Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[ArgSki77]

1 minute ago, Urgan said:

I fear someone might have actually done this.

I have accidentally drank way too much caffeine before the gym once but not mixed together directly. I have a caffinated protein powder(amazing by the way) and I made a shake with that instead of my normal whey by accident which I intended to use as an intra. But on the way to the gym, I tanked a pre-workout too. I got part way through the intrashake before I realized that it was the protein with caffeine. Oh and the workout was in the afternoon so I didnt go to bed until very late that night. Usually, I only take my pre before real hard workouts or when I am very tired so I can usually out work the affects of the caffeine and still sleep later. That extra 150mg from the protein was too much.

 

Note to self choose one or the other

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, ixaera said:

 

The jitters from heck

 

3 minutes ago, ArgSki77 said:

I have accidentally drank way too much caffeine before the gym once but not mixed together directly. I have a caffinated protein powder(amazing by the way) and I made a shake with that instead of my normal whey by accident which I intended to use as an intra. But on the way to the gym, I tanked a pre-workout too. I got part way through the intrashake before I realized that it was the protein with caffeine. Oh and the workout was in the afternoon so I didnt go to bed until very late that night. Usually, I only take my pre before real hard workouts or when I am very tired so I can usually out work the affects of the caffeine and still sleep later. That extra 150mg from the protein was too much.

 

Note to self choose one or the other

 

"Is that guy strung out on crack? Look at how he's shaking and his eyes are all twitchy!"

 

"Naw, that's just from double-loading on caffinated supplements...he'll be fine in a day or two."

 

I could totally see that happening. Innocent mistake. Hopefully one that didn't wreck your recovery for a week.

[ArgSki77]

4 minutes ago, Urgan said:

"Is that guy strung out on crack? Look at how he's shaking and his eyes are all twitchy!"

 

"Naw, that's just from double-loading on caffinated supplements...he'll be fine in a day or two."

 

I could totally see that happening. Innocent mistake. Hopefully one that didn't wreck your recovery for a week.

No jitters but I was very very awake!

 

Also, Im not sure its as intense as this dude. Watch the first 30 seconds. He just rips a scoop of pre-workout and chases with a little shot of water. That's aggressive but hes also doing an 8x800 deadlift set so what do I know.

 

[Urgan]

33 minutes ago, ArgSki77 said:

No jitters but I was very very awake!

 

Also, Im not sure its as intense as this dude. Watch the first 30 seconds. He just rips a scoop of pre-workout and chases with a little shot of water. That's aggressive but hes also doing an 8x800 deadlift set so what do I know.

 

 

Hey, if you can swallow it....

[Urgan]

 

11/3/2016

Idiot repellant

Eat

Lunch - sausage, broccoli, pasta casserole

Dinner - beef 'n zoodles

 

Recover

Up with the Chickens - 4/20

Ice that Back - 2/16

 

Do the Thing

Journal weekday stress - 4/20
DB Rows - 1/4
Bokken work 0/4

 

So....took Hellz Rd to AND from work....yay. I saw many fun sights, like some guys installing a fire hydrant beside a bunch of really abandoned looking buildings. This morning route took me straight through the 'hood, complete with police pulling some guy over in the parking lot of a building that is all one shade of sky blue, bars on the windows. Sigh. Thanks, Google Maps. On the upside, I now know what is down that road, curiosity sated. Also, that was pretty much the most stressful thing that...oh wait, there was that time when some jackass pulled into the white striped zone demarcating a turn lane onto the highway and this not only skipping the long line to cheat me out of my opportunity to go, but endangering everyone in a 50 foot radius since I am quite sure the traffic coming around the corner is 100% prepared for two cars to be duking it out in the middle of their lane. First time I've (successfully) blown my horn at someone * foams at mouth *. Yay. Work was okay at least?? And the drive home wasn't that bad other than the aforementioned Incident.

 

I slept a third of my free time away, I was that tired, ate, prepped for Friday, iced, folded some towels, and then bedtime for realz. Just another exciting Adventure with Urgan. Feel the thrill.

