[Maigs]

I'm gonna try this challenge thing again. 

 

Previously I was a Ranger that liked to try all the things and especially liked Mudruns/OCRs. Then I got a new job that had me working insane hours 4 months out of the year, then COVID hit, then COVID never ended. OCR's in my area have pretty much completely died (there's one left) and even if they hadn't, I can't run at all and can't muster up the desire to work at it (I never liked running, I just did it for the OCRs). On top of that, my kickboxing gym suddenly shut down last month. I'd been going there for 3 years and loved it, but that's done for me too.

 

Well, now I still work insane hours 4 months out of the year, but now I work half time the other 8 months. I also moved to a house that finally has place for a home gym so in the last few months I've bought myself a olympic barbell/weight set, power rack, and bench. So I guess now I'm a warrior that picks up heavy things and puts them down 

 

Overall Goals

Lose fat - I'm about 40-50lbs over where I want to be. Some of the jiggly bits needs to go 

Get strong - I'm also a fair bit weaker than I want to be. Something something crush my enemies

Get muscles - Seems redundant but this is an aesthetic goal, not a performance one. I want something to actually happen when I flex my arm

 

Challenge Goals

Food - Eat around 2000 calories a day.  My TDEE is around 2300 so this is a reasonable deficit

Lift heavy things - Do that 3x/week. I have a Push-Pull-Legs/shoulders split that I've tweaked from a program a trainer gave me and is nearly honed in to something that works well for me

Strengthen the core - my core is very weak which is causing problems with my hip flexors (plus it's just embarrassing how weak it is). Find a routine that I will actually do 2x/week that will make this better

[Marauder]

Once a ranger, always a ranger.   Here to cheer!

 

[Jarric]

Love it, I'm here to watch you get stronger. For core work, I've found pretty much the only thing I'll do are hanging knee raises/leg raises/toes to bar - I get tired of crunches real fast.

 

Also, what @Marauder said. You can multiclass, but you'll always be a ranger

 

[Maigs]

18 hours ago, Marauder said:

Once a ranger, always a ranger.   Here to cheer!

 

51 minutes ago, Jarric said:

Also, what @Marauder said. You can multiclass, but you'll always be a ranger

Lol, I'm sure I'll be back to Rangering at some point, but right now, even with reduced hours at work, I only have the mental energy for one fitness activity

 

52 minutes ago, Jarric said:

For core work, I've found pretty much the only thing I'll do are hanging knee raises/leg raises/toes to bar - I get tired of crunches real fast.

Those would require me to be able to hang from the bar for any amount of time 😅 I'm working on that, part of my Pull day is dead hangs with scapular pulls as I'm feeling up to them but those are about as pathetic as my core is, even with a heavy band

[Maigs]

Saturday is leg & shoulders day. Here's what I did:

 

Squat: 90/95/100 x 5

DB Lateral raise: 20 x 3 x 5

Deadlift: 150/155/160 x 5

DB Front Raise: 20 x 3 x 5

RDL: 95/100/105 x 5

DB OHP: 40 x 3 x 10

 

DB weights are the total, so 10lbs & 20lbs pairs. I supersetted a leg with a shoulder through it

 

Overall I like this one. I will probably pull my squats back a bit next time for for reps at lower weight since I'm close to max and want to make sure my form doesn't breakdown as I add more weight. DL & RDL are fine and I plan on starting 5lbs higher each time until I get the same feeling with them

 

Food was on track. I also spent about an hour working in the yard which included moving rocks

[RES]

On 7/30/2022 at 11:26 PM, Marauder said:

Once a ranger, always a ranger.   Here to cheer!

 

This^^^

How many Rangers pick up heavy things and put them down?  

On 7/30/2022 at 8:45 PM, Maigs said:

Strengthen the core - my core is very weak which is causing problems with my hip flexors

I feel this!! Following in solidarity! 

[Maigs]

Sunday went okay. 

 

When my kickboxing gym closed down I ended up signing up to a Hotworx gym. It always seemed pretty hokey (sweat out fat and toxins by working out in a sauna) but seemed to have some of the benefits my old gym had (flexible class times, instructor led but still generally working out alone, etc). But a month in and I'm not really feeling it so I think I will probably cancel it before the end of the year. That being said I did go yesterday and did a pilates class.

 

Food was probably within my calorie goal, but certainly wasn't good quality. I slept in and ate breakfast late, so I just had a snack for lunch assuming I'd be cooking dinner. Then Hubs said one the guys coming over for D&D was cooking. It wasn't something I'll eat, but then I didn't feel like cooking for myself so I just snacked for dinner too. 

