Waldo's Log

[Waldo]

Back to the log now that the challenge is done.

I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish with the challenge mostly. Strength work wasn't good, but I'd rather get rid of this shoulder impingement, if it means taking it real easy for a few months, so be it.

I'm going to try to lose a little more fat, but I'm not gonna try very hard to do so. Another 2 lbs ish would be nice.

I should have my shoe bench done this weekend, I'll post pics when I'm done. I've got it painted, and am gluing on the face frames. All that's still left to do is to put on the legs and lacquer the whole thing. Good lord that thing was a lot of work, its one of those things I would never buy because it would be absurdly expensive because of the amount of labor involved, but its rad. Sure beats a $100 Ikea shoe storage thingie.

And we found out what we're having. Its a boy!

[AlexCold]

Congrats on the boy! 

 

The shoe bench is pretty cool. My wife has too many shoes for something like that. I'd need a shoe wall like Foot Locker.

 

 

I have a question about stalling during fat/weight loss. What do you do when you hit a stall in weight loss? I'm talking about 1-2 weeks with no relevant change in body weight, not a couple of days.

 

Specifically eating low calorie already, going lower doesn't make sense. 

 

I eat 1600 +/- 50 calories. Accurately measured and recorded on MFP.

Activity varies slightly. stand up desk at work. Workouts inconsistent, but at least 2 a week. Walk 6-10k steps daily, via Fitbit

Sleep sucks but avg 6 hrs

[Waldo]

Been a while since I came around. I've had other interests, probably due to an intense nesting instinct that manifests itself in the desire to build and fix things around the house.

Since the last post I made, I've built a large floor lamp, a wooden toy airplane, a fancy wooden spoon, new front doors, a side table, refinihsed a coffee table, rebuilt a ceiling fan, rewired a number of switches and lights, and set up the nursery.

Shop work is pretty high effort stuff, my shoulder (impingement) has been improving very, very slowly, and its just been too damn hot to run outside comfortably, so shop work, my lunch walk, and being active with kiddo has pretty much been the extent of my exercise.

I eased back on tracking food, more into the "fix a problem when it becomes a problem, don't worry about it otherwise" mode. For a while I was actually losing weight with no effort (again, shop work is quite high effort, 2-3 hours working hard in the shop burns a not insignificant number of calories), dipping as low as 194, but that has reversed and the weight is creeping up a bit. I'm gonna try to stay under 200 tho, and if I ever hit 205 its serious dieting time.

On the docket project-wise soon is to rebuild my downstairs bathroom, install a kitchen vent fan (waiting until the attic becomes bearable), and make a huge built in cabinet for the TV room. Possibly retiling the kitchen backsplash.

We are moving back to our old office at work. Which happens to have a gym and showers. So I'll probably stop with the lunch walks, and start lifting, depending on what the shoulder can handle.

[wildross]

Timely. Someone remarked about people with detailed plans and I thought of you

Sent from my SM-P905V using Tapatalk

[Hermione Gainser]

Glad you came to update!  The shop work sounds like a lot of fun.  

 

How is the Mrs? Hoping things are going smoothly for you guys!  

[Waldo]

Glad you came to update!  The shop work sounds like a lot of fun.  

 

How is the Mrs? Hoping things are going smoothly for you guys!

Oh she's doing good. Well about as good as one can be doing in the early 3rd trimester. Aches, pains, tiredness, and headaches are par for the course at this time. So far though no issues with swelling or blood pressure.

Since the last one came out via c-section, we have it scheduled already for this one. 11/24 is the big day.

[Waldo]

Hello, its been a while.

 

Couple life updates:

 

Wife had baby Nov 24th, 7 lb 4 oz, name is Leo.  He's doing really great, so is mom.  We're starting to get in a rhythm, especially now that I'm back at work.  I had off mid Nov-Jan 4.  We hosted both our families over Christmas (staggered a bit).

Everybody likes baby pictures: 

Baby Leo

Kids playing video games

 

I was also very busy in the shop, had a bathroom to rebuild and I made a credenza for the TV room.  I'm working on a chair and a loveseat now, but there isn't a whole lot of urgency (gonna be a while before anyone visits) so it'll be a while before they are done.