[ixaera]

my goodness, your commute

[Urgan]

14 minutes ago, ixaera said:

my goodness, your commute

 

I think that ancient Chinese curse goes, "May you drive through interesting times."

[RedStone]

2 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

I think that ancient Chinese curse goes, "May you drive through interesting times."

 

OMG I just laughed out loud for way too long! Poor thing tho, awful commutes have a way of framing the day in bad light  

[Urgan]

16 minutes ago, ~RedStone~ said:

 

OMG I just laughed out loud for way too long! Poor thing tho, awful commutes have a way of framing the day in bad light  

 

My street cred has never been higher. I can strut into work knowing something failed in its mission to end me this morn. Bonus if it was gym day.

[Urgan]

That awkward moment when your coworker invites you and a bunch of other people to eat out, buuuut you all brought lunch, so...

[Emerald_Dragonfly]

On Thursday, November 03, 2016 at 1:26 PM, Urgan said:

 

Hello, my libertarian brother.

Me, too!  *waves

 

 I live in a super conservative bubble of a super liberal state.  I basically disagree with everyone.   All the time.  My dem friends think I'm a repub, and my repub friends think I'm a dem.

 

I think that deep down, if more people knew the actual Libertarian view, more people would realize that they are libertarian  too.  A gal can dream...

 

On Thursday, November 03, 2016 at 1:32 PM, Sam Ashen said:

[/NVM]

 

... and decided not to comment.

I can't seem to stop myself.   Yours was probably the wiser course of action.   

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, Emerald_Dragonfly said:

Me, too!  *waves

 

 I live in a super conservative bubble of a super liberal state.  I basically disagree with everyone.   All the time.  My dem friends think I'm a repub, and my repub friends think I'm a dem.

 

I think that deep down, if more people knew the actual Libertarian view, more people would realize that they are libertarian  too.  A gal can dream...

 

I can't seem to stop myself.   Yours was probably the wiser course of action.   

 

It is the natural state of humanity to live under tryanny. Both sides don't understand why you aren't all about forcing people to do things their way. 

[Sam Ashen]

9 minutes ago, Emerald_Dragonfly said:

I live in a super conservative bubble of a super liberal state.

 

This was me back in 2005.  The super conservative bubble in a super liberal state was Waukesha, Wisconsin!  Today, the super conservative bubble in a super liberal state is Jordan, Minnesota.

 

It is really funny the kids in the shop with "Making America Great Again" hats.  I love to harass them, saying I just assumed they were libtards.  (If you think calling a lib a libtard is insulting, try calling a conservitard a libtard!)

 

 

12 minutes ago, Emerald_Dragonfly said:

My dem friends think I'm a repub, and my repub friends think I'm a dem.

 

This sounds familiar - like my life in Mississippi.

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

This was me back in 2005.  The super conservative bubble in a super liberal state was Waukesha, Wisconsin!  Today, the super conservative bubble in a super liberal state is Jordan, Minnesota.

 

It is really funny the kids in the shop with "Making America Great Again" hats.  I love to harass them, saying I just assumed they were libtards.  (If you think calling a lib a libtard is insulting, try calling a conservitard a libtard!)

 

 

Dear God, man, there's trolling, and then there's throwing a live hand grenade into a dynamite closet. Those jokers are rabid, you know. My only issue is anyone in favor of socialized medicine, socialized daycare, appointing his sister to be a SCOTUS justice, and a bigger stimulus than the socialist has proposed can be called any kind of conservative in this plane of existence, buuuut I figure your point is they are of counterfeit material.

 

7 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

This sounds familiar - like my life in Mississippi.

 

See above.

[Sam Ashen]

6 hours ago, Urgan said:

Dear God, man, there's trolling, and then there's throwing a live hand grenade into a dynamite closet.

 

If I ever toss a hand grenade at you, then you should know what to do:

 

Just pull the pin and toss it back.

