Tuesday
First, what you really care about, the latest video:
Music by JUSTICE
Also, you can see the previous weekly recaps here:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
So, today I went to the weight room for the first time in 6 years. I did squats for the first time in 14 years.
I decided to do the 10-15 minute jog to LA Fitness, up on Hollywood Boulevard. It is something that a healthy human just shouldn't do. Hollywood Blvd in the morning is like crawling on your dorm room floor after an all-night party with incoming freshman. Only it's stale, old, and dirty. For a moment, I felt like dropping my quest and instead writing an ethnography on the culture of bums and strung out partyers who inhabit this area. Including the students of Hollywood High, 2 blocks away. Their mascot is the Sheik. Sheik! There's a fun post-9/11 mascot for ya.
I didn't want to kill myself on any of the free weights, and rip my body up. I started with squats. I began with just the bar (45lbs), and then worked up. I got to 1 set of 5 @ 195, which is my bodyweight. My ego wanted to do 2 full plates on each side (225lbs), but I held back sans injury. --- To be in proper leaping conditioning, I'm supposed to be able to squat 2x my bodyweight, or 400lbs!!! That's crazy, but I'm sticking with my quest nonetheless.
Next, I did deadlift, working up to only sets at 5 reps of 135lbs. I really didn't want to mess up my back, so that was that.
Then I did "goodmornings", which are like squats, but you almost bend your back parallel to the floor. It works your lower back more than your legs. Here, I got up to about 135lbs.
Then it was on to various exercises I got from API, with the contraption where you pull a cable from the side. I finished with chinups, of which i could do only 3.
Eventually I'll get visual reference to explain all these exercises. The whole workout took a bout 1.5 hours. I think I can do this, about 2x a week. The other days with be plyometrics and conditioning. API would have me 4 days in the gym, but I don't think I can do that. We'll see. I'm in the gym, finally, so it's a victory!
3 comments:
wow... 195lbs, i'm stuck at 185lbs for a month; are you doing the regular deadlifts or romanian deadlifts? i'm doing the last ones with the same weight (i'm 185lbs and 6'1 1/2); anyways... good luck with those squats!! Check out this site
www.exrx.net/Lists/PowerExercises.html
Hey Joel. I watched your new video and read your blog and I would like to share some input if thats alright.
First is your training split. Most say that squats AND deadlifts on the same day is too taxing. I agree because when you get more advanced, both are meant to be big effort movements. I know youre just getting back into it so maybe high repetitions for muscle memory is a good thing now. And you're still light on the deads so its not that taxing.
Second, for good mornings make sure you are pushing your butt back and feels like the weight is distributed balanced throughout your foot or more on the heel. I do dynamic good mornings for warm up seeing as how its hard to get down there. I felt it in my lower back too at first, but once that caught up its predominantly hamstrings and glutes. Also if you wanna push up the weight and get a similar movement, romanian deadlifts is a option.
Third, in your week 10 video I was watching your running 1 leg technique. I notice that you're on your heels for the run up and plant your jumping leg far out from your body and hit the heel. When I study most atheletes, they are all springy and fast on the balls of their feet. Kelly Bagget has an article on his website about 1 leg and 2 leg jumping technique. He says that putting your jumping leg too far out is like hitting the brakes.
I hope i'm being of some help and not just irritating. Im keeping up with your progress. You can also keep up with mine if you like. I'm pretty limited right now because i'm in virginia for 3 months for work... no normal access to gym.
Good luck.
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