 

On the exercise front:

 

We finally moved into our new office at work, and I have access to the gym.  Going to start in oh about 2 hrs.  Checked out what they have:

Full slate of Cybex machines

Pull up bar

Power Racks w/ plenty of weight

Dumbbells

 

For the foreseeable future I'm done with bodyweight training at home.  I'd rather strength train at work and do cardio at home than vice versa.  After a long break I started working out again after Christmas, sort of easing back in, thus far I've been running, doing cardio videos (T25), and some basic bodyweight circuits.  

 

My right shoulder is still messed up.  Impingement pretty much takes forever to go away, it has almost been a year, and a solid 6 mo off of strength training seemed to have little effect.  I'm just going to work around it.  Most pushing hurts as does some pulling.

 

I'm going to stick with the upper-lower split I had going for years.  Mon-Thur are leg days, Tue-Fri are upper body days, Wed is a little stuff day.  

 

Today I'm going to do:

Deadlifts

Front Squats

Extensions

 

I'm going to start like you would on Starting Strength, mostly.  Bar only for the squats, 135 for the deadlifts.  Thur I'll sub leg curls for the extensions.  I might finish with some leg presses, I suspect it'll be a while before the deads and front squats get heavy, even though I'm way weak (was doing sets of 5 BW pistols last week).

 

I'm probably going to play it by ear on upper body days, see what I can handle.  Definite no on the bench, I can barely do a standard pushup, though I can do pseudo maltese/planche pushups just fine.  Might try doing declines on the bench machine.  I suspect I'll be stuck doing a lot of isolation work.

 

Oddly enough my ab strength is what maintained the best over my strength training break.  I had no issue holding a 15 sec L-sit the first time I tried.

 

Diet:

 

So yeah, I'll be cutting a while.  I gained quite a bit of weight between summer and Christmas, right alongside my wife (there's a name for that, I forget what its called), then after baby we had a continuous barrage of people visiting and holidays.  Right after Christmas I was 219 lb, though I dropped to 215 within a couple days of starting a deficit.  For the time being I've got MFP set to 2000 cals, I'll see what I can get out of that.  Down to 213 at the moment.  My long term target has always been 205, though I'm going to have to bulk a few more times before I'm happy with 205.  Aiming to get under 200 with this cut; we'll see, pool season starts mid-May.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Congratulations! It'll be interesting to see what you do with weightlifting.

[RisenPhoenix]

Glad to see you and your family are doing well, Waldo!

 

Like Sloth said, interested to see how you progress with the bar!

[Waldo]

1/11 Update (Leg Day):

 

Front Squat:

45 x 5 x 1

65 x 5 x 3

- I planned to do 45 only, but it was hilariously easy so I added 10 to each side.  I think I'm holding the weight wrong, but it is so light that it makes no difference (65 would be a pathetically light OHP for me).  If I add 10 per week (smallest increment is 5 lb plates I think), it'll be a while before this gets heavy.

 

Deadlift:

135 x 5 x 3

- These felt heavier than I expected, though I did lift them fairly explosively, and didn't wait too long between sets.  Still, they weren't hard by any means.  I'm curious to see if I'm ever going to need a mixed grip, if there is one thing BW training gave me, its a super strong grip.

 

Chinups - 1

Assisted one arm chin - 1 ea

Chinups - 5 (last 2 L chins)

- I did these between deadlift sets on the power rack, the last set right after I put the bar down. Assisted OAC isn't the right name, one arm was wide, at the edge of the rack, providing assistance, but I forget what those are called.  More than anything I wanted to play with the extra bar real estate that you don't get with a doorway bar.

 

Single Leg Leg Extension:

50 - 10 ea

70 - 10 ea

- I think this is a really good exercise, I'm not sure why it isn't done more.  If there was one exercise I really wish I could do back when I was doing BW, this was it.

 

Pistol Squat:

3 ea

- Was going to do a set or two on the leg press if I still had some gas, but that just seemed too redundant (and lame) so I did some pistols.  Doing the pistols gave me a good gauge of how good a workout it was, and with only being able to do 3, it was pretty good.