[Urgan]

 

11/4/2016

Meow meow meow meow

Eat

Lunch - sausage, broccoli, pasta casserole AND beef 'n zoodles, lol

Dinner - Burrito

 

Recover

Up with the Chickens - 5/20

Ice that Back - 3/16

 

Do the Thing

Journal weekday stress - 5/20
DB Rows - 1/4
Bokken work 0/4

 

BP - 45 1x5

        65 1x3

        75 1x1

        89 3x3--PR+1!!

R.Delt - 15 3x10--PR+5!!

 

Gymmed. I love Friday morning gymming, as no humans are to be found that morning in the gym and fewer of them are on the road than average (specifically: in the morning), too. They're all sluggabeds, I guess. In the afternoon, we all pay the price as everyone is on the way home early because Friday. I find the dynamic extremely funny. Oh well, look at me making progress, observe the Effort Wobble on rep three, the redness of face.

 

 

 

Stress-wise, it was minimal. Mostly I was bored, with spikes when I was working on figuring out what route I'd be sentenced to based on traffic patterns and I just said F it, I'm not doing Hellz Rd one more time. I'd rather be sitting still in traffic 10 minutes than that, to be completely frank. I figure my car would agree, if Mustangs could talk. Did the work thing, got the groceries, came home, put up the groceries, ate, iced, and turned into liquid draped on a horizontal surface for the remainder of the evening before turning in before 10. I am an old person.

 

 

[Urgan]

It's time for another round of Urgan Has Thoughts. If you don't care to hear about me wibble-wobbling on future-planning, this post is Not For You. Now on with the show:

 

On Programming. I was just over in @ixaera's thread waxing profound on sticking to your programming guns and not changing unless something about the way you're (not) progressing or how you feel (in a long term sense, not the in-the-moment sense--that's just exercise, not Training) that indicates you must change or die. I'm over here like squinting at 5/3/1 and Juggernaut and worrying that 4-D TM won't carry me forward in the early wee hours because squats are 33% harder than they should be solely based on when I'm training. Yes I'm giving it one more week for deadlifts to sort themselves out. Yes, if that fails I'm gonna lower the volume on Volume Day squats. Yes I'm eating more. But I'm still jumping ahead mentally and doing this. And the wibbling isn't just straight-up "I wanna do that shiny new thing over there, it looks pretty and perfect!" I'm also worrying about doing 5/3/1 with jokers because that's some pretty heavy weight for 6AM, even if it's just one triple or a single. The saving grace is it's just a single set at each weight, unless it's back-off sets. But I thrive on volume, I've been using it to make progress all this time--will this ramping with super low weight relative to my max without volume to back it be enough to drive gains? I can only know if I try it, I suppose. There are multiple facets to my concerns about current vs future programming.

 

And Juggernaut, lol, not even totally got my mind around it, but doing sets of 8 or 10 in the AM...how much rest am I going to need to pull that off? Time is my scarcest resource of all. I have decided that I am going to give myself some time to acclimate to the job and try to make small tweaks each week to see if I can find a balance. Best joke of all is I'll totally get there and then the contract employment ends.......if I can't get there in a month, I will have to do more than tweak the programming, because I need to see my deadlift and squat move without murdering me in the process. Lord knows it isn't lack of calories holding me back....

 

 

On Macros vs Body Comp. So, part of this gains trifecta is food. I've been living in the 2300-2400 zone for a long time. Starting this job, I let my stomach do the meal planning, because I knew it would demand more fuel just to get through all the demands I'm putting on myself--to hell with the rest, I am going to lift, do aikido, and earn money. This week I'm averaging 2600. All week my weight has been in 115.5 - 117.2lbs--my sodium has been high on the rampage like Godzilla, I'm taking creatine in preworkout form, and I am eating a full 200 calories more on average, so this is to be expected. This morning my body is all like: 

 

"Jettison the ballast!"

"Aye-aye, Cap'n!" 

 

114.8lbs. 

