mjh's training log

[atypical1]

Great job. Second the encouragement for 100kg. You'll get there before you know it.

james

[jfh26]

Congrats on the BW squat - mine felt great too! Unfortunately, I posted some video and my form is not as tight as I wanted before increasing the weight further, so I have to take a deload. But you look like you're still going strong - keep it up!

[mjh]

Thanks guys, it's pretty cool to have the landmarks close together, I can build on the momentum. 100kg coming soon!

Tuesday 29 September, 2009... damn this year's going fast

Squats
20kg, 2x5; 60kg, 1x5; 80kg, 1x3
95kg, 5x5 PR

felt really good here, stronger than last time at 92.5kg. I had a very sore posterior chain going in. I asked Jason if he would knead my ass and thighs before the workout, but he refused. And I thought he was my friend.

I actually feel like having some soreness helps. When sore, you're very conscious of where your muscles are and what they're doing. I got a little achy in my shoulder, but not too bad.

Push Ups
8/8/8/6/4

good effort here, despite the last two sets, which were done in a bit of a rush.

IRs
bar at xyphoid height: 10/8/7

Smith Push Ups
knee height: 16/12/11

DBRs
28kg, 3x8

bumped it up a notch today, and handled the new weight well. Will repeat once and then go to 30kg.

All in all a pretty good day. Feeling confident about the 100kg squats coming up.

[Kathy]

Great job on the BW squat, mjh!!!

I asked Jason if he would knead my ass and thighs before the workout, but he refused. And I thought he was my friend.

Well, I think your request was a bit above and beyond the call of friendship! Would have made for some humorous viewing though

[jnjh]

"Humorous" viewing INDEED! ... and it will never happen!

Thankfully, I suspect that if I were actually to oblige mjh (why, oh why, I would do such thing is ... impossible to fathom) he would turn me down anyway! Go figure.

[mjh]

a little late adding this workout from earlier in the month...

Friday October 2, 2009

Squats
20kg, 2x5; 60kg, 1x5; 80kg, 1x3
95kg, 5x5

OHP
20kg, 2x5; 30kg, 1x5
37.5kg, 5x5

Deadlift
60kg, 1x5; 90kg, 1x5; 120kg, 1x3
130kg, 1x5
140kg, 1x1

snatch grip, 60kg, 1x12

Pull Ups
blue band: 4*/4/3*

Iso Push ups and BTNPAs superset
Iso Push up: 3x20
BTNPAs: 3x30 sec

[mjh]

and now todays workout...

forgive me brothers and sisters for I have sinned, it has been 9 days since my last workout. A step backward in my training, but the silver lining is that it is due to some major leaps forward in my university work. Though uni is my #1 priority, I do need to strike a better balance between it and getting to the gym.

I got back in there today, and took it slow, but got a bit of work done in the end.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Squat
20kg, 2x5; 60kg, 1x5; 80kg, 1x3
90kg, 3x3
60kg, 1x12

90kg felt good on my back. I didn't go for fives on that because I was lifting outside a rack and didn't feel 100% confident going close to the edge (the other, better racks were taken, and this one is too narrow to comfortably squat inside. Dumb, I know). Good session to ease me back into it.

Push Ups
feet: 6/6/6

felt weak on these, but won't get hung up on it. I usually do these on a wheel chair ramp (its next to the bench so I can spot Jason between sets, and its width allows me to set up with 100% consistency) which has a slight incline, like two or three inches worth, but not so much that I feel I'm cheating it. If you feel that's been inflating my astonishing push up numbers, sue me.

Smith push ups
knee height, 3x10

DBRs
26kg, 2x8
22kg, 1x15

Face Pulls
30lbs, 1x20
36lbs, 1x20

That's it. I want to continue working out even while I'm flat out at uni, I just have to make it happen.

[mjh]

a pretty bloody average day today

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Squat
20kg, 2x5; 60kg, 1x5; 80kg, 1x3
90kg, 3/2/3

So, this morning I had some pretty good DOMs in my thighs, nothing out of the ordinary. In the gym I did a warm up set of overhead squats with a broomstick, and straight away my left thigh pumped right up, and the DOMs got a whole lot worse. I didn't feel like I'd injured it, but it was weird, almost like a cramp, but not quite. I did some more stretches and what not, and decided to keep going. It didn't interfere with my ROM, and didn't cause me great pain, but it did seem to affect my strength. There was no way i could have done 5 on those top reps. On the second rep of the second set I descended way too fast, the bar it the pins, and I got buried. Not hurt, but plenty embarrassed. I thought about chucking it in, but decided to harden up and do one more set.

I'm not panicking about this. 99% sure it's just some weird aberration. Ice on my thigh now, just in case, and some foam rolling in the days to come. We'll see what happens on Friday.

