What Was Your Work Out Today?
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I was in the pool this morning for 1850 scm, and then got on a treadmill this evening for 20 minutes easy running.
I've been swimming in the ocean off of some of the Hawaiian islands and the west coast of Mexico, but not at dawn or dusk. As I understood it, that was when the sharks were most likely to hunt. For Hawaii I also looked up jellyfish. If I'm remembering correctly, they were more of a concern during certain parts of the lunar cycle.2 -
Nothing to add re sharks other than we kill millions each year and they're only responsible for a handful of human fatalities
Had a migraine yesterday so did nothing. Today was a scheduled gym day but decided not to push it too much and did pilates and a morning walk instead. Will get out again at lunchtime. Meant to be the hottest day of the year here today- very odd for September!1 -
Back day. All done HIT style with 1 working set
Overhand pull-ups
Bent over rows
Superset of standing cable pullovers+seated cable rows
Machine Bicep curls with a drop set at the end.
I’ve always had trouble feeling my lats on back, and that superset of pullovers to rows just kills me. Definitely know where they are after that one.2 -
Back day. All done HIT style with 1 working set
Overhand pull-ups
Bent over rows
Superset of standing cable pullovers+seated cable rows
Machine Bicep curls with a drop set at the end.
I’ve always had trouble feeling my lats on back, and that superset of pullovers to rows just kills me. Definitely know where they are after that one.
Maybe this is sort of goofy, but it helped me, FWIW. (Making a mind-body connection for lats is massively important for proper rowing. Essential.)
Do you ever drive a car? At stoplights or other safe pause points, hands on steering wheel, focus on contracting your lats. Doing so should pull your back very slightly away from the seat and toward the steering wheel. It's not a power move in any way, but doing it frequently helps with the mind-body connection for recruiting those nice big muscles more automagically.2 -
(background on me..always been an overweight athlete, but got lean in my mid 20's, let it go, got lean again in my 30's, and am about 7 months back into it after a 9 year layoff. I'm a BIG guy for 5'10". Currently 237 lbs, but I get visible abs at like 210-220 lbs. Years of experience strength training)
I actually do that for a lot of muscles...same issue with training my chest sometimes. But I always feel other muscles tiring on stuff that "should" be for lats.
Like for example, my pull-ups. They kill my forearms and where my bicep attaches on my lower arm. That's where I feel failure coming from when I do those. With rows, again, my biceps are what fails. Machine rows...same thing. Doing pull-overs (essentially a lat isolation) is the only exercise I really feel them burn, but even doing those, I either get too much recruitment from other muscles close to failure when I do them with an ez curl bar laying, or I get too much tricep help when I do them standing. However, combining the 2 exercises, and it makes my lat what fails, which I guess is what I need to make sure I know I'm working my lats.1 -
Gym day was meant to be tomorrow but there will be a bit political rally and it won't be possible to move because of the traffic. So I went today, not ideal as I also went yesterday, and I do a full body template. But anyway. Today was 'Full body plus core assistance':
- Warmup
- Conventional deadlifts- 2 sets of 5, one set of 8
- Sumo deadlifts for the lulz- worked up to two heavy doubles
- Overhead press- 2 sets of 5, one set of 10
- Chinups- 3 sets of 6
- Snatch grip barbell shrugs- 3 sets of 8
- Chest-supported rows- 4 sets of 10
- Cable crunches- 4 sets of 13
- Bird dogs- 3 sets, 20 seconds each side
This was actually a pretty quick session because most stuff was sets of three, and the weights weren't very challenging. Doing 5/3/1 for overhead and deadlift and it is early days. My back didn't like the snatch grip shrugs today- seems like it didn't enjoy the Oly-style pull from the ground. Need to do these from the rack in the future, no point risking my back when it is doing so well with the stuff I actually care about.
