A Tale Told by an Idiot

[EricK]

Tue, 2/20/24

201.7 almost back to where I was

Guitar:
-Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Times Like These and Sitting On the Dock of the Bay; I can kinda sing the lyrics while playing along to videos. Cool. I need to knuckle down and keep adding songs to my list

List so far this year:
Like a Stone, Mad World, Learning to Fly, Someone to Lava

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - 275 x 8 (belt) / BW x 12
S - [ 315 x 3 / BW x 12 ] x 3

Bench / curl:
W/u - 135 x 12 / 82 x 12, 185 x 12 / 82 x 12
S - 225 x 5 / 82 x 12, 245 x 3 x 3

[EricK]

Wed, 2/21/24

201.7

Guitar:
-Times Like These playthroughs

HSGHP:
135 x 10
155 x 8 x 3

Press / BB row:
[ 135 x 8 / 185 x 8 ] x 3

RDL / Dip:
225 x 10 / BW x 12
[ 275 x 8 / +25 x 10 ] x 3

Treadmill:
14:00, 148 cal, 1.11 mi

Quads started to cramp so I stopped running.

[KarlM]

My 3 year old came down again this morning, which is progress from just screaming at the top of the stairs...and watched me lift a little. He kept asking if I was done after every set and when I said no, he asked why..I said, "Because I want to get strong."

He emphatically replied, "You are!" Bless his heart.

I said, "I want to get stronger."

"You are!"

"I want to get stronger than I am."

Pause. "You am!"

Haha

I read this out loud to my wife. She thinks you’re adorable. Now I’ve got my eye on you.

[EricK]

My 3 year old came down again this morning, which is progress from just screaming at the top of the stairs...and watched me lift a little. He kept asking if I was done after every set and when I said no, he asked why..I said, "Because I want to get strong."

He emphatically replied, "You are!" Bless his heart.

I said, "I want to get stronger."

"You are!"

"I want to get stronger than I am."

Pause. "You am!"

Haha

I read this out loud to my wife. She thinks you’re adorable. Now I’ve got my eye on you.

The best part of writing funny stories about kids is that they do all the clever creative work for you...

[EricK]

Thu, 2/22/24

201.2

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - [ 275 x 8 / BW x 10 ] x 4

Bench / curl:
W/u - 135 x 12 / 87 x 10, 185 x 8 / 87 x 10
S(?) - 225 x 5 / 87 x 10, [ 225 x 4 / 87 x 10 ] x 3*
H - 205 x 8 x 3

*ok, I'm an idiot. This was supposed to be 245...I was amazed at how easy it was and never thought to check the damn weight...

Treadmill:
20:00, 235 cal, 1.76 mi

[DCR]

Nice. Now, if only I could regular squat your pause squat...

I sympathized with this in alek's log.

But wait.

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - [ 275 x 8 / BW x 10 ] x 4

275 for 8s, while also being able to hit double digit chins? I agree with your three year old: You am strong, and I am envious.

[EricK]

Nice. Now, if only I could regular squat your pause squat...

I sympathized with this in alek's log.

But wait.

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - [ 275 x 8 / BW x 10 ] x 4

275 for 8s, while also being able to hit double digit chins? I agree with your three year old: You am strong, and I am envious.

Haha, those work sets made me question my life choices.

There was a time when I would say I was decently strong. I did 415 for 3 sets of 5 once. That was low bar, the 275 x 8 was high bar.

[EricK]

Fri, 2/23/24

200.8

Press / BB row:
[ 145 x 8 / 165 x 10 ] x 3
Probably should have warmed up. 185 last time felt a little too heavy and the reps were a little too cheaty. This was better.

