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Workout Plan 2

Yesterday was deadlift day. Deadlifts are fantastic total body exercises, but where the joy really kicks in is for people who spend too much time sitting down with their hands in front of them, say at a computer. Sitting down like that isn’t great for the back, and the T-Rex pose, hands close together in front, can allow the chest muscles to tighten, causing back pain between the shoulder-blades. Deadlifts help all of that, support mobility, etc.

Warmups:

Again, the objective is a raised heartbeat.

3 sets:

70 jumping jacks
10 lunges
10 pushups
20-30 second stretches of whatever feels tight
5×40%, 5×50%, 5×60% of deadlift training max

Shake it out real good. Seriously, try shaking your hands or legs after warming up. You’ll feel silly but feel a bit more mobile later.

Primary Lifts

The objective is improve the deadlift! Build muscle and use it to burn fat.

Assistance work was walking pushups. I put my feet on a low box for space reasons, and did a pushup, walked my hands left, did a pushup, walked hands right, etc. 10 total pushups per set.

5×65%
Pushups
5×75%
Pushups
5+x85%
Pushups

Rest

High weight

Objective is prepare body for heavier lifting

1×95%
10 medicine ball jumpsquats
1×95%
10 medicine ball jumpsquats
1×95%
10 medicine ball jumpsquats

Work sets

Objective is use major muscle groups to burn off all the ice cream, beer, egg nog, cookies, etc. of the holidays. I used a trap bar (diamond bar) and a safety squat bar. Both of those don’t really match up to weights on the barbells, so I just went fairly heavy with the weights at the gym stations and tried not to get in anyone’s way. Weight was heavy enough I could only get a few reps in.

Huge gym fight about politics. I wanted to tell someone to shut up and do their work, but decided that advice would be better served by doing it myself.

5xsquats
3xtrap bar DLs
5xsquats
3xtrap bar DLs
5xsquats
3xtrap bar DLs
5xsquats
3xtrap bar DLs
5xsquats
3xtrap bar DLs

A note about weight here if you’re doing this yourself: the specifics aren’t super important. If you load up a bar at 100# and can do 4 reps in the supersets, do that. If the station doesn’t have too many plates and someone else is using them, maybe you do sets of 8. Maybe load heavier and do sets of 3. Try your best, but don’t get wrapped around the axle on numbers. In general, assistance shouldn’t go below sets of 3, and where you do go below sets of 3, like in the heavy weight sets above, don’t expect too much of those sets.

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Workout Plan 1

Monday: Bench-day

Warmups:

The objective is raise my pulse. I want to get the blood flowing to all the little muscles and tendons as well as the large ones. The methodology is low weight exercises, low speed cardio, and low intensity stretching. Low, low, low are the rules of warmups.

3 supersets:
70 jumping jacks
stretch whatever’s tight for 20-30 seconds each
10 jumpsquats or lunges (each leg)
10 pushups
5 exercise of the day (Monday is bench day, so 5 reps at a low weight. 5x 40%, 50%, 60% of training max for each of the supersets)

Exercise of the day:
5/3/1 increase in primary exercise supersetted with assistance. Yesterday I did pull-ups. The objective is maximize the amount of muscle used and hot during the primary lift to maximize muscle usage and gain. Assistance is only assistance, so weight isn’t that important.

When I say pullups, I mean getting the chin over the bar. I rotate through all grip positions I have a bar to use. Supinated, pronated, neutral, whatever is open in the gym. It’s assistance work.

5×65% bench
5x PU (or something else, say 10x jumpsquats. I do jumpsquats a lot)
5×75%
5x PU or w/e
5+x85%
Assistance if I can, but I may be dead

Rest as needed.

Max weight sets
The objective here is get the body ready for higher weight. After years of sticking to 5/3/1, I find that spending so much time at low weight leaves the nervous system unprepared for the big weight. These are assistance work sets as Wendler would describe them but critical to go heavy if you’re pushing towards PRs.

Other assistance is just more assistance. So if I was doing pullups before, I’d do deadlifts or lunges at some low weight. DL would be around 40%. The aforementioned jumpsquats would be perfect here.

1×95%
Other assistance
1×95%
Other assistance
1×95%
Other assistance

As mentioned by everyone, assistance work is assistance. I’m making my money in the main ramp up above, so if I fell like I’m about to die or fail on one of these, I drop weight immediately. They’re gravy.

Work sets:
The objective here is get some work in. The high weight sets don’t do much for building muscle mass, so 5×5 at, say, 70% is fine. I was really feeling the low air density after returning to Colorado, so I did sets of 3. Again, add supersets. I did pullups yesterday.

3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU

Light stuff and cooldowns:
Do things like grip work here. This is normally where I do long, slow stretches, like a 5 minute hamstring stretch. I couldn’t breathe, so I didn’t.

Point of interest on picking assistance: Remember the objective is use as much muscle mass as possible. Pullups invoke the back and biceps. Dips invoke chest, back and triceps. Why PU instead of dips? Because this is bench day, and I’m already using chest and triceps. I’m pushing them to the limit in the open sets, and working them hard everywhere else. I can add a lot of bicep and back work without hitting the limits of other muscle groups, without increasing my recovery time, and getting that added muscle mass usage.

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Subaru

My subbie had this issue where after a while on cruise control, the brake pedal resisted movement. If I had to brake, I had to stomp on the pedal to get any response. It did that for years.

I just had the brakes done and during the process had the brake lines replaced with braided lines. Now I can brake out of cruise much easier.

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Colorado

I always forget how little air there is in this state. I got winded carrying in groceries: not out-of-breath panting winded, but definitely felt the walk. It was less than twenty feet.

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Colorado

Driving west on I-70, coming into Colorado, I first saw Pike’s Peak just east of MM 379. There was a farmhouse in the way, with a blue barnish building and a tall evergreen tree, but between the outbuildings the blue summit of the peak rose in the distance. It put a smile on my face, and I grinned for the next hundred miles.

Welcome home to me.

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Happy New Year

Happy NY everyone.

I’ll be heading home tomorrow, swinging north, and crossing the Great Lakes. I’ll cross the last two of the 48 contiguous states off my list. Hopefully I’ll get some sketching in.