Also got my treadmill serviced today, so hopefully I can do a couple of cardio sessions before the end of the week.2 -
Hot humid weather here today, so I got the chance to do an open water swim at my favorite lake. I was alone and had no time or distance goal in mind. Ended after 2250 yds at a leisurely 2:15/100 pace. Quite a few SUP folks out on the lake today as well.4
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Two rows, 8:30AM and 6PM.
AM, usual distance in bow of the double.
PM, short row (about 4.3k) in my racing single, first time I've rowed it this season. (I like big boats and I cannot lie. 😉) Storm was rolling in. We all got off the water just as thunder became audible - good timing.
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I did a short elliptical session early this morning and intended to run later. Busy day though and it was late evening before I got on the treadmill. Last week I tried the 4/1 run/walk intervals but it didn't bring the peak heart rate at the end of the run down by much so I tried 3 minutes running to 1 minute walking. There was less fatigue tonight so I kept going longer, finishing a full hour on the machine. By the end of the hour, the HR was starting to get up there but still short of the previous peaks that occurred quicker. Average HR for the full hour was still in the 140s so probably a sufficient level of effort. Experiments continue.3
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Very little energy today- probably because I lifted twice in a row and generally have been exercising pretty consistently, while still in a small-ish calorie deficit. But I forced myself to do a quick 30 minute incline treadmill walk, and was glad I did. Might take a complete break tomorrow- before Pomp Day on Saturday.3
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Lower Hypertrophy
Squats 4x15
BB Step-Ups 3x12
BB RDL 4x10
Leg Extension 3x12
Seated Leg Curl 3x12
Calves Extend 4x12
Suitcase Carry 3x40s2 -
Like for example, my pull-ups. They kill my forearms and where my bicep attaches on my lower arm. That's where I feel failure coming from when I do those. With rows, again, my biceps are what fails. Machine rows...same thing.
Something which helped me was to stop focusing on moving the bar/handle, and start focusing on moving my elbows. As in I grip the pulldown bar, then focus upon moving my elbows down; the bar just sort of follows on its own, like magic. If I focus on moving the bar, I feel it in my biceps; if I focus on moving my elbows, I feel it in my lats.5 -
(background on me..always been an overweight athlete, but got lean in my mid 20's, let it go, got lean again in my 30's, and am about 7 months back into it after a 9 year layoff. I'm a BIG guy for 5'10". Currently 237 lbs, but I get visible abs at like 210-220 lbs. Years of experience strength training)
I actually do that for a lot of muscles...same issue with training my chest sometimes. But I always feel other muscles tiring on stuff that "should" be for lats.
Like for example, my pull-ups. They kill my forearms and where my bicep attaches on my lower arm. That's where I feel failure coming from when I do those. With rows, again, my biceps are what fails. Machine rows...same thing. Doing pull-overs (essentially a lat isolation) is the only exercise I really feel them burn, but even doing those, I either get too much recruitment from other muscles close to failure when I do them with an ez curl bar laying, or I get too much tricep help when I do them standing. However, combining the 2 exercises, and it makes my lat what fails, which I guess is what I need to make sure I know I'm working my lats.
@_John_ , I've been through multiple rounds of physical therapy for various things. Usually, one key focus has been recruiting muscle groups that I tend to under-utilize. The methods include relatively low-intensity exercises that recruit those muscle groups, with a focus on the recruitment rather than on generating power or achieving fatigue.
For example, my last round of PT for shoulder impingement included some exercises that were quite easy from a strength perspective, but that forced me to better recruit the muscles around the scapulae. This creates an adaptation - better mind-body connection, reinforcing the relevant neural pathways - that allows those muscle groups to engage more effectively and more automatically during more demanding activities.
That's the point of the steering wheel thing, for lats. These things aren't strictly muscle exercises - they're more like brain exercises. A plus is that they can be done in "wasted" time.
On the machine rows, assuming we're talking about the normal horizontal pull: Are you thinking about engaging the lats as the first part of the loaded movement, then squeezing the shoulder blades together and down as the last phase, before the brief between-rep hold?
