bradl’s weight training

That was the term she used this morning, not me.

I haven’t heard from my mother since her thank you email for the flowers I had delivered to their house, so my wife called there this morning to ask how she was doing. My father answered the phone, as I would expect, and they talked about my mother’s health condition and the funeral, BUT couldn’t stop there, of course, and also went into my relationship with him and our lack of communication. Ugh. I didn’t want to deal with those issues. We will see what becomes of that.

My brother attended the funeral, so there’s another reason for me to not attend it. Yeah, we are such a dysfunctional group.

Yesterday was chest, shoulders, and triceps. I upped the weight 5lb on the first exercise, bench press, and up 2lb on each DB for chest flyes. After that first set of presses, I knew that was a mistake and dropped to only adding 2lb. The remaining two sets of those were a struggle and I had to rest between reps toward the end, and that was with extending the rests between sets from 90s to 2min already. The flyes were okay, but after that all the remaining exercises were more struggle with 2min set rests and inter-rep rests of a few breaths. I did all the reps though (colorful word could go here) and avoided getting sloppy or explosive on them, don’t need an injury.

I don’t think I wore myself out on the chest work, but it was a real struggle getting the rest of the work done. Those weights were all the same as the last couple weeks, so should have been no problem.

I’ve been eating like a pig since I came back from the trip. Well, maybe not that much, but more than I was. I commented earlier in the week how I keep increasing my eating.

Looked over my log sheets from Dec until now, the fifth week into the current program. Making adjustments for number of reps, I’ve made a little progression on squats and deadlifts. I think the increase on squats is due to adjusting to the movement and comfort level more than anything else. Deadlift may be the same factor.

A few more weeks and it’s time to consult a personal trainer.

For I don’t know how long (since I’ve been lifting), I’ve been adding more to what I’ve been eating. During the week, that means packing more for lunch. Recently I posted a summary of my protein-intake estimate. Since then I’ve added more. Today was an additional container, this time a small one of cottage cheese. My lunch bag keeping getting bigger and bigger. I think I need a fat caliper to see where all that lunch and snacks are going.

Today was another leg day.

When I was getting set to do the squats, I was adjusting my foot position a couple times before lifting the bar off the hooks and it reminded me of our chickens. It was funny. It’s something I guess I do every time I squat, but today it reminded me of chicken behavior. It’s funny to see them do it. We have two chickens in a small coop in our backyard. We let them out to roam the (fenced) yard in the evening for a short time. If we approach them, they squat down and stamp their feet, kind of like I did under the bar

Guess you had to be there

I had an email from my mother Sun afternoon. She was back home already and writing email, so she’s recovering already. I replied and asked her about visiting. She wrote back saying that she’s doing fine and just needs to take it easy for a while, but I would be welcome to come and visit her and family. If I went, I’d have to deal with my father and that’s the biggest reason for not going, which is what I’ve decided to do. There’s too much going on at work to take off now anyway.

Getting motivated to workout is easy. Getting motivated to catch up on email is harder. I did my "scheduled" non-lifting-day exercises earlier today.

The rest of this post has NOTHING to do with training, so move along if that’s what you’re expecting.

My wife and our daughter went to the opera (Carmen) tonight and I WAS prepared to work on my resume and catch up on email. My sister sent an email this evening, writing that one of our (paternal) uncles died and our mother is in the hospital because she had surgery. My sister, our father, and I aren’t really on speaking terms, but she still updates me on family events like deaths and hospitalizations, because otherwise I wouldn’t know.

After I read that email, I called our aunt (mother’s sister) and she provided more background about the test results and surgery. My mother had written an email during the week that she had a bunch of tests done, including a bone scan. She has osteoporosis like me, which was not a surprise. She has had intestinal issues for a couple years, but apparently the tests pointed to the need for immediate surgery, which should have fixed the intestinal stuff and she should stop wasting away. There is other stuff, but that is understood and should be under control now too.

It occurred to me that I have way too much vacation time and I could fly there and visit with her during her recovery. I’m not sure how much use I would be helping with her recovery. I could also attend the uncle’s wake and funeral. I’m not close to most of my relatives and, as I mentioned, don’t talk with my father or sister, which discourages contact with other relatives as well.

The fact that my sister and her husband hate my wife adds to that. Digressing further, this sister has breast cancer. I should be supportive of her in her time of need, but her disregard of my childhood experience, lack of respect of my perspective of my life (long story that I’m not going to get into), and hatred of my wife puts a damper on my concern for her.

If we were a close family, I would probably already have flown there to be with my mother. My paternal grandmother died back in Nov and, because of work travel, I didn’t have to make a decision about whether I would go. I was leaving for Puerto Rico the day after I heard the news, so it would be very awkward for me and the project to cancel out of that. This time, as the family relationship is, I’m in a lurch and procrastinating catching up on other email and working on that resume. I’m not in the mood to deal with those.

Some people have been posting videos lately, so thought I’d post an oldy but a goody, but I’m sure choreography like this can be seen at treadmills in gyms around the world.

