SuperVillain

Avast hero's! Most will find this less than shocking, but SuperVillain is not always one to follow the rules. Despite the well thought out and appreciated input for the fellow Monk's, SV has been operating on the 5/3/1 program all week. He wanted to give it a test run before the next challenge. Its hard to gauge due to his reduced monking this week, but he he feels less fatigued despite pushing himself on the last set, and the repetitive use pains and the ripped callous are non-existat. He also feels like he is getting more out of his time, as the program is designed with a graduated start with the warm up. Mon. Bench Press: Final weight: 170 Reps: 10 Est. Max: 227 Wed. DL Final Weight: 250 Reps: 8 Est. Max: 317 Thurs. OHP Final weight: 125 Reps: 7 Est. Max:154 Fri Squats: Final weight:175 Reps: 10 Est Max: 233 SV only did antagonist exercises for accessories with the exception of some lunges after his dead lifts. He is using the higher starting weights so he doesn't stray too far away from the strength vs. hypertrophy emphasis.

Dastardly use of suspense. And the question was...

This is an awesome book for putting out some "fancier" food using some common items from around the kitchen. It was the first tome SV used to formulate his evil plans. It also cuts cross various styles of cooking, so you can plot your course to regional domination.

Not a chef. But did work as a waiter in increasingly nice places after undergrad and some really high end places after he moved to DC after grad school, and eventually got his sommelier certification. So he got exposure to a lot of high end cuisine, that definitely helps in putting flavors together. After that, its just learning a few cooking techniques from trial & error and google searches. Cooking is the one laborious task that he truly enjoys.

Well, looks like the chat thread went hell once it was derailed from food based conversation; time to get things back on track. Despite the Villainous outcome of him being a one and only rebellious child from a family meek and mild, Mama Tried, and yesterday was the day to honor that. A gorgeous spring day in the Philadelphia suburbs, he was able to host dining al fresco in his back yard set to the sounds of Lake Street Dive to adhere to Mama SV's preference to soulfull female musicians. The Villain is never one to go small one with evil plans, and ended up serving 4 courses. ( And learned that he should never be left alone inside a whole foods) Appetizer: Scallop ceviche with sweet chili glaze over pea shoot, endive and peach paired with cremant de bourgogne Salad: Proscuitto San Danielle with Fava bean and radish with lemon walnut paste and shaved Unikas Robusto Entree: Poached lobster & seared scallop with Shittake in a cognac buerre noisette paired with 2011 Domaine Zind Humbrect Pinot Gris Desert: Delice di Bourgogne cheese with quince paste Moraccan Fig cake with Rum Caramel (SV didn't make any of these except the caramel, baking has never been his strong suit) paired with Lustau PX sherry SV has to say, the meal was a success, or apropos to the soundtrack, Went Down Smooth

Bekah, You intended to comment on Thrillo's video? SuperVillain is a tad perplexed as he was under the impression that youtube comments were only for selling supplements and racist diatribes. Thrillho, Nice job on pushing through on all this. Rule changes, sickness and a house flooding would be enough to set anyone off their path, but it looks like you've kept plugging.

Keep showing up you say Kishi? Well, to the gyms at least perhaps. SV has had some additional responsibilities in the laboratory and as a result his time for droll, in character posting has been reduced, to the dismay of the entire Monk board, he is sure. He has managed to do at least one session each day this week, so he thinks that can be considered a victory. After the considerable whining of a two weeks ago, SV has managed to again find peace with the dead lift. He is using a thicker bar with less prominent knurling and his unplanned week of lethargy last week actually allowed another nice callous to form Monday: a lift session of PTTP OHP:120 5/3/2 DL: 240 5/3/2 Cable rows: 165x2x8 Tuesday: Gi BJJ Weds: Muay Thai: Hooray clinch work. Being that SV is pretty weak at wrestling style take downs, developing an arsenal of attacks in the clinch seems vital for any super hero battle. (Villains love arsenals) Thursday: PTTP DL: 275! 5/3/2 OHP: 135! 5/3/2 Cable Rows: 2x8x165 SV just had felt good and decided to go for 275 instead of 265 on the DL. He straightened his legs a little sooner than he would have liked on a few reps, but overall put in a good lift. OHP he has to rest for 2 or three breaths at lockout on the last rep, and he had a slow bar speed going up, but definitely kept solid for, With that SV has hit his goal weights that he set out for at the start of this challenge. Perhaps as a preemptive reward, these arrived this week: For whatever reason, Villains do so love their gadgets. (Not to mention not have that unidentifiable funk smell that comes from the loaner gloves)

Great post Kishi. Exactly what the Villain needed. He fell of the wagon last week. He'll let the mad scientist postulate the correlation vs. causation relationships, but when he reads more and post more, he does more.

