GIFt us your lifts! (or other achievements!)

@nossmf Sending prayers for a speedy recovery for your daughter! 🤗

KickassAmazon76 wrote: »

Not a lift... But still, a bit of a strength flex lol

nossmf wrote: »

Ok, NOT where I thought that was going, lol! Remind me, if I ever have dinner at your place, to be the one who brings the fruit salad for the group...

In other news, an update on my daughter: it's now been 3 days since her knee surgery, she's walking around with an almost normal stride, and she's completely off her prescription painkillers.

😂 priceless

Week 11 of my bench press triplet protocol, where I started doing 10 triples at 60% of 1RM and every week add 5lb. Any week I fail to complete all 10 triples, the following week will have fewer triples to perform. Repeat until I am down to a single triple, then recalculate 1RM and see if it's changed.

Today was at 245, or 83% of 1RM. Ten sets up, ten triples down. After five sets I was wondering if today would be the day I failed a set or two (or three...set five was a doozy). But that's when I had the idea to adjust my grip one finger-width wider, and like magic, set six felt just as fresh as set one. Still had to earn the final two sets, but chalk another day of completion to the record books.

I didn't realize how long your nails were until that last image. I don't know how you're able to maintain the grip on the bar for pullups/deads without being able to tuck your fingers the way I do, yikes!

@Minion_training_program I went bowling with my son the other night, just the two of us spending a little time together in friendly competition. Once upon a time I bowled multiple leagues every week, was borderline good enough to think about going pro (if I do say so myself). But upon moving to my current home, all my equipment was stolen from my car, and between the cost of replacing it plus odd hours of my job I let slide rejoining a league immediately, and before I knew it it's been twenty years since my last regular league. The family has gone 3-4 times over the years to bowl, but always for a single game at a time.

But last night was a full 3-game series, where my son thought he would whoop his old man's butt given how he's been bowling on the regular with his friends and he was always top dog. He stopped thinking that after the first game, and after the series he ruefully admitted maybe I was the better bowler, rusty as I was, after I outscored him by 181 on the night with every game at least 49 pins better.

He may have been impressed, but all I could focus upon was how rusty my game had become. True, I was using house equipment include a ball which didn't fit my fingers right (shocking how bad most of the house ball hole arrangements were!), but my average speed was a full 3 mph (4.8 kph) slower and way too nose-on with the head pin, one of the reasons I recorded 5 splits and only 10 strikes on the night. My only saving grace was my spare game was on point, converting two of those splits and not leaving any other open frames, but without being able to string the strikes together I had no chance to get a good score.

By the third game my grip was starting to give out, leading to a lot of erratic swings and my lowest score of the night, but all told I had a great time (scoring a good 25+ per game below my old average notwithstanding). I could feel the old fire rekindled, and my son and I may have to make this a regular thing until I can justify the expense of replacing my old equipment and convince my wife to join me in a league once again. She may complain that her injuries from the car crash a few years ago will limit her, but I'll just appeal to her sense of social contact and calling it a "weekly date night".

Anyway, @Minion_training_program I just wanted you to know I was reminded of you on the night, and wanted to share the reawakening of my love of bowling (and realization of just how far I've fallen lol).

nossmf wrote: »

@Minion_training_program I went bowling with my son the other night, just the two of us spending a little time together in friendly competition. Once upon a time I bowled multiple leagues every week, was borderline good enough to think about going pro (if I do say so myself). But upon moving to my current home, all my equipment was stolen from my car, and between the cost of replacing it plus odd hours of my job I let slide rejoining a league immediately, and before I knew it it's been twenty years since my last regular league. The family has gone 3-4 times over the years to bowl, but always for a single game at a time.

But last night was a full 3-game series, where my son thought he would whoop his old man's butt given how he's been bowling on the regular with his friends and he was always top dog. He stopped thinking that after the first game, and after the series he ruefully admitted maybe I was the better bowler, rusty as I was, after I outscored him by 181 on the night with every game at least 49 pins better.

He may have been impressed, but all I could focus upon was how rusty my game had become. True, I was using house equipment include a ball which didn't fit my fingers right (shocking how bad most of the house ball hole arrangements were!), but my average speed was a full 3 mph (4.8 kph) slower and way too nose-on with the head pin, one of the reasons I recorded 5 splits and only 10 strikes on the night. My only saving grace was my spare game was on point, converting two of those splits and not leaving any other open frames, but without being able to string the strikes together I had no chance to get a good score.