OHP
20kg, 2x5; 30kg, 1x5
37.5kg, 5/4/3/3/2
30kg, 1x7

pretty shit again. I was trying the false (no thumbs) grip for the first time, so that might have had some effect.

Deadlift
60kg, 1x5; 90kg, 1x3
120kg, 1x5
snatch grip, 60kg, 1x10

Given my performance so far, I wasn't taking any chances with the deads. Stuck to a safe weight of 120kg. Snatch grips killed my hamstrings, in a good way.

Chin Ups
blue band: 6/4/4

A ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day of training.

So, this all comes down to the same old story: lax attitude to training (I'm consumed by uni stuff right now), slackening off on the diet etc etc. I'm not happy with the balance and will be redressing it.

[mjh]

I almost witnessed some carnage in the gym today. A biggish guy was doing what he would have claimed were clean and jerks, but the clean was being caught on top of vertical forearms, and the jerk was being pushed out in front of him at a 45 degree angle, rather than above his head (there was no lock out, obviously). This is with 60kg. What this was doing to his shoulders I hate to imagine. Anyway, the inevitable happened... he lost control of the bar at then end of one of his jerks. Somehow, miraculously, he managed to hang on to it, lunge forward, and catch it before it crashed into the rack in front of him, and to do this without doing himself an injury.

I made a mental note to keep my distance when he's working out!

[bkklift]

I almost witnessed some carnage in the gym today. A biggish guy was doing what he would have claimed were clean and jerks, but the clean was being caught on top of vertical forearms, and the jerk was being pushed out in front of him at a 45 degree angle, rather than above his head (there was no lock out, obviously). This is with 60kg. What this was doing to his shoulders I hate to imagine. Anyway, the inevitable happened... he lost control of the bar at then end of one of his jerks. Somehow, miraculously, he managed to hang on to it, lunge forward, and catch it before it crashed into the rack in front of him, and to do this without doing himself an injury.

I made a mental note to keep my distance when he's working out!

I want to give him credit for at least doing clean and jerks but man, that just sounds terrible. Or maybe he was trying for a new hybrid exercise, the clean-jerk-forward lunge...

You've got the right idea by staying well clear of this guy when he's working out!

[jnjh]

Ahh you should have joined me at 8am! You wouldn't have witnessed that near carnage. Was quite busy though, I was surprised. I recognized most of the faces too and found myself wondering why we were all there at such a time. Maybe some of those crazies go twice a day? Or just a happy coincidence.

[Leot]

Nice squats and deads mjh, curious as to why you are trying the OHP without your thumb, sounds like a good way to drop the bar?

[mjh]

Thanks Leo. I was trying out the false grip after reading some discussion about it in this thread. I did feel that it helped the bar movement stay a bit straighter, and I don't feel it made it much more dangerous. I think I'll try it again next time and see how I feel about it.

[Kathy]

Hey mjh, glad your back lifting. Not a bad start back either after the time off. And definitely stay away from the C&J guy...you don't want to be collateral damage.
What are you doing at uni? Student, teacher, undergrad, grad, doctorate, etc. Sorry if you have already written about it and I missed it.
With thumbless grip, is your thumb on the bar, sort of braced under it and just not around it? Or is it on top of the bar, like for squats and you press with only the heel of your hand?

[mjh]

sorry for the late reply Kathy. I'm a grad student in History. I'm doing an honours degree, which in American context would be the first year's worth of course work for a masters degree. In NZ an honours is a stand-alone degree, with the masters being a single year of independent research. Things are really frantic right now, as I have a bunch of writing to get done, which is why my workouts and posting here have been erratic. The end is in sight, however.

Yesterday I was really stuck with a piece of writing I was working on, so decided to take a break and get into the gym. I decided to just go and have fun, and I'm really glad I went.

Thursday, 22 October 2009

Squats
20kg, 2x5; 60kg, 1x5; 80kg, 1x3
90kg, 3x5

please to see that 90kg remains a safe weight for me, despite a slackness in training over the last few weeks.

OHP
20kg, 2x5
30kg, 5x5

A light weight here, just having fun, like I said.

Snatch-grip Deadlift
60kg, 3x8

given my poor diet and rest over the last little while, I didn't feel like there was much point in having a thrash on the deadlift. So I chose to do the snatch-grip deads, which I really like. Because I'm tall, they really challenge me to get down to the bar, taxing my hamstrings, and the wide grip scorches my traps. In fact, my upper back is probably where sl5x5 is having the greatest effect. I've always had more interest in getting a big broad back and shoulders than having perky chesticles.

Chins
no band: 2
blue band: 4/4/4/3

home for a shower and then off to a university graduate dinner, which was great (well-catered!). At one point the deputy vice chancellor of the university approached me and said "ah, Mr Healy, Giselle [the chair of the history department] speaks very highly of you". I had a minor panic moment hearing this, but it's pretty gratifying, for sure.