Ughhh, SuperVillain's break ended up extending way too long. He only got back on the mat's yesterday! He has a pretty crazy weekend, visiting some old fiends and making some new up in NYC. Monday was a wash as he is not as spy a villain as he once was. He was waylaid by more hectic work schedule during the day request to watch the Flyers playoffs with by various friends. SV doesn't consider these times to socialize completely wasted time, but there was no reason he couldn't have at least snuck in a few lifting sessions; you have to do better in these spots if on the path to world domination. Ultimately he only has himself to blame. The head instructor was away from the gym last night and his GF was running class. She is definitely qualified from a skill standpoint. It was a positional sparring class, which is good and needed once in while. But the "warm-up" was kinda stupidly intense for a class of that structure, with an absurd number of push-ups of a ton of varieties plus 3 lenghts of alligator walks and some other body weight conditioning. Last 15 minutes...was some more conditioning, which I thing was showing off how many advanced variations of the exercises people were doing the shitty versions of earlier in class. Incline pushups on your partner's back and hanging guard sit-ups. as in except you are supposed to wrap around your partners waist, so you have the fun of them being unstable and can't actually use any momentum to keep going or you both fall over. SV was able to do 2 for full range of motion, I think the most anyone had was 10. But don't worry, like all of the others, people did shitty quater-reps to try to hit the stated 30! Not one person in the class really came close to doing the full conditioning components of the class with any type of full range of motion. Obviously this type of thing is a pet peeve of SV's that happens at too many BJJ schools. A warm-up is fine, but boot camp/circuit training/ zumba classes are a lot cheaper than an MMA school. I'd rather spend the time with instruction or sparring, its not like its not physically demanding.

Just checking in over here. Looks like you're staying strong despite the setbacks with the ear infection. "Don't be a hero, but don't be a little bitch" seems to be a pretty good mantra for this sort of thing.

SV has a hell of a session at NoGi last night. He was definitely tired from the active week, but he had counters and submissions for everything his opponents threw at him. It was one of those rare nights where everything just "worked." Here hoping this succss sticks around. Lifting session today was rough. He was actually dreading going to the gym, which is the first time this has happened this challenge. His open blister (really just more of a hole in the hand now) was excruciating. To compensate, he was carrying the bar further down in his fingers. This was downright dangerous, as he already carries the bar more in his fingers from his old rowing days. He usually alternates his grip, but had to switch twice mid-set. Even on the last set of 2 where he told himself he would villain up and just use the right grip, he was too distracted to focus on any of his form cues. The plus side is that the weights felt pretty easy, almost silly easy on the OHP; he is definitely getting stronger. DL 5-3-2 @240 OHP 5-3-2 @ 120 Seated row 2x10 @ 150 Proposal: SV has tried to take the advice from Kishi to stay the course to (cold,black) heart. There are two Olympic bars in the gym that are a little thicker with less sharp knurling. Hopefully this coupled with 2 days recovery alleviates the pain. (SV acknowledge he may be a little cranky from 9 total training session this week) If it doesn't, he has made the following bargain with himself: He is confident he can hit his goal weights that he set for himself at the start of the challenge on the second workout next week. If he is still hurting at that point and makes the weight, he will switch to 5/3/1. His whole point of doing the PTTP workout for this challenge that it was something that could be done regularly without having to work around his Martial Arts training. He does not want this to become a daily battle of willpower. (Hell save that for diet). OK, whining over now. No need to call the whambulance.

Of course, SuperVillain's natural instinct (with the ambiguous reference) was that you had eaten your sister's guinea pigs. The chocolate is not so shameful.

Finally took a step back today lifting DL 5-3-2 @ 230 OHP 5-3-2 @ 115 Lat pull down 2x8 @ 165 The Villain has shown some success with the power to the people program so far, but he is seriously considering switching to Wendler's 5/3/1 after end of the week. His reasoning: Pros: -While Pavel's PTTP is strength focused, SV wouldn't mind a little more hypertrophy. -On the heavier sets, SV is finding himself doing more and more warm-up sets to make sure he is ready to go on the first, big work set. With 5/3/1, the early sets serve as sort of a running start and feel like it would be a more productive use of limited time. -SV is already feeling a little imbalanced: While 4 weeks is no where near enough to create problems, it does start to feel like "why training these parts/motions so much" and neglecting others. -My Fingers Hurt : SV has run in to the least expected problem, all this deadlifting has repeatedly ripped a callous on his hand. While he knows he should villain up and not let it bother him, but it hurts like hell and has made him dread the later sets. -Its structured over 4 days, which is exactly what SV is targeting. -SV had some success before on the program, and the problem Cons: -Jesus Christ Dude, can you not stick on a program for more than two friggen weeks? I mean seriously, you titled your whole goddamn challenge after Pavel! No wonder you don't see gains, you hop around on programs so much you might as well be doing dumbell cleans on a bosu ball talking about muscle confusion! The only kinda Villain you are is the type who can't commit in a Taylor Swift song! SV would welcome the any and all thoughts from his fellow monks.

SV is bouncing back and forth between residences and is without his warlock cauldron (aka his cochotte/dutch oven) which he uses to craft most of his comfort foods. Beer or wine braised London broil with carrots, slow cooked bolognesse, coq au vin and pork loin agro-dolce. All taste as good on a reheat as a first cooking. Perfect of bachelor villainy. But tonight he is going to simply cook Cauliflower mash. He usually tries to post pictures, but realizes there really much that is visually stunning. It can serve as a much lower calorie alternative to potatoes or rice ans is great for enjoying sauce heavy dishes. SV realizes that Cauli mash isn't groundbreaking work, and that some people find them to be poor substitutes. He has found that they can improved greatly with the following considerations: -Solid seasoning of salt and pepper- Most of the people that are put of is due to the vegetal taste. Cauli mashed is much more sensitive to a solid amount of seasoning -Remove as mush water as possible before mashing- The first step is to boil or steam for about 10-12 minutes, then drain in to a colander. Shake off as much moisture as possible, as it can really can cause the consistency to break down. -Use a pungent oil and chicken stock: Obviously a big helping of cream or butter will help the flavor, but sort of defeats the point. Using a pungent olive or walnut oil will integrate in to the flavor as well. If you need a little more liquid, chicken stock can also up the flavor a bit.