Max Power

Hmm, looks like it's time for a catch up post. Friday: I got up at 4:45 to lift, but I was freaking exhausted, and I didn't really trust myself under the bar, so I ended up doing a half hour yoga session from youtube. I took off at lunch to go tour the daycare that we chose for the baby. It seems like a nice place, but a random child did call me dada, I nearly jumped over the wall and ran at that point. Saturday: The baby woke up at 5:00, because who needs to sleep in on a Saturday. I took care of her until the rest of the house woke up ,then I did a little bit of yard work, mostly cleaning up bushes around the front yard, there wasn't a whole lot else to do since it hasn't rained much lately. If this keeps up I'll have to start watering the grass soon. FMP and I went out to eat that night for our anniversary, we tried a new place, it was slightly upscale without being too nice. The food was delicious, but what really won me over was that they have the best scotch selection I've come across anywhere local, and the prices weren't bad either! Needless to say, I'll be back there in the future. Sunday: The baby let me sleep until 5:45 yesterday, which is weird because she sleeps until 6:30 or later on weekdays, so I got up and took care of her again until the rest of the house started stirring. I was so tired by this point that I went back to bed when FMP got up and slept for another couple of hours. Apparently I'm so out of practice of sleeping that I didn't do it right and ended up pinching a nerve in my neck, so now my neck and shoulder hurt whenever I look to my left. Needless to say I didn't do a whole lot after that, just some general tidying up and washing clothes, I spent a good bit of the day playing minecraft which was nice. Today: No workout this morning, since my neck/shoulder still hurts, it's not as bad as yesterday though. I had planned on getting up to do some foam rolling and a general warmup routine, but I decided sleep was more important once my alarm went off. Now for a morning full of coffee, and hopefully I can sleep tonight.

Are we going to be playing on 1.9?

Do you hold the lunges for a minute each or AMRAP them? I'm a little terrified by my pressure cooker, I've had if for three or four years now, but haven't used it more than twice. After typing that out it made me realize that I should probably get rid of it. Anywho, keep up the good work!

Deadlift PR's!!!

That's the best thing after a move, once you've got things unboxed and you can just stop for a while and look around.

How about we wait until just before somebody steps on us, then we jump out and surprise them. That way we don't get stepped on. Thank you sir! A friend of mine posted on facebook yesterday about their two month old saying " Weren't you just born and/or haven't I always had you?? " Which seems pretty appropriate. Wednesday May 18, 2016 Squats: BW X 10 45 X 5 75 X 5 105 X 5 145 X 5 X 5 OHP: 45 X 5 85 X 5 X 5 DL: 215 X 5 X 3 Nothing special, but I got through my entire workout this time. Getting up fifteen minutes earlier helped a lot. Everything felt good, I can tell that I need to work on my grip strength, that seems to be my limiting factor for DL's right now. The best solution to that is to do more deadlifts, which sounds like a win/win to me! Not a whole lot else going on today, I need to get a report out, but I need to proofread it one more time, and I hate proof reading. Anywho, time to get to work.

I blew through an article last week about creatine, what I took away from it was that some people are predisposed to retain more creatine naturally, for those people taking a supplement helps, for people who don't retain it, it's probably not doing a lot. I'm in the latter, creatine has never done anything for me.

Welcome aboard, this show is going to be as low key as possible. Thank you! I see you're still rocking the world. Thanks, and congrats to you too! I've always been a morning workout kind of guy, I tend to make excuses to not workout if I wait until I get home from work. The lack of sleep thing is the other problem, finding that happy zone can be a little tough. Thank you sir, and congratulations to you as well! Tuesday Update: I've got to go to the grocery store tonight after work, sometime today I'm going to put a meal plan together for the rest of the week. Other than that I don't have a whole lot going on today. Well, except for one thing...

That is already the theme of my challenge too. Glad to have you back for the challenge!

Man was it really 2013 when we had the last server?!

