Adena

Yeah, I felt fine in less than 48 hours so I figured I didn't do anything too serious to my knee. I think you're probably right that it's the lunges, I tend to wobble around and have terrible balance while doing them for some reason, but my squat form is really good so I don't think that would have done anything to it. I've been trying to just slow down when I do lunges so I don't lose my balance but it's still not helping. I didn't lift that much yet this week, but I'll post what I did a little later.

Wow, way to go! That race does indeed, sound like a freakin' monster! It sounds like an accomplishment just to finish it, however you place. But it's awesome you ended up placing third in your age group.

Oh my gosh, the strongman stuff sounds like tons of fun, especially the circus dumbbell!

Overhead Press Day Foam rolling for about ten minutes, then... SOHP: 1x3x55 1x3x60 1x4x70 Push Press: 3x3x75 Farmer's Walks: 3x90lb in each hand Plate Pinches with two 5lb plates: 3 sets to failure, each hand Good Mornings: 3x12x115 Squat Day Foam rolling for about ten minutes Parallel Squat: 1x3x45 1x3x145 1x3x165 1x3x185 A2G Squats: 1x5x155 2x4x155 BOR: 1x12x95 1x9x95 1x6x95 Push-Ups: 1x20 1x16 1x10 Tricep Extensions: 2x12x30 1x8x30 Foam rolling for about ten minutes Bench Day Foam rolling for about ten minutes Bench Press: 1x3x45 1x3x85 1x3x95 1x4x110 I'm very happy my bench is finally starting to show some miniscule progress! Yeah! Light Parallel Squats: 3x12x115 Lunges with 45 lb plate held overhead: 3 sets, about 12 steps Foam rolling for about ten minutes So for some reason, the last week or two has been kicking my butt. I'm not exactly sure why. I felt like my knee was a bit sore in a bad way after my heavy bench/light leg assistance day, so I skipped my deadlift day on Saturday. It was hurting me to walk up and down the stairs, but by the middle of the day on Sunday it felt completely fine. I think I'll start up where I left off tonight, and do only three days of lifting this week, or maybe just lift every other day until I complete this cycle, just to give myself a little more recovery time. If you can't tell, I've been trying to be a little more diligent about foam rolling, which should help recovery. I'm wondering if doing the light assistance on a different day is too much for me, or if I'm just not used to it yet. I'll keep doing it for a little longer, because I think it's a little early to tell. In other news, our garden seems to be doing well. Our compost still does not smell at all, and the strawberry plants are blossoming. We're having lots of fun watching veggies and berry bushes take off, and have hardly had to weed. Or water. It's been pretty rainy this spring. We did set up a rain barrel to take advantage of it. It's hooked up to our drainpipe, so it fills up in about one or two rain showers. Yay for watering our garden for free!

Kinda funny nobody asked about my husband's secret fertilizer. He peed in a bucket and diluted it with water. Not as gross as you might have been thinking. Maybe. What's funny is everything shot way up in the week following the application of said fertilizer. He's pretty proud of himself. Aaaaaanyway, here's what I accomplished last week: Overhead Press Day Bodyweight: 144 Assumed 1RM: 75 Military Press: 1x5x50 1x5x55 1x6x65 Push Press: 3x5x70 Good Morning: 1x12x105 2x12x115 Farmer's Walks: 3x90 Plate Pinches: 3 sets each hand, to failure Squat Day Assumed 1RM: 205 Foam rolling for about ten minutes Parallel Squat: 1x5x45 1x5x135 1x5x155 1x7x175 Oly Squat: 3x5x135 BOR: 1x12x95 1x10x95 1x8x95 Push-Ups: 1x16 1x12 1x8 Foam rolling for about ten more minutes Bench Day Bench Press: 1x5x45 1x5x80 1x5x90 1x7x100 Light Parallel Squats: 3x12x105 Lunges with 45 lb plate held overhead 4x12 steps Foam rolling for about ten minutes Deadlift Day Deadlift: Assumed 1RM: 260 1x5x135 1x5x170 1x5x195 1x5x220 Rack Pulls: 3x1x255 Dips: 2x8 1x6 Chin-Ups: 3 sets of about 1 1/2 chins (wanted to see what I could do without assistance....kind of pathetic, actually.)

I'm still getting the hang of front squats too, ugh!

Oh, ok. Competing against yourself, I see. Way to go!

Thanks goob! I've just finished my Deload Week where um.....I didn't even go to the gym. I just helped my husband with the garden all week and spent a nice Mother's Day with his mother and mine. The garden looks pretty good, now. My husband just fertilized it with his extra special secret fertilizer. Anyway, I'll be heading to the gym tonight to start a new four week cycle! Overhead press, here I come!

It doesn't really matter if your numbers are "acceptable" to anyone else, what matters is that you're continuing to progress. You're only competing against yourself. I know you can keep lifting heavier! Yeah! I know what you mean about eating, it's kind of a pain sometimes for me, too.

Aww, gee, thanks! Some tomato varieties do well in partial shade, actually. May as well try it, a packet of seeds is pretty cheap! We get ours from High Mowing Organic Seed Company. Also got some stuff from Raintree Nursery so we didn't have to start everything from seed this year. They have a catalog with some detail regarding growing conditions you need for different varieties. http://www.raintreenursery.com/ http://www.highmowingseeds.com/

Sorry to hear that!

Feel better soon!

Nice! Don't you just love it when you do more than you intended to?

