Jrosto - A Barbarian Pulls His Own Weight

[jrosto]

Week 2 - Day 3.  Thank you to all the Veterans who served.  Your service is appreciated.

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

Continued Greasing the Groove with the assistance bands.  I'll test tomorrow to check my progress.

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

2/5 for the week.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Rest day.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  2 Team Pink

 

Crawls.  None yet, but they will be done.

 

My usual weekly KB schedule is 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off.  I'm reversing that this week due to today being Veterans Day here in the U.S.  Our oldest grandson is in the ROTC in Wylie TX and they have an annual Veterans Day parade and review to honor Vets.

 

Today was an awesome day for the event, nice and warm, not too windy, and no rain

 

They had a coffee and doughnut breakfast for Vets before the event (my Sweetie did the doughnut eating for us ) and there were literally hundreds of hand written letters from school children thanking us for our service.  

 

 

I read as many as I could and asked if I could take a couple that asked for a reply.  I have some homework for tomorrow

 

I met one Vet from WW2 who served on a Mine Sweeper, that was some tough duty.

 

There were High School kids doing interviews of Vets for... well I forget which national archive they were submitting the interviews to, but I was interviewed about my service.  They were very good questions and I enjoyed answering them.

 

Here's our grandson on parade

 

 

Have a great evening Rebels

[AthenaMM]

Sounds like a great day, jrosto! I'm glad the weather was good there since it was rainy here. Those letters are awesome! Enjoy your homework.

[Urgan]

Sounds like you had a fulfilling Veteran's Day--without your service none of the normal day stuff would be possible, thanks! 

[jrosto]

Week 2 - Day 4 Throwing Kettlebells Thursday.  

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

I did my pull up test with the 65# band this morning.  I was expecting to get at least 5 good pull ups, but only made 4.That was a bit of a disappointment to be sure.  I did try the lighter (50#) band a bit later and was able to complete a good pull up, so I'm going to start using the lighter band for my greasing the groove exercises.

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

2/5.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Prying Goblet Squat - One set of 5 with a 16 kg kettlebell. 

 

Hip Bridges- One set of 5 Three Second Hip Bridges

 

Halo - One set of 5, in each direction, with a 16 kg kettlebell.

 

Kettlebell Swings - Three sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 20 kg kettlebell. and two sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 24 kg kettlebell.

 

Turkish Get Ups - Five sets from each side with a 20 kg KB.

 

Simple and Sinister stretches.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  2 Team Pink

 

Crawls.  None yet,Going to have to get after this, or I'll be doing a heck of a lot of crawling come Sunday.

[AthenaMM]

Four pull-ups is still great! And you can do one with the lighter band. It sounds to me like you're making progress!

 

Now get busy with those crawls! I've done 50 bear crawls a day for the past couple of days and my shoulders are sore now. So join me! 

[Elastigirl]

Might be good that you can't just crank out the pullups with the bands, that means you are really still using  good form and your muscles. In other words, keep at it, it'll happen!

[jrosto]

Week 2 - Day 5 

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

Greasing the Groove with the 50# band.  I had the opportunity to talk with a StrongFirst Cert Body Weight Instructor last night over the phone.  She viewed a vid of my reverse pull up and likes my form.  She has trained others achieve a pull up for the first time after major surgery, and let me know that I am progressing very well for my situation.  I'm just expecting too much too soon and to keep at my routine of using the bands to supplement my negatives, scapular pulls, and hollow body hangs.  She also recommended that I start pressing KB's, the heavier the better paying close attention to a slow and very controlled decent back into the home position.

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

7 minutes of Seven Second Box Breathing.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Prying Goblet Squat - One set of 5 with a 16 kg kettlebell. 

 

Hip Bridges- One set of 5 Three Second Hip Bridges

 

Halo - One set of 5, in each direction, with a 16 kg kettlebell.

 

Kettlebell Swings - Two sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 20 kg kettlebell. and three sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 24 kg kettlebell.  Progressing right along.  My granddaughter wanted to see my swings this afternoon so I did one set of one handed with the 20 kg bell, switching hands at the mid point.  She thought that was cool.

 

Turkish Get Ups - Five sets from each side with a 20 kg KB.

 

Simple and Sinister stretches.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  2 Team Pink

 

Crawls.  I finally got started on my crawls  Did a quick 25 Bear Crawls after my S&S workout.

[jrosto]

Week 2 - Day 6. A Great Day for a Video. 

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

Continued Greasing the Groove with the 50# band. 

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

8.4 minutes of Seven Second Box Breathing.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Prying Goblet Squat - One set of 5 with a 16 kg kettlebell. 

 

Hip Bridges- One set of 5 Three Second Hip Bridges

 

Halo - One set of 5, in each direction, with a 16 kg kettlebell.

 

Kettlebell Swings - Two sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 20 kg kettlebell. and three sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 24 kg kettlebell.  Here is a vid of set #9 of my swings.  This is the final set from my strong side.  If you swing kettlebells you have a strong side, and a stronger side  I figured this set would be where any leaks in my form would be the most evident.

