May 21, 2016 Where I'm Going From Here:

So the people that have been reading this for a while know that I wanted this to be more than a repository for past workouts; I wanted to post about lifestyle type stuff, nutrition, rest, recovery, research, etc.  Then I spent the past 18 months getting an MBA, so that kind of put me in a position where I was constantly buried with work.  HOWEVER, I'm done!  I finally have time again, and will be posting a lot of research I've been reading, links to an instagram if for whatever unconscionable reason you should want to see that, and possibly starting a youtube channel for talking about topics.  

The biggest change for me personally is that after several years of talking about it, I'm going to finally switch to full-body workouts.  It's kind of intimidating after doing the split I have for the past 7+ years at this point. But it's time to change; my goal has always been to be as athletic as possible, as efficiently as possible.  My workouts have really morphed over the past year into pseudo-full-body sessions anyway....I hit the deadlift/snatch/carry/core in one session as is...all that's missing is an upper body pushing exercise, and a row/pullup variant to hit my already toasted lats from deadlifting.  

I've also noticed the past few years that as I sprint more, during the summers I wear down; by July & August my weights are going down that I can push, and my speed drops, I just tire out.  As it applies in a more useful sense for anyone reading this, I'm not entirely convinced that people can train hard more than 3 or 4 times per week.  This article came out in a rather timely fashion, and seems to back up what I'm thinking.  This would give me two extra recovery days per week, let me go real hard on the two full-body days, and go over a bit in calories.

But it's more than that as well; I've known for some time that after finishing grad school I'd be working at a job with longer hours probably. Maybe not insane, but just longer.  I'm going to have a family soonish as well.  I just don't have the same time as I did in my 20s, but I want the same results.  Plus, there are so many things to enjoy in life, the gym should make those things better, not take a huge amount of time away from them, or be the focus of life, unless competing is your job or passion.  I take about 3 minutes getting ready in the locker-room before I hit the weights, do it for 45 minutes, then shower & get dressed after which takes 10 minutes. Let's call that one hour, four times per week.  I can get it to 2 sessions per week, and if I give myself 70 minutes, and just leave after and shower at home, that's 2.5 hours. Obviously the two sprinting sessions per week stay the same, but still every week I get 90 more minutes with people I care about, or doing other things I enjoy.  Anyway, this is starting to ramble, so I'm going to wrap it up now.

July 6, 2015 Lower Body

• Front Squat: 275*1 315*1 295*1 305*1
• BB DL (double overhand) thick bar: 315*2 335*1 355*1
• DL Mixed Grip thick bar: 405*1 445*1 455*1
• HPS: 135*3 135*3 145*2
• Hanging Power Cleans: 185*3 195*2
• Clean-Grip Reverse Lunges: 135*5 145*5
• Dead Bugs: 10, 10

So this is the switch-up I've been planning.  Between sprinting two days per weekend, squatting monday or tuesday, dodgeball wednesday, and then deadlifting either thursday or Friday, I was hammering my lower body 5 times per week.  I was feeling worn down after the past month, and I think it's holding back my sprinting, which is really what I love spending my summers working on.  So my idea is to combine both deadlifting and squatting into a day (probably Monday, or Tuesday if I want to give myself a day off after back-to-back sprint sessions on the weekend), and then taking Thursday off.  This gives me a day off after dodgeball for my legs to recover, or potentially doing some extremely light sprinting on Thursdays if I'm feeling fresh.  This first session went well, I had plenty of energy and actually got through the session surprisingly fast.  The clean-grip reverse lunges are progressing well, I feel the imbalance in my hips correcting! 

February 17, 2014 Miscellaneous thoughts on Nutrition, Routine

1. I'm  considering switching things up a tad with breakfast; instead of using dairy milk I'm considering switching to soy milk.  I'm not anti-dairy, necessarily, but the soy milk would probably be easier on my stomach first thing in the morning.  Plus I have no idea where the milk is coming from; there's a company that distributes the milk, and a farm number listed on there, but I can't match it to anything on Google. I may try calling them this week and see if they can tell me what farm it comes from. There's the fact that grass fed & finished beef is much better for you than grain finished beef (all cattle eat grass on the field, it's when they're taking to the slaughtering lots and fattened up on corn & antibiotic laden crap that the quality goes to shit, which is why you should look for grass fed, grass FINISHED beef).  It's similar for milk; what the cows eat goes into the milk you drink.  I'd like to at least be able to see the farm.  With soy milk there's a whole lot fewer issues, since I'm not a stickler for organic vegetables/fruit by any means.    But all this brings up the fact that so many people pay attention to where their meat comes from, but then eggs & dairy kind of slip under the radar.  The stuff you're drinking, or eggs you're eating are JUST as susceptible to the problems that occur with factory raised beef.  Just look at the fact that with eggs you can buy ones specifically higher in Omega-3s, simply based on what the chickens were fed. Just some food for thought. 
2. I'm pondering routines for this upcoming cut, and also for the future if I have a family.  In the latter case there's obviously a lot more demands on time.  I'm considering ideas now that may help in the future as well.  I frequently talk about switching up my split but never really do it.  I probably won't this time either, since I stick with what works.  But if I do switch ever I may go over from doing 4 weighted workouts per week to three, or even two. If it was two, I'd be doing two full body sessions per week, and extending it to maybe an hour and 5 minutes or so. If I did that I would still have one sprint session per week and another conditioning one, possibly a second sprinting day. I would also have a day specifically for yoga/stretching.  Right now I just don't really have any room to fit that stuff in.  I have one sprinting day, and I can barely work my lower body even two days later.  Plus I don't really have time for a yoga class or something.  Just some ideas I'm tossing around. 