Deadlift / dip:
W/u - 225 x 8 / BW x 20, 315 x 5 (DOH) / +25 x 12
S - 365 x 3 (belt, o/u) / +25 x 12, [ 345 x 3 (belt, o/u) / +25 x 12 ] x 2
H - RDL / Dip:
[ 275 x 8 (DOH) / +25 x 12 ] x 2

Decided to stop there. My back was getting tired. I also don't know if I'll do the treadmill; I have some kind of cold again. This one has the delightful symptom of clogging the drainage in my eyes so that they get gunky and swollen when my eyes are closed for any length of time. It's not pink eye, but it sure looks like it. (The reason I'm so confident is that I'm the last one in the house to get it, same symptoms but they got over it within a couple days.)

[EricK]

Ok, I gave in. After resting a bit, I decided to go out for a run with my dog. Despite him stopping to poop 4 fucking times, I ran the whole time. About 2 miles, estimated pace 5.2 mph, 324 cal according to some online calorie calculator. Not bad, but my quads tightened up a lot. It's funny/sad to think how much running capacity I've lost since my heydays... Not complaining just reminiscing. I hope I'm still active and fit enough to be a good resource and example for my boys when they start thinking more about working out.

[DCR]

Nice. Now, if only I could regular squat your pause squat...

I sympathized with this in alek's log.

But wait.

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - [ 275 x 8 / BW x 10 ] x 4

275 for 8s, while also being able to hit double digit chins? I agree with your three year old: You am strong, and I am envious.

Haha, those work sets made me question my life choices.

I figured. Whether or not one can do such a thing, there's always the retrospective wtf was I thinking, and I say that as someone who loves pushing reps. I've had the thought after nearly every session lately.

There was a time when I would say I was decently strong. I did 415 for 3 sets of 5 once. That was low bar, the 275 x 8 was high bar.

"Decently." My nuts just shriveled up into my large intestine.

ETA: I have no idea if I squat low or high bar. I thought it was low but have seen some things that led me to believe that it's high, and that what I thought was high is just a ridiculous thing that no one does. Will prob post a video tomorrow so that someone can tell me.

[EricK]

Mon, 2/26/24

204.7 dafuq?

I'm stuck at home because my son gave me pink eye over the weekend. #thejoysofparenting

Guitar:
-learned the riff for Snow (Hey Oh) by the Chili Peppers. Cool, fun and challenging, so I want to see if I can play it all the way through a few times at a decent pace
-learned the open chord (mostly, since Bm isn't technically open) version of Waiting on the World to Change, including a version of the solo that sounds cool. Not well enough to play along but well enough that it's recognizable.

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 15, 275 (belt) x 5 / BW x 12
S - 315 (belt) x 3 / BW x 10, 345 x 1 / BW x 10
H - [ 295 x 5 / BW x 10 ] x 3

Pretty heavy (and low rep) to qualify as "hypertrophy" but I built up most of my strength with just fahves, so I thought what the hell?

Bench / curl:
W/u - 135 x 15 / 87 x 12, 185 x 8 / 87 x 12, 225 (belt) x 5 / 87 x 12
S - [ 255 (belt) x 3 / 87 x 12 ] x 4
H - 225 (belt) x 7 x 4

Will try to do treadmill later.

Nice. Now, if only I could regular squat your pause squat...

I sympathized with this in alek's log.

But wait.

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 12, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - [ 275 x 8 / BW x 10 ] x 4

275 for 8s, while also being able to hit double digit chins? I agree with your three year old: You am strong, and I am envious.

Haha, those work sets made me question my life choices.

I figured. Whether or not one can do such a thing, there's always the retrospective wtf was I thinking, and I say that as someone who loves pushing reps. I've had the thought after nearly every session lately.

There was a time when I would say I was decently strong. I did 415 for 3 sets of 5 once. That was low bar, the 275 x 8 was high bar.

"Decently." My nuts just shriveled up into my large intestine.

ETA: I have no idea if I squat low or high bar. I thought it was low but have seen some things that led me to believe that it's high, and that what I thought was high is just a ridiculous thing that no one does. Will prob post a video tomorrow so that someone can tell me.

Ha. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty proud of that feat.

