StrongerGeek’s BodyBlog

Today I was planning on just doing some midsection work and some cardio.  But I have been reading the deadlift chapter in Starting Strength and my shoulder was feeling fine, so I did several light sets (95 lbs) of deadlifts to work on my form, paying attention to the points in the book.  Honestly, I’ve never been comfortable with deadlifts.  They have always felt awkward and wrong to me.  The book has really helped already because today I felt fine on the lift, and only awkward on the return to the ground.  I’m halfway there!

You know doing deadlifts on a day with no other lifts was nice.  I have always put them at the end of leg day, and even before the shoulder I always had an excuse to drop them off the end of the workout.  I needed to get back to work, or I was too tired from squatting, or whatever.  I think I might keep trying it this new way and do it once a week on an abs/cardio day instead.  When do you do your deadlifts?

My cardio today was awesome.  I normally go at a fairly even pace for about 20 minutes.  Certainly not relaxing, but also not pushing myself hard.  Today I alternated every other minute : one minute at my normal pace then one minute at a high-intensity, sprint pace.  Wow.  Normally I burn about 270-280 calories in 20 minutes.  Today I burned 335 calories in 20 mintutes.  It felt great.
I need to push myself harder, more often.  I need to learn not to be so complacent.

I did barbell bench presses for the first time since the injury lay-off (I had been doing only DBs since then).  I read half of the bench press chapter last night in Starting Strength and was eager to try out some of the advice in there.  What a great book.

I felt a little weak, especially on the right side, but I did pull off 185 lbs x 2 which I was happy with.  I think I can up the rep count next time because I burned myself out at 135 lbs with too many reps.  I was thinking 135 was going to be my working set because it would be the most weight the shoulder could take.  But at the end of a zillion reps the shoulder felt fine, and I decided to try 185…

What else did I do?  Incline bench presses with 50 lbs dumbbells.  The take-off nagged my shoulder a little bit, but overall also fine.  Also DB rows at 65 lbs which is now only 5 lbs off my pre-injury working weight.  On the other hand, I BB curled only 75 lbs, which is still a fair bit off my PR.  Still no pullups.  I’m itching to go back to them, but the thought makes me cringe with imaginary pain.  April.  In April I think I will be able return to pullups.

I’ve put on a bit of weight and gone up in BF lately.  Part of that is my workouts have been a bit wimpy.  (That part is getting better as my shoulder heals).  The other part is over the last couple of weeks my diet has been a bit lax.  Not horrible or anything, but not up to my usually completely anal-retentive-obssessed-nut-job levels.
I’m very excited that the shoulder is getting better.  One trick I’ve learned over the last few weeks is to put ice on it after the workout.  So I’m off to get the cold pack I’ve got stuffed in the freezer.  Good workouts to all of you…

Ugh.  I wrote a whole big blog entry and lost it, darnit.  I don’t have the time to write it again.

I’ll just say quickly, I got my copy of Starting Strength yesterday.  I read the first chapter on the squat and went to the gym last night and worked on my form, just me and the Oly bar.  No plates.  This book will teach me many things…

I did a quick and dirty upper body workout today.  My shoulder is a little sore, but I pushed it a little hard today.  I have some ice on it now, and I think it’s going to be fine.  I benched 60 lbs dumbbells today!  Woohoo.  I still have a ways to go, I know, but I’m excited to be on the road back to where I was before the injury.

I focused on chest today:

DB Press 60 lbs x 16, x9

DB Incline Press 47.5 lbs x 12, x 10

BB Incline Press 115 lbs x 10, x 8

Cable Crossovers (?) lbs x 10, x 8

The shoulder was the limiting factor for me at the end, but I was excited that on the flat bench I went until my muscles simply couldn’t lift the weights anymore.  That’s the first time I’ve benched until failure since the injury.  I did dumbbell rows with 60 lbs weights today too, another post-injury record.

I really focused hard today on intensity.  In particular, I tried to really limit the amount of rest between sets today.  It really paid off, since I got my entire workout done in less than 50 minutes.

Back from Florida.  Like I said earlier, the week was a mixed bag.  My diet wasn’t so hot (drinking, desserts, etc.) but I did go four times to the surprisingly good hotel gym.  There were no squat racks or anything, but they did have a nice dumbbell set and some good benches.

