2/20/20

Woke up at 0145 and stayed in bed until about 0340.

Air Bike Sprints:

• 5 min warm-up

• 12 sprints of 15/45 work/rest

• 5 min cooldown

Fun session. Covered just over 7 miles in ~22 minutes. I actually felt much stronger than I thought I would when I rolled out of bed. Excited to lift tomorrow morning.

Got a good walk in with Zeus this afternoon as well. The weather here has been great and we’ve been able to do that every day this week. Cali walked him this morning too so his hips seems to be doing well.

2/18/20

0400 training in the garage:

• Axle OHP - 95 x 3, 105 x 3, 120 x 5, 95 x 3 x 5 - easy day

• Snatches - 24 kg x 104 in five minutes - 10/10, 10/10, 10/10, rest, 10/10, rest, 12/12 - This was easy but my legs were still tired from Sunday. I didn’t realize it until about halfway through. Next week I may have to wait until Wednesday to do my snatches.

• Chins - 10 minute running clock:

  • 4 reps on the minute the first five minutes

  • 2 reps on the minute the second five minutes

The chins kind of kicked my ass today. Maybe because my body weight has been creeping up. I need to get back under 220.

2/17/20

Mondays have been my rest days the last month and a half. It’s been working well so I’m going to keep it that way. I’m off work today for President’s Day, but I did get up and take Zeus for a ~3 mile hike at Green Lane Park. It’s a beautiful mid-February day here with sunshine and temperatures in the mid-40s. I might get one more walk in later but we’ll see.

Last night was the third night of great sleep I had in a row, plus I took a nap both Saturday and Sunday of last weekend. I hadn’t slept well in a while, so this has made a huge difference in how I feel. I credit three things for my good sleep.

1. It being a long weekend for me allowed me to really feel relaxed.

2. I didn’t drink any alcohol this weekend. Sometimes drinking disrupts my sleep.

3. I wore my ear plugs every night and was pretty much dead to the world.

I’m fired up to press and do some kettlebell snatches tomorrow morning. It should be a blast.

2/16/20

Walked Zeus one awesome mile first thing this morning, then trained in the basement. Knee sleeves only on the squats. No belt or straps on anything.

• Squats - 190 x 3, 220 x 3, 245 x 5 - felt solid

• Deadlifts - 260 x 3, 300 x 3, 335 x 4

• Over the shoulder tosses with 100-lb med ball - 3 x 5 every 90 seconds

• Suitcase carries - 28 kg x 4 trips (left down, right back)

Fun session. The goal was for everything to feel light and not overdo it. Mission accomplished.

My goal with squatting and deadlifting on Sundays is to get the two biggest lifts done together and give myself the rest of the week to recover a bit. I’ve been reading and listening to Marty Gallagher talk about recovery and it has me thinking. We’ll see how this goes.

2/15/20

Went outside this morning in the 9 F temperatures. There was no wind though so it wasn’t bad.

20 rounds of 45 seconds:

• Odds - Quad mace swings of various directions.

• Evens - Seated box jumps. Used the 30” for sets 1-7, 32.25” for set 8, and 33” for my last two sets. These felt great.

Followed this up with one awesome mile with Zeus. My neighbor who had complained about noise recently was outside and said he heard this banging again on Thursday morning. I didn’t train most of last week though, including Thursday, so I may have finally convinced him that it’s not me making the noise.

2/14/20

Trained early this morning in the basement. Really had a fun session. I started a new 5/3/1 Powerlifting cycle. That should work out nicely leading up to my meet in April.

• Bench - 160 x 3, 180 x 3, 205 x 3 - felt very solid

• KB Incline Bench - 22s x 4 x 12

• Skull Crushers and Close Grip Bench with EZ Curl Bar - 10 kg x 10, 15 kg x 3 x 10

• Landmine Rows - 90 x 7 x 12 - these were all done supersetted with the above two exercises

• Ab wheel - 3 x 5

Great Friday bro session. I was really excited to get back to training. I followed this up by walking Zeus one awesome mile.

2/8/20

I did a push/pull meet at Anchor Life + Fitness in Kennett Square, PA, today. This was an unsanctioned charity meet created to raise money for a young boy with leukemia. It ended up being a ton of fun and Cali and I met some very kind and caring people.