HG!!! Thanks! It was kind of a spur of the moment thing which I'm regretting a little bit because I'm not able to give it my all, but it is helping me be better because I probably wouldn't have worked out today. Now to do the things!!! (After I do the write-up). Apparently planning to do things was a terrible idea stupid Robert Burns and his appropriate poetry.... Everything went against my plans last week. The cats kept us up all one night, I went to workout one morning and something had pooped on my workout mat, little Joey-Joe-Joe Jr. Shabadu (that's the baby's name) didn't want to nap all weekend. It was a wild week. So as the goals go. Goal 1: I only got in one workout last week and it was pared down. Goal 2: I did mow everything Saturday, I didn't get to finish my weedeating though due to angry baby, but I did upholster my bench yesterday and it turned out pretty well, so now I don't have to bench press on a bare piece of plywood anymore. It's not exactly yardwork, but it is something I've been wanting to finish. Goal 3: I ate ok most of the week, I didn't track all week though, and FMPs birthday was last week, cake and ice cream were consumed due to that. I didn't track at all this weekend, so that was a bust, but I didn't eat terribly. Still, I need to do better. Goal 4: I got my ass handed to me by the first three goals, do you really think I'd add a fourth?! Monday 5/16/16 Workout: Squats: BW X 10 45 X 10 135 X 5 X 5. And that was it, I ran out of time. FMP and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning (11:00 pm) watching the final episodes of Parks and Rec (I had never watched the final season before) Because of that I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I think I'm going to move my alarm back to 4:45 to give me a little more wake up time before I need to be lifting. I've got all of my lunches cooked for the week, and will probably be going grocery shopping tonight for my other meals. Other than that, not a lot going on today. And now I need to get to work!

Whooo! Harry Potter funland! I want to eat everything you listed up there, it sounds pretty amazing to me. It's always great when you walk into a hotel gym and it turns out to be a nice gym. That one sounds pretty sweet. And now that you mention it, I feel like a Jack Lalaine museum should be a gym. P.S. I'm following. P.P.S Hello!

Lifting talk, check! Minecraft talk, check! Hudsucker Proxy reference, check! I'm late, but caught up and now following! Keep up the good work!

Ahoy, friend! A kind nod to you! Good to hear, it's nice to know that I'm not treading new ground here. I feel like setting a day to do yardwork and just knocking it all out at once is better than trying to do bits and pieces throughout the week. It seems like every time I decide to mow on a week night something comes up and it ends up getting pushed to the weekend anyway. 5/9/16 Stronglifts: Deadlift: 215 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets OHP: 75 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets If this workout looks a little strange, it is. The baby woke up about the same time I did and it took about a half hour to get her back to sleep, so I was pushed for time. I kept telling myself I'd just lift tonight, but I decided instead to cut squats and do a little extra on the DL so I could be done with the workout quickly and still get some decent work in. This is probably the life I'm going to have to live for the next few months anyway. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go talk Game of Thrones with my coworkers.

*SPOILER ALERT* This is how HG's challenge will end.

Thanks! And I could say the same to you fellow minecrafter! The main topic has been edited close to its former glory now.

Yeah, so I didn't die or anything, things were touch and go for a while there though due to lack of sleep because we now have a four month old. I had pretty much given up on anything related to fitness for a bit there. I didn't even touch a barbell between last November and the beginning of April. I had done some various bodyweight exercises during that time, but I couldn't ever get into a routine. Now we're getting into some nice sleep patterns with the baby and things have been going better the past few weeks. But for now I'm going to continue going at this easy. Goal 1: Lift 3X a week. I'm doing stronglifts for now because I want to make sure my body is used to moving again and most of my mobility is back before I start doing any extra weight or movements. Another reason though is that I don't want to have to think about what I'm doing anything beyond "What did I do last time? Ok, add ten pounds to that." I want to keep this to a MWF routine because that will help me discipline myself better and not be as likely to let myself sleep in and tell myself I'll move everything back a day. Also, these days... Goal 2: Saturdays are for yard work. I grew up on a farm, I know how to raise vegetables, my parents yard was pasture that we just happened to use a lawn mower on. Now I have to keep my yard manicured, and take care of bushes and plants. The other day I was having conversations with coworkers about what the best grass to use in shady areas would be... I have no idea who I am anymore... Between moving in and the early pregnancy stuff last year, the yard wasn't a high priority for me. I want to do better this year. At a minimum I want to keep it mowed and trimmed nicely. My goal for this is to do that once a week, and I have a few extra projects that I want to work on, but I won't use them as part of the goal. Goal 3: Eat pretty good. Right now pretty good is about all I can do for food. I don't have full control over my dinners, so I can't plan everything out as well as I'd like to. I can control breakfast and lunches pretty well, so I'm pulling them back in a little to give me a little more wiggle room at night. My weekends aren't as easy, I tend to go overboard and snack a lot throughout the day, I definitely need to tighten that down. My goal for this one is to track everything pretty good throughout the week, and track everything on the weekends. Goal 4: Mystery goal!!! There is no goal four, I have a newborn, I don't have time to be doing anything extra. (Did you really think I was going to make a parks and rec challenge and not put Ron Swanson in?)