 

 

Turkish Get Ups - Five sets from each side with a 20 kg KB.

 

Simple and Sinister stretches.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  2 Team Pink

 

Crawls.  A total of 100 Bear Crawls so far.

 

Hope everyone is having an awesome weekend

[jrosto]

I forgot to mention my time to complete today's swings.  On Saturday I compress my rest periods between sets by only resting until my heart rate drops to 100 BPM.  Today it took me 22:35 to complete my swings.  That is over 5 1/2 minutes longer than last week.

 

Last week I did 8 of the sets with 20 kg and only 2 with 24 kg.  This week I had increased the 24 kg sets to 6, and did 4 sets with the 20 kg KB.  The 24 kg 'bell is working me good

[jrosto]

Week 2 - Day 7. 

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

Continued Greasing the Groove with the 50# band. 

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

9.3 minutes of Seven Second Box Breathing.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Rest day.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  2 Team Pink

 

Crawls.  200 Bear Crawls, challenge completed.

[jrosto]

Week 2 - Week in Reveiw

 

SMART Quests:

 

1.  Pull my own Weight: This one is easy, pass or fail.  I will do at least one, Tactical Hollow Body Pull Up. 

 

I have progressed from the 60# assistance band to a 50# band for Greasing the Pull Up Groove .

 

I am also doing reverse pulls / scapular pulls / hollow body dead hangs once every two to three days.  

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. Continue working on box breathing, working up to 10 second boxes to improve breathing and focus.  Incorporate other forms of meditation into the program at least once/week.  This can be an Aikido Guided Meditation vid or a guided meditation app.

 

Grading my success by the end of the six weeks.

 

A = Perform breathing and meditation exercises an average of 5 times/week.

 

I did seven second box breathing 5 times this week.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill: I would like to continue practicing rock climbing.  I really enjoyed starting this quest during the last challenge.   I will visit the local Indoor Climbing Center at least three times during this Challenge. 

 

I have not yet gone to the indoor climbing gym.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do: I will continue to perform the Simple and Sinister workout 5 times a week  I need to continue to progress towards owning the Simple portion of the program..  This includes at least one set of the warm up exercises, 10 sets of 10 one hand kettlebell swings with a 24 kg kettlebell and 5 sets of 1 (per arm) Turkish Get Ups with a 20 kg kettlebell, and the final stretching exercises. 

 

I have completed the S&S workout 5 times this week. I am now doing 6 out of 10 sets of my swings with the 24 kg KB and all of my TGU's with 20 kg's.  I plan on progressing to at least 8 out of 10 sets of swings with the 24 kg 'bell this week.

 

5. Mini Quests:

 

This week's mini quest physical challenge was to do 200 quadrupedal movement reps.  I choose Bear Crawls and met this challenge.

 

All in all a really good week.  I've progressed with both my S&S and my pull ups.  I do still need to get to the climbing gym.

 

Off to Week 3!

[AthenaMM]

It looks like you've been doing a great job the last few days! I commented on your swings in the KB thread, but you are obviously doing AWESOME with your KB workouts. 

 

Keep up the excellent work on your pull-ups and you'll be there before you know it. I did try out my new band for the assisted pull-ups. I can't quite get my head above the bar even once, but it's very close. It took me a little while to figure out how to get the band down far enough to get my foot into it though. It's actually pretty hilarious to watch. I guess it's the curse of being short and needing a thick band so that it's really hard to stretch it. Actually I'm wondering if that's part of why I can't do a pull-up once I'm in the band. By then my arms are already tired.

[Riverleaf]

Great progress!  Yay!

[Lightning]

Great job with 5 S&S workouts!  That's a lot of swinging!

 

[Urgan]

It's always good to have some extra encouragement on the things you struggle with. You'll get that pull-up!

[jrosto]

Week 3 - Day 1.

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

Continued Greasing the Groove with the 50# band. 

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

0/5 for the week.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Prying Goblet Squat - One set of 5 with a 16 kg kettlebell. 

 

Hip Bridges- One set of 5 Three Second Hip Bridges

 

Halo - One set of 5, in each direction, with a 16 kg kettlebell.

 

Kettlebell Swings - One set of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 20 kg kettlebell. and four sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 24 kg kettlebell.  I received a call during my S&S that I needed to answer and resulted in my having to call another entity and get some stuff squared away.  I continued to do my swings while on hold, but rested longer in between sets so I could talk when they finally picked up.  Since I rested longer, I was able to get that 4th set with the 24 kg KB  By the way, it was the initial caller (my specialty pharmacy) who was dinked up.  It's all squared away now.

 

Turkish Get Ups - Five sets from each side with a 20 kg KB.

 

Simple and Sinister stretches.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  3 Team Pink

 

Sprints?  Barbarians don't do no stinky sprints...

 

I do kind of consider my swings to fulfill my personal sprint requirements so I'll most likely do the cooking challenge this week.

 

And Week 3 has begun 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Then how do barbarians move while they rage? Saunter?

[jrosto]

Then how do barbarians move while they rage? Saunter?

