KarlM: It's all about the log.

[JohnHelton]

I found the meet on liftingcast.com and was rooting for you at home. Great job! Nice DOTS PR!

[KarlM]

Karl, have a great time and kick some ass!

ETA on Saturday: Cheering for you today, dude.

I found the meet on liftingcast.com and was rooting for you at home. Great job! Nice DOTS PR!

Damn! Super cool y’all tuned in to see how your old forum acquaintance fared It really means a lot

[KarlM]

Sounds like everything went about as good as can be expected. Congrats!

Great job Karl! Sounds like you had a good time

Thank you gentlemen! It was a fun day. Wife watched from the audience and my best friend coached me. Lots of fun was had

[KarlM]

Hell yeah, Karl! Great job, man!

Would you do the water cut again?

Thanks Alek! Yeah, I would. My bench might have taken a small hit but overall I was able to drop three pounds with very little impact to my performance.

I wouldn’t worry about it again for a relatively “unimportant” meet, but I’m glad I have the data point.

[Renascent]

Congrats, @KarlM!

[EricK]

Great write up. Congratulations again! Sometimes I miss competing. Don't miss the water cutting, but agree it can be useful.

[KarlM]

@Renascent, thank you sir! @EricK, yeah I enjoy these competitions, even though they are quite disruptive to the normal flow of training. They keep me motivated to try to get a little better. It's been a minute since I felt like I was truly gaining strength again, but this last meet has shown me that I am indeed still eking out some gains.

[KarlM]

*log catch up

2/26/24, easy training.

Neutral Grip Pullups
BW X 11 X 3

DB SLR
20 X 20 X 3

DB Curls
35 X 20
35 X 17
35 X 11

lol, I can tell I haven't done any accessories in a minute. It was fun to do a little body building.
******
2/27/24

Dips
BW X 8
+25 X 8
+45 X 8
+70 X 8 X 3, +70 is a good place to start up dips again.

Incline Bench
185 X 5 X 2
185 X 4, F5!

I haven't failed a bench rep in training in a while. This was a total surprise. I lowered the bar to my chest, then slid it into my lap, stood up with it and set it on the floor. I was pretty suave with my fail, if I do say so myself.
******
2/29/24

Elliptical, 300 Cal
******
3/1/24, started new training cycle

TMs: Squat 405 lb, Bench 300 lb, DL 475 lb.

Heavy Squat (H, 70%)
285 X 6r X 4s, felt light as a feather but I got winded. Haven't done any sets for more than 3 reps since first week of January.

CG Bench (M, 65%)
195 X 6 X 4, focused on exploding through full ROM.

Cybex Machine Side Lateral Raises
110 X 20 X 3, hard.

Felt great to be back to normal training.

[cole]

those are about my training maxes too. lots of good work to start a new cycle karl

[KarlM]

those are about my training maxes too. lots of good work to start a new cycle karl

Adductors are sore. Always the adductors lol.

[KarlM]

3/2/24

1.5” Deficit Deadlift (M, 60%)
285 X 6 X 3

Seated incline curls
30 X 19
30 X 14
30 X 13

Tbar rows (chest supported)
+90 X 8 X 3

Deficit deadlifts feel interesting. It’s like I get better leg drive because I have to have leg drive.

Adductors are sore. They always get sore when I bring volume back to my squat.

[KarlM]

3/4/24

AMBW = 185.4 lbs

Comp. Bench (H, 70%)
210 X 6r X 5s

SSB (L, 60%)
240 X 6 X 2

Cybex SLR
120 X 20 X 2 (supposed to be 110)
110 X 20

First two sets of side lateral raises felt really heavy and hard. Turns out the +10 was dialed in in the machine, so it wasn’t at 110.

Bench felt good. Focused on speeding up my eccentric. Resulting concentric felt more explosive.

SSBs actually feel really good on my knees. I feel like it’s almost therapeutic for my patellar tendons.

Need to get my weight back down below 180. However, wife and I are off to Vegas for my birthday trip. Won’t be thinking too hard about weight loss until after my trip.

[DCR]

Deficit deadlifts feel interesting. It’s like I get better leg drive because I have to have leg drive.