Final write up for the challenge. I feel better about this challenge than any others I have done this year. I stayed fairly consistent, even if I wasn't updating daily like I used to. However, the last two weeks have been pretty bad. Work has been insane, I'm not even really allowed to talk about it due to confidentiality reasons, but a few people are probably going to lose jobs over it (not me, I'm safe), but all of the chaos has really taken its toll on me and I haven't really lifted much in the last couple of weeks. Goals: 1) Cleaning: I started to slip on this about half way through the challenge, but we had a Christmas party this past weekend, so the house is in good shape again, all I need to do is maintain for a bit. 2) Food prep. I did great with this right up until everything fell apart at work the last couple of weeks, since then there has been a serious "eh, fuck it" attitude about what I eat. 3) Lifting This also ended up suffering from the work related stuff, I haven't done much of anything regularly for a couple of weeks, and have just had a couple of marathon workouts on the weekends. Hopefully I can lock this back down over the next week or so. 4) Weight loss. I did pretty terrible with measurements, I really only measured the first couple of weeks, and I haven't even been tracking my weight since Thanksgiving (I can't imagine why) Anywho, that's how my challenge went. I'm pretty sure I would have actually failed all of them if I crunched the numbers, but I really don't feel bad at all about how it went.

So what I'm hearing is we need to have a mini-nerd meet up

Hey, don't forget about me! I know I'm not the most active, but I still exist haha! I'm also in the Jackson area.

I was going to post the obligatory "did we just become best friends" meme, but at this point I'm pretty sure you're just the female Canadian version of me.

Let's see. Thursday was the last real workout I did. I spent about 1.5 hours in the garage doing squats. I figured it'd help even out the massive feasting that came later. What I wasn't planning on was the two-four hour long car rides that came after. I was stiff and sore for the whole weekend. I also haven't slept good since we left for my parent's and it is starting to catch up to me. I'm going to leave work around lunch today and go home and rest for a bit. I'll probably go out to the garage and do something light just to stretch out and sweat a little. Sorry for the stream of conscious rant there, it's all my brain is capable of right now. ^^ That's me, except less suit, and more beard.

Fun story. Thanksgiving morning, FMP and I stopped at McDonalds for breakfast before heading to my parent's house. I ordered a chicken and biscuit, but it was going to be another ten minutes before it was done, so I asked them to swap for a sausage biscuit. The woman comes back to the window and apologizes and said she threw some extra for us. We drove off and I checked the bag, we had five biscuit/various meat combos and four hash browns. Thanksgiving feasting started early for old Max Power that day. Blow torch seems like a good place to start. I'll go check the fire extinguishers. (And by check, I mean I'll go buy some.) Man, we need those tornado warning systems here. The wind wasn't really even blowing when the sirens started, I had a feeling it wasn't anywhere close to us, but with a pregnant FMP around, I didn't really want to add any stress on her, so I played along. Would they be friendly mole people, or more like CHUDs?

Let me know if you want me to send you a copy of it, and I shall launch it from a cannon in your general direction, or mail it, whichever works better.