bradl’s weight training

People are getting the idea that I’m a fan of country music. I have a four country CDs (best of Johnny Cash, Tanya Tucker, Steve Holly, best of Patsy Cline), and as I commented on Al’s profile, don’t have any cowboy boots, hats, or belt buckles. It’s just something different when the other radio stations aren’t playing BOSTON … there aren’t any Hawaiian stations here and my wife’s new car has satellite radio but not my ten-year-old one.

I don’t listen to music while I workout (at home), but people who do like upbeat stuff to get moving.

Music that do I like? Wide range of tastes. Classic rock, of course, like hmmm, BOSTON, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, Rush, (older) Tom Petty and the HBs, Elvis. NOT Jimi Hendricks or the Doors. Of course, not rap or hip hop. Some crooners like Sinatra, Dean Martin. "Classical", like Beethoven (symphonies and piano concertos), Rachmaninoff, other piano work, not so much Mozart. Not opera. Other instrumental work like Kitaro. Hawaiian music (Keali’i Reichel, Na Leo Pilimehana, Hapa, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole), including slack key guitar (Sonny Lim, Keola and Kapono Beamer, Gabby Pahinui).

Keali’i: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjW6bk01Bg8
Na Leo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =y8dz8V-e0js

Yesterday was chest and triceps day and I kept flys in there, but did them inclined with a low weight (20% down). The lower weight meant more reps to failure, but they still aggravated my shoulder. I was careful of the form of my arms and watching how low my arms went. The shoulder feels fine again today, but like last week, it hurt (though not as bad) when I slept on it last night. There is something going on there, but several years ago when I went to the doctor about it, he said there was nothing he could do because it’s an intermittent pain and I would have to come in when it’s inflamed, but make an appointment a month in advance. One of those "if it hurts when you do X, don’t do X".

Sat’s workout includes upright rows as part of shoulder work. That movement seems to be another bad one for me.

I’m almost done with Kubik’s book. Now I have to decide if I want to pursue a beginner’s form of that training, which probably won’t be until after the Puerto Rico trip, which starts in ~two weeks, but need to decide on ordering a sand bag. Kubik writes about 150-lb bags, I’m thinking 50-60lb is more my speed to work with, because I can handle a 50-lb bag of chicken feed without problems. Just add more sand as time goes on.

No segues into song today.

The word "persistence" rhymes with resistance and distance, sooo that reminded me of Tanya Tucker’s song "Time and Distance". I couldn’t find it on Youtube, but here are some of the lyrics:

‘Cause we know
That time and distance
Will do their level best
To build a wall between us
And put love to the test
The doubt and temptation
Step in and take control
Calling on suspicion
To come and take its toll
We can’t lead love
Down the path of least resistance
We’ve got to hold our own
Against time and distance

If you read this part of the lyrics, you see it’s about long-distance relationships, but I can see training goals, persistence, and self-doubt in there instead of love. We have to trust that our diet and training program is going to help us toward our goals. It takes persistence to stick with the program to achieve those goals.

Maybe I should be song writer for BB.com. Hmmm.

Naaa.

The connection between the song and training is tenuous at best. I need a faster computer. Too much time waiting today.

My last post gathered some comments supporting my effort to get better form, but it doesn’t feel like an accomplishment to reduce the weight. Progressive poundage increases are the goal, right? Of course, I had become delusional and upped the weight, sacrificing form in the process, so I shouldn’t have been working with that weight in the first place.

Tony mentioned patience in his comment, actually "dedication and patience". That patience thing still gets to me. In Kubik’s book, he writes in time frames of years, writing that this guy achieved this progress in two years or another in ten years. I would have rather been exposed to those time scales when I started than the "a few months" scale. A few months into my training, I was getting the impression that "a few months" was advertiser speak for the reality of the situation. The initial stage of weight loss can be a relatively quick process for those going that route, but strength and muscle take longer to build. At 45, I’m also working against age-related sarcopenia (muscle loss).

It takes intention to go for a goal, then some form of dedication, persistence (Kubik’s word), commitment, determination, and motivation to make it happen. As a life-long endeavor, those are with us for a long time.

I’ve had a vague goal on my profile since I started on BB.com, which is coming up on a year. They say a short-term goal should be something specific (X pound gain in bench press in N weeks) and a long-term goal something more like what I have. I still don’t have a sense for some change I can effect in some time frame because I’ve been plodding along figuring out what "hard" work means, laying the foundation for gains that are out there sometime. The vague goal remains.

I dropped the weight I was using on squats yesterday to encourage more depth. I think I was parallel or nearly so with that weight, which was about 13% down from last week. I did five sets of ten, but could have done more but stopped because I was testing the weight. I’d like to work with more weight and maybe fewer reps, but the form deteriorates if I do, so this is where I am now. More reps with squats isn’t a bad thing.

The rest was leg curls, extensions, calves, then lunges. I was doing okay until the lunges, then was breathing "like a freight train" (as I have read it described) by the end of set three. I’ve read that breathing pattern is supposed to happen from squats. Need to work harder on those. More reps.