The gym actually had really nice Rogue equipment, and the warm-up area and equipment were better than some of the bigger, sanctioned meets I’ve done over the years. It was kind of weird just doing bench and deadlift without squatting first. I had absolutely zero expectations for the day since I just added barbell training back in about seven weeks ago. I haven’t benched anything over 200 pounds because of a shoulder issue or deadlifted anything over 365 pounds in about a year and a half. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised with my lifts, even though they were still far less than impressive.

• Bench - 198, 220, 242

• Deadlift - 330, 375, 407

Everything felt pretty fast, easy, and solid. This definitely got me fired up for the Marty Gallagher/Kirk Karwoski/Jim Steel bench/overhead press workshop I’m going to in a few weeks and the Starting Strength seminar I’m going to next month. I may have to find a full meet later this year and get signed up.

I absolutely love having a home gym and the easy access to everything a gym rat could possibly want right in my garage/basement, but the one thing that I am lacking is quality training partners. When I first started getting serious about powerlifting, I didn’t really think about how big of an effect atmosphere could have on my performance or how motivating it is to be around a group of like-minded people who want to get stronger. Even the small audience at the meet yesterday, many of whom probably knew very little about lifting, made a huge difference in my mindset going up to the bar for each lift. I absolutely knew I was going to make my last deadlift even though it was 40 pounds over anything I’ve touched in a very long time. The crowd had me all pumped up and I knew it would come up.

One of the other lifters at the meet was this guy, Julian. He was one of those people with the gift of gab who came off as very personable. Julian trains at Iron Sport in Glenolden, and he said the atmosphere there is just incredible. Seeing 600 pound deadlifts on a regular basis gets a person out of his/her own head and makes it seem very ordinary and attainable. I need to find or create that atmosphere somehow or some way.

I’m going to take a deload this week and get rested up before starting a new cycle. Looking forward to things to come.

2/5/20

Early morning training in the basement.

• Front Squats - 225 x 3 x 2 - felt solid

• KB Single Arm Rack Holds - 40 kg x 4 x 15 sec/arm

Short and sweet. Felt a little run down this morning. I haven’t slept well the last few weeks. Time to rest up for the push/pull meet on Saturday. Should be fun.

2/4/20

Great training session in the garage at 0400.

• Axle OHP - 125 x 3 x 2

• 20 EMOM:

  • Odd minutes - Snatches - 32 kg x 5/5 - 100 total

  • Even minutes - Dips - BW x 3 - 30 total

This was a lot of fun and a perfect way to start the day. I went a while without doing heavy snatches, and adding them back in has been a a wake-up call. I’ve been alternating weeks between the 24 and 28, but I think now I’m going to run a few three-week waves of 24, 28, and 32 and see how that goes.

The snatches and dips were similar to a workout I did in the Fairfield Inn parking lot in Webster, NY, last summer. I was up there for work and brought my trusty 32 kg kettlebell. In that particular workout, I did snatches and push-ups under the bright sunny sky.

Zeus doing a big stretch this morning.

2/2/20

Awesome movement session today. Felt like a million bucks afterwards.

10 kg mace - 12 EMOM:

• Odd minutes - 10 360s

• Even minutes - 15 10-2s

This was fun and easy.

Went downstairs for some intervals on the rower. Warmed up and cooled down with 500m. Did 10 intervals in between of 100m/1:00 rest. 100m times (in seconds) are listed below. This was my first time ever adjusting the drag on the rower. It certainly makes a big difference.

1. 18.3

2. 17.9

3. 17.4

4. 17.2

5. 17.1

6. 17.1

7. 17.2

8. 17.1

9. 16.9

10. 16.7

I had gotten fired up about doing the rower after talking to Bill (not Wimble) at Home Depot yesterday. Bill is some random guy who works at HD and started telling us about some of his rowing feats. He was a very nice, knowledgeable, and interesting guy.

2/1/20

Woke up with an absolutely raging headache. I must not have drank enough tequila last night. I took Zeus for a walk and then headed to the basement to train.

• Deadlifts - 330 x 3 x 3 - belt only, easy

• Hang Cleans - 50 kg x 2 x 5; 60 x 1 x 5; 70 x 2 x 3; 75 x 3 x 3

• March in place with double 24s racked - 5 sets of 30 seconds with 30 seconds rest in between

Good session, especially considering how I felt when I woke up. My neighbor complained to me yesterday that he could hear a loud banging between 0430 and 0500 yesterday morning. He knows we work out at home so he immediately assumed it was me. I can’t imagine he could hear me in my basement doing my basic bro session while he was all the way upstairs in his bedroom. It seems impossible, especially since the only thing I did that made any noise was landmine rows, and it’s not like I slam those down after each set. Fuck it.

