Bigm, Wandering Warrior, Stops in for the Festivities

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Anxiety blows. Finally getting a handle on mine for the most part, but alcohol and dark rooms are definitely helpful for low level self medicating.

Watching you do this Coan program makes me shake my head with a smile on my face. Those speed DL days are so masochistic when you keep a rest timer, used to kick my rear in Juggernaut.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bigm141414]

End of Week 3 Summary:

 

Oof it's been a week since I last updated. Too much time has passed. 

 

It was deload week for 5/3/1 and honestly it couldn't have come at a better time. Motivation and focus was low this week. I had a mild, but persistent, headache starting on Tuesday and ran up through Thursday afternoon. I ended up having 2 cups of coffee during work on Thursday morning and that helped immensely. I gave up week day coffees back in August and restrict my consumption to weekend mornings mostly. It had been going okay but this last week I couldn't focus and everything was wrapped in wool. But the coffee helped and my headache went away by lunch time and I was feeling like my old focused self. Does this mean I need to work a weekday coffee back into my life? Maybe? I worry I'll just end up back in addiction land drinking 2-3 pots a day and being a jittery, hyper-y, fast talking mess. We'll see. 

 

Lifts were okay, nothing special so I don't feel like typing them all up. . I definitely phones it in on the accessories this week, and also the abs, and the cardio. Basically anything that was the 3x5 deload main lift took a back seat. Wed and Thursday I was in bed reading at like 7pm just trying to make up sleep debt to feel better. 

 

In other news, as is tradition in my home gym, I bought a new piece of equipment. My bonus came in a few weeks ago, so I had some funds to splurge. Last year I upgraded my squat stands to a half rack with pullup bar. This year I added spotter's arms and picked up some heavier resistance bands. The spotters arms are great because I bench alone and the weight is getting up there again to where I may have to bail and I hate the roll of shame, especially when it is close to body weight. My man bits don't like it much either. 

 

The resistance bands have already come in handy. I used the 1.25" wide band for distractions during warmups and my gods do I miss having a band that can pull my hips and shoulders back. Also used them for some ankle mobility and pre-hab stuff which was great to finally have a good level of pull. I grew out of my old bands long ago and have been missing the feeling. 

 

I drank on Friday and Saturday and stayed up waaaaaay to late Saturday night playing Divinity Original Sin. I sat down to play a bit at 9pm and next thing I know it's 4am. Time is weird yo. 

 

 

Beginning of Week 4:

 

Today (Sunday) was a comedy of errors for which I blame 1) the time change, 2) the lack of sleep. I have a routine on the weekends of getting coffee/breakfast at my coffee shop, going to lift, getting groceries, then going home and cooking. Well I forgot my badge so I couldn't get into the work gym, which meant I had to delay that until after grocery getting. I didn't lift until 4pm, which pushed cooking out until I got home around 6. 

 

 

Coan DL Week 4: 

• DL: 2@465lbs. These were meh, my form was off on the last rep, swayed a bit to the right side on the way up. 
• Speed DLs: 5x3@385 - Surprisingly, these didn't leave me as gassed as last week. I know I had less sets but it was a 25lbs jump over last week. 
• Circuit
  • SL DL - 3x8@205. Not bad, upped the weight. My lower back started feeling it on the last set. I need to throw in some more lower back stuff next week. Hypers FTW. 
  • T-bar row - 3x8@155. Pretty good. Last week I was struggling with 145, but this week all of the sets were completed with mostly good form. 
  • Reverse grip lat pulldown- 3x8@170 - Upped the weight from last week. No issues here. 
  • Ab wheel - 3x8. Scooted out just a smidge and tried to hold a pause at extension. Lower abs felt it a bit, but not as bad as last week. 

 

Afterwards, came home and started cooking lunches for the week. Luckily I had a bunch of stuff left over from last week so all I really had to do was roast the veggies and separate into containers. 

 

[bigm141414]

On 3/3/2020 at 11:49 AM, Gainsdalf the Whey said:

Watching you do this Coan program makes me shake my head with a smile on my face. Those speed DL days are so masochistic when you keep a rest timer, used to kick my rear in Juggernaut.
 