Such an underrated movement. I've probably mentioned this before but in my early thirties I was lifting at a gym in my then condominium building with no access to a squat rack, and I rebuilt a not terrible pair of legs solely with deficit deadlifts. I just loaded with max 25 lbs plates, which at that gym were smaller in diameter than the 45s. To further drive home the point of how good they were to me, at the time I was an idiot who insisted on only DOH-ing, and so I managed to grow said legs with relatively light weights taken nowhere near failure (because my DOH was and is weak af, keeping the weight down and ensuring that my grip died well before my legs would have).

[KarlM]

Deficit deadlifts feel interesting. It’s like I get better leg drive because I have to have leg drive.

Such an underrated movement. I've probably mentioned this before but in my early thirties I was lifting at a gym in my then condominium building with no access to a squat rack, and I rebuilt a not terrible pair of legs solely with deficit deadlifts. I just loaded with max 25 lbs plates, which at that gym were smaller in diameter than the 45s. To further drive home the point of how good they were to me, at the time I was an idiot who insisted on only DOH-ing, and so I managed to grow said legs with relatively light weights taken nowhere near failure (because my DOH was and is weak af, keeping the weight down and ensuring that my grip died well before my legs would have).

That's interesting. You do have good quad genetics, so there's that. Running deficits with 25lb plates is a larger deficit than I'm using, so maybe that's why you were able to build your legs. I don't think that would work for me, but I've never pushed these things, so of course I just don't know yet. So far I really like how tight I have to brace my core and how obvious leg drive is with the movement. But I'm not doing them heavy yet - I'll learn more when I'm pushing them!

[KarlM]

log catch up

3/7/24, @ Dragon's lair in Las Vegas

After two nights with no sleep and lots of drinking and gambling. Lol. Way to turn 50.

Deadlift (H, 70%)
335 X 6

Squat (M, 65%)
265 X 6r X 3s

Chinups
BW X 11
BW X 10 X 2
******

3/8/24 Happy 50th birthday to me. @ Dragon's lair

Incline Bench
185 X 5 X 3, incline was 31deg. Just figured out how to use the level feature in the measurement app on my iPhone.

Seated Incline Curls
30 X 18
25 X 15
25 X 17

Rope-Tricep Pressdowns (sub for dips)
100 X 17
100 X 13
100 X 12
******

3/11/24, @Gold's (back home)

We drove back to Colorado from Las Vegas. We stayed the night in Glennwood Springs to ski Vail the next day on our way home. Spring skiing can be hit or miss. This was great. Snow was still nice and the weather was warm. Skied on 3/10 then on 3/11 I got in my next workout.

Squat (H, 75%)
305 X 5 X 4

CG Bench (M, 70%)
210 X 5 X 4

Cybex Side Lateral Raise
115 X 20 X 3

Elliptical
300 Cal
******

3/12/24 @Gold's

Deficit Deadlift (M, 65%)
315 X 5 X 3

T-bar row
+92.5 X 8 X 3

Seated Incline Curls
30 X 20
30 X 15
30 X 12

Holy biceps pump!
******

3/14/24 @Gold's

Comp. Bench (H, 75%)
225 X 5 X 5

SSB (L, 65%)
265 X 5 X 2

Cybex SLR
115 X 20 X 3

[DCR]

Happy 50th, @KarlM! I hope to be anywhere near as strong as you when I hit that milestone.

[cole]

Damn dude....when i started following your training you were like 43? That doesn't seem too far off from where I'm at!

Nice vacation dude, although skiing after 2 nights of gambling /drinking sounds terrible lol

[KarlM]

@DCR , @cole , thank you gentlemen.

DCR, Those are some kind words indeed

Cole, yeah, it has been a while, hasn’t it!? I started barbell strength training august 2016. Almost 8 years now. I started following your training maybe a year or two after that. Damn, we’re getting old.

[KarlM]

3/16/24, had a work related dinner party at my house last night. Another late night with lots of drinking. I talk about drinking a lot, and I do enjoy it, but I rarely get anything more than a little buzzed. Still, I do drink a decent amount.

AMBW = 185.6 lbs

Deadlift (H, 75%)
355 X 5, easy

Squat (M, 70%)
285 X 5 X 3

Chin-ups
BW X 12
BW X 11
BW X 10

[DCR]

I talk about drinking a lot, and I do enjoy it, but I rarely get anything more than a little buzzed. Still, I do drink a decent amount.

I could have written this.

Today was such a day, and it was good. In Mobile, unplanned, which always is the best.