[EricK]

Treadmill:

30:00, 382 cal, 2.89 mi

[EricK]

Tue, 2/27/24

199.9

Guitar:
1:20
-warm-up: Sitting On the Dock of the Bay a few times; strumming/rhythm breaks down a little when singing the lyrics, but it's improving.
-challenge: started learning Why Georgia; I think I got the gist of the intro riff, getting it clean and on rhythm is challenging, not to mention tempo, but progress.
-break: Fire and Rain
-finish: Waiting on the World to Change

Press / BB row:
W/u - 135 x 3 / 135 x 5
135 x 8 / 155 x 8, 155 x 5 / 175 x 8, [ 145 x 5 / 165 x 8 ] x 2

Not very structured or well thought out. Felt weak on the press today, musta been all that bench yesterday. Meh.

Deadlift / dip:
W/u - 225 x 8 / BW x 15, 315 x 3 / +25 x 12
S - 365 x 1 / +25 x 12, 405 x F / +25 x 12

This was an experiment to confirm that I should, in fact keep more separation between a heavy squat day and a heavy deadlift day. Don't yell at me. I was kinda hoping I could get 405; it wasn't a "true" failed rep in that I didn't put my all into it and couldn't finish, I just realized as soon as it broke from the floor that it would probably be a grinder and it wasn't worth it.

LTE / BO Fly:
[ 87 x 10 / 20 (ea.) x 12 ] x 3

Treadmill:
30:00, 399 cal, 3.21 mi

Values are estimates because I forgot. My workout log is at home.

Felt very good about the run, but that's probably because I didn't do much deadlift (deadlift kills my run more than squats). Either way, I'm glad I can run ok and that whatever water I retained from the weekend left yesterday and put a better number on the scale.

[KarlM]

Congrats on breaking the 200! I had a long drawn out weight loss journey a couple of years ago. I can empathize.

[EricK]

Congrats on breaking the 200! I had a long drawn out weight loss journey a couple of years ago. I can empathize.

Thanks, I just have a hard time getting it to stick...

Wed, 2/28/24

201.1



(Pay attention, @DCR)

Guitar:
2:00
-w/u: Sitting On the Dock of the Bay and [Waiting on the World to Change[/i]
-challenge: Why Georgia; more practice on the intro riff and started working on the verse.
-playing around: Times Like These, The Wind, Nothing Else Matters

[DCR]

(Pay attention, @DCR)

[EricK]

(Pay attention, @DCR)

[DCR]

Weird, your - very correct - image shows up on my phone, but not my laptop.

Won't lie, I had to fuck around for nearly a half hour last week to finally figure this shit out. Finding the img code was easy and I felt dumb, but it took me much longer to figure out that you have to link an imagine from some host site like giphy, which apparently does not include just going to Google images.

[EricK]

Weird, your - very correct - image shows up on my phone, but not my laptop.

Won't lie, I had to fuck around for nearly a half hour last week to finally figure this shit out. Finding the img code was easy and I felt dumb, but it took me much longer to figure out that you have to link an imagine from some host site like giphy, which apparently does not include just going to Google images.

The difference is whether the link ends in an image file extension (.gif, .jpeg, etc.). My link doesn't and I know the site used to not embed the image if it didn't end in an image file extension, but I previewed the post before submitting to make sure I could see it. I guess it might be due to the difference in your laptop browser vs your phone browser.

[EricK]

Thu, 2/29/24

202.3



Guitar:
1:00
-challenge: Why Georgia, Nothing Else Matters

Squat / chin:
W/u - 135 x 8 / BW x 15, 225 x 8 / BW x 12
H - 285 x 8 / +25 x 5, [ 285 x 8 / +15 x 8 ] x 2, 285 x 8 / +10 x 8

Bench / curl:
W/u - 135 x 12 / 87 x 12
H - 205 x 12 / 87 x 12, 205 x 7 / 87 x 12, 185 x 10 / 87 x 12

Boobies were dunski.

Out of time. I will try to run later.