Barley more than a month since the last time I went to the gym and I made it back. OK, that’s not really a good track record, but at least I made it back… and increased the weight from last time.
Flat Bench:
20 x 135
10 x 155
5 x 185
Incline Bench:
20 x 95
10 x 135
5 x 155
Incline Fly:
20 x 35
10 x 45
5 x 55
Tri Pull-down:
16 x 90
8 x 110
4 x 130
Cable Cross-over:
16 x 40
8 x 60
4 x 80
It’s been an interesting couple of months. We had been swimming 2 or 3 times a week with the evening masters swim team at American Fork, but all that stopped in December when everyone made their way to town for Christmas. It seemed like we might start swimming again in January, but we only went once or twice before heading off on our big trip to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco.
Now it’s the end of February and it feels like I haven’t been in the water forever.
I did finally get on the trainer with Charmaine again the other day. I think that will become a regular thing again. I really want to ride outside, but it’s still too cold, so the trainer will have to do.
I’ve decided I’m not going to allow myself to walk the run at Spudman this year. Joey Ekstrom has agreed to run with me at lunch. So far we’ve only gone once, and only for about a mile, but it’s a good start.
Today I went to the gym for the first time in years. Joe is trying to rehabilitate his broken leg, so we’re stuck doing upper-body workouts, but it’s great. After a few low-weight, high-rep sets, we walked on the treadmill for a few minutes. I hope that means we didn’t over do it and the trend will continue. Of course, that all depends on how long the company holds together, and that doesn’t look especially promising right now.
Flat Bench:
20 x 115
16 x 135
12 x 155
Military Press:
16 x 115
12 x 135
Lat Pull-down:
20 x 80
16 x 100
12 x 120
Treadmill:
15 minutes @ 4.0 mph
I’m not sure if I ever wrote about this when it happened, but one day I left my lock at the gym. I checked several times with the lost and found, but it never turned up. I’m not sure I really expected it to turn up. I left the key in the lock. I was pretty upset about it, mostly because I kept forgetting to bring another lock with me for a few days.
I always figured that the guy that swiped my lock may have a similar workout schedule to mine. Today I was proven right. When I finished working out, I headed for my locker. As luck would have it, I noticed my old lock on the big locker closest to the big locker I was using (Gold’s Gym has a horrible locker arrangement, but that’s another story). I could barely believe what I was seeing. I foresaw this day when my lock never turned up. You see, I had two keys to that lock. The lock has returned to its rightful owner. And now I know who took it. He came out to his locker while I was getting dressed after my shower.
That was a great ending to a decent day of legs. I went extra low on squats. It’s probably the first time I have ever gone as deep as I should. I’m going to try to keep going that deep in the future. I also pushed hard through my first time back on leg press. I did overheat and almost puke, so right there you know it’s a good workout.
Weight: 260.4
Squat:
225/12 (all the way down) 275/8 315/2
Leg Press:
580/20 670/12 760/6
Standing Calf Raise:
395/20 395/12 395/12
Here we go again now. Last week my strength was pathetic. I started off a lot better this week, but quickly ran out of steam. I really like the 20-12-8 pyramid we’re doing. I think it’s moving me in the right direction.
Travis said he had to be back by 1:30, but it turned out that he needed to be back by 1:00. Luckily we ended up getting back at 1:09.
Weight: 258.4
Flat Bench:
185/20 205/12 225/8
Incline Bench:
135/20 185/12 205/8
All the adjustable benches were in use when we finished Incline Bench; they were still in use after our Bar Dip routines, so we wound up skipping Incline Bench today.
Bar Dip:
3 (pathetic)
Treadmill:
10 minutes – 0.95 miles
As I sat here eating my Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger (970 calories) from Carl’s Jr and sucking down my Hand Scooped Chocolate Malt (780 calories) I realized that I hadn’t written up today’s workout.
Swimming is very shoulder-intensive, at least the way I swim. So on days when we do shoulders, I like to just swim. I didn’t feel right about leaving Travis to do shoulders on his own, so we came up with a compromise. I did military press with him before jumping in the pool. It seemed to work out pretty well.
