BeatnikJoe

Nice, good to see you back at it! Great stuff. You came back to it, and that's all that really matters. Soon enough you'll be in the groove, it'll feel great, and you won't be able to remember it being any other way. And ooooh, we can "like" stuff now. They've been making some improvements around this place...

Mission 1: 5 Reps of 390 on the Partial Deadlift Grade: A. Yes. New PR. (STR+ 4) Mission 2: Gain 3 Pounds of Quality Mass [Con 2, Str 2] Grade: D. Weight from 160.6 -> 161.4, so 0.8 pound gain instead of 3.0. (STR+0.5, CON+0.5) Mission 3: Healthy shoulder [Dex 2, Con 2]. Grade: C. Doing great until final workout, when I felt a twinge. (DEX+1, CON+1) Life Goal: Balcony Project [Wis 2, Cha 1] Grade: A (WIS+2, CHA+1) Overall Challenge Score: B-. I'll take it!! Congratulations to all who finished!

Final Results Mission 1: 5 Reps of 390 on the Partial Deadlift [str 4] - Completed 10/08/13! Grade: A Yay! I knew this one was a sure thing since I completed it earlier in the month. That's a good thing, too, because the last couple of weeks I've just not been nearly as on point with fitness stuff. Really happy to have this new PR to work from as a baseline. The last two challenges have been great for moving this lift up. STR: 6 + 4 = 10 Mission 2: Gain 3 Pounds of Quality Mass [Con 2, Str 2] Grade: D Weight this morning was 161.4, meaning that I gained a paltry 0.8 pounds for this cycle. My eating discipline was just not what it should have been. I can think of many instances where I was too lazy to cook myself a big enough meal when I knew I wasn't eating the huge portions I need to keep the lean weight coming on. Yes, I was eating a lot in general, but I needed to be more consistent. STR: 10 + 0.5 = 10.5 CON: 2 + 0.5 = 2.5 Mission 3: Healthy shoulder [Dex 2, Con 2]. Grade: C I thought that I was doing great with this one, but I had to back off on the dips last night. I'm not sure whether I didn't stretch quite enough beforehand or what it was, but things didn't feel quite as good as they had the past few workouts. This could have been a B, but considering that I had to abandon a workout early, I really need to take a C on this one. DEX: 3 + 1 = 4 CON: 2.5 + 1 = 3.5 Life Goal: Balcony Project [Wis 2, Cha 1] Grade: A Against all odds, I completed this task! We have our contractor lined up, the architect has reviewed everything, and we're going to start in the next week or so. WIS: 3 + 2 = 5 CHA: 2 + 1 = 3

Three hunting trips in two weeks? Nice! Sounds like you had a good time. And I say hell yes to going for it anyway, even if you don't think you'll be able to give yourself amazing grades at the end. It's never too late, and any passing grade still gets you stat points! (I know I'm keeping this idea firmly in mind!) By the way, congratulations on nailing your reading milestone!

Week 5 Summary Mission 1: 5 Reps of 390 on the Partial Deadlift [str 4] - Completed 10/08/13! Mission 2: Gain 3 Pounds of Quality Mass [Con 2, Str 2] Weight was 162.8 this morning (up from 160.2 last week and 160.6 at competition start), which is great news! It looks like last week's sudden plunge in scale weight may have just been an anomaly of some kind, maybe due to the half marathon? Anyway, while an 'A' probably isn't happening, I no longer think it's likely I'll flunk. Mission 3: Healthy shoulder [Dex 2, Con 2]. I'm feeling good about this goal, too, particularly now that I'm starting back in on the dips. I'll take it slowly, but this is looking good. Life Goal: Balcony Project [Wis 2, Cha 1] This is actually going pretty well right now. We're still deciding, but there's at least a chance that we'll sign a contract this week. We'll see!

Workout 10/20/13 Partial Deadlift 275, 50 reps (5 sets of 2-3-5) Dips Bodyweight+20, 50 reps (5 sets of 10) L-fly work Notes: It feels great to slowly be bringing dips back up. It has literally been months since I've gotten to do any serious upper body push work, so I'm taking things slow with the resistance level. Shoulder held up well through the whole thing, so I'm very happy with how this is going so far.