 

 

Ugh I know right? If it wasn't for the fact that this program has proven time and time again to get me stronger I wouldn't even bother. I am definitely a 3-5 minute rest between sets kind of lifter. 

 

After I finish Coan I may switch to Cube method for my heavy DLs along with the 5/3/1 days. It'll be nice to keep a mix of heavy and cardio days. Although, 8-12 reps might kill me. 

[bigm141414]

Since we're all nerds here, I wanted to share this article I found. The jist is that a dude rolled his own vision tracking system to give him immediate feedback on his velocity training sets. It makes my engineering brain and barbellian brain tingle with delight.

 

https://github.com/kostecky/VBT-Barbell-Tracker

 

I mean it just looks cool and something I will probably play around with over the weekend

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

There are apps for that.  

[raptron]

Haha, very neat.

[kostecky]

Disclaimer: I'm the author ;)

There totally are apps for this, however, none of them worked quite as nicely on OS X, for free, and gave me realtime feedback on when to cut out a set. I may be a niche case or too picky, but I also feel others may want similar things.

 

In any case, please enjoy, suggest, and improve if you'd like!

[bigm141414]

4 hours ago, kostecky said:

Disclaimer: I'm the author

There totally are apps for this, however, none of them worked quite as nicely on OS X, for free, and gave me realtime feedback on when to cut out a set. I may be a niche case or too picky, but I also feel others may want similar things.

 

In any case, please enjoy, suggest, and improve if you'd like!

 

 

Hah! I wondered if you would pop by once I linked to the repo. I've some of tinkering to do. The big thing is to see if I can port it over to my Pi zero and run it without slowing things down too much. That way it would be a bit more portable than carrying a laptop to the gym.  I know OpenCV runs okay on thePi zero, but last time i checked the frame rate is down to like 10-15 fps for decent resolution images.

 

I'd probably add in some hooks for angle tracking of joints which would be neat for feedback during snatches or cleans, with the ability to overlay the bar path/joint angles as the workout progresses. Maybe an audible timer for tempo sets. Another add on is some type of figure of merit that i could use for RPE. That way based on weight/reps/speed/bar path/form the program would just tell me how bad it was instead of relying solely on how I feel. Because my feelings have been known to lie to me. 

[kostecky]

19 hours ago, bigm141414 said:

 

 

Hah! I wondered if you would pop by once I linked to the repo. I've some of tinkering to do. The big thing is to see if I can port it over to my Pi zero and run it without slowing things down too much. That way it would be a bit more portable than carrying a laptop to the gym.  I know OpenCV runs okay on thePi zero, but last time i checked the frame rate is down to like 10-15 fps for decent resolution images.

 

I'd probably add in some hooks for angle tracking of joints which would be neat for feedback during snatches or cleans, with the ability to overlay the bar path/joint angles as the workout progresses. Maybe an audible timer for tempo sets. Another add on is some type of figure of merit that i could use for RPE. That way based on weight/reps/speed/bar path/form the program would just tell me how bad it was instead of relying solely on how I feel. Because my feelings have been known to lie to me. 

 

That's awesome! I'm eager to see what you come up with. I was actually thinking of adding some sort of angle tracking for squat form/depth (although just knowing the current proper displacement is good enough to know if you reached below parallel) with an additional option for a camera looking straight on to track angle of knees and whatnot could be cool, but unsure about the feasibility of determining these things without a good GPU doing the tasks. There are examples of projects out there that accomplish similar things, but I believe they rely on some serious computing power. However, I haven't dug in so I could be way off. Colour tracking seems to be the cheapest and most CPU friendly option, but I'm still quite naive in this space.

 

I like the RPE-based merit number. THat's a cool idea!

 

If I feel motivated enough, I'd like to refactor this into a proper QT app so that all the text isn't just placed sloppily over the video frame, but that's for another day.  

[bigm141414]

Okay so time for some updates!

 

It has been a very wild week over in Bigm-land, my friends. Starting with the goals updates: lifting continues to be good. Deadlift 3x5+ on Tuesday morning was pretty bad. I only got 1 rep on the AMRAP set, and overall wasn't feeling it. I need to start belting up or at least take my conditioning sets seriously. I phoned it in on the deadlift and squat accessory sets this week. 

