Sisyphus's daily to-do

[The Most Loathed]

03/14/2014

"Forgive me father for it has been two days since my last workout"

"You will be forgiven my son. You must mediate on the cause for this. While you mediate you must do 100 burpees and 75 long cycles"

"Thank you father"

 

Today begins my battle log (there are many like it but this one is mine)

It is noon, high noon, a time to kill or a time to sustain. I have chosen both, a double cheeseburger for lunch - delicious.

 

This log post is to establish a footing by which yo may know me and know me you shall. Before I begin, I have one request of you, return to me in a few days time and make sure I am doing my duty of updating my log. Do the same again in a week and thereafter. Need your help to do this.

 

My story is long and I'm going to skip most of it. The short version:

I'm in my final year of weight loss. I have lost twenty pounds in both 2012 and 2013. I committed to 20 more in 2014 but I think I may go 30. When I hit 185 I plan to lock it in. I used to be a powerlifter and strongman but I destroyed a lumbar disc and have not really wanted to go back. I started kettlebells pretty intensely a couple years ago. Last year I decided to take a crack at the sport of kettlebell, my plan was the WKC championships in Chicago in October. I just learned in the last month that they won't be having them then and there. I now have to wait until April 2015.

 

In the coming months you'll see me work kettlebells but also do a fair amount of circuit work. I don't call myself a crossfitter because I don't do their workouts but I'd like to be in shape enough that I could. You'll also see me prepare for and compete in orienteering, because it's a thing I occasionally do. I'm not good and don't really aspire to be, i just enjoy it. I'll also do pilates and other light work because I have a tendancy to injure myself with over training and I'm trying to learn to avoid that.

 

That's all for now, I plan on posting workouts over the weekend, see you then.

[The Most Loathed]

03/14/2014

 

bodyweight

207.5

 

workout

20K Long Cycle X 66 in 10:00

 

circuit

pull up x 2

clap push up X 5

halo 20K 10/10

hand to hand swing 28K 15/25

6 rounds in under 20 minutes

 

notes

I'm sick of looking at 206, 207 all week for bodyweight. It's been a plateau week. Gotta get that moving again next week.

The Long Cycle was good for me but not a PR. last fall I got 75 but injured myself pretty bad the following week. So on one hand I'm celebrating a PR on the year. On the other hand I'm taking note that I need to work my conditioning alot, but then I knew that. Once the weather warms up and I move out to the garage, things will get real.

The circuit was made up on the fly. I had to cut pull ups from 3 to 2 because I'm pulling from a 4" X 4" rafter and grip is an issue. I had planned 5 rounds but managed 6 in the 20 minutes I had.

Tomorrow will be tough. Two workouts in the AM. Friend's birthday in the PM.

Sunday may be real, real light.

[The Most Loathed]

Bodyweight

204.8

 

Workout

Circuit 1

1:00 on, 0:30 off 5 rounds

box jump (height unknown, bottom of hip)

28K swing - Left Hand

28K swing - right Hand

2" Battle Ropes (or whatever you want to call them)

 

Circuit 2

16K gorilla cleans 20/20 (by 2 per side)

16K see saw press 10/10 (by 1 per side)

16K X 2 KB front squat 10 (by 1)

ladder down by increments noted above to 0

 

Notes

during my box jumps I missed one and shredded my shin, my leg look gnarly 

double work out for today got nixxed, I'm not too sad. I will kick my ass an extra 30 minutes tomorrow

after my bitching yesterday about weight, imagine my delight at 204.8

friend's birthday tonight, will try to limit booze and junk food

tomorrow am, not sure if I'll take the bus to the gym to get my squat workout done or just skip it for the week for extra kettlebells and little rowing

I'm super excited for the thaw. I'm ordering a new barbell next week and I plan to go by home depot and get a next chain to hang my heavy bag

[Guzzi]

Oh come off it!!! 5x clap push-ups? That's not fair... Ok, I hate you now. No, wait... I *loathe* you!!!!

Only joking, but I'm seriously jealous. I also suffer from box jump envy. Nice workout mate. Hope the birthday goes well.

