1/25/2015 - 1/29/2015 Dominating the Commercial Gym & a Doughnut

Sunday, 1/25

Off

I try to make a credible effort to attend church Sunday, and I didn't attend church. It's hard to go to the gym before work and claim a credible effort to go to church, so off today.

Monday, 1/26

Today felt very much like a program minimum day, so

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
Cheers, good bye

Tuesday, 1/27

Here I was at Gym Number Two, which can get interesting.  I strolled in looking like shit, saw the gym clowns doing gym clown stuff, and decided to do a clinic on the fifteen minute drill.

Squat:

135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
365 x 2

Here I felt strong and I had a few minutes left on the clock.  Strength wise it was probably a 400+ day, but I felt some pain in my right quad on the last double, decided to be smart, shut down and walked out.

Gym Clown vs. James

Above is a photo after my last double.  When I strolled in looking like shit, some properly attired gym clown had dragged a preacher curl bench into the squat cage and used it for partial range of motion seated presses.  To be honest, I was motivated by hatred and wanted to show the gym clown what can be done in the time it takes to drag a preacher curl bench into a cage.

Fucking Gym Clowns

Here, and still within fifteen minutes of walking in looking like shit, I've got my bar properly unloaded.  As I recall the gym clown had moved on to hammer curls.  Likely he left his shit this way.

I sympathize with the people who are variously intimidated, put off, or otherwise psychically harmed by gym clowns, because I also used to be.  I've found it's necessary to dominate the commercial gym, and this is best accomplished by walking in looking like shit, squatting enough to make people point and whisper, and leaving.

Wednesday 1/28

Off

I'm trying hard but with limited success to combine daily squatting and jiu jitsu.  Wednesday is now my heavy jiu jitsu day, so off.


Thursday 1/29

After Tuesday's fifteen minute drill and Wednesday's heavy jiu jitsu, it felt very much like a program minimum day.

Squat

135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2

2015 YtD squat volume: 45,115 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 22
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 4
2015 YtD jeans destroyed by large thighs: 1


If you've been paying attention, you'll notice the doughnut counter has been incremented. I think that happened Monday.

1/24/15 13 Minutes 30 Seconds

Today's work on the 15 minute timer:
Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
360 x 2
315 x 3

Elapsed time 13:30


2015 YtD squat volume: 42,455 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 21
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 3

1/23/15 Fifteen Minutes & Twenty Tons

I decided again today to cap my squatting at 15 minutes.

I did:
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
365 x 2
315 x 2

I had 90 seconds left.


2015 YtD squat volume: 40,880 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 20
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 3

Trap Bar Carry:

270 x 15 yards x 6, I go, you go.

I've become a big believer in loaded carries.  We do them often enough to need variety, so in addition to varying the weight and distance, we've also put in the I go, you go format where as soon as partner A sets the bar down, partner B picks it up and goes.

Hope

1/22/15 Summary & a Doughnut

It happens that I know what I did, and how I did it, but it's easiest at this point to summarize what I've done since, as always, I let the blog lapse.

Largely because of time constraints and angry shoulders, I took time off, squatted and left, and some days hit the program minimum.  I squatted a mere 6,265 pounds in the last week or so leaving my totals thusly:


2015 YtD squat volume: 38,220 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 19
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 3

The biggest thing, really, is that I ate a cinnamon crunch doughnut yesterday.

All this is uninteresting, I'm sure, except perhaps for the doughnut, so I will break down today.


1/22/2015 Squat and leave, promise a buddy waiting on me I'd be in the gym 15 minutes or less.

Here I cheated a bit, I didn't start the timer until I had changed and placed an empty bar in the rack.

5 x 135
5 x 225
2 x 315
2 x 335
2 x 355

Total time: 8:30

I felt good today and thought about hitting another heavier double or even a single, but I kind of liked the idea of cutting it short.

I do have some meaningful blog post ideas, and will execute as time allows so for now I'll leave you with the musical study I made today.

1/12-15/15

Still squatting just busy.

1/12
Squat
135 x 5
225 X 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
315 x 3

1/13
Squat
135 x 5
225 X 5
315 x 2
345 x 2
375 x 1

1/14
Squat
135 x 5
225 X 5
315 x 2
335 x 2

1/15
Squat
135 x 5
225 X 5
315 x 2

2015 YtD squat volume: 31,955 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 15
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

1/11/2015 Off

Off.


2015 YtD squat volume: 26,085 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 13
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

I do the blog as I have time.  I realize at some point, I'll have to explain my implementation of squatting daily, but not tonight.  For now you'll have to know that when I squat everyday, I do not squat everyday.

Because I was off today, I was able to watch some of the games from the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk an Zee Holland.  I usually take a quick look at all the games, then monitor any I find particularly interesting.  Here I was really concentrating on Caruana - Saric on the left because the game was a Zaitsev Defense which I am trying to learn.  If you look at the kibitz window below the game on the left, you can see that in chess also everyone is an Internet expert, and they're also inane.

1/10/2015

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
355 x 2
315 x 3


2015 YtD squat volume: 26,085 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 13
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

Squat and leave today as I still run short of time on work days.  Some days are like that, but I never feel bad about it on the squat everyday program.  I seem to get adequate work in.

1/9/2015 the Deal with Doughnuts

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 1
355 x 1
375 x 1
380 x 2

Trap Bar Carry
240 x 5 x 30 yards

Burpees
10 OtM 6
(as usual this is :30 on, :30 on for 6 minutes)

2015 YtD squat volume: 23,130 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 11
2015 YtD burpees: 230
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

Cinnamon Crunch Doughnuts

Looking at the year to date totals shows I squat 5.5 tons, do 115 burpees, 20.5 pull ups, and unreported activity that dwarfs the average person's total monthly work load for each doughnut I eat.