I read something in "Dinosaur Training" (Brooks Kubik) that I’ve already known, but I’ve seen the issue come up in some blogs (I removed the ALL CAPS):

_You need to use your inner strength to keep you motivated. You need to make your training an internal thing instead of an external thing — something you do for yourself instead of something you do for others. If you can’t do it for yourself, you eventually will not do it at all — and what you do when you go to the gym will be a far cry from the type of effort you would give if you were doing it for yourself._

If it’s not what you want from and for yourself, then you’re doing it based on you perception of what you think others want. It’s not authentic and it’s not your 100%.

Fri was back work. After straining my back several weeks ago, I cut the weight on deadlifts and have been more careful with form. I think I’m back to a weight I can work with without over straining.

All week at work I have been running some stuff on the computer, so that’s a bit dull for me to just sit there. I had some small tasks that I could do concurrently. There has been talk lately of funding for a new task and I’ve been waiting for the decision about the money and the results from someone else to see if it will be worthwhile to pursue. I had started the task on Thurs, just to be proactive on this. However, we had a meeting Fri afternoon and regardless, they want to see preliminary results from my task by this-coming-week Tues. If I had known that, I would have changed priorities instead of needing to go for a long day yesterday. It’s not often I need to work on a weekend. I made decent progress and should be able to pull together what is needed for Tues.

I had dinner late last night, but wanted to get in my Sat workout before eating. The workout included upright rows, which I introduced last week. They are supposed to be a beneficial exercise, but, like the flys the other day, my shoulder doesn’t like them. Along with flys, upright rows are on McRobert’s list of problem movements for shoulders, that’s why I haven’t pursued them. Back when Tony prepared a three-day split for me, I started doing flys as part of that and had no problem then, but he cautioned to start light. This week I’ll try them again, lighter, maybe inclined, and watch the depth.

I’ve been reading more of "Dinosaur Training". I finally got to the part where he actually wrote about training programs, instead of page after page of "to get results MEN have to train HARD!" with examples of "old timers" who worked HARD and that’s how they gained REAL STRENGTH. He likes to capitalize words. Dinosaur training takes a power rack, sand bag(s), and HARD WORK, plus barrels and other heavy items if you want to go there, but sand bags will do.

Yesterday was chest and triceps day. I’m beginning to think that flys are not a good idea. I like the idea that they open the chest, but my shoulder doesn’t appreciate them. For years I’ve had an intermittent pain on my right shoulder. Dips, overhead press, flat and incline bench press, lateral raises, and front raises are not a problem. I did flys yesterday and during the sets I could feel the pain waking up. During the night I woke up laying on my right side. Oh, my shoulder hurt then, but it calmed down after a while when I turned over. It could be a case where I’m trying to do them too heavy for me, but maybe I should just skip them altogether. The left shoulder couldn’t care less what I do.

Neither McRobert nor Kubik consider flys a worthwhile exercise, not that I’m following a dinosaur program.

No better place to put a link to a BOSTON song. Don’t Look Back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EaNu4vxFjU

Yesterday was leg day. I struggled with squats. The goal was five work sets of ten reps, but had to dump the third set on rep ten. (After that third, I unloaded the bar to raise it and continued with sets four and five.) The struggle is to get to parallel. I know where parallel is, but don’t want to go that deep with the weight. The last few weeks I’ve been using the same weight, but trying to get lower on the reps. If I’m improving, then that should get easier to do. On the warm-up sets, getting all the way down is not a problem, so I’m thinking it’s just too much weight for good form. Maybe drop it 10lb next week.

On the homemade bars, I should have added more oats and protein powder to thicken it before calling it "done". Duh.

I have a work trip coming up, so I have been thinking about the protein bars I’ll need to take along. This time it’s "tropical", so they are probably going to melt. In previous years, I have taken PowerBars, which are like tootsie rolls. They get soft in the heat and stick to the wrapper, but they are energy bars, so have a lot of carbs. Before the last trip, to the Arctic, I was looking for ones with a higher ratio of protein to carbs and took some of those with. They are chocolate covered and the chocolate is going to melt. Oh well.

That started me thinking about homemade ones, not to take with on travel, but to take to the office. Can’t travel with them because no way to keep them cold. Of the recipes I have looked at, they are variations on oats, peanut butter, protein powder, and milk to get the oats and powder dissolved. It’s been a while since I made some. This time added too much milk, so the "bars" are more like glop. Stiffer than peanut butter, but not a "solid" bar.

Read some more of "Dinosaur Training" last night. The author is very sure that this method works, not that it’s the only one. So far it seems similar to Stuart McRobert’s books. McRobert’s books are geared for bodybuilding and Kubik’s is for strength. They both stress hard work using the basic, compound exercises in abbreviated workouts with grip work. Kubik adds work with awkward objects, like barrels and sandbags, for "functional" strength.

Back when I was attempting to follow McRobert’s method, I was an absolute beginner. I think I have learned more about working harder since then, but don’t know what that means with regard to repeating his method.

By the date of the new trip, it will be eight weeks using DrJoe’s cycling-exercises method. There is no gym where we are going, so the trip will be a rest break before starting a new DrJoe cycle or something else. Something else could be x-reps or a McRobert- and Kubik-inspired program.