1/31/20

Good Friday bro session in the basement at 0400.

• Bench - 185 x 3 x 3

• Landmine Rows - 45 x 15; 90 x 12; 115 x 5 x 12 - did these in between sets of KB Incline Bench and KB Kneeling OHP

• KB Incline Bench - 24s x 4 x 10

• KB Kneeling OHP - 12 x 3 x 10

• KB Curls - 12s x 3 x 10 superset with

• Suitcase Carries - 32 x 3 trips (3 basement lengths/arm)

• Ab wheel - 3 x 5

1/29/20

Trained in the basement at 0400 with Zeus helping me out.

• Front Squats - 210 x 3 x 3 - felt very solid

• Two-handed swings - 40 kg x 10 x 10 EMOM

• Took Zeus for a walk ~1.25 miles on a beautiful crisp morning

I’m really excited about how my front squats are coming along. In December, I could barely even hold 185 without feeling like I was going to drop it.

My trusty 40 kg.

1/28/20

Trained in the garage at 0400. Didn’t sleep great but felt strong once I got going.

• Axle Press - 120 x 3 x 3 - This was easy. Kept the volume super low.

• KB Snatches - 28 kg x 9 EMOM x 7/7 - 126 total - had a lower back pump at the end so my form may have gotten sloppy

• Weighted Chins - 14 kg x 8 x 3 - varying grips

Tried to walk Zeus but he wasn’t having it. We did a few miles in the afternoon though so all is well.

1/26/20

Walked Zeus one awesome mile and then did a very enjoyable workout to get moving.

HIIT intervals on the Air Bike:

• 5 minute warm-up

• 11 intervals of 15/45 sprint/recover

• 5 minute cooldown

Went outside and played with the Quad Mace: Just did 10 EMOM of 5/5 360s.

Great session that opened me up and worked out some kinks from yesterday.

1/25/20

Normally I would play with the mace on a Saturday morning but it is absolutely pouring rain here so I decided to move my deadlifts to today.

• Deadlifts - 315 x 5 x 5 - no belt, straps on the last two sets

• Hang Cleans - 70 kg x 4 x 2 - I didn’t do a good job of tracking these sets, but they felt okay.

Hopefully the rain will let up later and I can walk Zeus. He seemed pretty content to be sleeping on the couch this morning so I don’t think he missed our morning walk too much.

Edit: Zeus and I got a couple miles in this afternoon. We got rained on the last 10 minutes but it was in the mid-40s so we were fine. I’m so grateful for every walk I can get with my doggy.

1/24/20

I woke up at 0230 to pee and Zeus came in about 0315 to see if I wanted to go for a walk so we went and walked one awesome mile.

Training:

• Bench - 175 x 5 x 5

• BB Rows - 90 kg x 4 x 5 were top sets

• KB Incline bench - 22s x 3 x 10 superset with

• KB Rows - 24 x 3 x 10

• BB Curls - Four sets of whatever

Fun Friday bro session in the basement with Zeus helping out.

1/22/20

Trained at 0400 again this morning.

• Front Squats - 195 x 5 x 5

• One-Arm KB Cleans - 32 kg x 5 x 5 EMOM

• Ab Wheel - 3 x 5

Fun session. I wore my knee sleeves during squats and it actually felt really good. I think I’ll start doing that from now on.

1/21/20

Trained in the garage at 0400 today. It was about 25 F out there, and I loved every minute of it. Zeus came out to keep me company for a while but got bored as I warmed up.

• Axle OHP - 115 x 5 x 5 - felt solid

• Snatch Test - 24 kg x 104 in 5 minutes - 10/10, rest, 10/10, rest, 10/10, rest, 10/10, rest, 12/12 - This was easy.

• Chins - 10 x 3 EMOM with varying grips

Once I got to work, I had six eggs with green beans and steak. What a fucking awesome way to start the day.

1/20/20

Off for MLK Day today, so I took advantage and went to Valley Forge for a five-mile hike this morning. The only downside was that I couldn’t bring Zeus. The cold weather has really been bothering his hips.

It was a beautifully crisp morning with temperatures in the high teens. When I came off the trail and walked past Washington’s Headquarters, the sun was coming up and starting to warm the ground.