It's conceivable to me that lats could be slower to fatigue in a lot of movements just because they're pretty big and used in lots of movements, whereas some of the smaller or more specialized muscles may be quicker to fatigue. But recruitment can be a problem, too.
As context: Me, I'm a late-bloomer aging active woman, now 67, wasn't routinely active until my late 40s. As a consequence, I see physical therapists more than the average person, maybe.
I'm not expert about strength training, but have quite a bit of formal education and experience in biomechanics of rowing motions. 
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@nossmf I'll definitely give that a shot when I do lat pulls/pullups next.
@AnnPT77 yeah, I'm definitely thinking of trying to feel the exercises where I want them to target. I under trained my mid back and lats for years in my training.
All through HS our workouts were essentially: Bench, Squat, Cleans, OHP/high incline press, Lat pulls. No horizontal pulling (that wasn't explosive like what you do for cleans). And that's what I went back to in my 20's. It wasn't until my next stint in my 30's that I really trained my mid back hard with the rest. Now in my 40's it's one of my better body parts from a muscle development point of view even though I struggle to feel it. And I think part of my issue is that I keep up my upper arm and forearm development during layoffs and lose some of the big weightlifting type muscle development that doesn't have to be that big for daily life when I'm off strength training for 5+ years.2 -
Cycled to the pool, about 10 minutes each way, for 1250 m swimming. Donated plasma this afternoon so I'm taking it easy this evening so as not to spring a leak where they poked.3
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Like for example, my pull-ups. They kill my forearms and where my bicep attaches on my lower arm. That's where I feel failure coming from when I do those. With rows, again, my biceps are what fails. Machine rows...same thing.
Something which helped me was to stop focusing on moving the bar/handle, and start focusing on moving my elbows. As in I grip the pulldown bar, then focus upon moving my elbows down; the bar just sort of follows on its own, like magic. If I focus on moving the bar, I feel it in my biceps; if I focus on moving my elbows, I feel it in my lats.
Yeah- I think the best cue is "Bring your elbows to the bottom and back of your ribs". When you do this, you get a lot of lat engagement. If you then control the eccentric and start the pull from the absolute bottom, they go crazy- I feel them shivering on the way down.
I watch guys doing chinups in the gym and I see that the angle of their upper arm doesn't change that much relative to their torso through their lift. So the lats are mostly functioning isometrically to maitain that arm position, and a lot of the movement is coming from their biceps.1 -
About 7500m row in bow of the double (trying to stay out of the way of the water ski team, but getting big-waked by them repeatedly (sigh - do they really want to drown their granny?)). My Garmin decided to delete the workout. (I assume I accidentally hit the buttons somehow.)
Later, about a 3 mile walk, but mostly at meandering pace through the local university's annual trials garden, perennial garden, children's garden, arboretum and landscape architecture demo area, reflexology path, and radiology garden (the latter built for patient respite around treatments).3 -
Upper Power
Bench Press 5x5
Cable Row 5x5
DB Press <superset> DB Row 5x5
Seated Smith OHP <superset> BB Shrugs 3x8
Cable Pushdown <superset> Preacher Curl 3x83 -
Push session.
OHP. 1 working set to failure
Tried a new variation of flys on my Hoist V4. Did 2x12, 1x failure. Pretty light weight to make sure I felt it properly.
Dips 2xFailure (and in a totally reverse problem from what I feel with my lats, dips are almost 100% chest for me. I had been doing these after I pre-exhausted my triceps, and I got just a couple more reps with fresh tris today. I do these with legs crossed behind me and leaned forward as much as I can (which still is sometimes a tricep limiting position for some). I’m WAY behind some old strength on these, and I added like 5 reps since last week at just body weight.
Seated skullcrushers 1xfailure.2 -
A short early morning elliptical session, and an afternoon treadmill run. I tried the 3/1 minutes run/walk intervals again but cut it off at 50 minutes. That kept the HR from peaking as high as the previous 1 hour run and hopefully saved a bit more to run better again tomorrow.2
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