cesimpson

I’ve been kinda busy lately and haven’t had much time to update this blog of mine. I’m very sorry and will try to be better about it this week. In general, things are going very well. I’m feeling healthy and strong.

Last Monday 9 November

Mobility Circuit

10x High Knee Walk

10x Butt Kick Walk

10x Overhead Lunge

10x Walking Spider-Man

10x Quadruped Rotation-Extension

10x Scapular Wall Slides

10x Scapular Push Ups

Cleans (Warm Up)

2x Cleans @ 95#

2x Cleans @ 115#

2x Cleans @ 135#

2x Cleans @ 155#

2x Cleans @ 165#

Front Squat Warm Up

5x Front Squat @ 185#

3x Front Squat @ 205#

1x Front Squat @ 225#

3x Circuit #1

4x Front Squat @ 235#

5x (ea. leg) 1-leg Supine Bridge

10x No-Money Drill

…plus

10x Front Squat @ 215#

3x Circuit #2

8x (ea. arm) DB Bench Press @ 60# DB

AMAP Body Weight Row

1. 16x
2. 10x
3. 8x

3x Circuit #3

8x (ea. leg) 1-leg RDL @ 2-50# DBs

8x (ea. side) Side Plank Wall Slides

5x MYBH Finisher

10x Swings @ 24kg KB

10x (5x ea. side) Renegade Row @ 2-16kg KBs

10x Ball Slams @ 12# Medicine Ball

10x Burpees

90 sec. Rest

Last Wednesday 11 November

I thought about going outside, but it was cold, Marathoner had some physical therapy on Wednesday morning and Favorite Drinkin’ Buddy’s wife had their son on Monday morning so he wasn’t coming out. Favorite Drinkin’ Buddy’s wife gave birth to their fourth child, a son - William (Billy). Mom and child are both healthy and dad’s getting at least some small amount of sleep. Welcome to the neighborhood, Billy.

Since it was cold and wet and I was going to be alone, I simply went to the Y and worked up to a 1RM Clean & Jerk.

Power Snatch + OHS

10x (1x+3x) @ 45#

10x (1x+3x) @ 65#

10x (1x+3x) @ 85#

Clean & Press

5x C&P @ 95#

3x C&P @ 115#

3x C&P @ 135#

1x C&P @ 155#

Clean & Jerk

3×1 C&J @ 155#

2×1 C&J @ 165#

1x C&J @ 175#

1x C&J @ 180# !

1x C&J @ 185# !!

1x C&J @ 190# !!!

0x C&J @ 195#

5x CGHPS

10x CGHPS @ 95#

90 sec. Rest

Friday 13 November

Mobility Circuit

10x High Knee Walk

10x Butt Kick Walk

10x Overhead Lunge

10x Walking Spider-Man

10x Quadruped Rotation-Extension

10x Scapular Wall Slides

10x Scapular Push Ups

2x Javorek Complex @ 95#

6x RDL

6x Bent Over Row

6x Front Squat

6x Press

6x Back Squat

6x (3x ea. leg) Reverse Lunge

Sumo Deadlift Warm Up

5x @ 225#

3x @ 275#

1x @ 315#

3x Circuit #1

5x Sumo Deadlift @ 315#

6x Chin Ups @ BW

…Plus

5x Sumo Deadlift @ 315#

Bench Press Warm Up

5x Close-Grip Bench Press @ 135#

3x Close-Grip Bench Press @ 155#

1x Close-Grip Bench Press @ 185#

3x Circuit #2

5x Close-Grip Bench Press @ 205#

16x (8x ea. leg) Walking Lunge @ 2-55# DBs

More Bench Press

5x Close-Grip Bench Press @ 205#

3x Circuit #3

10x Neutral Grip T-Bar Rows @ 90#

8x Barbell Roll Outs

6x MYBH Finisher

15 sec. on Airdyne

45 sec. Rest

Snap!

The prescribed Airdyne plan was 10x. As Marathoner stepped down hard on the pedal on the sixth round, that 87# of pain that is the Airdyne let out a loud SNAP! then a long, low whine. Marathoner’s body lurched forward as the resistance of the Airdyne was suddenly gone. The machine jumped with the torque and the wheel slowly ground to a stop.