By the third game my grip was starting to give out, leading to a lot of erratic swings and my lowest score of the night, but all told I had a great time (scoring a good 25+ per game below my old average notwithstanding). I could feel the old fire rekindled, and my son and I may have to make this a regular thing until I can justify the expense of replacing my old equipment and convince my wife to join me in a league once again. She may complain that her injuries from the car crash a few years ago will limit her, but I'll just appeal to her sense of social contact and calling it a "weekly date night".

Anyway, @Minion_training_program I just wanted you to know I was reminded of you on the night, and wanted to share the reawakening of my love of bowling (and realization of just how far I've fallen lol).

Oh i love to read this Mike, glad you had so much fun and the fire within started to lid again.

I organize i summer league each year since 2017, and this week i have had one of my better nights (after 3 weeks vacation and no bowling)

See below my scores of last week on a 43 feet pattern (Dead mans curve)




PS this is LaenTalk app, great app to keep track of your scoring and statistics (it is used world wide, and a lots of bowling alley's use it, you just need to sign up and then you can see if there is a alley near you that uses it as well)

I started using the paid version, so you can add arsenal of balls as well, and track more than 9 games at once.

nossmf wrote: »

A 718 series is super solid. Sure trumps my 551 the other night (when I used to average well over 600).

And I am well aware a 600 average is NOT good enough to go pro. My belief, however, was that if I was averaging that as an amateur, if I focused on making a full-time go at it, who knows what could have happened.

Was this during house league you averaged 200+?
Because even though its not bad, i have seen so many people, especially from USA, scoring high on house patterns, but on sport pattern they could not even score above 140.

There is such a huge difference in house league oil pattern and when playing sport.

That national championship i played little over a month ago was sport pattern as well, and while i was scoring pretty good the first day, the finals was a different story. I did not score really bad or anything, but had barely made 190 average that day. Because weather conditions were different, the lane were not reacting the same way

nossmf wrote: »

Don't think I've ever been on sport pattern, unless my home lanes growing up changed things during different tournaments I used to play in back in my school days. Entirely possible, as the owner of the lanes was a former pro who could bowl a 300 with either hand and whom I considered both a friend as well as a coach. As I recall, my tournament scores were almost identical to my league scores at that time.

Home lanes, for league that is, hardly uses sport patterns, because they want to have people scoring high during league, so they come back.

Biggest difference between recreation pattern and sport pattern is the ratio, which basically means margin of error.
I have never been to USA, but from stories of my pro shop owner who comes there 2 times a year (for Bowlexpo) he mentioned that the house pattern over there is a lot easier compared to here, and he with a average of 200, was signing up for a little tournament while he was there. Drilled a ball on the spot, and shot 250+ average. And he is definatly not the best bowler he admits.

He said his margin was about 10 boards wide, while even league patterns here have maybe 4-5 boards margin.

When i was having a clinic over here with a few PBA players, among which was Parker Bohn III, he also said that patterns here played so much different, even if it was just house shots.

He had trouble shooting 200+ when we played against him and the other PBA's (Sean Rash, Jason Sterner and John van Hees)

I can also say after that day, that i beated 3 PBA players in a 1on1 match (didn't play against John though) with a 236, 224 and 209

@nossmf
The game has changed a lot over last decade, just look at all the 2handers nowadays
Even lane conditions change, they have now fire and ice oil patterns, lane material changed, hard wood is a no go now, and you barely see that anymore, and the string technology is coming up now a lot as well
I am still not a huge fan of it, but that has more to do with the sound it makes, rather than scores. If you have the newer versions of string, it reacts almost the same as freefall, and they tested it, and scores changed only by 0.6 pins over 10.000 played games.

Week 13 of my bench press triplet protocol, where I started doing 10 triples at 60% of 1RM and every week add 5lb. Any week I fail to complete all 10 triples, the following week will have fewer triples to perform. Repeat until I am down to a single triple, then recalculate 1RM and see if it's changed.

Today was at 255, or 86.5% of 1RM. I stopped after five sets (when the protocol said to try for eight) because my form was retched and my depth nowhere near where it should be. I also question whether this protocol is actually helping me to improve, considering I was doing 5x3 triples at 275 before but now I'm struggling with triples at 20 pounds lighter.

So I'm calling an end to this little experiment after 3 months, calling it an interesting diversion but will return to the 5x5 standard I was using before which had successfully raised my bench 1RM by 10 pounds. Let's see if I can squeak out another 5 pounds to top 300, or another 20 to get that 315. Not ready to call it a pipe dream yet, but obviously my goal of hitting it by my birthday (now 5 weeks past) didn't happen, so let's settle in for a longer haul goal of hitting it before I turn 50 in three years.