Mitch’s goof off space

Thinking about the phrase ‘train until failure’, there are a few ways to interpret that.  In my mind, there’s three kinds of ‘training until failure’:

1: On your last rep, you feel like you can’t do anymore

2: You attempt another rep, barely finishing or stalling

3: Someone tells you to do another rep even though you swear you couldn’t do another

Method three harnesses your best results (as long as you’re not inviting injury or overtraining) and is the hardest to reach in my opinion.  That’s part of why I think leg day is hard; in the third method you have a fear of not being able to finish, which is different for different exercises.  For instance, when curling a cambered bar while standing, even if you can’t finish you can just lower the bar while still holding it.  With leg exercises, if you fail on a rep you risk falling down or otherwise losing balance.  I think this makes exhausting your leg muscles quite a bit harder.

… is to incorrectly figure the bar’s weight.  I was under the impression that the bars at the gym were 30 pounds, but Wikipedia says a normal Olympic 7′ bar is 20kg/44.1lbs.  If so I guess I just upped my bench by 15lbs.  Whoops.

Life’s general unease has kept me from the gym for a bit, but a previous roommate has signed back up with my gym so I’m obliged to go tonight.  Can he help get me out of my funk?  I do look forward to it because, of the people I have worked out with, he is the only one both markedly stronger and willing to push and be pushed.  I am a person who, while being a natural leader, responds well to instruction.  If someone tells me to do two more, I will try without hesitation.  It is much harder for me to tell myself to do two more.

I think I’ve come to accept that 155lbs is where my weight is pretty much going to be staying.  I seem to not be able to fluctuate more than a pound in either direction, no matter how lean or much I eat.  I’d like to be bigger but I’m just not up to committing to eating to be bigger.  I am lucky though, that for the most part I’m happy with the progress I have made and wouldn’t be upset if this is where I’m peaking.

I am a very picky person when it comes to my gear.  It’s taken a few tries for me to find a running shoe that I feel comfortable with, and I’m happy to say the Asics GT-2110 fits the bill.  It’s strength is that it is an all arounder that doesn’t favor or try to correct for pronation or any other gait abnormalities, so it’s best suited for small or medium runners with a ‘normal’ step.  So give these a look if you have the same needs as I do, I think you’ll be pleased.

A note: try not to wear running shoes to the gym if you are going to be doing standing weight lifting exercises - the gel/air/abzorb cushions in the soles can make balancing more difficult.