Murch

Hey peeps, Has anyone had any problems with recovery after switching from like 3-5x5 dominant programming to 3x8-12 type stuff? I've been having issues. Day 1 was great, did the volume thing, smashed it - but on bench for example even five days later I'm not recovered enough to repeat the feat. Not sure if not adapted or just broken. I'm inclined to think My 12 rm is just inflated compared to my ability to recover from the metabolic demands due working low volume for so long, but I'd like any input to the contrary or otherwise. Not entirely sure what I'm dealing with here.

I know some of you gotta know what I'm talking about. Some people just randomly berserker mode from the time they're a child. When based on emotion it can be very destructive. I've had great successes due to my risk-taking behaviours. But I've also made some seriously irrational choices based on emotional urgency. Does anyone have any good stories of when berserker moding was a bad idea?

Eh, disappeared again, thought I'd give an update. Had a bit of temp work where I was out of town for a couple weeks, stayed sick the whole time, haven't been keeping up with the challenge, except for skill work.

Woops, bad things happened and I didn't do what I meant to do so far :/ Instead of practicing pushups and burpees, I practiced coughing and being nauseous, then had a panic attack over an overly brutal Chinese movie, which has never happened before. I made him shut it off but the damage was done, I was all nerves for the next day, wiggin' out at the slightest thing. I've chilled out but I'm still sick, I just figured I would check in. Hopefully I can get at least 4 weeks of work in before test day, I think I'll still be able to pull off my goals. Namaste Eve, thank you! For the pushups, I'm planning on repping out 100 in as little time as possible a few times a week and shortening the time between sets when I can. I'll probably be doing smaller, less intense amounts of pushups on the inbetween days as well, that's always worked well in the past. The burpees I'm just going to attack the same way I always have and force my way through tabatas with them a few times a week. Like I said, it's less about reaching the goal this time and more about getting better at working through pain and exhaustion. Thank you all for your encouragement!

Well shoot, I'm late But I'm sure you'll forgive me that. Lately, in between existential crises and sheer laziness, I've been trying to, well, try. While I really believe consistency is one of the biggest keys to success in a given endeavor, I've come to see that I've been using this idea that consistency is king, along with many other self deceptions, to prevent an honest to goodness sustained effort during an actual chunk of continuous work. Now I don't want to hurt myself or anything, but there are many movements that I've never hurt myself with, and don't think I easily could. These movements will be the focus of my challenge, or rather, giving maximum effort for time with these movements will be my challenge. Conditions for success: 1) By the end of the challenge, be able to complete 64 burpees in a tabata without slacking off once. 2)100 pushups as fast as possible, without slacking. 3) Stretch thoroughly every day. 4) Work 1 technique a day for at least 100 reps. I'm hovering at 50 pushups in a set right now, and the next set of 50 is 10 minutes out and very difficult so I have a ways to go. I've no clue how I am on burpees, I just want to beat the 6 years younger version of myself at it. Sadly, my squat rack and barbells and such are outside, frozen in the snow where I dare not tread. Hopefully I will continue with my lifting goals alongside these challenges goals. Anyhow, I will see you peeps here tomorrow for the first update! Use your dark druid magics to wish me mental fortitude!

Your challenge title made my day, kill it : )

Goal: Grow stronger Results: 5 pounds to my 1rm (though greatly improve endurance with barely sub maximal loads) on the OHP, deadlift 1rm became new 5rm. I had to cut squatting for this one, and benching wasn't practical either, so meh. Mat strength is way higher, holy crap my underhooks and headlock throws have been undeniable lately. I do pass or fail, I feel good calling this one a pass. As for mini-challenges, some high rep squat stuff (at whatever percentage of bodyweight) could be interesting. Or maybe the same idea but with farmers walks.

Woops, just realized the challenge ended yesterday. The goal was to get stronger: my ohp is all of 5 pounds higher since the beginning, and my deadlift 1rm became my new 5rm, so that's cool. I'm ragdolling much larger people than myself in the clinch as well, which is an upgrade. So.... Yeah, guess I can call this one a success! Not nearly as far along as I had hoped, but life happens and progress has really bogged down since nearing three plates on the squat.

Oct 27: OHP: 125 for 5x5. Walked a couple miles. Deadlift: 135x5, x3, 205x5, 225x5, 235x5. Pretty easy but my back is just now recovering from some other bullshit.