 

5/3/1 Lifts for the week: 

• Bench 5@135, 5@155,8@175 
  • Got to use my new spotters arms. It's weird. I felt closed in and was worried I would hit my elbows on the arms which is totally not going to happen but my brain kept seeing them out of the corner of my eyes.
  • BBB DB Press - 5x8@60
• Deadlift 5@295, 5@340, 1@390 
  • Womp womp womp. I just did't have anything in the tank at 6am in the morning for that last set. Ah, well shrug it off and move on. 
• DB Press 5@80, 5@90, 8@105
  • These were good. Nice to be in double digit land with some volume again. 
  • BBB Bench - 4x10@100 
    • Started playing with a wider grip after watching some Jen Thompson videos. Went well. I didn't feel it much in the elbows. Needs more sets to relearn the movement. 
• Squat 5@160, 5@185, 8@210 
  • Nice and quick session Friday night at home. 

Coan DL Program Week 5:

 

Week 5 is the deload week/transition into peaking week. Which is great because I could use the rest. No more supersets and a bit more volume the next couple of sessions on heavy DL. 

• DL - 3x3@410 (belted) 
  • These went much better than my early week session. 
• Speed DLs 3x3@335
• Power Shrugs 3x5@295 
  • I fuckin' love power shrugs as an accessory. Nothing like getting that trap pump afterwards. Yeah, I be mirin' myself. 
• SL DL - 3x5@225
• Chin ups - 2x5 (1st set was not banded, second set was. I am out of chin up shape). 
• Good mornings - 2x5@45. 

News updates for the week:

 

Okay so everyone already knows about the whole pandemic thing. I live in one of the hotter zones for the outbreak (bay area CA) and everything was generally fine up until Wed night. It felt like someone hit the panic button and a whole bunch of shit happened in a very short timeframe. Work cancelled all work related travel, everyone was told to work from home if they could. Sadly, I can't. I am a lab rat and need my equipment to do my job. Not very portable. Manager held two team meetings to outline the new rules, limit lab time if needed, wipe stuff down, remotely login to the station after connecting hardware to get off of the bench. Schools closed on Friday for 3 weeks (doesn't impact me but my coworkers with families have that extra added stress to deal with). The office on Friday was 70% empty. It was like working during the Christmas holidays. 

 

They closed my work gym indefinitely until this is over. This means I have tweak my training a bit. I have plates, and a barbell, and a rack at home so I can still do most of my lifts, but the accessory stuff is a bit more difficult. I used the cable machines, bikes, treadmills consistently so I have to find alternatives. For cardio, I'll have to switch to running/biking outside. And on top of that, in about 3 weeks I run out of plates at home to follow my Coan program as written. So I'll need to either change it, or source some iron. I spent some time this afternoon doing general cleaning of the garage space since it was dusty. If I am going to be spending more time in there to train I should at least make it tidy. It's also a bit cramped in there with the current layout so I might need to reorganize the space this week. 

 

Went shopping today and it's the first time going to a store since all this escalated. I can understand hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies being hoarded, but for groceries? The store was out of eggs (I showed up at 10am on a Sunday, they open at 7am), all of the beans (except the organic stuff, I guess even in a crisis people are stingy), all of the rice, pasta, and other bulk grain stuff. People are acting like food supply chains have broken down. I've lived through hurricanes and typhoons where there wasn't this much of a food hoarding situation. I feel bad for those in my area that live paycheck to paycheck since they can't stock up. And I really hate those who are buying cases of stuff that is going to sit on their shelf and never be used. And I super dislike people who bought all the damn eggs. I just wanted an omelette man! 

 

Anyways. Like I said, it's been a fun couple of days. 

 

[Harriet]

I'm in the bay area, too. The public libraries are shutting down today. 

 

1 hour ago, bigm141414 said:

I feel bad for those in my area that live paycheck to paycheck since they can't stock up.

 

And if non-essential shops and businesses shut down, no one is going to pay the employees of those businesses to stay home, right? How are those people going to keep paying rent if they have to take four weeks unpaid time off? 

[bigm141414]

Annnnnd a quick late night update: work closed my lab. To everyone. I guess I'll be writing documentation for the next few days. Oh joy! 