Workout 10/17/13 Partial Deadlift 275, 50 reps (5 sets of 2-3-5) Dips Bodyweight, 5 sets of 12 L-fly work Notes: The dips may not seem like much but this is actually a very big deal for me since my left shoulder is on the mend. I felt a little out of practice on the movement since it's been literally months since I did any serious push work. But aside from the feeling of being rusty, everything went great. The shoulder didn't harass me even a little bit during the movement, which is great. This is a nice step forward. Now just don't get too greedy.

Week 4 Summary Well, I'll start with the good news: I hit my deadlift poundage goal of 390 for 5 reps on Tuesday of last week! So I've got at least one A guaranteed for this challenge. The not-so-good news is on my weight gain goal. I weighed in this morning at 160.2, so I'm 0.4 pounds lighter than when I started the challenge! I walked in a half marathon Sunday morning so I was a little worried that this might make it hard to keep weight on. I ate everything in sight throughout the weekend but it looks like it wasn't quite enough! I've got less than two weeks to go, so my goal now is to at least gain some weight for the challenge so that I don't have to completely flunk myself on this mission!

Workout 10/08/13 Partial Deadlift 390x5 (Personal record!!) 350x5 Dips (shoulder test) 3 sets of 5 L-fly work Notes: I got my deadlift poundage goal! I'm going to be taking it easy lifting-wise for the next few days so that I'm fresh for the walking half marathon that I'm doing so I wanted to take one good swing at my deadlift goal before ending the cycle. The 390 for 5 reps was tough on the last rep but I got them all cleanly. Yay! I also tried some light dips just to see how my shoulder would react, keeping volume and resistance very low. No discomfort, although the movement (once one of my very favorite exercises) felt a little unfamiliar. Still, this is good. All in all, very happy with this workout!

Thanks! It feels good to have the self-pity finally winding down and be able to put in some decent workouts! Yeah, that may not be a bad idea. If you want to push the wager to next round, I will gladly accept your mercy.

Week 3 Summary I weighed in this morning at 160.6. That's up 1.4 pounds from a week ago but... exactly the weight that I started this challenge at! (Still making up the ground I lost from being sick.) This means that I now have 3 weeks to make all 3 pounds of weight gain I was targeting for this challenge. Not looking good, but we'll see how it goes! Suprailiac pinch was 7mm, so that's looking fine. My shoulder has been feeling good in most day-to-day use but last night I was cutting up some metal with bolt cutters and pressing the handles together kept making the shoulder gripe at me. It was a surprise because I hadn't noticed it in a while. Things are continuing to move in the right direction but this is a reminder that even if I go a couple of days without pain, there's still healing to be done. Need to continue to be careful!

Workout 10/06/13 Partial Deadlift 375x5 340x5 L-fly work Notes: Didn't have much time so only did the heavy deadlift sets. The top set went great tonight. The weight actually felt lighter than the 370 that I did on Thursday. I'm not sure why that is, but I'll take it!

5 out of 6 on the life goal already! Nice work! I need to follow your lead on life goals this time around to avoid total embarrassment. I'd also like to follow your lead and enjoy a Blizzard.

Workout 10/03/13 Partial Deadlift 370x5 335x5 40 reps of 275 (4 sets of 2-3-5) L-fly work Notes: Good workout. I cut the extra "weight gainer" sets short on partial deadlifts (40 reps instead of 50) so that I could ease back into things. But all in all everything felt great. I noticed that something else which really helps keep my hands feeling good is to grip the hell out of the bar even on the lighter sets of 275. On the top-end sets it's natural to really focus on gripping like crazy but I think I slack a little with how hard I grip the bar on the lighter work. Good to stay tighter.

Workout 10/01/13 Partial Deadlift 365x5 330x5 L-fly work Notes: Okay, I'm finally back at it after missing so many workouts due to being sick. Still got this lingering cough but I felt ready to at least do the strength portion of my workout. Good to be back at the heavy bar! Even after a short break it always feels like I've been away forever and part of me always questions the wisdom of picking up a big loaded barbell. Once I got started, it felt great!