Notes from a Savage

Today was my early morning scheduled workout. Waking up at 4:30 AM sounds so much better the night before than it does when you actually have to wake up that early. But I committed to it, so despite my intense desire to hit the snooze (hell, turn the alarm off, period), I dragged myself out of bed, chugged down a pack of Animal Pump, and headed out to the living room to prep. (Love Animal Pump, but don’t love the 30-45 minute wait. C’est la vie.)
The workout for today was Break-in B - deadlifts, step-ups, two point rows, pull-downs and reverse crunches. To keep in line with the New Rules, I upped my deadlift, step-up and row weight to 80#, 55# and 27.5#, respectively. (I probably could have just upped one, but I was feeling ambitious this morning.) They were hard, but even with the extra weight today wasn’t as difficult my previous Break-in B, session - and I could _definitely_ notice increased hand strength, although the last round of rows were especially hard on my hands.

I’m going to have to figure out a new pull-down solution, though - my jury-rigged pull-up bar/resistance band pull down broke. Well, the resistance band part did. The band tore at the handle, but happily I saw it as it was happening and avoided hurting anything. I did pull-ups instead, but can’t do 15 pull-ups yet (maxed at 10). The crunches were cake, as usual, and I upped my second set to 20 again. I think I’ll up them to 2×25 next time.
I realized something else between last workout and this. Apparently I don’t read very well, but mainly I discovered that I’ve trimmed more fat than I thought. I’ve been reading the units on my BF caliper as 1 mm since, well, I got it. But there are only five notches between 0 and 10mm, which means they’re actually 2mm each. So instead of being at 8mm, I’m at 6mm, and BF is a few points lower than I thought. I’m right around 10%, instead of the 12-13% I thought I was at!

Suggestions for a really basic pull-down system would be appreciated. Note that I don’t have any kind of rack, nor space to put one, so my options are limited.

I had extra time this morning, so I decided to do an extra New Rules workout this week. So back to Break-A, the same workout I did on Wednesday. And despite using the same weight as before*, today’s workout seemed much harder. I’m not sure if it was because I did a New Rules workout yesterday, or the, uh, carnal calisthenics with my wife last night, or some random factor (I’m still too new at this to be able to make such distinctions), but Break-in A today was really hard.

The quick workout rundown (all dumbbells, when using weights): Squats 2×15 @ 70#, alternating static lunges 2×15 (L/R) @ 60# and two-point elbow out rows 2×15 (L/R) @ 30#, alternating push-ups 2×20 and swiss-ball crunches 2×20.
Other misc notes: I went gloveless for the entire workout today, and seemed to have a tad more hand strength, and Purple Wraath is god-awful with lukewarm water. (I forgot to put a shaker bottle in the fridge early enough to get it nice and cold.)

Also, this mornings measurements unearthed a new twist that I’m going to have to wrap my brain around. My weight went up, but my bodyfat went down. I’ve been hovering at/below 170# since January, kind of static, and similarly hovering at  9mm on my Accumeasure for about the same time. (The Accumeasure has a little chart that translate mm to bodyfat % based on age, but it always seems a little high. The navy formula consistently charts me a few points lower. So usually I just split the difference. However, the Accumeasure is a great weight to chart progress, without worrying about the actual bodyfat %. But I digress.) The last few days my weight has been up, and I measured my BF today, and it was down to 8mm.

I know for many, the cycle of bulking/cutting is old hat, but I’m new at this, and spent the last year dropping from 205# down to my low of 168#. To go back _up_ in weight after so much focusing on dropping it is a bit of a shock, even thought I intellectually know that I’m building muscle, not gaining fat (since my BF is going down), and that muscle is (reportedly) heavier than fat. Still, something I’m going to have to get used to. I guess I’m finally at that point where I have to make the distinction of what my specific lifting goal is.
* I really meant to add 5# more to my squats, and even thought I did. But apparently math is not my strong suit on Sunday mornings, and ended up at 70#, not 75# like I was planning. Thank goodness I don’t work in the space program or anything like that.

