Update
May 17th, 2008So, unlike the impression you’d get from watching this page collect cobwebs, I’ve been working out like a madman. Why haven’t I been updating? Well, laziness mostly (contradictory, I know.)
But also because I’ve been taking a more guerilla approach to the whole process. I had gotten into really planning my workouts, counting to 10, carefully checking each station off the list and being out of the gym in 30 or 40 minutes tops. I think that was really holding me back and keeping me from the aggressive, limit-pushing workouts I need to make gains. So now I’m storming into the weightroom looking at it like a buffet and enjoying myself a lot more. I also feel stronger than ever.
A note on strength: while my pounds, or reps, or both, have gone up on most exercises, they’ve actually gone done on the bench press. I think it’s more form than anything, because I can’t imagine I lost that much strength in the few months I didn’t work out. I found out that going all the way down to my chest was probably the source of my shoulder trouble. Turns out that it was also probably helping me post bigger numbers. I stop when my upper arms are parallel to the floor now and it’s a lot harder. Once I noticed this I started looking around and noticing a lot of people going all the way DOWN, but not all the way UP. I’m no weight-lifting expert, but from my experience, this seems a little bit like cheating to me.
The workout I’m jazzed about right now was something I recently saw in Men’s Journal. You row 500m as fast as possible and then go workout as hard as you can, and then get back on the rower and try to beat your pre-workout time. I set a benchmark the other day at 1:56, and then today I smashed it pre-workout with 1:53. Post-workout time was 1:56 again. I expect big gains in this fairly quickly. I want to get down to 1:45. If anyone reads this, try it and comment with your times.
kicking my own ass for the last several weeks:
10,000×999x1 (PR)
Duration: 999 minutes