Chewy, I estimated my 1RM as 255 this month, even though I was worried it was a little high. Might not be, though. I rack pulled 255 without much of a problem. I'm not totally sure what my actual 1RM is currently, though. Bodyweight is still 146. MaryStella, thanks! I thought my dips were kinda wimpy, actually! Lobster, maybe you can have a garden, too. Did you end up relocating to California yet? Also, if you're in an apartment right now, container gardening is the way to go. There's nothing wrong with starting with a window sill full of herbs, and learning from that.

Deadlift Day Foam rolling and stretching for about ten minutes. Deadlift: 1x5x135 1x5x190 1x3x215 1x1x240 Rack Pulls: 3x1x255 Dips (BW=146): 1x8 1x7 1x5 Assisted Pull-Ups (42 lb counterbalancing weight): 1x10 1x8 1x5 All of the tomatoes and most of the bell peppers in our garden died! Oh well, it's a learning experience. At least we still have all the berry bushes, strawberries, sugar snap peas, snow peas, green beans, cabbage, pac choi, kale, brocolli, carrots, radishes, yellow onions, shallots, Hungarian sweet peppers, jalapenos, cold-climate kiwis (for real!), stevia, chamomile, lavender, parsley, fennel, garlic, and some other random herbs that are doing just fine. Ok, I'm not so sad anymore! It's all a learning experience. In the future, we'll leave our tomato and pepper plants indoors until we're absolutely sure it's going to stay well above freezing overnight and not transplant them into the ground until at least May, just to be safe. Perhaps June.

I think everyone has off days for squats. I sure do, even though they're my favorite.

Squat Day About ten minutes of foam rolling and stretching. Parallel Squat: 1x5x45 1x5x135 1x5x150 1x3x170 1x2x190 Front Squats just to practice form: 3x3x95 BOR: 1x12x95 1x10x95 1x8x95 Push-Ups: 1x20 1x15 1x8 Tricep Extensions: 3x12x30 Bench Day Bench Press: 1x5x45 1x5x85 1x3x100 1x3x110 without a spotter! Yes! Parallel Squats: 3x12x95 Lunges with 45 lb plate held overhead: 3x16 lunges (8 each leg) My husband and I are attempting to become urban farmers, but we're starting small (kinda). We have four 4x8 raised beds for vegetables, and a compost bin going at the moment. We're hoping to install a rain barrel so we don't have to pay a huge water bill, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Everything we're doing is organic. Hopefully we'll end up saving some money eventually. This is the first year of veggie gardening for us though, so we're mentally prepared to lose some of our crop due to not really knowing what we're doing yet. But so far it's fun. We also have several berry bushes planted, but they usually don't produce the first year. They take a couple years to really get going. We also have a ton of strawberry plants, but then, we can eat a ton of strawberries. I spend a lot of this weekend watering the gardens and hanging out in our backyard oasis with the dogs, so I didn't make it to the gym for my Deadlift Day. I'll get that done tonight, and then do cardio outside and deloading for the rest of the week. I'm still intending to start my vegan bakery, but at the moment, I'm way too busy. I did get a couple of ingredient labels ready and saved on our computer, and I have a good amount of packaging to get started, so I'm almost ready. I just need to set aside one evening during the week to bake over at the commercial kitchen I use, and then deliver the stuff. I'm thinking Thursday nights are looking good for baking, and maybe Friday for delivering. That way my stuff can sell first thing in the morning on Saturdays.

Everyone's different, but most people recover well enough from the upper body exercises you mentioned to train them twice a week, if they want to. I'm not an expert, though. I recently started doing my light assistance work on a different day than the main lift. For example, I do heavy overhead press on one day, then light assistance work for overhead press on a different day. That way I'm hitting more or less the same muscles twice a week, once heavy, once light. You could consider dips an assistance exercise for either overhead press or bench. I remember you were having some health issues recently, which is a bummer. How ya feeling lately?

I'm sorry to hear that a jerkface hit you while you were riding. You have a really good attitude about it, though. Way to get back on and ride!

Bench Day Bench Press: 1x3x45 1x3x80 1x3x90 1x4x105 Lunges with 45 lb plate held overhead: 3 sets Parallel Squats: 3x10x95 I just couldn't really think of anything better for light leg work. I absolutely hate leg press and leg curls, and I don't feel like they help out anyway. So I figured squatting light would be about right. Deadlift Day Deadlift: 1x3x135 1x3x180 1x3x205 1x3x230 Rack Pulls: 3x3x245 Dips (BW = 145): 2x8 1x6 Assisted Chin-Ups: 1x10 1x8 1x5 Now is the week where I do a set of five, a set of three, and a set of one or however much I can muster. Overhead Press Day SOHP: 1x5x45 1x5x55 1x3x60 1x4x65 Push Press: 3x3x70 These were pretty wobbly, which made things fun. Good Mornings: 3x12x105 Farmer's Walks: 3x90 I couldn't make it nearly as far as usual, which I think may be due to my deadlift day being too close to my back assistance day. I might have to rethink how I'm doing my assistance yet AGAIN. Plate Pinches with two 5lb plates: 3 sets until I dropped them Tonight is Squat Day, so I'm looking forward to that. I don't really expect to do well. Hopefully I'll just make it through one rep of my 95%.

Ok, that's definitely more than I thought you were taking in. Way more. I'm probably sitting around 2000-2500, but I'm not sure since I never count either. I just eat until I'm full.

I think it's amazing that we eat almost the same amount of calories yet you weigh about 100 pounds more than me. At least, your daily diet looks pretty close to what I take in.

This hasn't been updated in a while.....

Hey Mosh, I'm just posting so this log will show up in my posts and I can keep track of your progress!

Go, gsop_3, go!