Sam Ashen - A New Hope

[miss_marissa]

11 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

Programming is in!  Just when I thought it was going to be another Bulgarian-style program, it looks like.....

 

Monday, Wednesday, Friday:  (or three days per week)

12 Snatch Singles in waves

12 Clean and Jerk Singles in waves

Front-Squats: 3 Singles at daily max, plus 4 sets of 3

 

Imagine that!  A three day per week program!

 

 

Just kidding.  There is also a Tuesday and Thursday: (two days per week)

8 Power Snatch Singles

8 Power Clean Singles

Front-Squats: 3 Singles at daily max

 

And there is a Saturday:  (one day per week)

Hit a maximum Snatch Single

Hit a maximum Clean and Jerk Single

3x3 Squats

 

This week will be a half week's worth and we run the program for two more weeks following that.  So.  Two and a half weeks of this.  Then another taper and a meet on October 23.

 

Monday was a rest day, so today is Tuesday.

 

Snatch Singles: 3x64, 3x74, 3x84 pounds

Power Snatch Singles: 94, 2x114, 5x124 pounds

Power Clean Singles: 2x134, 1x154, 1x174, 3x184, 2x194 pounds - some followed up with half-front-squats

Front-Squats: 2x194, 2x194, 1x224, 1x244, 1x264 pounds - the last rep was pretty ugly and I will benchmark this as the most I ever front-squatted.

 

70% of my PL squat.  Well.  I'm sure it will get better if I am trying to 1RM my front-squat nearly every day.

 

Score for Today:

3327 Calories

342 Carbs

136 Fat

167 Protein

 

+4.6 Overall

I literally spat my tea out at this lol

 

MB is sneaky sneaky.

[Raxie]

15 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That's right, he did it once, put his clothes back on, then stripped again to see if the number was correct.

 

Then stripped again... and one more time. He just likes taking his clothes off in front of nerds methinks.

[shaar]

I see your plan dude, bury the shame of a CAH table clear by taking off your clothes multiple times.....

 

#NewScandalEveryYear

[Epsilonx2]

Just wanted to say I had a ton of fun watching you lift, including the cape!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sam Ashen]

9 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

I follow your threads because I like hearing about the pain programming and the food. I stay for the interesting tidbits of information.

 

Thanks!

 

9 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

The whole stripping thing could be a great way to get more people interested in lifting. 

 

#i'mjustcheckingtheweighins

 

Like this?

 

 

9 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

He didn't strip to get a lower weight.

He stripped 4 times. That's right, he did it once, put his clothes back on, then stripped again to see if the number was correct.

 

Well.  @Rurik Harrgath was weighing in right next to me and getting a bigger number and I was puzzled.  So I verified that the scale was giving me consistent numbers.

 

9 hours ago, Grymm said:

15# in a year?  The plan is working!  I think you'd make a great 105kg lifter!

 

This sounds a lot better than cutting.  Now we just have to get Miss Broki on board with the idea.  Every time I mention 105 kg class she shakes her finger and says NO!  It is almost as effective as the Jedi Mind Trick.

 

 

15 pounds in a year?  I'm getting fat!

 

9 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

I literally spat my tea out at this lol

 

That is much better than having to clean the computer screen.

 

9 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

MB is sneaky sneaky.

 

She was having fun with the suspense.  Perhaps taking revenge for me thinking about sending back a picture of my arm in a sling from a bench press gone bad.

 

9 hours ago, Raxie said:

 

Then stripped again... and one more time. He just likes taking his clothes off in front of nerds methinks.

 

#nothingtohide

 

9 hours ago, shaar said:

I see your plan dude, bury the shame of a CAH table clear by taking off your clothes multiple times.....

 

#NewScandalEveryYear

 

#cantbelieveyoustrippedinfrontof80people

(followed by smacking her forehead with the heel of the hand like reading a story or watching a movie where you *just* *know* what the main character is going to do next and you *just* *know* it's going to be very stupid)

 

Hmm.  Actually.  #newscandaleveryyear is a pretty accurate description, especially from somebody who has only known me online for a year and a half and only met me in person on one occasion.

 

6 hours ago, Epsilonx2 said:

Just wanted to say I had a ton of fun watching you lift, including the cape!

 

Thanks!

#dlmalfoy

---------------------------------------------------

 

Meanwhile, back in MinniBulgaria - MB had a rare and precious gift for me!

 

A rest day!

 

So here I am at 7pm typing up my stuff and wondering what to do with the rest of the evening!