Today was my second New Rules workout, so Break-in B. Deadlifts and step-ups and pull-downs, oh my. I lack a proper pull-down machine, so I cleverly used a resistance band and pull-up bar to jimmy one for this workout. (Well, I thought it was clever. Apparently this is old hat to many folks.) I will have to find a better long-term solution (or simply just do pull-ups, but I can’t manage 2×15 pull-ups quite yet. Heck, 10 pull-ups are murder for me at the moment.

Being a tad conservative, I started with a 75# deadlift (2x 37.5# dumbbells), which is still heavier than I’ve done before, especially at 15 reps. I’m used to 3×12, not 2×15. You’d think there wouldn’t be much difference, but there is. I definitely can do more weight here (which means I’m going to need more plates, much to my wife’s chagrin). While my heart was thumping after both sets, the lift still seemed relatively "easy", even on the second set - that is to say I wasn’t quivering by the end.

Alternating step-ups and presses are another story. Actually, the step-ups weren’t too bad (2x 25#), although I could feel the weights really straining my hand strength at the end, especially since you really do four sets, 2x of each left and right. But it was the one-arm presses (25#) that were really hard. Really hard. Did I mention they were hard? Despite that, I had one of those "oh wow" moments as I flashed back to just a few months ago when I couldn’t make it through two sets of 15# presses. Progress is nice.

Finally this Break-in B routine ends doing alternating pull-downs and reverse crunches. Every the step-ups and presses, this was like icing on the cake. In fact, instead of 2×15, I did one set of 15 then the second set of 20 - and still felt like I had more in the tank. I think I’m going to have to find a way to make the pull-downs more effective. The resistance band wrapped around the pull-up bar was okay, but really, not enough. (Perhaps I should just gut-up and down pull-ups.)

I did discover something interesting today - I don’t think I like gloves. I got them because my original dumbbells (those 15# ones I mentioned earlier) had really rough/sharp grips, and they seriously roughed up my hands by the end of a workout. But I’m using adjustable dumbbells with a softer grip now. I took them off after the first L/R set of step-ups and presses, and felt like I had a lot more strength in my hands afterwards. I’m going to go gloveless for awhile and see how that works out.

So I got the New Rules of Lifting (the one for men, not the New Rules for Women), read it and decided to try the program. The profile that fit me best is the Man of Constant Obligation, so I decided to use that as a starting point. I’d do the Eternal Beginner, but well, I really am a beginner (haven’t been lifting a year) and I haven’t lost my fitness motivation since I started this deal last year. So Man of Obligation program for me.

Today was the first day of doing the New Rules, so Workout A. Right now I’m a home gym guy (ie, my living room) so I do all my exercises with my trusty dumbbells. Happily I bought some extra 10# plates this weekend, so I was set. (I fondly look at my 5# and 10# dbs and remember when they were challenging. Today I was "loading up" with 35# per for the squats. What a change a year makes.) I was up at 4:30 AM (remember that Obligation thing - wife, kid, job, etc), and an Animal Pump pack, some cold Purple Wraath prepped (yes, I’m somewhat of a supplement junkie), and I was ready to lift by 5:00 or so.

My home routines are usually 45 minutes to an hour. This was 20 minutes. But WHAT a 20 minutes! I loaded on the weight (for me), so I was squatting 70 lbs (2x 35# dbs), lunging 60 lbs (2x 30#) and doing 30# rows (New Rules style - those two-point rows are something fierce). I added an extra 5 pushups to match 20 pushups and 20 swiss-ball curls (I’m compulsive that way). And wow. Like I said, I’m used to working out longer, doing 3×12 instead of 2×15 - but by the time I was done with this I was huffing and sore. A good sore, but I haven’t been this sore from a workout since … well, since I first started.

Can’t wait to do Workout B.