Congrats! Well done!
Next stop: 5 times my age!
That’s a great target!
Thanks for the shout-outs, slowmotion and codgerus maximum! You guys are both inspirations.
Training starting October 21 (including the rest of what I did that day):
Thu., Oct. 21, 2021
Deadlift: 325(98%)x1 @9.5, 275(83%)x3x4 @7-8 E3MOM
I was planning to do 8 work sets, but they felt hard than normal (maybe from the excessive overwarmup!) and my left hamstring started hurting, so I called it after 4 sets.
Fri., Oct. 22, 2021
Worked out at a friend’s place. We did a bunch of upper body stuff on his Smith/cable machine. I didn’t take complete notes because we were too busy talking about stuff, but here’s a partial list:
Bench: 140(79%(x4 @9
Pulldowns, narrow with rope and knob thingies: nominally 140x10x3
Pulldowns, wide (more like traditional lat pulldowns): nominally 195x3, 165x8, 140x10
Underhand rows: 115x8x2
Overhead triceps extensions with 25-pound plate: 3 sets of 10, or something like that
Those pulldown weights aren’t realistic. I didn’t want to be rude and scrutinize the machine too much, but the cable machine must have some kind of enhanced leverage, as there’s no way I could do anything like 195 pounds on a true lat pulldown. The bench press legitimately felt like 140 though.
Sat., Oct. 23, 2021
LBBS: 205(84%)x3x8 @6-7 E3MOM
Felt kind of blah beforehand and while warming up, but the work sets went surprisingly well.
Sun., Oct. 24, 2021
Cardio: Cycled about an hour. Was anticipating rain (the “atmospheric river”), but the weather turned warm and sunny instead and by the end I was really sweating. Also this was my windiest ride in a long time, so I was hauling with the tailwind and crawling with the headwind.
Close-grip bench: 127.5(72%)x6x8 @7 E3MOM
Could have increased to 130 on the bench, but since my most recent 80% day didn’t go well I decided to just repeat with 127.5.
Mon., Oct. 25, 2021
Deadlift: 210(64%)x6x10 @6 E2MOM
Those were quite easy, though they did make me breathe a little towards the end.
Cardio: Cycled 37 minutes on the indoor trainer. Went pretty hard for 15 minutes in 50x17. Rewatched this year’s especially hellish edition of the Paris-Roubaix race for motivation.
The program I’m doing, by the way, is sort of an improvisation on the high volume, low intraset fatigue Montana Method. On SBD, I’m alternately doing roughly 60%, 70%, and 80% of my 1RM for fairly large numbers of fairly short sets, trying to keep everything to RPE 7 or lower while doing all the reps “with intention”. As soon as the RPE exceeds 7 I either switch to shorter sets or stop the session, depending on how hard it’s getting. I’ve defined a target volume for each lift at each percentage (for example, 10 sets of 3 for squats at 80%), and when I’m able to hit that target without going over RPE 7, I increase the weight a little: +5 on squats and deadlift, +2.5 on deadlift. So my 60% days eventually become more like 62%, 64%, etc., and similarly with the 70% and 80% days, but hopefully my “true” 1RMs are increasing as the same time.
Oh, and I also throw in some GPP, though lately that’s been hampered somewhat by a persistent case of golfer’s elbow. And I do about 40 to 60 minutes of cardio - either cycling or running - most days.
Pushups: BWx12,12,12,11,10,9,9,8 (83 total) E2MOM
Overhead triceps extensions with 25-pound plate: 4 sets of 12, E2MOM
Band triceps pushdowns: (pink+yellow)x12x4, yellowx12, E2MOM
Ab rollouts: 4 sets of 11, 1-minute rests
Cardio: Walked and jogged for 52 minutes. Standard flat loop in 50:10.
Started to do flyes after the band pushdowns, but my triceps were so shaky by that time I didn’t want to risk dropping a dumbbell.
LBBS: 205(84%)x2 @6.5; 165(67%)x6x10 @6 E3MOM
Cardio: Cycled 30 minutes on the indoor trainer, easy pace
Deadlift: 295(89%)x1 @7; 245(74%)x5x8 @6-7 E2MOM
Cardio: Walked and jogged for 50 minutes. This was my first hilly outing since an odd little glute/hamstring tweak that occurred about 6 weeks ago on the very first stride of a run. It still sends me a reminder now and then, so I kept my strides short on the ups and downs and took the one sustained downhill scarcely faster than a walk. Assuming all goes well, I’ll start ramping up the stress level from there.