Tuesday, 29 April 2008

Upholstered J.T

21-15-9
HSPU - feet on back of sofa
Dips - paralletes, feet on seat of sofa
Push-ups

12:34

Friday, 25 April 2008

Amblin' Kelly

4 rounds
Walk 400m
30 step-ups 20" box
30 wall-ball, 6kg ball

4 rounds 43:20

My hip gave me a couple of sharp warnings on the step-ups in the last round so I stopped.
Back pretty sore, but I wanted to get things moving through my lower back.

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Pull-up ladder

I worked late again and called in to my wife's gym to wait for her.
While I was there I did a non-kipping pull-up ladder.

6 rounds

Non-kipping because:
  1. My kipping sucks and I didn't want to embarrass myself in a public gym.
  2. I did one and kicked the container of tricep pushdown handles into the mirror.
    Full wall mirrors are expensive, so I decided to go on pure muscle rather than any technique.
    At this point I was screwed because I don't have either.

Sunday, 13 April 2008

Birthday 2008 part III

It's a good thing we got that taxi last night.
Lynette's been sleeping all day, the wandering around took more out of her after the cold she's just had than we thought.
I lay around watching the Sunday Star Trek re-runs and now I'm making muffins to take the the Session tonight. My back is still might sore, but I can get in and out of the car and squat down to pick something off the floor. The walk and keeping moving yesterday may have been rough on Lynette today (and me yesterday), but it was the right thing for me to do. If I'd laid down after hurting my back I would have stiffened up this morning and not wanted to move at all. With a little bit of loosening up I have pretty full range of motion. Just not comfortable.

Saturday, 12 April 2008

Birthday 2008 part II

I trained in the morning (see previous post), then we walked to the train into Britomart, then bussed to Mission Bay.
Mission Bay was De Fontein a belgian beer cafe that also serves nice food. This time no attempt to be Zone compliant was made at all. Funnily enough I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I mean I liked it, but I had very quickly had enough of the beer and the mashed potatoes and the sausages and I found myself thinking I'd probably have enjoyed the salad more. That surprised me because I love mashed potatoes and I thought I really missed them and the first mouthful or two was really yummy, but I'd had about enough by then. Determined to push on, I finished everything and had chocolate mousse for dessert and wound up impossibly full. And drunk.
2.5 beers (I had part of Lynette's) and not even particularly strong beer and I was extremely dizzy and disoriented. I wanted to try the 3 fruit flavoured beers they had, having had the cherry flavoured last Kriek time I was there, so I got the raspberry flavoured Timmerman's Framboise first.

Lynette got the peach flavoured Timmerman's Peche

and only had about half of it. I moved onto the Belle-Vue Kriek and Lynette to the Hoegarden White. I liked the Hoegarden White best of all. Who'd have thunk that I'd lose my sweet tooth?

A blurry photo of Lynette and me.

Lynette looked stunning. She finally bought herself some clothes that fit, instead of the loose tent style things she normally gets and with the training and dieting she's been doing for her bodybuilding bootcamp she looked fabulous.

And one of Allan.

There was a TV playing C4, a predominantly music channel in the bar below and we couyld see it from our table, so Allan spent the whole time watching that and grunting at us. Why did he come with us again?


We managed to find the bus and the train and went to Sylvia park where I got a massage. My back was killing me all day I'm afraid.
The massage helped, but it was still pretty bad.

The plan then was to see a movie, but there was nothing we wanted to see on. I used to plan trips to the movies, carefully checking the timetables and I still do that if there's something we want to see, but if we don't have a particular movie we want to watch, just turning up and seeing what's going is a fun thin Lynette's introduced me to.

So we caught the train to Papakura, rented some videos and got fish and chips. We won't be having that again in a long time either, so I figured if we're going to blow the diet, may as well do it properly. Fortunately it wasn't fantastic. Again, nice enough, but nothing special. That's fortunate because if it had been I'd have wanted it again soon and fish and chip shops are everywhere here.