We got back late Thursday.  Friday I was fried, but I dragged myself to the gym and just did some cardio (something I didn’t do at all on vacation.)  It felt good, but my back was a little sore from all the travelling.  I just got back from this morning’s workout.  It was an upper body workout, and I decided to throw caution to the wind and finally do a ‘balanced’ upper body workout.  That is, I didn’t favor my right, injured shoulder at all.  It went fairly well.  I benched 55 lbs dumbbells which is the highest weight I’ve done since the injury and it went okay.  A little sore on take-off and landing, but otherwise fine.  Amazing how much strength I’ve lost in two months.  But I’m happy, this was the best upper body workout I’ve had since the injury.  I actually felt a pump on my right side for a change.
I still can’t do pullups or deadlifts, I’m afraid.   They both pull my arm away from my shoulder, which exacerbates the place I sprained it. I shudder to think how many pullups I’ll be able to do when I’m healed enough to try.  I have been doing (very) light lat-pulldowns and I seem to be able to do reasonably heavy dumbbell rows if I’m careful (I got up to 55 lbs on them today as well on both arms) so I hope I won’t be completely starting over.  I did very light dumbbell shoulder presses, my first attempt at them since the injury, and it well went.  I’ll ramp back up ever so slowly on those.

Watch out peeps.  I’m coming back!

So I’m on vacation in Florida for the week.  My BIL just got married and we decided to take the kids to the wedding and then make a little vacation out of the rest of the trip.

The good news is that there is a gym here and I’ve been working out.  The bad news is that I’ve been eating a lot of bad foods.  Foods I haven’t touched in months and month.  Ice cream.  French Fries.  Brownies.  Oh wow it’s bad.

The bad news is I’m under serious deadline pressure at work.  I’ve been working insane hours trying to finish up a project.  I leave in two days for a week’s trip to go to my BIL’s wedding, and if I don’t finish this project before then, I will not be in a good place…

The good news is that I’m continuing to work out.  The leg workouts having been going well.  On the upper body, I’ve been pushing a little harder with the shoulder and it’s been a little sore, I must admit.  I got up to DB pressing 45 lbs on it today.  I wasn’t limited by the muscles, but by the shoulder.  My experience is that it will start to hurt tomorrow because of lifting today.  We’ll see.

Alright, back to the grind amigos.  Hopefully when I get back, I’ll have more time to update here…

I am not a big consumer of weight-training books.  To date, I have purchased exactly one (some book for the absolute beginner that I bought just about a year ago.)  But today I purchased Starting Strength online.  I’ve heard so many people here and other places (including my idol, Dave Draper) rave about this book, that I finally decided to just get it.

I had a nice leg workout today.  I didn’t go heavy (my heaviest squat today was 185) but I did a lot of sets.  My lower back has been a little sore and I didn’t want to whack it out.  So instead I went lighter with high volume and really concentrated on going slow and having good form.  Sometimes this is just what my body needs.  I didn’t deadlift today, either, for the same reason and because that’s a little rough on the shoulder.
Tomorrow I am lifting upper body again.  I’m going to ramp up the weight on that right arm another notch and see how it goes…

For kicks, I took a video of me doing a very light (about 70 lbs) squat in my basement.  If you have any comments on my form or how I could improve it, please do!

Don’t mind all the lumber in the background.  We were working on a house project, and I haven’t cleaned up the mess, yet…

I was going to do abs and cardio last night.  But I was in the mood to lift, so I swapped days.  Last night I did an upper body workout and today I will do my abs and cardio.  I lifted heavier (on the right side) than I have in a long time.  I have a little more confidence now that I have a diagnosis of my shoulder and I know what I need to do to be careful with it.  Here’s my advice if you have a nagging shoulder injury.  Get it looked at.
So i did my DB presses in a funny way.  In my left arm I used a 55 lbs dumbell and in the right a 35 lbs.  It was a little awkward, but I can’t yet do more than 35 in the right arm.  I could have done more on the left, but I didn’t want to be too unbalanced.  To give you an idea of where I’m at with the right arm, here’s what I did last night.

DB Presses : 35 lbs Both x 15, 55 L / 35 R x 15, x 13, x 11, x 7

DB Rows : 60 lbs  L / 40 lbs R x 16, 13, 11, 9.  On the right arm, I need to go superslow and be careful not to let my shoulder drop at all.
Lat Pulldowns : #5 on the stack (whatever that is) x 12, x 12 - This is the first time since the injury I’ve done this activity.  I needed to go super light.  This is one the PT was very adamant I do carefully.
Overhead DB Press 35 Left Only x 15, x 13.  I’m not allowed to do this on my right side yet.
DB Curls 30 Lbs Both x 15, x12, x10, x7, x6 - This was too easy on my left and too hard on my right.

Single Arm Cable Tricep Pulldowns - #5 on the stack x 15, 13, x10, x8, x4

Wrist Curl 25 lbs Both x 15 , x 12

Wrist Flex 15 lbs Both x 15, x 10

So clearly I still have a ways to go with my right arm, but I was happy.  I’ve made some progress back to normal.