Oct 24: 8 miles bicycle OHP: 125 for 1x3

Woops, haven't been around in a while. Been doing scattered stuff, presses and krotty stuff, mostly. These nine log-less days shall be know by future historians as the "Time of Darkness," where primary source documents fall silent about my adventures.

Thanks for the encouragement man : )

Oct 14 OHP: 125 for 1x6, first and last were push presses. Haven't eaten today yet. It's raining still :| Chins: 3x12.

The heroic Flex Luthor has graced my challenge thread! My efforts have been backed by divine will! Now it is impossible to fail, and I shall act thusly. via Imgflip Meme Maker

Oct 10: OHP: 135 for 1x4, 1min rest, 1x3 push press, in the rain. I'm sure I could have managed the prescribed 5 reps, but that first one without the stretch reflex is sooooo slow and difficult, it saps too much strength. Back is still being a loser.

Oct 7: 3 mile walk Oct 8: OHP: Recovery day, 95 for 2x5, 105 for 1x6. Back is still wonky from old injury.

That commercial was lovely.

I am very familiar with the bolded sentiment. I came to recognize eventually that collecting skills in areas other people didn't normally venture was just a form of lateral ego, if you will. Knowing that can free you up to pursue what you really want. I'm glad it went better the next time around! I'm sure you'll be killing it in no time

Nah I'm not worried about it, just curious. Thanks though

I often feel like this if someone outfights me in training, a live match, whatever. It's something I'm supposed to be superior at, it's what I do best, and failure can be hard to take. Are you sure it was the pose making you feel negative, or was it your performance and environment? Do you feel that it should have been something you were good at? Were you ashamed that people were around to see you struggle? If I were in your shoes, the only way for me to feel better about it would be to improve and out yoga those peeps.

I'll start by saying that I'm looking for someone who can either direct me to an established meditation discipline that practices what I'm doing by accident on purpose, or who can relate with this and share their own experiences. Almost every night, and especially when I'm just napping on the couch in the middle of the day, I enter a very odd lucid dream state. I've had lucid dreams before, and have even learned how wake into them on purpose in the past, but it's a skill I became disinterested in some years back. But these dreams are different from normal lucid dreams. I'm not in an environment, so much as I'm in my own head, my subconscious perhaps. And what happens there has been one or all of several very specific things. The primary one is an acute self awareness of my emotional reaction to a stimuli, my facial expression when experiencing that emotion, and any physical tics associated with that emotion/facial expression (I'm not sure some of those tics aren't tied to the actual facial position, rather than directly to the emotion.). It has been very difficult to keep a hold of these reactions, because they often slip out of my grasp before I can get a good "look" at them. They slide into a new emotion/expression/tic before I can remember them often times. The particularly annoying but mostly amusing thing about it is that my mind remembers these from before, and recognizes them briefly as they streak past, and also remembers at points in the sequence that there is a likely pattern that these normally go in, because they are triggered by each other and my mind knows this but can still rarely commit them to long term memory. Here is a log of what I have managed to bring back with me so far; note the list is woefully incomplete and that the order may not be the same each time but I'm not sure: Alarm (almost caught a glimpse of the last thought): left knee twitches, eyes dart left, color red. Amused(at having just missed it, knowing that this happens all the time): eyes rolls up and then right, smirk dominated by left side of mouth, green color. Hilarity(knowing that external (waking) stimuli sometimes match up with my previous amusement, and finding that hilarious): very green, cracking up, big grin and eyes become harder to keep open as I lose it more and more. What was that (trying to remember what the above thought process was): eyes look up and to the left, mouth purses. Left foot or knee may twitch, not sure. Increasingly contemplative: fingers lace, eyes look down, try to remember what led me here. May start stroking my nonexistent goatee, not sure. Sometimes associated with grey, and smooth, round gravel. Face stroking: Thumb and forefinger trace along my mouth from top till they meet at the tip of my chin, in a roughly triangle-like pattern. Mind starts to spiral into a hallucination about triangles, or sometimes restarts this sequence somewhere. It may be worth mentioning there are a couple other levels of deepness to this that entail different things, like the triangle hallucination, a whole other can of worms. I've twice slipped into this while awake and eating, something about being super aware of my mouth can lead me down that path and into a very meditative state. For now though, lets focus on this and see if anyone has stumbled across anything similar.

Oct 6: OHP: 130 for 5x5. Surprisingly this was very doable, if difficult on the last 2 or 3 sets. I do not look forward to intermediate work with squats. Holy god.

There you are! Nice deadlifting, holy shit the volume.

What are you up to anyhow? I haven't seen a challenge thread of yours floating around.