[The Most Loathed]

muhaha, living up to my name already.

For you, I will add some clap pushups into today's workout. Maybe some kind of ladder to see how many I can do.

Birthday went good. I had one glass of scotch. I held off on snacks for the first few hours but had a couple handful of chips and three oreos towards then end. 

Also, ended the game up 75%. I was shooting for doubling my money ($10 to $20) but I had a time restriction. No gamers shouldn't play poker for money with gamers.

[Guzzi]

Haha! Way to go

[The Most Loathed]

03/16/2014

bodyweight: UNK

 

Workout

circuit 1

1K row, 20 burpees

750 row, 15 burpees

500 row, 10 burpees

250 row, 5 burpees

15:00

 

circuit 2

For Guzzi

Ladder 1 -> 10

clap push ups

jump lunges (left and right)

Snatch( all left then all right)

18:00

 

Notes

Workout was shorter than I'd like today but still a smoker

circuit one was shared with me by a trainer about whom I'll talk in a moment. It was used in last year's LifeTime's We Are Alpha Competition, basically their Crossfit Open, at the local level. 15 minutes is the cut off, I just barely made it, there was less than 2 seconds on my timer

Circuit Two was devised by me for Guzzi's love of clap pushups, the goal was the push and pull and have every lift be ballistic. I gave myself to 20 minutes or ten reps or failure. I hit the rep barrier first with failure not far behind it and time in a close third. That's a well designed circuit.

I met with a trainer at my local gym today to have him review a diet log I recently built for myself. I haven't done a log in years and I thought it would be good to get an objective eye. He didn't have much feedback that I hadn't already given myself. That's ok though, confirmation is feedback too. Since it's a LifeTime gym, I asked about their crossfit knock off and got some tips from him to prep for that. I aim to take the local level. We talked a bit about program design. He reminds me of myself six or seven years ago. It was good to have someone to bounce ideas off of but I need to mediate on this a bit. Also, I think there is a program design subform here, I may solicit their opinion on some stuff.

[The Most Loathed]

03/17/2014 

bodyweight: 207.3

 

workout: off

 

notes:

Monday is Gameday - no workout today. Instead I will share something with you. Below is a screenshot of my weight loss dashboard that I started last year and reimplemented this year.I restarted this year with the new year and I keep a hardcopy posted outside my cubicle to keep me accoutnable.

 

I made a resolution to drop to 90K (198lbs) this year to target my intent to compete in the World Kettlebell Lifting Championships in October at 90K. Since then two things have changed. First, the WKLC got changed, they are no longer lifting in October, they instead broke up the events and mine (Long Cycle) got moved to April 2015. Second, I decided 85K might be a better competition weight for me. 

 

As long as I'm talking about my New Years resolutions, here's the full list for the year:

• Bodyweight less than 198lbs 
• Compete at the World Kettlebell Lifting Championship in Chicago in 24K LC
• Remain injury free for an entire year
• Read 20+ books
• Play 250+ boardgames
• 1+ adventure race(s)
• 2+ Orienteering Races
• No debt other than our house and car 

 

[Guzzi]

Very impressive.

I need to get my ass to the gym

*feels inadequate*

[IslandGirl_Becks]

You seriously post that outside your cubicle? Talk about accountability! I had a chart that I maintained buried in my google drive... time to go dig it out. Thanks for the inspiration!

 

Also, ich wurde lieber der Hammer sein

[The Most Loathed]

As Winston Churchill pointed out, the hammer is always the one that breaks first.

 

Yep. I keep it on my cube. At first it caused a big stir, no one cares these days but I make myself do it just so I know it's somewhere. I also do a monthly facebook update on my New Years resolutions (the bulleted list) so all of friends and family know what I'm working on and if I'm succeeding. I was a little uncomfortable with it in Januray when I first tried it but I see fifty of their Candy Crush/ Farmville updates to my one resolutions update so I figure that they can deal. So far I've had only positive responses and a great many of them at that.