 

Then I went outside and played in the dirt and moved some more rocks (so.many.rocks)

[Maigs]

Monday

 

Not as good of a day. I was productive at work, but had a headache come on pretty early. By the time I left around lunch it was a migraine that then didn't go away until nearly bed time. So I did not lift, or do much of anything the rest of the day. Hubs made dinner and I medicated myself with Excedrin and ice cream. I was over on calories by a couple of hundred, not concerned. 

 

I did finally get back into Norwegian on Duolingo, which I'd ignored for a couple of months

[Novaurora]

I am here for this!!!!  You are lifting heavy and kicking ass!!

[Maigs]

5 hours ago, Novaurora said:

I am here for this!!!!  You are lifting heavy and kicking ass!!

Good to have you along, and thanks!

[Maigs]

Tuesday

 

No more migraine. Food was a little high, but it was all real, homemade food. Then I went downstairs and lifted some things. I wanted to go for a walk, but "feels like 104F at 8pm" just didn't sound pleasant

 

Bench press - 75lbs x 5 x 3

DB Skullcrusher - 20lbs x 10 x 3

Around the World - 10lbs x 10 x 3

Knee pushups - 8/8/5

Tricep cable pushdowns - 35/40/35lbs x 10

DB Tricep extension - 20lbs x 10 x 3

 

Pushups are pathetic and around the worlds are done more for shoulder mobility than the chest exercise it claims to be

[Maigs]

Wednesday

 

I took the day off work to spend with Hubs (he works weekends so we have no days off together). We ran some errands, I bought an EZ-curl bar, and Hubs got some new discs. When we got home we set up the disc golf goal in the yard and threw some discs. I'm awful but made some progress on midrange accuracy (let's be honest, it's midrange for people who don't suck, long range for me). 

 

Food was on track, though we did get Chipotle for lunch while we were out and about. The only exercise I did was throwing discs. I made thoughts about a core workout, but haven't organized them or tried it out to see if it's something I'll actually do

[h3r0]

Disk golf!

 

Nice workouts. Here for the challenge 

[Maigs]

23 hours ago, h3r0 said:

Disk golf!

 

Nice workouts. Here for the challenge 

Welcome! I'm not actually a disc golfer, but Hubs likes to play so sometimes I'll go out with him

[Maigs]

Thursday

 

My string of bad luck from the last few months continues and I woke up to a nail in a tire and when we were putting the tire in the other car's trunk I noticed the rim is slightly bent (which explains the slow leak it's had).  That car doesn't have a spare so the plan right now is to order a new rim but also see if they can repair the bent one and if so turn it into a spare. 

 

But I worked a few hours, came home and relaxed with Hubs for a bit before heading back out and running some errands I forgot to do when I was in town earlier. In the evening I did my workout. Food was decent and calories were within goal, though we resorted to frozen pizzas for dinner since we were both slightly grouchy. 

 

Cable row: 55/60/65 x 10

EZ bar curl: 30/35/35 x 10 (not positive on the weight of the new bar, assumed 20lbs, might be 15)

Lat Pulldown: 65/70/70 x 10

Zercher Curls: 20/30/20 x 10

Reverse Fly: 20 x 10 x 3

Incline Curl: 20/30/30 x 10/10/8

Dead hangs: 25/25/20 seconds

 

[Maigs]

Friday,

 

Had a weirdly hectic day of work where I bounced around projects and I have no idea how I'm going to sell my time for the day. After I got done bouncing around played around in the dirt some more (I'll have to post pictures sometime of what I'm slowly working on). I did a 10 minute core workout on Youtube that was okay, and definitely worked my core, but I'm not sure it's what I'm wanting so I did some more thinking on a program I could do (made actual notes this time!). 

 

I stress ate a little bit while being hectic, but overall my food was good and just above goal

[Kestrel Grey]

I feel like I've missed a lot. What's with all the rock hauling?

[Maigs]

20 hours ago, Kestrel Grey said:

I feel like I've missed a lot. What's with all the rock hauling?

Lol. Somewhere way back in previous ownership of my house someone REALLY liked decorative rocks. Over the years of neglect they've sunk into the ground or been moved to random places. We're slowly digging them out and adding them to a pile to figure out what to do with later. 

 

If anyone in the Midwest wants rocks I got plenty 😅

 

Pics spoilered for size

Spoiler

 

[RES]

I would take them if you were closer to GA

[Maigs]

Saturday

 

Very lazy day. I don't think I actually got moving until around noon and even then it wasn't much other than my workout. It was 100F, feels like 110F outside so I did not go out there other than to water some plants. I straightened up the house a little. That's really about it. In the evening I finally went downstairs and did my workout

 

Squat: 65/70/75 x 10

DB Lateral Raise: 20 x 10 x 3

Deadlift: 155/165/170 x 5

Front Raise: 20 x 10 x 3

RDL: 100/105/110 x 5

OHP with EZ Bar: 37.5/42.5/42.5 x 10 

 

I figured out that my EZ bar is 17.5lbs. And that I hate 10 rep sets of squats 😅 

[Heidi]

I love those rocks!