And that is how I do this:

I don't even know what a treadmill is.

1/8/2015 Ten Tons

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
345 x 2
365 x 2
335 x 2 x 2

Pull Ups
6 x 4
1 x 6

2015 YtD squat volume: 20,675 pounds
2015 YtD squat tons: 10
2015 YtD burpees: 170
2015 YtD pull ups: 71
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

I had the sometimes helpful and sometimes ruinous Blog Effect doing pull ups today.  I was doing sets of four between squat sets, and then I did a last set of 6 simply because I thought it would look better for the blog if I upped my total by thirty instead of twenty-eight.

I did some dips today as I often do, and I do some pressing.  For me now these can be shoulder killers, and I don't report my numbers there precisely to protect myself from the Blog Effect.

Black to play and win

I got a nice lead-off win for one of my Internet Chess League teams today which you can click though here.
It's a variation of the Noah's Ark Trap, which supposedly got its name from its age.

Do your work and study the classics.

1/7/2015

Today's work:

Squat
155 x 5
245 x 5
335 x 2

Burpees
10 OtM 5
(this is about 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off)


2015 YtD squat volume: 17,285 pounds
2015 YtD burpees: 170
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

Inny 10's

I was pressed for time again. I did something today that I have done previously either when I had little time or I feared I might have been under-working.  I just load the bar with 10 pound plates, then forget they're there and load the bar like I normally would with 45's.  That's why my weights today were all 20 pounds heavier than usual.

It's not much, but it's something.

1/6/2015

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
345 x 2
375 x 2
335 x 3 x 2

Pull Ups
5 x 4


2015 YtD squat volume: 16,615 pounds
2015 YtD burpees: 120
2015 YtD pull ups: 41
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

I was in a hurry today, so I am updating the blog hours after training.  I didn't closely watch my time in the gym, but it was under 30 minutes.  I wasn't overjoyed to skip burpees today, but I was happy to get some decent work in.  On the grind, we grind; we don't attempt absolute perfection.

1/5/2015

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2

Trap Bar Carry
220 pounds x 30 yards x 4


2015 YtD squat volume: 12,535 pounds
2015 YtD burpees: 120
2015 YtD pull ups: 21
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 2

1/4/2015

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2

30 Burpees in 98 seconds.  Not feeling it today.

2015 YtD squat volume: 11,235 pounds
2015 YtD burpees: 120
2015 YtD pull ups: 21
2015 YtD Winchell's cinnamon crunch doughnuts: 1
(Actually consumed 1/1/2015)

1/3/2015

Today's work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
355 x 2
375 x 1
385 x 1
405 x 1

Burpees
30 in 80 seconds

Pull Ups
4 x 4

2015 YtD squat volume: 9,935 pounds
2015YtD burpees: 90
2015 YtD pull ups: 21

1/2/15 & a Digression

Today's Work:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
345 x 2
375 x 2
335 x 4 x 2

30 Burpees, 80 seconds
5 Pull Ups

2015 YtD squat volume: 6,760 pounds
2015 YtD burpees: 60
2015 YtD pull ups: 5

For reasons I can't divine, I like chess again after a many year hiatus.  I have and continue to work weekends, so I might not play an actual tournament game for some time yet, but I enjoy studying again.
I found chess study worked well with my terminal insomnia.  I'd get up anytime between 2:30 and 3:30 am most days, and after making sure I couldn't sleep anymore, I'd down a pot of coffee, get out Siegbert Tarrasch's "300 Chess Games," set up the board and pieces, and play over one, two, or three games.

I started back in August, and I figured I could go through three games a day and be done with the book just about the same time I would finish my CCNA preparation class, 12/8/2014.

My insomnia, thank God, has seemed to pass for the season, so it wasn't until 7 am this morning that with a wonderfully clear head and being about a month behind my schedule this position appeared on the board from game 285, Tarrasch - Walbrodt M6 1894.

Tarrasch-Walbrodt 1894,white to play

This is the kind of position where a chess player smells blood, so I put the book aside and took a crack at it myself.  I quickly and proudly found 1.Nc3 with a position that I thought must be raining death especially since ...dc is answered by 2. Bb5+ and a quick win for white.

I picked the book back up, and found that Tarrasch actually played 1.c3 with the annotation, "Here white ignores the elegant Nc3...dc, Bb5, which might even have lost the game."

Oh well.

I believe I learned a couple things here.

1) A study plan like most any plan will be violated.  It's not a big deal.  Keep moving forward.

2) After much effort, I can't always get the right answers. I can, however, independently get my own creative, bad answers, and I suspect in general that's a good thing, or at least a better thing than being incapable of any independent thought.

Bad Elbows: a Journey into Squatting Everday

Today was not, actually, my first day of squatting everyday.  I did it for a few months in late winter and early spring of 2014, and I started doing it again a couple months ago.

I wondered for a while whether or not daily squatting is blogworthy, and eventually I quit caring.  I seem to like the blogging outlet, and my old blog no longer serves me.  While I remain imperfect, I have to a large extent - and with notable exceptions - stopped insulting people.  They still crawl around the floor and use training barbells for their step aerobics, and that's now fine with me.  My results seem to improve the more I ignore what other people are doing.

In time, I'll get into my implementation of daily squatting, and in the meantime, questions and comments are always welcome.

My work today:

Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
335 x 2
355 x 2

30 burpees.  Normally I'd time these, but I knew I was off today having been sick much of the last week, and I felt I needed some stress-free work.

Jan. 1 Empty Racks

I trained at Gym Number 2 today, which I now sometimes prefer to Gym Number 1, and I was happy to find that at least while I was there none of the New Year's Resolution people were clogging the racks with arm work.