Exactly. It took me a very long time to find out, as generally I was so winded/excited in the gym that I'd just blow through an entire workout w/o a problem and even get good results (performance-wise). Never mind I'd be fully wiped out at home and non-functional.
I'm nearly certain one very simple thing I changed mid-2006 (or so) attributed a lot to losing a lil' more weight: replacing the quick darts by bicycle to town by walking to shops & post office or gym whenever the distance was less than 2 miles. And carrying my groceries home in the backpack & shopping bag.
But now my workout..
Wednesday May 21
Funky Times 2-3B – lower body
all weights in kilograms
DYNAMIC STRETCHING
The usual 10 suspects. This time I thought about doing a few scaption pushups.
A1
hang cleans
25-28-30-36x1 and failed on 40kg to move bb out of the way &
35-28-25x1 on the way back after finishing w front squats (the 30kg was used by someone else)
Though I’d only planned to do a 36kg max, I wanted to see if I could manage a 40kg.. not anymore.
B1
front squat
WU:30x4 – 40x4
50x5 (-1) – 52,5x5 (-1)
55x4 (-1) – 57,5x2 (-3!)
60x2 (-1) – 62,5x1
I’d thought to do better this time now I was well fed. Uh oh.. no! For 1 the SLDLs are kicking my ass (the DL is for over 90% a back exercise for me, while SLDLs murders the hams.. and for 2 , I was feeling too … relaxed. Even yawning! Got to be angry to work out!
B2
stiff legged DL off a bench
WU: 40x4
60x7 (-3) – 65x8
65x6 – 70x7 (-1)
70x5 (-3) – 75x6 (PR, never did a SLDL w 75kg before)
Wasn’t bad, but form-wise it could’ve been better. A disaster though to do this one paired with the technically so much more demanding front squat
C1
step up
(2x9)x8 -7
Was already pretty beat by now.
C2
Smith squat lunge
25x10
Used 5kg more.. going through the movements rather than pushing myself.
D1
1-leg press
19x10 – 10 (0)
Fortunately no hip pain by now, but still not better than last time.
D2
seated leg curl
40x10 (0)-12 (-1)
Same amt of reps.
SMALL STUFF
E1
wood chop
16,3x12 for each side and
F1
sword pull AKA reverse wood chop
8,8x10
Never tried this one before… hmm much harder than the downward movements! Perhaps a keeper?
G1
cable crunch
26,3x10 (-4)
H1
cable exo rotation
3,8x12
ODD EXERCISES
Excercises You've Never Tried Before #16
The Dumbbell Front Squat
Description: Stuck without a rack and need to train legs? Try this doozy of an exercise we picked up from Coach Allen Hedrick.
Clean the dumbbells to the shoulders. Assume a shoulder-width stance, arch the back, and keep the head up. Reach back with the hips and sit back into a squat position, keeping the heels on the floor and the knees behind the toes. Return to the start position and repeat.
Practice: did this one with 10kg dumbbells and just 5 reps as I’d done 8 sets of bb front squats before. Felt easier than I’d thought.. but then again, didn’t try the heavier dumbbells which would have been really tough to clean.
Opinion: neutral. Cleaning them one at the time and then trying to position them there where they’d hurt the least was the hardest part. Other than that, the front squat itself isn’t difficult..
If you really don’t have a rack, but do have barbells, I’d suggest to just clean the barbell from the floor and go on to do a regular bb front squat. Unless you have a problem with flexibility of the elbows, a bb front squat wil be a lot easier to balance. So, I won’t do them like this.. unless I’d do them off balance as single db front squats after single db cleans or even snatches.
CARDIO
Almost wanted to quit but told myself to just do 15 min of easy TM walking.. so I did. Bummer that I accidentally tore off the emergency stop cord and had to start over again.. so could only record total calories from memory & not the distance.
Total time: 15+3 min, 4 to 7 km/hr @ 15% grade : nearly 200kcal
General: am longing for the end of my cut.. which actually will be … tomorrow. I’d thought my overfeeding on carbs a few days ago would’ve kicked me out of the rut, but apparently not. This month I’ve lowered calories on WO days to just below maintenance. Yes, I’m dropping weight nicely, but I’m also dropping strength faster while I was able to get stronger in the previous cycles before I switched routines.. (last month I even had to take 1 week off as I overreached).
Or… perhaps this is just too much volume.. would it, could it? I guess it is.. at least for a cut. Will know more in a few days when calories will go UP again!
Training statistics
Volume: 16168 (+5143)
# of sets: 41 (+11) # of reps: 276 (+93) - avg reps/set : 6,7 (+0,4) - kg/rep : 58,6 (-1,6)