Week 62.2

Yeah?
I woke up after 5 hours of sleep to workout. I felt a little sluggish, but not much weaker than I have in the past. After my depth drops, I went to the gym for squats. And to my surprise, for my 3rd set of 5 reps, I did 225lbs! After a year of training that's not stellar, but it felt great and I was very pleased with myself. I felt totally energized. I'll be curious to see how sore I get. I usually start getting sore the next day, and the 2nd day is brutal.

Kelly has me doing plyometric depth drops from 10-20% more than my vert, which for me is 30"+. The idea is to shock train the explosiveness aspect. After doing a few months of pure strength training, I should be at a point to take advantage of the plyometrics. He wrote an article about it here.

NOTE: Thanks to everyone who comments. I try to reply, and for some reason my settings don't let me contact people directly.

Week 62.1

Training
Nothing new to report in the improvement area. Don't worry, I'm still working out.

Kelly has changed me from the Bulgarian lunge workouts to just doing high intensity depth drops. And doing squats 3 sets of 5, 2x a week. I've only completed one week, and it didn't seem to do anything, as far as feeling sore or anything. I've asked Kelly to explain more what's the goal here. Stay tuned...

Week 60.1

Truckin Along
Last week, I had a great session with my lunges...So great, I suppose, that I was super sore again. On Friday I was supposed to start my jump training regimen, but during warmups I strained my hamstring/groin. I decided to bag the day and just did upper body weights.

Luckily, 2 days later (today), I was healed and did the lunges well again. Perhaps our 2 night stay up at a cabin in BigBear, at 8000ft altitude, helped me heal?

Oh, and in a seemingly cool development, my Week 6 video was flagged by a music company - UMG (Universal Music Group)? That's the only info i have, but the 2 bands I used were The Fratellis and Mika. I'm allowed to keep using the songs, so I guess they think it's a good ad for them...hmmm....

Week 58.1

PUMP
For the fist time since college, I felt the "pump" of lifting weights, in my chest and deltoids....Schwarzenneger describes the "pump" from the movie Pumping Iron:

"The greatest feeling you can get in a gym or the most satisfying feeling you can get in the gym is the pump. Let's say you train your biceps, blood is rushing in to your muscles and that's what we call the pump. Your muscles get a really tight feeling like your skin is going to explode any minute and its really tight and its like someone is blowing air into your muscle and it just blows up and it feels different, it feels fantastic. It's as satisfying to me as cumming is, you know, as in having sex with a woman and cumming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like getting the feeling of cumming in the gym, I'm getting the feeling of cumming at home, I'm getting the feeling of cumming backstage, when I pump up, when I pose out in front of 5000 people I get the same feeling, so I am cumming day and night. Its terrific, right? So I am in heaven."

Needless to say, it was a good feeling - one that lasted for a good part of the day. I wonder why I never feel it in my legs. It's probably because they're used so much more often, with less recovery time?

Speaking of which, I've lost 4 inches in my vert, I discovered in my jump drills today. I'm fairly confident this is simply because I've started a new round of training. It's never very encouraging, but I feel great about the bigger picture.

Week 57.1

OUCH
So, i restarted my workouts last week. I did Bulgarian lunges on Friday, and had lost 25% of my strength. By Sunday, I couldn't walk, and getting onto the toilet was an adventure of muscle pain. So I delayed working out until Tuesday, starting with jump plyos and upper body. I didn't get back to Bulgies until today, and it wasn't pretty. As in, I had lost even more strength, and now it's my glutes that hurt. Specifically, my left glute. The silver lining is that I'm obviously working the right muscles.

Thanks to everyone for the supportive comments. I'm often a negative guy, but this quest has been all positive for me (though still can get discouraging). It's amazing how I have zero tolerance for haters. This new found positivity through my quest has spiritual overtones, but I'll save that for another day.

Week 56.3

NEW VIDEO
It's like a month old now, but finally here's the last video we shot!

No need for music credits on this one...

Week 56.2

WHAT THE !@#$
So, yesterday I resumed my training, and started with my jump plyos and upper body weights. I had gained 2 inches on my vert! This, after 2+ weeks of no workouts and no sleep!

Look, I get the physiology of it all - that my body somehow was able to rest it's joints from wear and tear, that I may have lost a few pounds because I still ate healthy and ate less....And of course I'll take the gains after many months of no improvement. But it's also frustrating that I made more gains by doing nothing (yes, my previous training was a big part of that gain).

Anyways, it felt like I was on a trampoline. I really felt some spring for the first time in a long time. We'll see what happens now...