March 17, 2013 Routine

Alright, so my routine for this cut is going to go along with the theme of the nutrition; I know my body well enough at this point that I don't think I need a set routine any more. The upper/lower/conditioning days of the week will almost certainly stay the same.  Deadlifting, Squatting, Benching, Rows, Pullups, sprinting, and Presses will be done every week almost certainly. But really past that I'm not going to marry myself to any one routine or rep scheme.  For instance this week I'm thinking of having an all o-lift thursday with snatching, cleans, and push pressing, and then maybe some incline bench after if I have the energy.   I'll do regular standing presses on Monday instead of PP, and do pullups with deadlifting on Tuesday.   Of course that assumes I remember not to PP tomorrow.   Again, reps will probably be kept low & explosive for everything, but who knows.  There's so many solid exercises out there, why limit myself?   I'm going to do what I feel like each day, and most likely my routine won't look a lot different every day, but there'll hopefully be more variety in set type, rep scheme, and exercise selection.   

November 16, 2012

• Squats: 225*5 275*5 305*2 315*1
• Squats From Pins: 245*3 265*1
• Hanging Power Snatches: 135*3 140*3 145*1
• Front Squats: 185*3 205*3 
• Paloffs: 60*10 70*10
• 16 lbs. medicine ball wall throw: 10, 10

44 minutes

Too much stuff!  I think all of that is too much for my lower back, it's going to get overloaded.  The squats went well, banged out a couple extra at 275 & upped 3rd set to 305 from 300.  I need to add in some hypers here I think, or maybe on deadlifting day.  Love squatting from the pins; going to drop the weight some and really bang out some reps.  Front squats I was slumped forward badly, my lower back was exhausted.  Tried to pin my core but it was tired. Rest of the session went well. 

So here's the thing...my leg days are sort of muddled; one is hamstring based with quad work in it, and the other vice-versa.  Fridays I'm hitting quads with squatting, glutes/hams with the power snatches, and glutes/hams/back with the reverse-hypers I do here occasionally.  Tuesdays I'm hitting my posterior chain with deadlifts, and the glute bridges I'm going to be adding back in...but then bulgarian split squats are very quad centered for me.  So here's what I'm going to do:

Tuesdays:

Deadlift x 3

Hanging Power Snatches x 3

Hanging Power Cleans x 3

Reverse Hypers (or glute bridges) x 3

Core x 2

Conditioning perhaps

Fridays:

Squats (or Front Squats) x 5

Squats from Pins x 3

Bulgarian Split Squats x 2

Core x 2

Conditioning 

This way I'm hitting my posterior chain really hard on Tuesdays, and my quads more on Fridays.  I high bar squat anyway, so it always hits my quads more. PLUS this gives me a way to put both of my main o-lifts on the same day, since I had tinkered with giving them their own day in the past.  This should allow my CNS to recover more, since I'm not doing anything explosive on Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays now.  I'm really excited for this! 

July 25, 2011 Current Routine

So here's what I'm doing currently.  As always, remember this: What works for me might not work for you.  Also when you look at what someone is doing remember that may not be how they got to where they are, it's just what they're doing now.  Although in this case a heavy/light upper/lower split is largely what got me where I am.  Previously I was doing another conditioning session consisting of tabatas, jumps, and rope work on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings.  I replaced that with incline walking Monday & Thursday mornings, and take Tuesday mornings off possibly.  So here's my current incarnation of the routine:

Sunday (Conditioning)
Tabata (KB Swing Usually)
Plyometric Box Jumps: 30
Seated Box Jumps: 20ish
Paloff Presses
Ab Wheel

Monday (A.M. Conditioning)
Incline Walking: 30 minutes

Monday (P.M. Upper/Heavy)
BB Flat Bench: 4 sets, 3-5 reps*
BB Rows: 4 sets, 3-5 reps
BB Push Press: 3 sets, 1-3 reps
Pullup Variation: 3 sets high rep, low rep, whatever
Metabolic Movement (swings, rope slams, battling ropes, etc.).  

Tuesday (Lower/Light)
Squats: 3 sets, 10 reps
Front Squats: 3 sets, 1-3 reps
Core Movement (P.U.P.P., Plank Variation, Paloffs, Fallouts, Ab Wheel, etc.).

Wednesday (Conditioning)
Sprinting: 800-1200m (still building towards 1200 now)

Thursday (A.M. Conditioning)
Incline Walking: 30 minutes

Thursday (P.M. Upper/Light)
BB Incline Bench: 3 sets, 8-10 reps**
Pullup Variation: 3 sets
BB Standing Press: 3 sets, 5-8 reps
Metabolic Movement (swings, rope slams, battling ropes, etc.).  

Friday (P.M. Lower/Heavy)
Deadlifts: 3 sets, 1-3 reps***
DB Jump Deads: 3 sets, 3-5 reps
Pullup Variation: 3 sets, 3-5 reps

Saturday (Not A Thing)
Rest



*Currently for the next couple of weeks I am going to be trying to see how high I can get my 10 rep max. 
**Currently since I'm going lighter on flat I'm doing low reps here for the next couple weeks.
 ***Currently going for 400*10, at 400*9 right now, when I hit 10 I will switch back to doing 1-3 rep sets and take a run at 500 lbs.