I was tired last night and slept in this morning. The week away caught up with me, which means I was probably not well rested during the trip. I know I didn’t sleep well because I was waking up early in the morning thinking about the past day and the coming day.

One thing that is good about this project is the manager doesn’t expect us to meet for dinner as a group at a particular time. At the end of the day, we are basically free until departure time the following morning. That meant I could go off to the gym before dinner and show up at The restaurant whenever. Deployments for another project aren’t like that. We arrive back at the hotel and were expected to meet up in the lobby at a set time and have a casually paced dinner, then we would have little personal time before bed and little time in the morning before the set breakfast meet-up time again. I don’t like lingering with the group at meals. I see them all day. I want some personal time, especially since I’m going to the gym during that time, so prefer to eat when I’m ready and get out of there when I’m done.

Back from the trip.

I walked over to the local gym there Mon after we arrived at the hotel. At the same time, a guy walked out to his truck and I continued through the parking lot on my way to the gym. When I arrived at the gym, he was already in the weight room. I looked around the weight room and went back to the hotel. I wanted to check it out before I wanted to use it. About 45min later, after I did my cardio and other stuff (jumps, jump rope, jumping jacks, grip) I ventured out for dinner and that guy was headed out again. Interesting timing, but it meant he drove two blocks to the gym and spent very little time there.

I went back to the gym on Tues and did my normal Wed routine. The rest of the week went like that too: I kept my routine, but one day ahead. That means I wasn’t pressed to workout when I arrived home today because I knew I’d be tired.

The experience at that gym was similar to other times I’ve visited them, except more intimidating with the soldiers (Army) and fire fighters in town for their training and visiting the gym too. I was once again the little guy with the little weights. I was doing chest flyes with 15-lb DBs on a bench next to two guys who were partners switching off doing 50-lb flyes. I had to do a little adjustment on weights because of the different equipment, but otherwise it went okay. I have never seen anyone with any sort of log sheet like I use.

They had a lot of machines, two Smith machines, and only one power rack. There was only one flat bench with weight rack, so I had to wait for it. In the two days I visited, no one used the Smith machines and only a few boys played with the power rack, doing some kind of explosive standing overhead press, right when I was ready to move there, argh, so I used a machine instead. For that matter, most of the men were doing explosive reps at the other stations.

Part of the weight training reading I did in the hotel in the evenings included sections on what McRoberts refers to as he big five (squat, deadlift, bench press or dips, overhead press, pulldown or chin up). I was rereading some sections of his book, "Beyond Brawn". In part of that big five, he points out that the overhead press weight should be typically about 2/3 flat bench and they increase together. Total for dual dumbbell loads are typically about 85% of barbell weight. Even without the dumbbell differential, I’m close to that.

I tried to eat a good amount and well, but we skipped lunch one day and left the hotel at 0600 one day, so it was challenging to eat enough. I had brought protein powder, PowerBars, and nuts with me and took some on those long days, but don’t want to live off those. We have a long trip in Jun that is going to be more nutritionally challenging. It wouldn’t be so bad if I was a meat eater and was okay with eating fried food.

On the flight out, I read an article about the relative amounts of global warming gases emitted by the raising of farm animals and growing crops. Beef was way out ahead of everything. If you’re interested you can look it up. I’m not going to preach.

If things go according to plan, I’ll be out all week and may not have internet access, so may not write anything this week and probably won’t have time to keep up with everyone’s progress this week.

Enjoy your workouts. I’ll try to find some time for my own.

Today was a warm day. After my workout, we went to a "resort" to our house. There are two nudist "resorts" relatively nearby and another, bigger and popular one is a couple hours away. We’ve been going to this local one for about 12+ years. It has a pool, two spas, a sauna (which we have only rarely visited), two tennis courts, a volley court, a restaurant, the usual stuff. Our daughter spent most of the afternoon in the pool with the other kids, though did play some water volleyball with the adults. The pool isn’t heated yet because the weather isn’t consistently warm yet, so it was cold. The kids didn’t care, but not many adults spent much time swimming in it. To cool off I just took a rinse-off shower at pool side… a few times. It was hot.

My wife and I read and talked some to the people there. It was our first time up there this season, so we haven’t seen the other members since the fall and there was catching up to do.

One woman who we hadn’t seen before was on the lounge next to me. She said she usually gets a few sunburns before she adapts to the summer sun. We try not to do that, but gradually build up some tan over the summer. When we arrived at the pool, the first thing we did was slather up with sunscreen from head to toe.

The place is in the woods in the Santa Cruz mountains. I didn’t go for a walk today, but they have two trails that go up into the wooded hills in the back of the property. I usually go out walking when we are there. Time was relatively short and I didn’t feel like it. It’s usually hot on the trail because it’s during heat of the day, but it’s nice to get out in the woods. I felt like a slug, though beached seal would be a better analogy, laying there for a few hours of the afternoon and not walking or anything, but was resting on the lounge

Afterward, we showered, dressed, and headed down to civilization again for a late-afternoon Girl Scout event.