Taxi home and then I went to sleep watching the first video, then hobbled to bed like the broken old man I resembled.

Press, Push Press, Push Jerk 080428

Press
1 x 50kg
1 x 52.5kg old PB
1 x 55kg PB
1 x 55kg fail
1 x 55kg fail

Push Press
3 x 55kg
3 x 57.5kg old PB
3 x 60kg PB
3 x 62.5kg PB
3 x 65kg PB

Push Jerk
5 x 60kg PB by 5kg
5 x 60kg
5 x 60kg
3 x 60kg damaged back


I don't think I damaged the disk or misaligned anything. I think it's muscular. I'm sure hoping it is.
Hurts.

It's the whole weird hip position thing that messes my squats up that did it. I dropped under and wasn't square and the weight pile-drived my back into an odd position my core wasn't strong enough to hold me out of.
Not to tell GD what to do, but if he can get me started on sorting that out when I'm over he'll probably keep me out a wheelchair.

The weights validate my diet, so that's good. I've lost a lot of "size" to go back to the terminology of my bodybuilding days, but I was only worried about that if my strength had dropped. The extra bulk I was carrying was not contributing to anything positive, so it has to
go. It has however been extraordinarily hard to get my head around the more accurate image of myself as a long lean guy and let go of the heavier build I tried for so many years to attain.

So I'm a Lincoln Brigham wannabe rather than a Kempie clone. I can live with that.
No offence meant Kempie.

Wednesday, 9 April 2008

Happy Birthday to me

Double 4's, although I'm still 43 in America. Datelines are cool.

My lovely wife made me breakfast this morning, a nice zone friendly omlette and I got a packed salad with chicken for lunch.
For presents I got a clay extruder for my polymer clay work


and the hollow core accessories


Also some US$$ and a new travel pack for our trip in July.

A near catastrophe almost saw the trip aborted recently and although that's still a possibility, the more time passes, the less likely it is that it will be called off.

Tuesday, 8 April 2008

Dumbell cleans and push-ups

I got home late and did.

Row 1000m

A baby version of the WOD demo'ed in the HQ video today
5 rounds not for time but for the fun of it:
12 x 5kg dumbell hang cleans
10 push-ups.

Wanted to move a little without taking much time.

5kg dumbbells are all I have without stripping down the 24kg jobbie that I use for dumbbell swings.

Sunday, 6 April 2008

Gwen

40kg

5:02 Splits: 2:00, 1:43, 1:17

Form for the jerk was yecchh.

Overall not too hard really.
Probably too light in hindsight, but there ya go. I'll know for next time.


50 abmat situps.

Friday, 4 April 2008

BrandX core workout

By the system I use to track the HQ WODs I should have done the back extension sit-up workout, but my back doesn't feel solid enough.

So I did:

30 OHS 25 kg
20 Toes to Bar
30 Front Squat 25 kg
30 Hollow Rocks
30 Back Squats 25 kg
40 Ab Mat Sit ups

16:23

OHS are still a struggle for me, so I went lighter than the 30kg I should have done. They were probably the best OHSs I've done, so I am making progress.

Front squats weren't heavy, but they were tiring and the problems I have with squatting in general made them a struggle.
I'd never done hollow rocks before. I didn't do them well, too many bumps instead of a smooth rocking motion.
Back squats for the first time in about 18 years? Felt solid relative to the other two versions, but still freaking me out being under a bar. I only did them because the weight was so light. I think at 35kg I would have been in a full-blown panic attack.

And as an unexpected bonus, while stretching my back on the foam roller before starting to uncurl me from "IT geek hunched over keyboard position" a vertebrae or two clunked back into position. My back feels better than it has in weeks. Yay!

Tuesday, 1 April 2008

Fran 080331

Pack
21-15-9
30kg thrusters
Pull-ups

13:11

The thrusters weren't as heavy as last time, but there just wasn't much there.
A bit run down I think, ready for a couple days off.