Marahoner looked at me, puzzled, and hopped off. Everything looked alright from the outside. As we inspected more closely, I realized the belt had slipped from the axle on the pedals. The entire apparatus around the pedals is obstructed by two sheet metal protective covers. Being without Phillips head screwdriver, we called it a day. On my way out I told one of the fellas (Gil) that works there:

CES

Hey, Gil, we broke the Airdyne. I’m pretty sure the belt slipped off the back, near the pedals.

Gil

Oh. OK. Thanks.

CES

It looks like you’ll need a Phillips head screw driver to fix it, but I’m pretty sure the belt is still intact. Should be an easy fix.

Gil

~writing this all down~

Ok. That’s good. Thanks.

CES

Sorry about the trouble.

Gil

No problem.

CES

See you later, Gil.

Gil

Yeah. See you later.

~just as I’m getting to the door~

OH! Chris

CES

yeah?

Gil

Uh…What’s an Airdyne?

CES

~sigh~

You know, downstairs, the bike with the handles that move.

Gil

~puzzled…more writting~

Oh…Uh…OK

This Morning

Marathoner has been having some upper back troubles lately. We was with me through the warm ups, did his first warm up front squat set and almost dropped the bar. His upper back went into some pretty sharp spasms, he just managed to get the bar back into the rack and called it a day. I was alone for the rest of the morning and may be for a while.

Mobility Circuit

10x High Knee Walk

10x Butt Kick Walk

10x Overhead Lunge

10x Walking Spider-Man

10x Quadruped Rotation-Extension

10x Scapular Wall Slides

10x Scapular Push Ups

Cleans (Warm Up)

2x Cleans @ 95#

2x Cleans @ 115#

2x Cleans @ 135#

2x Cleans @ 155#

2x Cleans @ 175#

Front Squat Warm Up

5x Front Squat @ 185#

3x Front Squat @ 205#

1x Front Squat @ 225#

3x Circuit #1

4x Front Squat @ 235#

5x (ea. leg) 1-leg Supine Bridge

10x No-Money Drill

…plus

10x Front Squat @ 215#

3x Circuit #2

8x (ea. arm) DB Bench Press @ 65# DB

AMAP Body Weight Row

1. 17x
2. 11x
3. 8x

3x Circuit #3

8x (ea. leg) 1-leg RDL @ 2-50# DBs

8x (ea. side) Side Plank Wall Slides

5x MYBH Finisher

10x Swings @ 24kg KB

10x (5x ea. side) Renegade Row @ 2-35# DBs

10x Ball Slams @ 12# Medicine Ball

10x Burpees

90 sec. Rest

I mentioned a few days ago that I traded some distance training for some web work with the legendary Tony Gentilcore of Boston, MA. Today was the first day. I told Tony I had minimum equipment, about 75 min/day on 3 days/week, a body ready to be abused and a desire to grow big and strong. Here’s what he came up with:

Dynamic Mobility Warm Up

10x High-Knee Walk

10x Butt-Kick Walk

10x Overhead Lunge Walk

10x Spider-Man Walk

10x Quadruped Extensions-Rotations

10x Scapular Wall Slides

10x Scapular Push Ups

More Warm Up

2x Barbell Clean @ 95#

2x Barbell Clean @ 115#

2x Barbell Clean @ 135#

2x Barbell Clean @ 155#

2x Barbell Clean @ 165#

Front Squat Warm Up

4x Front Squat @ 185#

2x Front Squat @ 205#

1x Front Squat @ 225#

3x Circuit #1

4x Front Squat @ 235# (could probably go a little heavier next time)

5x (ea. leg) 1-leg Supine Bridge

10x No-Money Drill

More Front Squats

10x Front Squat @ 205# (this was way too light)

DB Bench Press Warm Up

8x DB Bench Press @ 2-35# DBs

4x DB Bench Press @ 2-45# DBs

2x DB Bench Press @ 2-55# DBs

3x Circuit #2

8x (ea. arm) 1-arm DB BP @ 65# DB

AMAP Barbell Body Rows - Feet Elevated

1. 16x
2. 11x
3. 8x

3x Circuit #3

8x (ea. leg) 1-leg RDL @ 2-50# DBs

8x (ea. side) Side Plank Wall Slides

5x MYBH Finisher

10x Swings @ 24kg KB

10x (5x ea. side) Renegade Row @ 2-16kg KBs

10x Ball Slams @ 12# Medicine Ball

10x Burpees

90 sec. Rest

Marathoner and I had to bust our asses to move through this in 75 minutes and just barely made it. And it was good.