 

I also tested out the pressing machines to get a feel for what my shoulder can handle.  It went surprisingly well on the bench machine, the OHP machine was fine once I got the weight lifted a bit and reset my shoulder angle.  I could possibly test the bench on a smith machine, but I'm nowhere near mentally ready to even attempt a straight bar bench.  I'm most likely going to do the OHP with a straight bar tho, overhead I'm fine, but I might have to limit the ROM a little at the bottom.  I should be fine doing cable flyes.

 

All in all a good first day.  Nice that I can do this at work, a much better workout than the 2 mile walk I used to do.  I'm gonna miss the next 2 days due to traveling, but that's fine, leg day is more important anyway, and I can do some chins and PPP's at home wed night.  Hopefully I don't get too sore, I definitely left reps in the tank on every set.

[Waldo]

Oh, and that picture I posted of my older kiddo, playing video games....

 

Depending on your perspective, that is either a great parenting triumph or fail.  That kid can really play.  And he's still only 4 yr old.  He needs help with stuff that requires reading and stuff that requires tough "figuring out", but as far as actual control of his players, damn.  He's the one that does the hard parts now in Mario and Infinity, and is legit competition in MarioKart.  The stuff he builds in Infinity is crazy (that game is soooooo good for younger kids).

 

I'm personally all about the video games, its far more mentally productive than watching TV or playing with many of his toys.  Its always weird around other parents, some are definitely anti-video games (esp that young), most seriously limit the time, others are cool with it but their kids play like you'd expect out of a 4 yr old.  

 

I know I was talking about it earlier in this thread, but damn, the gamer that kid has become.  The Infinity Toybox is basically 3D AutoCAD, made fun for kids.  I've never seen it, but I've seen the same said about Minecraft.

 

What a different world its gonna be in 20 years.  CAD always mimicked paper drawing until relatively recently; digital 3D modeling is fairly revolutionary software, today's kids are going to be totally intuitive with it.

[wildross]

Welcome back.  Glad the kiddos and wife are doing well.

 

I can't rack an empty bar in the front squat position.  Have to do my warm ups with crossed arms.  Once I put the 45's on, I'm good and can get a solid rack position.

 

Here's a picture of our youngest, circa 1991 working away on an early PC.  Think this was a Intel 286 machine.   She is about 3 years old in that picture.

 

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/hgyvpp8rsq6stuy/111127-r1-e008.jpg?dl=0

[MasterOfCows]

Single Leg Leg Extension:

50 - 10 ea

70 - 10 ea

- I think this is a really good exercise, I'm not sure why it isn't done more.  If there was one exercise I really wish I could do back when I was doing BW, this was it.

It might be because they are murder on the ACL.  Leg extensions are the one exercise my surgeon (and physio) absolutely forbade.  This may be more of an issue for those with reconstructions than for normal people however.

[Waldo]

It might be because they are murder on the ACL.  Leg extensions are the one exercise my surgeon (and physio) absolutely forbade.  This may be more of an issue for those with reconstructions than for normal people however.

 

I guess it depends on how you do them too.  I think of extensions as a "feel the burn" exercise where you want more reps of a lower weight.

[Rooks]

Welcome back indeed Waldo!  

 

I can't rack an empty bar in the front squat position.  Have to do my warm ups with crossed arms.  Once I put the 45's on, I'm good and can get a solid rack position.

 

This x2.  My rack doesn't feel right until I have a 45 on each side.  Then it's heavy enough where pushing my fingers into won't move it.  It'll sit probably on my "shelf" and I can bend my fingers into the bar to force my elbows up more.  I believe it really comes down to arm mobility issues which I'm working on, but for now, this will work.  

[Disil]

Great to read you again!

 

Benching on a smith machine when already suffering from shoulder impingement for half a year sounds like a really bad idea. I'd just opt for OHPing and rehab work/rotator work for now and in a while, see how properly benching with just the bar feels.

 

If you happen to look for any guidance, the youtube channels of Jonnie Candito and Alan Thrall are excellent and are full of great content and superb tutorials.

[Hermione Gainser]

Congrats on the adorable Leo!  Glad to hear things are going well  

[AlexCold]

Welcome back and congrats on the new kiddo!!

 

I'm with you on video games for young kids. I'd rather him learn problem solving actively than watching some program. My son is two and goes through puzzles like crazy. Just found a railroad track app where the objective is to lay track down to pick up stars and take them to depots. This requires that there are no breaks in the tracks or the trails derail. He's getting pretty good at it. I can't wait to get him into games like you mention. 