Weight: 258.8 (again)
Military Press:
135/16 155/12
Swim:
300 Free warm-up
200 Kick
8 x 100 Free 2x (2:00, 2:15, 2:30, 2:45)
200 Free warm-down
————
1500 yards
Well, I talked Travis out of finishing our leg workout. We were competing for resources with several other groups of people, and we didn’t have much time. I had to get back to work for my 1-1 with Martin, so we couldn’t just sit around and wait for the others to finish their sets. We got in some good stretching while waiting for the squat rack to open up, then we did standing calf raises while waiting for the leg press to open up. But we were not the only ones waiting for the leg press, and the other group started before we were done with our standing calf raises. This gave me the perfect chance to talk Travis out of more leg workouts. I don’t think I’ll be so lucky next week.
I still wanted to get some cardio in before we left, and there was no way I could run with my jello legs, so I hit the pool. There were 2 other people in the pool already. They must have been training for something, because they had a bunch of equipment and were pushing themselves pretty hard. I was faster, of course, but I could only swim for about 20 minutes before it was time to go.
Weight: 258.8
Squat:
225/12 275/10 275/4
Standing Calf Raise:
395/12 395/12 395/12
Swim:
400 Free warm-up
5 x 100 Free descending (3:00, 2:45, 2:30, 2:15, 2:00)
100 Free warm-down
————
1000 yards
We are very busy at work. We have been operating in stealth-mode for the past 18 months, but we finally debuted at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco 2 weeks ago. Ever since that time, we’ve been getting a lot of positive press and attention, which has kept things busy. I’ve managed to keep my hours under 100 per week, but it has been pretty crazy. I did manage to swim every now and then, but it wasn’t very often. And I never blogged it.
Summer has come to Utah and that means a lot of things for me. I finally broke down and turned on my air conditioner this morning before I left for work. I need to hire someone to install sprinklers and grass at my new house. It’s time to get serious about working out again. Travis and I hit the gym today for the first time in a long time. It was pretty pathetic, but at least we’re getting back to it. Some of the guys at work are very into biking, specifically mountain biking, so I’ve thought about getting my bike out and trying to hang with them from time to time. I’m not as confident about that one, but I’ll try it at least once. And it won’t be very long until the outdoor pools are open and I can start swimming outside. There’s really nothing as fun as swimming in a well-maintained outdoor pool.
I lost about 25 pounds while working out over the last 18 months, which seemed like a very healthy rate to lose weight (and gain muscle). But today I hopped on the scale to see that I’ve gained 20 pounds back in about 2 months. That doesn’t seem nearly as healthy. I’ve also lost a lot of my strength and tone (as you’ll notice in today’s numbers). I think it’s probably good that I gained so much weight, because I don’t think it would motivate me to action the way this has. I’m back.
Weight: 258.0
Flat Bench:
135/20 (very easy) 185/16 205/10
Incline Bench:
135/16 155/14 185/12
Incline Dumbbell Fly:
60/16 70/12 80/4
Treadmill:
.91 miles in 10 minutes
Joey did Back and Biceps with his wife yesterday while I swam, so he wanted to do shoulders today. We didn’t do a lot of sets, but we pushed ourselves pretty well. Then we ran a mile. I think we’re going to try to run at least a mile after we lift each day. We’ll see how that goes.
Weight:
249.6
Military Press:
135/12 155/10 155/8
Dumbbell Press:
50/12 60/10 70/8
Run:
1.0 mile in 9:40
I’m not sure how smart it was to push so hard today, but it was fun. Lyndsey did a leg workout with us, which gave us a little bit of extra time to rest between sets, but we still managed to destroy ourselves.
Squat:
225/12 275/10 275/8
Leg Press:
580/12 670/10 760/8
Standing Calf Raise:
395/12 395/10 395/8
Run/Walk:
2.0 miles – 24:00
I knew it had been a while since I hit the gym, but I didn’t realize exactly *how* long it had been. I guess it’s not too surprising that I lost as much strength as I did.
Weight: 247.0
Flat Bench:
225/12 245/8* 245/5(+1)
* Joey was spotting me and had his hands on the bar way too much. After I pushed up #8 (which was getting really difficult) he pulled the bar in and said, “you’re done, I’m not lifting 50 pounds another rep.” The worst part is that I had no idea he was even helping; I have no idea how many reps he was helping; and I have no idea how I would have done otherwise. Lesson Learned: NEVER let your spotter touch the bar until you ask for it.
Incline Bench:
185/12 205/8(+2) 215/6
Incline Fly:
60/12 70/10 80/8
Bar Dip:
6 7