Staving off the decline, part deux

[JimRiley]

Arms and back day, because why not:
Chinups EMOM: 9
Underhand BB rows, 6-minute AMRAP: 75x39 (8, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 5)
DB curls: 14(each hand)x10x4
Band tricep pushdowns, 6-minute AMRAP: 63 with blue band (10, 10, 10, 10, 8, 6, 4, 5)
BB shrugs: 125x10x4

Shrugs have been surprisingly easy for me - but then many years of attending meetings may have given me a head start akin to the one farmers have for farmer walks.

I'm going to try doing my own programming for a while, so any blatant flaws in what I do going forward will be solely my fault. Seventeen months of working with @KoolaidMannn has taught me a great deal and helped me make lots of progress. In particular, Colin has shown me how much higher volume can help, and for me that's been a revelation, especially on the deadlift. I suppose I qualify as an older trainee, and I'd wholeheartedly recommend him as a coach for anyone in that demographic -- also for anyone looking for a coach who's knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, responsive, candid, positive, encouraging, proactive, thorough, a hell of a beast in his own right, and an all-round inspiring person. I could go on, but you get the idea.

[cole]

That's a great coaching review. Thanks man.

[JimRiley]

Took a one-hour pancake-flat bike ride, which I'm pretty sure was my longest in over a year.

[Wilhelm]

Took a one-hour pancake-flat bike ride, which I'm pretty sure was my longest in over a year.

I need to make time to do this this summer.

[JimRiley]

Right on, man! It always feels great to get back on the bike, doesn't it? I've been watching a lot of helmet-cam race videos lately, like on the NorCalCycling channel, and ridiculous as it seems, they've given me a hankering to get back into competition. Real racing would be foolish and risky, which of course makes it seem even more attractive, but the wisdom of lo these many seasons tells me virtual racing like on Zwift would be more like it. Speaking of crazy cycling stuff, @Wilhelm, you could probably clean up on the masters crit circuit with all that power!

Today I did the same as last Thursday (how did 5 days go by?) on the three main lifts, except I did 7 reps across instead of 6. I also threw in some auxiliary stuff, pretty much the same as last Saturday.
LBBS: 45,45,65,85,105,125x7x1,145x7x4@<6
OHP: 60x7x4@7 - gotta lotta work to do on these
DL: 185x7x4@<6 - EZPZ
Underhand BB rows, 6-minute AMRAP: 75x41 (6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5)
DB curls: 14(each hand)x10x5
Band tricep pushdowns, 5-minute AMRAP: 61 with blue band (9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 6) - meant to do 6 minutes, but made the classic off-by-1 counting error
BB shrugs: 125x10x4

Tried the old "blow the weight up" routine on curls and pushdowns, and it worked noticeably better than holding a breath throughout each rep. I just hope my spine can handle such massive loads without a column of air supporting it!

Oh, and last night I tried working on chinups one segment at a time, as in top third, bottom third, and middle third, which allows me to do several (5-ish) reps at once instead of just singles. Who knows, maybe those will help some.

[JimRiley]

Forty-nine minutes on the bike, with an actual uphill that took about 10 minutes. A bit of a slog, but not too bad.

[slowmotion]

Good to see you are back at it, Jim!

[JimRiley]

Thanks, @slowmotion. Looks like your training is going well! I haven't been logging rest times, but have been trying to keep them to about 2 minutes, similar to what you're doing. Seems like I have to take longer on the OHP though.

Today:
LBBS: 45,45,65,85,105,125x7x1,145x7x4@6
OHP: 35,40,45,52.5x7x1,60x7x4@7
DL: 135,155,175x7x1,185x7x4@<6

Felt kind of sluggish overall. I was planning to tack on some more deadlifts, probably at 205 and 225, but called it a day instead due to a little back tweak that came up towards the end. Amused by its presumption, I decided to humor it.

[JimRiley]

Yesterday: Walked about an hour with my wife. There were hills and stairs, and the temperature was over 80F, so it might actually produce some adaptation.

Today:
Chinups, one every minute: 9
Underhand BB rows, 6-minute AMRAP: 75x46 (5rx8, 6)
DB curls, starting every 2 minutes: 14(each hand)x12x5
Band tricep pushdowns, 6-minute AMRAP: 69 with blue band (10rx6, 9)
BB shrugs, 2-minute rests: 125x12x4

Just as I started warming up for the rows, my right shoulder, which has been hurting a fair amount for some weeks, made a loud multi-stage ripping/popping noise. I set the bar down to check things out a bit, and the shoulder seemed better than before, so for a while I was hopeful that some sort of mechanical drama had taken place, like adhesions ripping loose or something, and that the shoulder would be back to normal. A few hours later, though, as I'm writing this, everything feels about the same as it did before, so I guess it wasn't really the miracle cure I was hoping for. It sure was loud though.