[Waldo]

Welcome back and congrats on the new kiddo!!

 

I'm with you on video games for young kids. I'd rather him learn problem solving actively than watching some program. My son is two and goes through puzzles like crazy. Just found a railroad track app where the objective is to lay track down to pick up stars and take them to depots. This requires that there are no breaks in the tracks or the trails derail. He's getting pretty good at it. I can't wait to get him into games like you mention. 

 

Are you talking the Thomas game on PBSkids.com?  Know that one well.

[Waldo]

Leg day at the work gym here in a little bit.

 

I decided to skip any upper body work last night (making up for having missed Tue due to traveling), opting instead to stick to my schedule, and Wed night is running night.  I ran about 2.5 miles.

 

I'm quite surprised how easily I got back in the saddle running.  Granted I'm keeping the distances low, but I haven't run since late last spring.  Only once did I do the walk-run interval thing, and that was mostly because of the dreadmill, I wanted the runs to be higher intensity.  Outside I was able to run without stopping with relative ease.

 

I don't bother to try to add up calories when traveling, its too much of a PITA where almost everything is restaurant food.  I just try to make reasonable choices, even though I'm sure I went way over on calories.  Back at it today.

 

Another thing on the life front...

 

With moving to our new office, I can now take the train to work, commuting in rush hour(s) is a thing of the past.  I have a short 3 mi commute to the train station, but that isn't too bad and just surface streets, as opposed to the 45+ min grind each way on the moving parking lot that is the interstate (1.5+ hours though was not oncommon on bad days).  My commute takes a bit longer (~1 hr) than the average car-only commute used to, however it is an utterly stress free commute.  I never realized how much of an impact the daily grind of traffic had on my life until reaching this freedom.  I have a very low stress job (and/or am the type of person that doesn't manufacture unnecessary workplace stress, if anything I worry about things too little as opposed to too much, this goes for the home front as well), and it appears that the daily grind through traffic was the source of virtually all of the stress in my life.  

 

I don't think I've ever been as calm and happy as I have been since the New Year.  It seems that all stress is gone.  The holidays bring stress, that is gone.  New baby brings stress, that is gone (at least the stress, now that we are in a rhythm).  Commuting stress is gone.  This is just fantastic.  I come home from work happy and ready to play with the kids, as opposed to angry and ticked off, needing 15+ min by myself just to cool down (interacting with people, esp kiddo during that time, just made it worse).

[Rooks]

Another thing on the life front...

 

With moving to our new office, I can now take the train to work, commuting in rush hour(s) is a thing of the past.  I have a short 3 mi commute to the train station, but that isn't too bad and just surface streets, as opposed to the 45+ min grind each way on the moving parking lot that is the interstate (1.5+ hours though was not oncommon on bad days).  My commute takes a bit longer (~1 hr) than the average car-only commute used to, however it is an utterly stress free commute.  I never realized how much of an impact the daily grind of traffic had on my life until reaching this freedom.  I have a very low stress job (and/or am the type of person that doesn't manufacture unnecessary workplace stress, if anything I worry about things too little as opposed to too much, this goes for the home front as well), and it appears that the daily grind through traffic was the source of virtually all of the stress in my life.  

 

I don't think I've ever been as calm and happy as I have been since the New Year.  It seems that all stress is gone.  The holidays bring stress, that is gone.  New baby brings stress, that is gone (at least the stress, now that we are in a rhythm).  Commuting stress is gone.  This is just fantastic.  I come home from work happy and ready to play with the kids, as opposed to angry and ticked off, needing 15+ min by myself just to cool down (interacting with people, esp kiddo during that time, just made it worse).

 

I can't help but feel jealousy over this.  Public transportation seems like such an awesome way to go.  Just hasn't worked out for me with my jobs.  If I were to ever try to find a new one again, I'd have that be a much bigger factor into the equation.  I know my sister gets to take an hour train ride both ways most mornings, but she gets quite a bit done on the train.  Good stuff Waldo.  Glad to hear things are going so well.