 

I see myself going through waves of increased weight, then a day or two where it drops. I'm on the upswing as the trend goes. See:

 

 

 

Boys and girls, this does not hurt my feelings at all. I want to be strong, and I want to have enough energy to not pass out <10PM on a Friday (or any other day, for that matter...). The stress one is under in these circumstances--not just the emotional kind, but all of it--is not to be trifled with. Once my energy has stabilized, I'll be more interested in identifying a new firm target. 'Til then, I'll keep my old one and just lol at the deltas. Won't that be fun. In other news, I'm taking a small cooler to work, because though we have fridges, I don't trust my coworkers to not steal food. If someone steals my noms, I will go to jail and they will go to the hospital. Just sayin'. 

 

My midsection feels a little bloated, which is not super awesome, but it's just more fuel for my suspicions that most of this is just water. I'm eating 200+ more calories every day, and I'm gaining what, <1lb per week? A lot of that is being eaten just to maintain. At least, that's my interpretation. 

 

On sleep. I am doing well in giving myself the opportunity to sleep by getting in bed at 10~PM. I am waking in the night for a blink or two most nights. On about Thursday it gets reeeeeally hard to get out of bed on time. Friday is ow, but Intensity Day forces me up. I am looking for signs of improvement here, this is where I'll know I'm making energy progress. 

[Urgan]

11/5/2016

Thinking: It's not everyone's strong suit

Eat

Lunch - Bagel + tortilla chips + Epic Protein Bar (BALANCED MEAL FTW!!!)

Dinner - Tuna roll, sirloin steak, teriyaki veggies, fried rice, miso soup, ginger side salad

 

Recover

Up with the Chickens - 5/20

Ice that Back - 4/16

 

Do the Thing

Journal weekday stress - 5/20
DB Rows - 1/4
Bokken work 0/4

 

Squats - 45 1x5

              115 1x3

              140 1x1

               165 3x3

DL - 135 1x5

        160 1x3

        212.5 1x1

 

 

 

So...gym. I did my squats?? As the Insta-post above details, I am kinda feeling a little bit like crap doing my Intensity Day squats...sure, they're hard, but I also feel bad that they feel hard? Yeah, it sounds like a bizarre reaction to have, but there it is. I have always been thinking of it in the context of my deadlifts stalling, so when my squats feel heavy it's like--welp, now everything is going to hell. Thanks, work life. But no, that's not what is going on at all. I am 3x3'ing a weight that is 10lbs shy of my 3RM. OF COURSE IT IS HEAVY, IJIT. If I could make it 5-10lbs above 175, I should be obscenely proud of myself.

 

Deadlifts. I did 1 rep of 212.5, so no I did not error out writing my workout above. Sadly. I did not fail any reps, I just called it at 1 because that single rep was such a grind I knew I'd fail the next one (or at least I'm 100% sure I wouldn't hit the triple). Also, the video of the rep showed my form was crap, so it was just as well. I'm regressing. However, as an addendum to the previous word vomit, I have figured out what's going on. I've done this before, when following my TM programming to the letter until I ran deadlifts into the ground and was forced to reduce the number of times per month I deadlifted to ~2. So...yeah. I followed 4-Day TM as closely as I could until my deadlifts cracked. Now I have to modify it. I am going to be inserting some combo of haltings, rack pulls, shrugs, and conventional and see if that is little enough heavy work in the end to allow me to continue deadlifting and making progress--because my previous combo of DLs, PCs, and chins aren't happening this time--twice per 6 weeks should do it? I'll also be deloading slightly on the pull ONLY to give myself some room to recover there. It's not my squat's fault per say, but I'll be reducing Volume Day to 5x3 because those were the conditions where progress was happening on 3-Day TM. I'm doing this because I think this stress is not helping my life in general, and my gains in particular. 

 

Right, so I figured that out, iced my back, and wrote out my hypothetical Juggernaut training plan (yes I have a 5/3/1 plan as well as the program I'm actually running...what, I like to write this stuff out to scrutinize for months to come. Colorcoded spreadsheets that reference other sheets are pretty), because this is clearly what you do until midnight on a Saturday night.

 

Oh and there was the post-workout meal. I finally did it. I finally cleaned my plate at my favorite sushi restaurant. ...no leftovers... * sniffle * Oh well. Bought myself an extra tuna roll, knowing I would be missing it the next morning. I heart you, tuna roll.