 

I already ate.  I fixed a boatload of spaghetti.  Therefore I can post my score.

 

Score for Today:

3877 Calories

356 Carbs

182 Fat

217 Protein

 

+14.0 Overall

[Grymm]

4 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

15 pounds in a year?  I'm getting fat!

 

Meanwhile, back in MinniBulgaria - MB had a rare and precious gift for me!

 

A rest day!

 

15# in a year is pretty tame.  I put on 12# in ..... July.  

 

Maybe it's not a rest day.  Maybe it's just a day to get your affairs in order before the onslaught of training that comes down tomorrow's mountain at you like a freak landslide you swore pulled the sun out of the sky.

[Sam Ashen]

2 minutes ago, Grymm said:

15# in a year is pretty tame.  I put on 12# in ..... July.  

 

Maybe it's not a rest day.  Maybe it's just a day to get your affairs in order before the onslaught of training that comes down tomorrow's mountain at you like a freak landslide you swore pulled the sun out of the sky.

 

You might be right.  Hmm.  12 Snatch Singles.  12 C&J Singles.  3 Heavy Front-Squat Singles, 4 Heavy Front-Squat Triples.  I will find out tomorrow!

[Rurik Harrgath]

35 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

Well.  @Rurik Harrgath was weighing in right next to me and getting a bigger number and I was puzzled.  So I verified that the scale was giving me consistent numbers.

 

Rurik couldn't accept that he was up 20+ pounds since Christmas.  I appreciate your boldness in proving the fact. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

12 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

 

Rurik couldn't accept that he was up 20+ pounds since Christmas.  I appreciate your boldness in proving the fact. 

Pffft. Amateurs. Try 30#  up since last year.

[Sam Ashen]

So.....  Who else from Camp has been plagued by the tireds all week?  All of a sudden the idea of taking Monday off and sleeping 16 hours seems like a winner!

 

Last night I ended up using the evening of the rest day to take a nap and woke up extra late this morning.  Most likely the tireds will wear off on Saturday or Sunday when I can wake up whenever I feel like it.

[miss_marissa]

14 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

 

Rurik couldn't accept that he was up 20+ pounds since Christmas.  I appreciate your boldness in proving the fact. 

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Pffft. Amateurs. Try 30#  up since last year.

 

Are we having this battle?!?! Don't start something unless you're prepared to lose.

132 for my competition in June. 153 at camp.

[Urgan]

27 minutes ago, miss_marissa said:

 

 

Are we having this battle?!?! Don't start something unless you're prepared to lose.

132 for my competition in June. 153 at camp.

 

And I'm over here like, first day of taking creatine and all the water ever. This morning I wake up at the lightest weight since May.

[zettarooski]

1 hour ago, Sam Ashen said:

So.....  Who else from Camp has been plagued by the tireds all week?  All of a sudden the idea of taking Monday off and sleeping 16 hours seems like a winner!

 

Last night I ended up using the evening of the rest day to take a nap and woke up extra late this morning.  Most likely the tireds will wear off on Saturday or Sunday when I can wake up whenever I feel like it.

 

Totally! This week is all about taking it easy for me. I'm SOOOOO looking forward to the weekend where I can sleep. Also because it is starting to get a nice chill in MN this week I just want to cuddle and sleep all the time. My hibernation skills are kicking in.

[Raxie]

2 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

So.....  Who else from Camp has been plagued by the tireds all week?  All of a sudden the idea of taking Monday off and sleeping 16 hours seems like a winner!

 

Last night I ended up using the evening of the rest day to take a nap and woke up extra late this morning.  Most likely the tireds will wear off on Saturday or Sunday when I can wake up whenever I feel like it.

 

I did that on Monday.  Took a sick day, ate pizza, and slept for 14 hours.  I kind of wish I had taken more days off... next year.

[ixaera]

2 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

So.....  Who else from Camp has been plagued by the tireds all week?  All of a sudden the idea of taking Monday off and sleeping 16 hours seems like a winner!

 

Last night I ended up using the evening of the rest day to take a nap and woke up extra late this morning.  Most likely the tireds will wear off on Saturday or Sunday when I can wake up whenever I feel like it.

 

Yes, but the pre-workout experiment is helping~

I ended up working from home today so I could sleep an extra hour.

[Sam Ashen]

This week is a little bit funky, being the first week after Camp and the first week of this new cycle.

 

She also gave fair warning that feeling like crap comes with the territory.  And when I do tell her I feel like crap, she is probably going to respond with something like, "Ewwww.  Make sure you eat enough.  And not crap!"