[The Most Loathed]

03/18/2014

Bodyweight: 208.6 (you know that hurt)

 

Training:

1530

warm up

Fast Long Cycle 16K 12 RPM 7 minutes

 

1900

warmup

32K TGU 1/10

24K TGU 10/0

24K Back Lunge Press 25/25 (clean to alternate each rep)

 

Circuit

Mountain Climbers 25/25

Pushup 20

Hindu Squat 25

10 rounds

 

Notes:

• Today was a mess, tomorrow will be a mess both hopefully a better one
• I woke up already in a weird panic that I wouldn't make it down to workout tonight. I do that to myself sometimes, no idea why, just a thing I do.
• My weight was crazy high but I kind of saw it coming. I've been overeating lately. Relatively cleanly but too much none the less. My wife and I both think I've gained some muscle mass in the past week but the weight goal is not an aesthetic one, it's for a weight class. Looking good on the scale is not worth extra points
• Work day went good but I had to cut out a bit early as I was still having that panic about hitting the gym. I got home walked the dog, got warmed up and did the fast long cycles (more on those in a minute) and had settled on trying crossfit Arnie when Laura text to say she was on her way home. I knew that to keep the night on schedule I had to drop what I was doing and start on supper. Supper went well, other chores got done and we still got down to do a workout. Unfortunately by that point both of us were a little brain fried so neither of us was super productive
• Fast Long Cycle was something I came up with to work on my conditioning. In Long Cycle you are not allowed to set the bell down without ending your set and your set is capped at 10 minutes. If you've ever tried lifting anything for ten minutes, it will be way below your 1RM and it gets into a weird part of your strength and energy systems that is hard to hit other ways. The question is, how do you improve your conditioning in minutes seven eight and nine without just doing max day after max day. Sometimes you do lighter really long sets but those suck. This was an attempt to find an alternative to the two I already know. It seemed successful. I'm going to keep playing with it.
• Arnie - this was on the crossfit page from a couple days ago. It seemed right up my alley. Admittedly I don't do a ton of TGUs and I'm weaker at overhead squats than I like but this felt doable, people were posting time in the late 20's and early 30's. I felt I could compete. No - freaking - Way. I wasn't even up to the first 21 reps. I'll try this again in the future but that was an abject failure.

[IslandGirl_Becks]

 

 

Arnie - this was on the crossfit page from a couple days ago. It seemed right up my alley.

 

I thought of you when I did Arnie on Monday. Kettlebells galore! Still feeling it...

[The Most Loathed]

I thought of you when I did Arnie on Monday. Kettlebells galore! Still feeling it...

did you pull it off with the 32K? It was embarrassing but I didn't even get the first set done.

I will play with this again soon.

[The Most Loathed]

03/19/2014

 

Bodyweight: UNK

 

Workout:

1700

row 500m 2:15

row 2,000m 1:55 / 500 (6:20 I think)

3 rounds

 

1900

TRX class 1 hour 

 

Notes

• forgot to weigh myself this am. This pm I was 206.4 prior to workouts
• TRX class used to be on Monday, got moved to Wednesday, which is better for me. I'll probably do one more month then call it. It was mostly to get a feel for it.When I told the trainer that, he suggested that I just go get certified as a trainer myself.
• No one else showed up for TRX so it was really focused on me. We did tabata burpees, lateral lunges, planks, incline press and a bunch of other stuff. I sweat alot anyway but I was drenched
• Each of the last couple years, when I've lost weight there is a moment when everyone can see it. I appear to be crossing that threshold as I'm starting to get comments. I think it's a little earlier this year than last year. I'm starting to get a weird athletic build that is way less stomach and really thick in the chest and upper back. It's not the curve of a body builder at all, it's very stocky, which I already am but further accentuated.
• I borrowed a pedometer today to see how many steps I take. I didn't wear it during workout time or for the dog's first or last walk (about 1/4 mile each) but hit 15,575 steps. Today seemed pretty average so apparently I don't do too bad for working a desk job.
• Next paycheck comes tomorrow. I have permission to buy a new barbell when it gets deposited, I can't wait.