 

[ixaera]

11 hours ago, Urgan said:

because this is clearly what you do until midnight on a Saturday night.

 

 

you too, huh?!

[Urgan]

11/6/2016 + WEEK 1 DEBRIEF!

Sunday funday

Eat

Lunch - hot dog + fries, tuna sushi

Dinner - white chicken chili a la mamma

 

I don't know, either. My macros, as I have previously noted, are somewhat askew. This is okay, however that doesn't mean I don't post 'em up for y'all to see.

 

 

Week 1 Average:

           Cals   /   Carbs   /   Fats    /  Protein /  Sugar  

AVG    2583        266          109          123             51  

TGT    2400        237          102          120           100  

DLTA 183 29 7 3 -49

 

Observe, greens all around except for sugar. I did not exactly lose my mind, I just decided 2600 and 120 protein was the bar to clear, and the carbs and fat were just kinda on their own, lol. 

 

Recover

Up with the Chickens - 5/20

Ice that Back - 4/16

 

On track 100%~ Hard to force myself out of bed, but 10PM curfew made it doable.

 

Do the Thing

Journal weekday stress - 5/20
DB Rows - 1/4
Bokken work 1/4

 

So far, so good. My kvetching thinly veiled as "journaling" is proceding apace. I feel somewhat bad for taking you on a tour of the actual worst parts of town this week. I'll keep that to a minimum, restricted to parts that will entertain. I have seen Southwest Airlines plane in the air, at eye level from our parking lot, as it was taking off and have been driving when a plane was landing going in the opposite direction. That was pretty cool, especially the bit where I failed to swerve into oncoming traffic while watching it, lol.

 

I was able to do rows without summoning Armageddon. Hooray. Did a few minutes of bokken work on Sunday, I was pretty headachy. Both suburi and Kata feel like they're ready to enter the polishing phase, so that was cool.

 

On 11/6/2016 at 9:57 PM, ixaera said:

 

you too, huh?!

 

#nerdfitness

[Emerald_Dragonfly]

On Sunday, November 06, 2016 at 11:25 AM, Urgan said:

and wrote out my hypothetical Juggernaut training plan (yes I have a 5/3/1 plan as well as the program I'm actually running...what, I like to write this stuff out to scrutinize for months to come. Colorcoded spreadsheets that reference other sheets are pretty), because this is clearly what you do until midnight on Saturday 

 

 

On Sunday, November 06, 2016 at 10:57 PM, ixaera said:

 

you too, huh?!

 

20 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

#nerdfitness

 

Yup.  

[Urgan]

11/7/2016

Self-inflicted

Eat

Lunch - Not enough spaghetti and meatballs

Dinner - Chicken manicotti at the parents'

 

Recover

Up with the Chickens - 6/20

Ice that Back - 4/16

 

Do the Thing

Journal weekday stress - 6/20
DB Rows - 1/4
Bokken work 1/4

 

NF ate my post. Twice. Didn't bring enough food to eat. Work chilled me down so bad I got a half day cold complete with sniffling, sneezing, draining, and congestion headache. Didn't aikido because snot faucet.

 

[ArgSki77]

I forgot that people lose their minds when driving anytime something changes during rush hour...darkeness was one of those things. I saw accidents in places I've never imagined before last night when I was going home!

[Urgan]

1 minute ago, ArgSki77 said:

I forgot that people lose their minds when driving anytime something changes during rush hour...darkeness was one of those things. I saw accidents in places I've never imagined before last night when I was going home!

 

Maybe they were all SNEEZING. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

 

Otherwise I generally don't lose it during time changes. Drive a little slower maybe, but that tends to happen lately what with the eye strain. Pitch darkness punctuated with an army of flashing tail lights. My eyes hate me... * whimper *

[Urgan]

Oh yeah, and gym happened.

 

OHP 45 1x5

         54 5x5

R Delts 15 3x10

 

The rear delts were hard at 15lbs, but not as hard as last time (aka the first time I tried at that weight).