Thursday Night

Thursday night, my wife and I had dinner with my inlaws. When we got home around 8:30 or 8:45, there was sewage backing up into our basement. We immediately called Roto-Rooter. The guy came out and ‘cabled’ our line. He found nothing. Completely clear. We went out to the street and found the manhole cover, popped it open, and there was about 3.5 feet of standing water. He said, “This is an MSD [Metropolitan Sewer District] problem. Would you like me to call them?” I said, “sure” and he did. He was a very helpful and friendly guy. That’s how you run a business.

About 4:40am Friday, the MSD crew finally arrived and cleared the line in the street. I spent most of this weekend with a professional cleaning crew, tearing up carpet and cleaning my basement of my neighbors’ sewage. It was completely and absolutely gross.

Friday Morning

After just a few hours sleep Friday morning, I decided to test my Squat 1RM. What I lacked in good rest I made up for in rightous anger at somebody dumping sewage into my living space then not showing up for 5 hours to deal with it. (Not only that, MSD is trying to shed responsibility by saying “it rained too hard - not our fault” which is BS as the rain didn’t start in Kirkwood until after our basement flooded AND after they cleaned the street drain it rained much harder yet our basement flooded no more. To be clear, our solution/problem was correlated to them cleaning the drain/not cleaning the drain, not to the quantity of rain.)

Squat 1RM Test

8x OHS @ 45#

8x OHS @ 65#

8x OHS @ 85#

8x OHS @ 95#

6x OHS @ 115#

4x OHS @ 135#

2x OHS @ 155#

8x Squat @ 185#

4x Squat @ 205#

4x Squat @ 225#

2x Squat @ 275#

1x Squat @ 295#

1x Squat @ 315#

1x Squat @ 335#

1x Squat @ 345#

0x Squat @ 355#

345# is exactly my 1RM from June, the start of 5-3-1. It’s not as good as my bench press growth and not as bad as my deadlift. I still don’t know what to think of all this.

I’ve been struggling for just more than two weeks to shake this upper-respitory infection thing I’m fighting. So far I’m losing. Last week was super-low volume; just enough work to try to keep my low-rep max strength and give my immune system a chance to do its thing. This week is another week of low volume - testing 1RMs. Today is Bench Press day.

1RM Bench Press Test

10x Bench Press @ 45#

8x Bench Press @ 95#

8x Bench Press @ 115#

5x Bench Press @ 135#

5x Bench Press @ 155#

3x Bench Press @ 175#

3x Bench Press @ 185#

3x Bench Press @ 205#

2x Bench Press @ 225#

2x Bench Press @ 245#

1x Bench Press @ 255#!

1x Bench Press @ 265#!!

1x Bench Press @ 270#!!!

0x Bench Press @ 275#

Back in June I tested my bench and came to a 245# 1RM. So, three rounds of 5-3-1 over 19 weeks gives me a 25# increase in my Bench Press 1RM. That’s amazing. I’m totally sold on 5-3-1.

Tony Gentilcore

You’ll notice a new link over there on the right side there. Tony Gentilcore is a trainer in the Boston area. He co-owns Cressey Performance with Eric Cressey and Peter Dupuis. Tony has written several articles for T-Nation and for the Boston Herald.

Several weeks ago, Tony sent out word he was looking to (re)build a website. With a little encouragement from J.B., I contacted Tony and worked out a barter. I’d build and do basic maintenance for his website in exchange for distance training/programming.

The website is now live and Tony’s sent me the first four weeks of training.

I’ll complete 1RM tests of Overhead Press and Deadlift on Wednesday and Back Squat on Friday. Next week - 2 November - I’ll start Tony’s program.

If you have read Tony regularly at the Boston Herald, follow him now at his new website. If you don’t read Tony already, you should. It’s good for you.

My weekend was super-busy. Let’s get Friday’s workout logged before we do too much else.

Friday’s Workout 2 October 2009

Warm Up

Jumping Rope

Getting better. Barely. Still mostly suck.

More Warm Up

5x Clean & Press @ 95#

10x Chin Ups

5x Clean & Press @ 135#

8x Chin Ups

3x Clean & Press @ 155#

6x Chin Ups

Work Sets

5x Bench Press @ 175#

5x Squat @ 240#

3x Bench Press @ 200#

3x Squat @ 275#

9x Bench Press @ 220#

7x Squat @ 305#

5x Assistance Circuit

10x Bench Press @ 165#

10x (ea. arm) 3-Point db Row @ 65#

10x Squat @ 225#

That’s a Theoretical 1RM of 286# for the Bench Press and 376# for the Squat.

