it’s still pretty interesting. It makes me feel smart.

So that’s about it in my recent world. As you can see, nothing earth-shattering. Back and a little biceps tonight.