[kostecky]

Maybe you'll have some time to play with with your webcam and OpenCV over these next few weeks. Which, I might add, may be a lot longer if municipal, state/provincial, federal governments are serious about containing this. In any case, good luck!

[bigm141414]

There was a confirmed case of COVID-19 at my office. The entire site is shut down until a minimum of April 7th. 

[bigm141414]

12 hours ago, kostecky said:

Maybe you'll have some time to play with with your webcam and OpenCV over these next few weeks. Which, I might add, may be a lot longer if municipal, state/provincial, federal governments are serious about containing this. In any case, good luck!

 

 

Thanks! I worked from home today and by god was it distracting. My office was not neat or orderly so every half hour I took a break and tidied up. And then my personal PC was open next to my work laptop so I spent time fiddling around on that. And then I had to resist the urge not to day drink while sitting in boring eye-roll-inducing meetings. 

 

All in all the transition is going well. 

 

I did manage to lift in the garage this afternoon. 

 

5/3/1 Bench:

• Bench 3@145, 3@165, 5@185
  • Been playing around with grip width so 185 wasn't as stable as I'd like 
• BBB OHP
  • 5x8@60

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

15 minutes ago, bigm141414 said:

And then I had to resist the urge not to day drink while sitting in boring eye-roll-inducing meetings. 

 

The nice thing about teleconferenceing is you can mute your microphone* and say out loud the things you think in those stupid meetings.

 

 

*Do not, under any circumstances, speak your mind and forget to mute the mike.

[bigm141414]

5 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

*Do not, under any circumstances, speak your mind and forget to mute the mike.

 

Where was this advice like 5 years ago when I went off on a couple VPs? 

 

 

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

*Do not, under any circumstances, speak your mind and forget to mute the mike.

 

...or press the wrong button and think you have muted the mike when in fact you have not.

[Mad Hatter]

I'm still waiting for the day when this happens in one of our meetings and all hell breaks loose. 🍿

[bigm141414]

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I'm still waiting for the day when this happens in one of our meetings and all hell breaks loose. 🍿

 

 

Invite me to your meetings! I should start a side business as a meeting bomb thrower. 

[bigm141414]

Got some lifting in today. 

 

5/3/1 DL Day:

• Deadlift - 3@320,3@365, 4@410
  • Belted up for the last two sets. I'm going to need to eventually add some conditioning sets. I am thinking of EMOM sets of 5 or maybe a death by deadlifts set twice a week. 

 

Also, during my lunch break I took a quick run around the block. It's about 0.7 miles so I did some run/walk intervals. It's very quiet outside and didn't run into to many people out and about. It's been cold and rainy here the last few days, so that combined with the stay at home order it's to be expected. 

 

Still working on the whole transition to work from home. Today everything kinda sank in that this is the new normal now. Led me to be more distracted and fidgety than the prior days. 

 

That being said, I set reminders on my FitBit to vibrate every 2 hours so I get up and do some brief exercise to calm the mind. So every time my wrist vibrates I get up and do AMRAP pullups, ring top holds for as long as I can, 10 band pull aparts, and 10 air squats. Then I go back to work. It's the first time I've played with my rings in months and my shoulders were definitely feeling it even after a 30 sec hold. Pretty sure I'm going to be ripped after staying home for this much time

[Harriet]

Deadlifts and running and pull-ups, oh my. You're definitely going to be jacked sponge bob when we emerge, blinking, from our vaults. 

[Scaly Freak]

42 minutes ago, bigm141414 said:

That being said, I set reminders on my FitBit to vibrate every 2 hours so I get up and do some brief exercise to calm the mind. So every time my wrist vibrates I get up and do AMRAP pullups, ring top holds for as long as I can, 10 band pull aparts, and 10 air squats. Then I go back to work. It's the first time I've played with my rings in months and my shoulders were definitely feeling it even after a 30 sec hold. Pretty sure I'm going to be ripped after staying home for this much time

 

Oooo, that's a good idea! I might have to do this. 

 

I'm on Day 3 of working from home and already have a solid habit of going for  walk with Happy Sidekick on my lunch break.