Friday Night Soccer

Friday night was my 5 year old daughter’s first soccer game in goal. She’s played three games before, but never as keeper. Friday night she played the entire second half in the goal.

She was awesome. As soon as the second half started the herd headed her way, one of her two defensemen (defensegirls?), standing in the path of the herd, started crying and ran off the field. My daughter, V, held up a reasonable defense but, down a girl, couldn’t stop the rush and was scored upon twice pretty quickly. It was then that the coach realized they were playing a girl down and filled the spot from the bench.

After that fix was made, she was un-scored-upon the rest of the game. Her style is pretty risky, both in strategy and tactics. She comes far out into the box early and often and thows herself right into the middle of the herd of girls kicking the ball. She got kicked on the ground a few times, but jumped right back up, ball in hand, smiled and did it again. Over and over and over.

At one point she yelled out a battle cry “I’m not afraid of anything!” and did her best Jimmy Superfly Snuka right into the middle of the scrum of girls, covering the ball with her body and stopping play.

It was all very cute. She was beaming the entire time. Her daddy is so proud. Her mama’s not really sure what to make of it yet.

Saturday Morning

This was a rare double-game weekend. V got another half in goal and did just as well. She was not quite as aggressive. There was a new assistant coach standing by the goal and I think he was trying to hold her back a little - keep her from getting out too far in the box.

Still, she did a good job, threw her body in front of the ball often. She threw a couple stiff-arms and more than a few shoulder-charges to get an attacker away from the ball. Excellent work and she was totally having fun.

She had a bunch of groupies come to watch her. Some family friends of my wife’s family are in town from Norway. My wife’s brother and his wife drove down from Chicago. My parents were also there. In all she had 12 people there cheering on her and her team.

Friends From Norway

When my wife was a young girl, her parents hosted a foreign exchange student from Norway. Today that woman comes back to the States to visit every couple of years. She has two children, a boy and a girl, he is 16 and she is…I don’t know…maybe 10 or 12. They’re both really neat people, well behaved, curious, intelligent, open to sharing Norwegian language and culture with my two children (and anyone, really). She also has recently remarried and brought her husband with her on this trip.

We spent all weekend with them. Sunday, we went to a local farm and picked pumpkins to carve. The Norwegians have never done such a thing before and thought the whole thing was pretty cool.

All-in-all, everyone had a good weekend.

This Morning’s Workout

This is the next round of 5-3-1. The assistance exercises have become focused and a lot more serious in the volume.

Warm Up

Jumping Rope

More Warm Up

5x Clean & Press @ 95#

10x Chin Ups

5x Clean & Press @ 115#

8x Chin Ups

3x Clean & Press @ 135#

6x Chin Ups

Work Sets

5x Press @ 100#

5x Deadlift @ 260#

5x Press @ 115#

5x Deadlift @ 300#

9x Press @ 135#

16x Deadlift @ 340#

4x Assistance Circuit

10x Press @ 95#

10x Chin Ups @ BW

10x Deadlift @ 295#

Let me say right now that 40x Deadlift @ 295# in less than 20 minutes is flippin’ brutal. I thought my hamstrings were going to pop right out the back of my legs. ~Booiiiiinnnngggggg~

Anyway, today’s work counts for a Theoretical 1RM of 175# for the Press and 521# for the Deadlift. Both are solid numbers with which I’m happy.

Warm Up

Jumping Rope

I got 50x two-footed then couldn’t get more than a couple one-footed jumps in a row. Little girls can do it all day long and I’m a bumbling fool.

In response to Doc’s comment the other day, I’m considering a big manly length of 5/8″ steel chain to use as my jump rope.

Let’s see the little girls do that! =)

More Warm Up

5x Power Snatch + Overhead Squat @ 85#

10x Chin Ups @ BW

5x Power Snatch + Overhead Squat @ 100#

8x Chin Ups @ BW

3x Power Snatch + Overhead Squat @ 115#

6x Chin Ups @ BW

Work Sets

3x Bench Press @ 165#

3x Bench Press @ 185#

9x Bench Press @ 210#

3x Squat @ 225#

3x Squat @ 260#

9x Squat @ 290#

3x Assistance Circuit

10x Bench Press @ 165#

10x Squat @ 225#

10x (ea. arm) 3-Point Row @ 65# DB

That’s a Theoretical 1RM of 273# for the Bench Press and a 377# Squat.