 

And the last time I talked about eating crap, she said, "Quinoa!"  And I responded, "That's how you pronounce it!"

 

I mentioned pigging out on spaghetti last night and she asked where the protein was.  Pound of beef, silly!  MFP has the meal at 2270 Calories, 219 Carbs, 106 Fat, 118 Protein.  What does she mean, where's the protein?

 

Today was a Wednesday on a Thursday.

 

Snatch Singles at 64, 74, 84 pounds - and she's been trying to get me to stop warming up at these weights for some reason.  Do other things.

Snatch Singles at 94, 104, 114 pounds

Snatch Singles at 104, 114, 124 pounds

Snatch Singles at 114, 124, 134 pounds

Snatch Singles at 124, 134 pounds

Snatch Singles at 134, 144, 154 pounds - DING!  PR!

Snatch Singles at 134, 134, 144, 154 pounds

 

So we spent a lot more time on Snatches.  She also thinks 70 kg / 154 pounds is where I should open.  I think I need more reps at that weight.  The first two reps there felt like - Holy Crap!  I'm under the bar and it's stable!  And it feels heavy because I never had this much weight in this position where I had to squat it up like this.

 

Clean and Jerk Singles at 134, 154, 174, 184 pounds

Clean and Jerk Singles at 164, 174, 184 pounds

 

Did not spend nearly as much time on C&J.  Another time.

 

Front-Squats: 2x184, 1x224, 1x244, Fx264, 1x254 pounds - Missed the 264 rep maybe because trying to stay upright.

Front-Squats: 4x3x224 pounds - not quite EMOM but rushed because running out of time.

 

Score for Today:

2749 Calories

256 Carbs

110 Fat

184 Protein

 

-2.5 Overall

[Rurik Harrgath]

13 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

So.....  Who else from Camp has been plagued by the tireds all week?  All of a sudden the idea of taking Monday off and sleeping 16 hours seems like a winner!

 

All the feels.  All the fucking tireds.  I'm going to sleep right through the weekend and dream I'm still at Camp!

 

12 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

Are we having this battle?!?! Don't start something unless you're prepared to lose.

132 for my competition in June. 153 at camp.

 

Yeah, but that was 153# of badass.  All I saw was my hard-fought 300 Wilkes evaporating before my eyes. 

 

1 hour ago, Sam Ashen said:

So we spent a lot more time on Snatches.  She also thinks 70 kg / 154 pounds is where I should open.  I think I need more reps at that weight.  The first two reps there felt like - Holy Crap!  I'm under the bar and it's stable!  And it feels heavy because I never had this much weight in this position where I had to squat it up like this.

 

Nice job on the PR, bud!  At this rate your Snatch is going to blow mine out of the water (like everything else you do)!

[miss_marissa]

10 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

Yeah, but that was 153# of badass.  All I saw was my hard-fought 300 Wilkes evaporating before my eyes. 

You at least were close to 300 at some point.

 

 

Nice PR!!!

[Sam Ashen]

I should find out everybody's bulking tricks because MB wants to know!

 

But I already know!  Bulking on a heavy lifting program requires a huge number of calories and it is difficult to accomplish this on brown rice and chicken and vegetables.  Dom says so and therefore it must be true.

 

Sexy Flexy explained it well in Camp.  Maintenance calories plus 500 is what you shoot for and you have to be very disciplined about it.  He seemed to imply it did not matter too much how you got there.  It is going past that 500 that makes it a dirty bulk.

 

So in my case, it looks like my maintenance is at 3250 calories, based on the way I track them.  (ICBF to track veggies, so I leave them out.)

 

And we are back on the subject of consistency.

-------------------------------------------------------

 

Meanwhile on the work front - My replacement came with a pile of programs from places he previously worked at.  Right now I am trying to decode another capacitance ladder initial voltage distribution calculation.  The spreadsheet seems to hide the calculations from plain view in Excel and I really don't feel like asking.  Once I have decoded it, then I have some insight into what list of assumptions were made to turn the physics into a solvable problem we can lay out in a spreadsheet.

 

So:

 

Physics + Assumptions -------> Computer Program

 

Meanwhile we are running out of living people who understand the assumptions that were made to make the physics work.

 

Just push the buttons and the program spits out the answer, bro!