[Waldo]

I can't help but feel jealousy over this.  Public transportation seems like such an awesome way to go.  Just hasn't worked out for me with my jobs.  If I were to ever try to find a new one again, I'd have that be a much bigger factor into the equation.  I know my sister gets to take an hour train ride both ways most mornings, but she gets quite a bit done on the train.  Good stuff Waldo.  Glad to hear things are going so well.

 

Yeah.  Thus far I've just been reading my phone, either twitter or news articles, but I hope to buy a little netbook so that I can do something more productive with that time.  Either way, its not driving, which is a huge improvement.

[AlexCold]

Are you talking the Thomas game on PBSkids.com?  Know that one well.

 

No, it's literally called Puzzle Trains. Very simple app but challenging for him. He tries.

He has a Go Go Thomas app that is just a racing game, that he enjoys for the animation.

 

He has a lego car builder app too. I think he's old enough I can maybe try to get him to work on the Lego Mindstorms kit I have. I don't think he'd understand the programming but he would have fun building the robot.

[Waldo]

Week 1 using the gym at work is in the books.  Had to miss 1 day due to traveling.  Next week Monday I have off, so I'll miss that day as well.  No biggie, still going to the gym every day I'm at work (not sure about wed, might go use the bikes or something, nothing planned that day strength-wise.

 

1/14/16 (leg day):

 

Front Squat:

45 x 5 x 1

65 x 5 x 3

- Forced myself to hold the bar better.  I naturally have very good form, all the cues I used for pistols translate perfect, plus I have great ankle mobility from years of pistols (I can sit in the hole of squat with my toes pointed forward for a very long time, >>15 min).

 

Deadlift:

135 x 5 x 3

- I really feel the form groove on these.  Years of doing slow awesome form BW straight leg deadlifts during my warmup helped a lot, that hinge movement feels intuitive and natural.

 

Next week I'm adding 10's on both sides of the bar for both these exercises.  I see little value in lollygagging around with smaller weight increments, these exercises feel really easy and I found the form groove just fine.  I'm not going to jump too fast after this, but +20 next week on both shouldn't do much but make them slightly less easy.  

 

Single Leg Hamstring Curl

50 - 10/10, 12/12

- Sucks that the lat pulldown machine has another machine right in front of it so I can't use it to do natural ham curls.  Bummer.  The ham curl machine will have to do.  I prefer single leg on machines like this (extensions too) so that one leg can't do more work than the other.

 

Leg Press Bent Leg Calf Raises

325 - 12, 10

- Held the last few reps of the last set for a few seconds each.

 

 

1/15/16 (upper body day):

 

Overhead Press

45 x 5 x 3

- First time doing these, I thought my form felt good.  Way easy tho.

 

Chinup 

8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

- Didn't do them as a rest-pause reverse pyramid, each set was to near failure, just how my reps naturally went with 2-3 min rest.  Its different doing them on a bar high enough that I can't touch the floor at full extension.  Made sure I was going all the way down, touching the bar to my chest, and doing no kipping.  I have to do them with my hands together and elbows in due to my shoulder. Be nice to get rid of the extra 15 lb spare tire I'm carrying around. Hopefully I can get back to the 20+ rep zone in a few months, not too thrilled to be under 10 reps for chinups!

 

Flat Bench Press

45 x 5 x 1

65 x 5 x 3

- Figured out that if my shoulder is going to be an issue, its in that initial drop of the weight. If I keep my elbows in tight (and shoulders tight the same way) when unracking the bar, I'm fine.

 

Much like on leg day, I'm bumping the OHP and Bench weights by +20 next week.  These things were way easy, and my shoulder forces a very conservative form.

 

Standing Curls 

85 - 3

55 - 12, 6

- Realized after a few reps that I wan't going to be able to do 10 @ 85 (coulda done a few more than 3), so I dropped down to 55.  By that last set my arms were toast. I used that bendy bar, I'm not sure what its called.

 

Cable Fly

6 - 10, 10

- Due to the way the machine is built, they don't give a load # on the plates, just a number, I have no idea of what the load actually is, but it doesn't really matter.   Got my chest a good pump.

[Disil]

That bendy bar is an EZ curl bar.

 

I'm a bit jealous of how fast you seem to be picking up barbell work - for me it's been 3 months of a lot of struggling to make the transition from bodyweight training. By what are you judging your form, simply feel or do you have a trainer or record yourself to assess it?