bradl's weight training

fit it in

bradl — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:00:49 +0000

Yesterday afternoon I drove the equipment van to the hotel, but it was still afternoon when I arrived but because we had a really late start, too late for us to do what we are here for. I didn’t bring any gym clothes because I would have this van from work and no time. I asked around about a clothes store. There’s very little out here. I finally located a discount store that sold a bunch of stuff, including shorts, so I bought a pair, which turned out to be $6. I drove around and found the gym, changed from jeans into the shorts, and went in.

The workout was the dino one with deadlifts, overhead presses, plus accessory work. I wasn’t sure what weights to use without my log sheet, but successive increases are the beauty of 5 x 5. Back it the hotel later, I asked my wife what was on the log sheet for the day. I had done everything I was "supposed to", but used heavier weights. I have been increasing the weights as I started this program as a cycle, but am a week ahead now for this workout. I jumped the gun a bit. Oh well.

Now I don’t have to try to squeeze in a workout when I return home late tonight.

that book

bradl — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:02:49 +0000

Kubik has released more info about the book, including that it is for serious lifters and "This is a book about serious strength training for older lifters — and it’s intended ONLY for those who have been training hard and heavy for pretty much their whole life — and who love training — and who want to keep hitting the iron for as long as they possibly can." and "It’s for deeply committed, deeply serious Iron Warriors".

Later the description says "Gray Hair and Black Iron will teach you … How to build strength and power at any age…"

The first quote tells me I’m not ready for it. The second quote tells me that it could be useful.

The full blurb: http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur-store/gray-hair-and-black-iron/

Today was supposed to be a travel and work on remote site day or afternoon anyway. Things were delayed, so we are getting a late start and nothing will get done today. We have to get everything done tomorrow, which means a long day, getting home late, and pushing my workout to the weekend. Oh well.

Kubik’s new book

bradl — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:31:47 +0000

Brooks Kubik has a new book that’s almost published, "Gray Hair and Black Iron – Secrets of Successful Training for Older Lifters". I don’t like buying books sight unseen without reviews to provide some insight into them, but I’m curious about it. At 45, I’m considered an older lifter. His "Dinosaur Training" was okay. I have a few months to go working on the program(s) before I can evaluate how successful it will be for me. Turn me into a strength dinosaur? Unlikely, but I’ll see how it goes.

I don’t know if I would buy his novel, "Legacy of Iron", if I had learned more about it beforehand. It has a lot of stats from lifting contests that I skipped because I don’t care, so I’m debating buying the sequel.

sandbag

bradl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:58:22 +0000

Today was a repeat of the first dino day: bench press, rows, and sandbag walk. Over the weekend I added 10lb to the bag to make 70lb. I walked with it about twice as far as last week. I went farther than that with the bag across my shoulders but I realized that "hold" was a little pointless. I could walk like that for a longish time because the arms are out of the loop. Maybe I should stick to the bear hug and over each shoulder. I did remember to press the bag between changes in the hold (e.g., bear hug, press, over the shoulder).

My wife came home with our daughter (I had to work a bit late so had her pick up so I could work out) a few minutes after I was done taking the bag for a walk. She said it was cold out. Funny because I didn’t think it was cold while carrying the bag. Hmmm

third dino day

bradl — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:27:25 +0000

This morning was the third dino-style training day: squat (5 x 5), BB biceps curl (5 x 5), calf raise, CoC grip work, weighted crunches, and reverse crunches. It’s supposed to be the Mon workout, but last I heard (before the PR trip) I’m supposed to be on travel later in the week, so want condense things so I don’t miss a lifting day.

I’m still faced with the squat confidence problem. In a few weeks, the squat weight will be back up to where it would be hard to do only five reps. In the past when I get to that point, I haven’t gone down to parallel like I would like, which means I’m more comfortable with a lighter weight, but with more reps. The idea is to go heavy though, which is a block I have to get over. I know how far to go down, but feel like I’ll get stuck in the hole. Unloading the bar and raising it is doable, but failing the set is the worst part.

This afternoon we three did a little geocaching. Our daughter volunteered to walk about 1/2 mile each way to my office while my wife went on an errand, then we walked a few caches. She didn’t complain about the hiking. It was only about a 1/2 mile total walking for those, but she did fine. Unusual for her and a good thing that she’s willing to do some exercise.

My wife has been watching her diet, walking more, doing some other exercise for the last month or so, and has lost about 13lb and some size. I really noticed the change when I returned from the PR trip.

second dino day

bradl — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:43:00 +0000

Today was the second day of dino workouts: 5 x 5 deadlift, 5 x 5 BB overhead press, DB crunches, DB side bends, farmer’s walk with fat-grip 40-lb DBs. I could only hold the latter for 30s at time, which wasn’t much of a walk, so did it three times. The fat-grip made them hard to hold. I under estimated the weight for the BB press, so kept increasing it for every set, instead of two warm ups and three stable, work sets, so then had to revise the progression plan in the spreadsheet from Ledford and put the new numbers in the log sheet.

The progression means there are a few weeks in the cycle before getting back to the weight I was working with before, but "dino style" means heavy weights, which I think I’ll be approaching by that point. Deadlifts seemed heavy today already, even without using a fat-grip bar.

