Weekly Status: 2015-08-17

Weight: 228.0

OK, so it’s going to a weekly update since I’m too lazy to do it every day. Good progress over the last couple weeks. I spent the entirety of last week under 230 pounds, the first time that’s happened in a while.

I’ve hit the max for my bench press and shoulder press at 230 and 140 pounds respectively, so I’m dropping the weights on those by 10% and will work back up in classic powerlifting fashion. Squat is currently at 275 and probably has a little wiggle room left before I top out there.

I’m planning to incorporate the farmer’s walk and deadlift into the routine going forward. Farmer’s walk because I’d like to get some more shoulder work, and deadlift because:

If you haven’t read my friend M.J. Pullen’s post, on “Re-thinking the Before Picture“, go do so. I couldn’t agree more with her sentiment. I’m not sad. I have a fantastic life and have had one for a long, long time. This is about trying to be the best version of myself and making sure I can continue to get the most out of life for a long time to come.

Weekly pics below the jump:

Daily Status: 2015-08-07

Weight: 231.8

Workout: Weightlifting
Squat: 270 x 5, 3 sets
Bench Press: 230 x 5, 2 sets; 230 x 4, 1 set
Pullups: AMRAP on the assist machine

Yes, I know I’ve been lazy on posting, but the good news is that I haven’t been lazy on working out and eating well. Unfortunately, the weight has been stable rather than coming off, but here’s hoping that it’s because I’m losing fat and gaining muscle.

Pictures from this past Monday are below the fold.

Daily Status: 2015-08-02

Weight: 230.8

Workout: Active Rest

It’s my daughter’s birthday, so I plan to do nothing today except play with her.

Daily Status: 2015-08-01

Weight: 231.4

Workout: Weightlifting
Squat – 265 x 5, 3 sets
Bench Press – 230 x 5, 2 sets; 230 x 4, 1 set
Pullups – AMRAP

I failed on the very last rep of bench press today. I’m getting to the current upper limit of all my major lifts, so that will likely be a more common occurrence over the next few months. The plan after failing on a lift two consecutive times is to back off by 10-20% and then build up again, ideally allowing me to push through to a new max.

Daily Status: 2015-07-31

Weight: 231.6

Workout: Walking
Jump rope – 5 minutes
Walking – 30 minutes

I didn’t quite get my full hour of walking in this morning because I had to get to work a little early, but I’ll try to make it up later in the day.

Daily Status: 2015-07-30

Weight: 232.6

Workout: Tabata
Jump Rope – 5 minutes
Rowing – 1 Tabata
Biking – 1 Tabata
Walking – 30 minutes

We Can Be Heroes (or Villains), Just For One Day

Since announcing this blog, several people asked me what my DragonCon costume will actually be. I’ll be doing two separate costumes for Saturday and Sunday.

Costume 1: Bane
A favorite of bald guys everywhere, I’ve got the mask, a black compression shirt and cargo type pants.

Costume 2: The Tick
Take a blue unitard, add some antennae and appropriate catch phrases (SPOOOON!) and you’re ready to go. I’ll also be re-watching all the episodes to make sure I’m appropriately in character.

This is the first year that I’ve ever actually tried a costume, so we’ll see how it goes.

Daily Status: 2015-07-29

Weight: 232.8

Workout: Weightlifting
Jump rope – 5 minutes
Squat – 260 x 5, 3 sets
Overhead Press – 135 x 5, 3 sets
Chinups – 2 reps with no assist and then AMRAP with the assistance setting on 10, 3 sets

I took some video of my 2nd squat set, feel free to critique form, but not the fact that it’s in portrait mode, propping my phone up on the rack next to me was the best I could do at the time:

 

 

Daily Status: 2015-07-28

Weight: 234.2

Workout: 5 minutes of jumping rope and onehour of walking.

Here’s the first set of weekly pics. In a perfect world, the gut gets smaller and the upper body gets bigger. One thing I neglected in picture taking was to get a side angle shot, so that will also be added in next week’s update.

Neeeeeerrrrrrds!

For anyone else trying to get in shape, one of my favorite sites is Nerd Fitness. Their tagline is “Level up your life, every single day”, which is a pretty damn good tagline.

Steve and company do a nice job of giving tutorials, resources and generating a positive feeling about fitness, even for those of us who are more inclined to the “bodies at rest” part of entropy. Some of my personal favorite posts there are:
Real-Life Role Playing: What is Your Profession?
Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage
Why You Need To Do Sh** That Scares You

And something for the ladies (although to be honest, I think Staci is pretty awesome myself): Meet Staci: Your New Powerlifting Super Hero

Check it out and then go do something that scares you today!