 

Also missing the "F*ck It" part of the design process.  That is the stage where you just decide, "F*ck it!  We are done.  Now wrap it up."  Coming back several times a day to report a micro design change and an entire set of calculations does get annoying.  Le sigh.  I am still hanging on the possibility that his background is much larger units where people have a lot more time to come up with a final design and a final set of calculations.

 

Anyway..........

[Sam Ashen]

Just when I finished posting this......

 

*counts the minutes between this post and last post......

[Sam Ashen]

That time was 9 minutes.

 

Meanwhile the supervisor stepped in and asked if I was starting to get *just a little bit* annoyed.

 

Funny discussion.

[Urgan]

22 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

So:

 

Physics + Assumptions -------> Computer Program

 

Meanwhile we are running out of living people who understand the assumptions that were made to make the physics work.

 

Just push the buttons and the program spits out the answer, bro!

 

So monkeys and typewriters are the future, then, I take it? It sounds like this sheet is your business's way of getting around designing an actual program with the documentation and testing that goes with...and all the problems THAT brings, lol. Isn't it great?

 

25 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

Also missing the "F*ck It" part of the design process.  That is the stage where you just decide, "F*ck it!  We are done.  Now wrap it up."  Coming back several times a day to report a micro design change and an entire set of calculations does get annoying.  Le sigh.  I am still hanging on the possibility that his background is much larger units where people have a lot more time to come up with a final design and a final set of calculations.

 

Yup.

 

4 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

That time was 9 minutes.

 

Meanwhile the supervisor stepped in and asked if I was starting to get *just a little bit* annoyed.

 

Funny discussion.

 

He had to ask? 

[Sam Ashen]

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

So monkeys and typewriters are the future, then, I take it?

 

Monkeys and computers, actually.  And they are the present, as well as the future.

 

My general comment about computers:  They turn geniuses into idiots and idiots into geniuses.

 

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

It sounds like this sheet is your business's industry's way of getting around designing an actual program with the documentation and testing that goes with...and all the problems THAT brings, lol. Isn't it great?

 

FTFY.  It is pretty much like that everywhere I work and it has been like that for at least 20 years.  So many logistical issues.  I would say the main issue is can't program knowledge.

 

Documenting knowledge is another issue.  That is where the Spell Book comes in handy.

 

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

He had to ask? 

 

It's called verifying what you already know.  I am sure you might sometimes ask a question to verify what you already know.

 

It is also kind of like comparing notes.

 

But I am beginning to wonder if my replacement is really a designer or not.  It requires a touch that is hard to describe.  Maybe I draw again on the RPG Mage analogy.  Nobody really understands what he does or how it works and why he insists on dressing how he wants.  But there he is in your party and for some reason you have to keep him alive and carry him in a cot because he is always sleepy.

 

Hmm.  Halloween is on a Monday.  Maybe I should do a Mage costume.

 

Hmm.  I still want to play a Kensai-Mage in BG / BG2.  Stringing together the spare time to do it has been so challenging.

 

[/RANDOM THOUGHTS]

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Sam Ashen said:

FTFY.  It is pretty much like that everywhere I work and it has been like that for at least 20 years.  So many logistical issues.  I would say the main issue is can't program knowledge.

 

Documenting knowledge is another issue.  That is where the Spell Book comes in handy.

 

Documentation is the operative bit, where decisions and assumptions were made long ago and now you'd kill for the original minds to have thought about typing or writing something down.

 

1 hour ago, Sam Ashen said:

It's called verifying what you already know.  I am sure you might sometimes ask a question to verify what you already know.

 

It is also kind of like comparing notes.

 

But I am beginning to wonder if my replacement is really a designer or not.  It requires a touch that is hard to describe.  Maybe I draw again on the RPG Mage analogy.  Nobody really understands what he does or how it works and why he insists on dressing how he wants.  But there he is in your party and for some reason you have to keep him alive and carry him in a cot because he is always sleepy.

 

Hmm.  Halloween is on a Monday.  Maybe I should do a Mage costume.

 

Hmm.  I still want to play a Kensai-Mage in BG / BG2.  Stringing together the spare time to do it has been so challenging.

 

Nobody f's with the white mage.

[ArgSki77]

4 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

Physics + Assumptions -------> Computer Program

As someone who works on aerospace simulation stuff, that is a super accurate description.

 

My boss and I have a list of variables that look like they are nothing but when you get rid of one of them, it breaks the entire simulation. We are currently up to 6 that have names like "x12" and "gtweqx". Not one of our physics or aerospace systems guys can explain what they do or why they are in all these formulas. We just refer to them as the magical fudge factor.