[Guzzi]

Nice! Love this log

[The Most Loathed]

Thanks. I've used this format elsewhere. It makes it easy to separate the components but I always wonder about how much it causes the notes to be disassociated with the other content.

[The Most Loathed]

03/20/2014

bodyweight: forgot to weigh again

 

Workout: Reformer pilates 1 hour

 

Notes

• I missed a second weigh in but weigh in post work day was 206.2. I got a real nice weight this morning but I'll make you wait.
• Pilates is something my wife got me started on a few months ago and it's the only reason that I signed up at our local Lifetime. We have a really good instructor and she's aware of my history of injuries and does good work to help me prevent future injuries. My only regret is on nights like this one, where I don't warm up first, I feel like I get noticably less value from class. For future weeks I hope to do 20 minutes of cardio (rowing most likely) before class.
• In life progress, bonuses are announced this week and I got one, essentially an whole extra pay check. Additionally I'm promoted from Senior Analyst to Lead Analyst and get an extra grand a month (before taxes) for that promotion. It's been a while coming but despite what managers have said, i didn't think i was actually deserving until this year. Now i'm rocking this place. Sometime I'll have to do an aside on my work life. It's actually been pretty deliberate.
• Tonight will be a long cycle and some circuit work. tomorrow I may try to hit the gym in the am. Sunday I'm going to try and squeeze in some yoga (ranger side-quest) I have a great DVD but I've never taken a class and i think i can do that for free at my gym.
• EDIT: forgot to add, got official sign off on ordering my new Oly bar with the news of my bonus. I just now bought a Pendlay 20K barbell and a new pair of collars. This is exciting.

[Guzzi]

So much win right there, yay!

[The Most Loathed]

03/21/2014

 

bodyweight: 205 

 

workout:

20K Long Cycle 8:00 - 60 reps

circuit

5 thruster, 5 burpees per minute

2 minutes on, one off, 3 on, one off, 4 on

 

Row 2K 2:00/500m pace

 

Notes:

• Pretty happy to get the weight moving again. Weighed myself post workout and hit 201. I'm looking forward to my first sub 200 (even if there is a dehydration factor, just because it's been 16 years)
• Workout was not the best. I was very distracted (time pressure, wife texting for IT help and so on). Probably not the worst thing for me to have a slower night.
• Long Cycle was super disappointing. I got off to too fast of a start and really struggled to slow myself down. It was the pace that eventually got me
• Played with shoulder position during set (thanks KB girl) and I have some serious mobility work to complete here. I'm going to dig out by Kelly Starrett book and research his take on shoulders. I've spent a couple years on hips and lower back and they are in much better shape.
• Not sure how I'm going to handle the weekend quite yet.

[IslandGirl_Becks]

Green with envy over your new barbell. Well earned!

Have you checked out Kelly Starrett's YouTube channel? That's what got me to buy Supple Leopard. His first rib mobilization has saved me from desk shoulders.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

[The Most Loathed]

03/22/2014

 

bodyweight

202.7

 

workout

16K LC 5:00 10 rpm X 2

circuit 1:00 on, 0:30 off alternate exercises each round, 10 rounds total

burpees

28K hand to hand swings

 

notes

• Whatever the log jam in my weight was last week, it appears to have cleared. I'm closing in on my goal of 202 for this first challenge cycle
• Long cycles came pretty easy but I was a little winded by the end
• Thanks to KB Girl, I'm signed up for a competition in June in Michigan. It'll be my first kettlebell comp
• I clearly have some shoulder issues. I've not yet done the research to find the right movements to clean those up. @buckthetide - I have seen MobilityWOD, I keep asking for a subscription for my birthday but no one gets it for me. I think they don't know what it is. Maybe this year I'll cave and buy it for myself. I do have Supple Leopard, thats what I'm looking at currently to try and help with my shoulder issues. I tried some first rib stuff once but I think I did it wrong because it felt more like and injury afterward than a freedom of movement.