I bought a pair of "fat gripz" sleeves, which work well on the DB bars, but are a little small for the BB. A fat bar supposedly makes bench press and overhead press harder, but I tried a set of the latter with them and it didn’t make much difference. I can see how deadlifts would be harder, because that’s pulling, grip exercise.

one dino day

bradl — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:50:57 +0000

I did a workout based on dino training today. It took about an hour. I’m not sure how fatigued I should be after going for a sandbag walk, but for a first day at it, maybe it was enough. I walked one block length (not all the way around) in a bear hug, over the left shoulder, over the right shoulder, bear hug, across the shoulders, and bear hug. A few of those included a overhead press for the transition, which reminded that I was supposed to do that each time.

Warm up with lying L-fly, standing external rotation, bar-only bench, light pulldown, then 5 x 5 flat bench, 5 x 5 DB rows, neck raises, sandbag walk. Didn’t seem like a lot of work, but the weights are a bit light at the beginning of the cycle. Need to walk farther next week

“Legacy of Iron”

bradl — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:48:03 +0000

On the return flight, I finished Brooks Kubik’s "Legacy of Iron", a novel about old-time weightlifters. The story was kind of interesting, but was watered down with lifting statistics of various lifters from competitions of the day. A lot of name-dropping of real lifters there, but I don’t know about them or care about their stats, so that stuff was distracting. Info about their stories was interesting. He has a sequel to that book, which I’m somewhat interested in reading, but don’t want to plod through lifting stats again.

Puerto Rico

bradl — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:45:40 +0000

This first part is non-training and the last paragraph has some training info in it.

Last week Mon was the first day at the marine lab’s island. It’s pretty much the same as it was in previous years. Hot and humid, rainy, with lots of iguanas roaming around. I almost stepped on one, though I usually watch where I’m going.

I didn’t get much done that I had planned to do there or get a chance to get out for a walking break, because I was helping one student in particular with a problem related to this project. It was still working on this project, but not the stuff I planned. There were a few students wearing jeans and a shirt who wore sweaters in the computer lab part of the days, while I was hot all day in just a shirt, shorts, and sandals. The lab is air conditioned, but not heavily.

Anyway, not much to say. Just a week at the office, more or less.

We have been going to Puerto Rico to take measurements and pictures of a number of transects there in Nov since 2005. It’s a ten-day trip and we get back the Tues night before Thanksgiving. In previous years I have bought a Puerto Rico beach towel with dolphins on it for our daughter, but she has three of them so doesn’t really need another, but I bought another one anyway. Most of the tourist stuff is junk made in China, so nothing I really want to take back.

The last day down in SW Puerto Rico, we went to Cabo Rojo to visit Los Morrillos light house and the neighboring beach yesterday. It’s at the tip of land in the SW corner of PR. It was hot. We old folks left after a couple hours, but the graduate student with us stayed for a while with the other students from the lab that went too. We checked out the beach and sat around a little while then walked the path up to the lighthouse, but were then ready to move on.

The next day we drove back to San Juan to catch the flight back to California yesterday. Puerto Rico is four hours ahead of here, so I woke up really early this morning.

In the afternoons, I had a little free time before dinner, when I would stretch and do tai chi, but though I had the stretch tubing for exercising, I didn’t use it. After we arrived in San Juan, we walked around Old San Juan for a while and split up. After I did my little bit of shopping, I walked back to the hotel, which I see in Google Earth now was about 2.5miles. I took a shower, dressed, and went to the gym. The hotel was big, so had a big fitness center with something like four ellipticals, four treadmills, and two or three stationary bikes, but it also had some machines, a Smith machine, dumbbells (up to 50lb), and short barbells (up to 110lb). One of the machines was an assisted pullup/down and dip machine, which I had never used before. I pulled the pin on it and the kneeling pad floated up and down below my knees. A guy used it after me and I saw he folded the pad up. Duh. I didn’t know it did that. Anyway, I did a full-body routine, since I squeezed everything into one workout. The Smith machine made squats seem easier than normal. The Smith machine didn’t go low enough for deadlifts, so I had to use the 110-lb short barbell for deadlifts. I did five sets of sixteen, but on the other exercises, I used the 5 x 5 approach that is used for the dino training (two warm-up and three work sets).

trek at the tech

bradl — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:28:44 +0000

Non-training
We went to The Tech Museum (San Jose) to see the Star Trek exhibit this morning. TV (and movie) nostalgia. It includes a replica of TOS bridge. That is interesting to see. For example, Uhura sat right behind Kirk. She’s the communications officer, but has to turn around to see the main communications view screen. We weren’t allowed take any pictures in that exhibit, but they would take our picture for us in the bridge and in the transporter room, then we can buy the pictures for a nominal fee. We didn’t. There was the time-display arch/ring from "City on the Edge of Forever" (the episode with Edith Keeler and "stone knives and bear skins"). There was also a hallway and a cabin from TNG. The exhibit included maybe fifteen or twenty costumes plus different gadgets, e.g., phasers, communicators, and ship models from the different shows.

The gift shop had tribbles, so the ten-yo daughter had to have one of those, being a stuffed animal. It makes the tribble purr and screech.