[JimRiley]

LBBS: 45,45,65,85,105,125x8x1,145x8,8,8,7@6-7
CGBP, 1-count pause: 45,45,65x8x1,85x8x2,95x8x2@<6
DL: 135,165x8x1,185x8x4@<6 (straps on last set)
Chinups, one every minute: 11
Underhand BB rows, 6-minute AMRAP: 75x43 (5rx6, 6, 7)
DB curls, starting every 2 minutes: 14(each hand)x12x5
Band tricep pushdowns, 6-minute AMRAP: 65 with blue band (10rx6, 5)
DB flies, starting every 2 minutes: 10x12x2, 14x12x1
BB standing calf raises: 45xa few, 115xa few, just to see how they'd feel (a little scary, TBH)

The heat - 82 to 86F in the room where I worked out - was getting to me at first, which is why I cut my last set of squats short. At first that had me bemoaning how out of shape I am, but then I remembered that when it's hot I'm supposed to take extra meds because of this silly endocrine thing I have, and after downing 5 mg of hydrocortisone (it's so much more than just an anti-itch cream!) I was feeling much better.

Also my lower-back tweak from a few days ago returned while I was squatting, but I calmed it down again by scooting around on a tennis ball for a few minutes. Tracking down trigger points and then massaging the heck out of them works remarkably well for an unsubstantiated myth.

Yesterday I discovered I can now do close grip bench without my right shoulder complaining too much, so I did some of those. I had planned to go with 85 across out of caution, but it felt so good I went up to 95 for the last two sets. Those also felt fine, or nearly so. I did one extra rep at the end with a more standard grip, and that hurt only a little, so even allowing for endorphins and wishful thinking that was encouraging.

Of course these weights were really light, even by my standards, but I'm still just getting re-adapted to training. My plan is to do one more session with 4 sets of 8 on the main lifts and then start BBM's Hypertrophy I template next week.

[JimRiley]

Did a 50-minute bike ride with wind, a steep climb, and rough pavement. Throw in heat and it would have been ideal.

[KoolaidMannn]

Thank you for the super kind words Jim, it was a pleasure working with you!!

[JimRiley]

Likewise, @KoolaidMannn, and best of luck in the Big Peach! See you at Untamed, eh? (Even if it takes a while.)

[JimRiley]

LBBS: 45,45,65,85,105,125x8x1,145x8x4@6-7
CGBP, 1-count pause: 45,45,65,85x8x1,95x8x4@6
DL: 135,155,175x8x1,185x8x4@6

1:33 - quick for me since I usually dawdle like crazy.

[JimRiley]

General physical impairedness:
Chinups, one every minute: 10
Underhand BB rows, 6-minute AMRAP: 75x45 (5rx5; 6,7,5,2x1)
DB curls, starting every 2 minutes: 14(each hand)x12x5
OHP: 55x8x3 in 6 minutes (narrower grip than usual to appease shoulder)
Band tricep pushdowns, 6-minute AMRAP: 66 with blue band (10rx6, 6)
DB flies, starting every 2 minutes: 14x12x4
BB shrugs: 125x12,12,10,14 (something didn't feel right on the third set, so I cut that one short and did makeup reps on the last set)

[JimRiley]

Walked and ran for 47 minutes on hilly trails. Did my first sustained running since last November, but didn't feel too bad. My back started to hurt in what's becoming the usual place, but I rubbed it into submission while inching my way down a steep section. It'll take a while to get my all-terrain trail legs back; meanwhile I'm taking baby steps, in either direction, on anything over about 15%.

[KoolaidMannn]

Yes absolutely, I’ll let you know when I’m back on the east coast!

[JimRiley]

So I'm still doing the BBM Hypertrophy I template. It's been sporadic this summer due to a couple of vacation trips and a cold that morphed into a sinus infection, but I've back to training for the last couple weeks and trying to stay consistent. I restarted the template after the sinus infection, having most definitely backslid, so two months in I'm just getting to week 3 (of 10).

The volume in this template was kind of a shock to my system at first, even though I've done hypertrophy work before, but I've found the lifting volume and my cardio work (cycling and running) seem to help drive each other. I even find myself thinking about running up steep hills while squatting and vice versa.

School just started again on Monday, so busy busy. Teaching Stats and Calc I and rooting for everyone to succeed. Fortunately, even in calculus I almost never get the kind of student who's way out in the remotest reaches of the bell curve's left-hand tail, many standard deviations below average, failing over and over... though I suppose somewhere there must be someone like that.

[mgil]

Somewhere there is an aspiring student of geology and future barbell coach that yearns to take calculus one 6 times.

[JimRiley]

You may be right, @mgil. I think I could help that person succeed in calculus, though, if they're willing to learn and not simply persist in the way they've done things before. Eventually they might even grasp the vector stuff in Calc III.