 

03/23/2014

 

bodyweight

202.6

 

workout

Yoga class 1 hour

squat- worked up to 285 for a bunch of singles and a double

circuit

ring pull up X 5

scorpion push up X 5/5

TRX burpee X 5/5

5 rounds, no timer, just keep going

 

notes

• The ranger challenge for the week was to try out some yoga poses. I thought what better way than to go take a free class. I confess to feeling silly going in there with no idea what to expect. It was supposed to be a class they was designed to let you hold the poses longer and let you get into them. Overall, I think it was good. I could definitely use more slow, bodyweight work in my life. I liked that this class would walk us through 2 or 3 poses in series a couple times then just let us go at our own pace a few more times. I don't know yet what my level of commitment to taking the class again is.
• Squats felt real heavy today. I haven't done them in a couple weeks and walking back into them after yoga probably wasn't the greatest. None the less, there they are. I did them
• Circuit was just a thing to do. Lately I've been very uncreative in my circuits. I'll need to prewrite a couple.
• Resisted wife's urgings to go ahead and have the rest of her pancakes this morning. I'm a little proud of that.
• Now I need to figure out what I'm going to write for the promised story post in my challenge log. Speaking of stories, I need to finish up the current novel I'm reading. I'm in danger of falling behind my reading goal for the year.

[The Most Loathed]

03/24/2014 

bodyweight: 204.7

 

workout: off

 

notes:

Happy Monday

No training today. 

 

Your weekly dose of crap you don't care to know:

A day in the life

0445 -wake up (supposed to be 5 but I can't help but notice that my wife moved the alarm clock ahead 15 minutes)

 - walk the dog 1/4 mile

 - feed the dog

0520 - Breakfast

 - coffee with milk

 - 4 eggs

 - 1-2 strips of bacon

 - veggies sauted in bacon grease

0540 shower, shave, change

0600 leave for work

 - walk 1/3 mile

 - ride train 6 miles

 - walk 1/4 mile

0645 start work

 - desk job. database analytics, major US (and now Canadian) retailer

0900 salad

 - cabbage

 - other veggies

 - balsamic vinegar and EVOO

1100 snack

 - possibly leftovers, possibly cheeseburger, possibly Quest bar and almonds

1200 boardgames

 - lunch time game group meets nearly every single day

1400 lunch

 - like snack but larger 

1530 Go home (see go to work)

1630   Arrive home

 - Walk dog 1-2 miles

 -  feed dog

1730 Supper

 - I usually cook for my wife and I, not 100% paleo approved but good for someone who doesn't proclaim himself paleo

 - often dishes after supper

1900 walk dog

 - 1/4 mile

 - treats and small meal for dog

1930 workout

 - usually in the basement workout, occasionally local Lifetime Gym

2030 shower and post workout snack

2100 tea or decaf coffee, TV or book

2200 bed

 

My weekends are a little less structured but tend to be more alike than different. I like to spend the AM working out and PM doing chores.

Monday night is game night so a friend and I get together and play boardgames. Sometimes we go and meet other folks, sometimes it's just the two us.

Wednesdays my wife works late and currently I have a TRX class at my local gym. The TRX won't continue much longer but in general I like to get a 90 - 120 minute workout in that night.I often skip dinner as a result.

Thursday is pilates, I try to do a little work before to be nice and warm when I go in as I feel that they are more effective then

Sunday my wife sings at church, I chose to not go. I will usually go do a long lifting session then.

 

In the summer I grill multiple times a week and train outdoors instead of in my basement. In the winter we eat more chicken and I don't have access to my barbell because I leave it in the garage.

 

That's it, obviously all the bumps and edges are sanded out but that is how I would describe my life in terms of tasks. It's pretty much exactly how I want it. That's not to say nothing ever changes or weird things don't happen but I have a nice stable routine to return to and I use that often to reset between the various events of life. It's been good to me.

[Guzzi]

Your weekly dose of crap you don't care to know...

Not so my friend.

My life, and training schedule, has been in limbo for a couple of years now, just kinda fluttering from one thing to another. I really envy your dedication, your commitment, the solidity and regularity of your routine. I admire you.

Plus, it's good to know you're human after all and still have to walk the dog in between those epic workouts

[The Most Loathed]

I even complain about it sometimes