Sadly, i don’t live nearby and have no land of my own to do a DruidThing with them (think cave with shallow pool area at the front, possibly a waterfall, definitely plants).

 

I hear you about the core! I am finally going back to the gym and the only thing I’m focusing on right now is walking and the sauna. I occasionally lift weights or row, and do something something something inclined sit-up or whatever. 

 

I’m thinking of adding in something like this: It seems simple enough that I can start where I am, and as though it will really continue to be core conditioning even if I got to a point where I could do it without thinking about it. (Yes, I know you’re not over 50, but work with me here.)

 

[Maigs]

21 hours ago, Heidi said:

I love those rocks!

Sadly, i don’t live nearby and have no land of my own to do a DruidThing with them (think cave with shallow pool area at the front, possibly a waterfall, definitely plants).

They're very pretty rocks....there's just.so.many.of.them. And a ton of antique bricks (you can see some of them in the first picture). We'll definitely reuse as much as we reasonably can, but I don't think there's any way we can reuse them all. 

 

21 hours ago, Heidi said:

I’m thinking of adding in something like this: It seems simple enough that I can start where I am, and as though it will really continue to be core conditioning even if I got to a point where I could do it without thinking about it. (Yes, I know you’re not over 50, but work with me here.)

Haha, I did have a moment of "Crap, how old do people on here think I am?" 😂

What I'm thinking of doing is picking 2-3 laying core exercises and 2-3 plank ones and supersetting them for time.

So something like dead bugs & plank 3 rounds of 20secs each. Then toe touches & plank shoulder taps 3 rounds for 20 secs each. Then maybe reverse crunches & slow mountain climbers 3 rounds for 20 secs each. Then slowly increase the time as I'm able to complete these until I get up to a minute

[Maigs]

Sunday

 

Less lazy day . I got out early and tried out a new method to a home improvement project that has been stymying me for months and it worked beautifully. I'll make another post in bit being excited about old home improvement projects with pictures

 

After that I went outside and played in the dirt some more. I found a fully intact and completely clean rodent skull, so that was fun. 

 

I'd had it in my head all weekend that Hub's Sunday D&D game was this weekend so I was going to do a core workout when they were here. But when no one showed up around start time I remembered that is is actually their off week. So instead I hung out with Hubs when he got off work. 

 

Food was good and right in goal

[Maigs]

Spoiler

All of the trim and doors upstairs are spotted. It's a 100 year old house and even after it got AC, the upstairs barely had any (one single vent for ~750sqft) so the finish just kind of puddled from high heat and humidity. I had talked to all sorts of people about it and the general response was "That's really weird, I've never seen anything like that". I tried using a chemical stripper and scraper, which worked, but was tedious, hard on the trim, and nearly impossible to get into the detail work. I tried using a heat gun and plastic razor blades, which also worked but was also tedious and nearly impossible to get into the detail work (though not so rough on the wood). 

 

Well, I finally figured out that the finish is shellac and all you have to do is pour denatured alcohol on steel wood and scrub it like it's dirty. The alcohol will soften up the shellac and let it spread back out evenly. And the steel wool can get into all the detail work. I had a few pieces of trim already removed from a previous project so I did those in the garage, but we think we can do the rest of them in place on the wall. Which is nice because the less I have to disturb the plaster the better

 

So I'm very excited because the upstairs will be our master bedroom with a half bath and my office and right now we're not able to have anything up there until I can refinish all the wood (floors will get refinished too once we are done with the trim). But now I have a process that works and doesn't take eons so I should actually be able to finish it before the end of the year!!!

 

 

Before

 

15 minutes later

 

This is piece of trim from around a door that would have taken an hour with the heat gun or 30 minutes of work with the chemical stripper but with an 8+ hour set time. 15 minutes

 

Spoilered details on my old home renovation project

[Heidi]

1 hour ago, Maigs said:

Haha, I did have a moment of "Crap, how old do people on here think I am?" 😂

What I'm thinking of doing is picking 2-3 laying core exercises and 2-3 plank ones and supersetting them for time.

So something like dead bugs & plank 3 rounds of 20secs each. Then toe touches & plank shoulder taps 3 rounds for 20 secs each. Then maybe reverse crunches & slow mountain climbers 3 rounds for 20 secs each. Then slowly increase the time as I'm able to complete these until I get up to a minute

I like this approach!

Sending goof thoughts, and loving the new home improvement approach.