 

I submit that a Barbarian cannot be held accountable for what happens when forced into a Berserker Rage.  Sprinting very well could be involved if the focus of that rage decides to make an attempt at avoiding the inevitable.  I would highly recommend that if you happen to see a Barbarian sprinting in your general direction, you evacuate the area quickly.  

[jrosto]

Monday Macros

 

Weight = 157. Weight loss this week = 1 lb. Total weight loss = 94 lbs. Macros for the week = Carb/Fat/Prot - 24/48/28%. Daily avg cals = 2369.  Body Fat = 11.4%.

 

Cals were low, and percentage of Carbs were high again this week.  The Carbs were still under my 150 gr/day average limit (142).  This is pretty much the exact profile as last week.  I picked up some raw macadamia nuts from Sprouts this afternoon and will roast them up tomorrow.  Adding 1/4 cup of these to my daily diet will increase both my cals and fats pretty close to where I want them.  

 

On an unrelated note.  Since I've stopped cooking with vegetable oils, my cast iron pans have the best seasoning ever.  I use ghee or avocado oil for my higher heat cooking and not only is it a better fat, my pans like it too

 

 

It looks like you've been doing a great job the last few days! I commented on your swings in the KB thread, but you are obviously doing AWESOME with your KB workouts. 

 

Keep up the excellent work on your pull-ups and you'll be there before you know it. I did try out my new band for the assisted pull-ups. I can't quite get my head above the bar even once, but it's very close. It took me a little while to figure out how to get the band down far enough to get my foot into it though. It's actually pretty hilarious to watch. I guess it's the curse of being short and needing a thick band so that it's really hard to stretch it. Actually I'm wondering if that's part of why I can't do a pull-up once I'm in the band. By then my arms are already tired.

 

Have you tried using a step stool to step into the band?  Or you could consider pulling the band down as part of an exercise routine all by itself

 

Great progress!  Yay!

 

 

Great job with 5 S&S workouts!  That's a lot of swinging!

 

 

 

It's always good to have some extra encouragement on the things you struggle with. You'll get that pull-up!

 

Thanks  I do appreciate the encouragement and the support from you guys, it really helps.

[Urgan]

I submit that a Barbarian cannot be held accountable for what happens when forced into a Berserker Rage.  Sprinting very well could be involved if the focus of that rage decides to make an attempt at avoiding the inevitable.  I would highly recommend that if you happen to see a Barbarian sprinting in your general direction, you evacuate the area quickly.  

 

To put it another way, it's the guy who pisses off a barbarian who needs to practice sprints.

 

 

How are those banded pull-ups feeling? Getting any easier at 50?

[jrosto]

To put it another way, it's the guy who pisses off a barbarian who needs to practice sprints.

 

 

How are those banded pull-ups feeling? Getting any easier at 50?

 

Yes, the pull ups are getting easier with the 50# band.  I'm able to hold at the top for a couple seconds when I do my "Grease the Groove" pull ups.  It will be interesting to see how many I can get done on Thursday.  The next band I have is 30#, that's a nice size jump

[Urgan]

Yes, the pull ups are getting easier with the 50# band.  I'm able to hold at the top for a couple seconds when I do my "Grease the Groove" pull ups.  It will be interesting to see how many I can get done on Thursday.  The next band I have is 30#, that's a nice size jump

 

Wow, that'll be a major leap of progress to hit the 30!

[Elastigirl]

Woohoo on the 24kg. swing!

[KB Girl]

You're doing awesome Jrosto! So impressed with your consistency Either you and Elastigirl have something major in common, or it's something in the S&S flavored water

 

On a side note, perhaps to provide some perspective..... it took me almost 2 years to work up to my first pull-up. Not all of that time was consistent and concious movement towards this goal, so i'm sure you'll do it much faster! But it's not an easy goal you picked for yourself. 

[jrosto]

Week 3 - Day 2.

 

1.  Pull my own Weight:

 

Continued Greasing the Groove with the 50# band. 

 

2.  Keep Calm and Carry On: An Assassin must be able to control his thoughts and breath. 

 

8.5 minutes of Eight Second Box Breathing.

 

I increased the time for my box breathing by a second for each side.  I could tell the difference, but it was very doable.

 

3.  Learn a New Skill:

 

0/3  for the challenge.

 

4.  A Barbarian’s Got to do What a Barbarian’s Got to do:

 

Prying Goblet Squat - One set of 5 with a 16 kg kettlebell. 

 

Hip Bridges- One set of 5 Three Second Hip Bridges

 

Halo - One set of 5, in each direction, with a 16 kg kettlebell.

 

Kettlebell Swings - One set of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 20 kg kettlebell. and four sets of 10, one handed, each hand, with a 24 kg kettlebell. 

 

Turkish Get Ups - Five sets from each side with a 20 kg KB.  TGU's felt pretty heavy today, but did get them done

 

Simple and Sinister stretches.

 

5.  Super Mario Assassin All-Stars: LEVEL  3 Team Pink

 

Nothing yet.