"TLFC" exercise and accountability support!

@ninerbuff that's a close call. Glad you left early!

Strength: Upper Body, DB Day

DB Bench Press <<superset>> 1A DB Row 5x8
Incline Cable Fly 3x10
1A Pulldown 3x10
DB Shrugs 3x10
DB Arnold Press 3x10
DB Hammer Curl <<superset>> Lying DB Extend 3x10
Cable Woodchoppers 2x10 <<alternate>> Palloff Press 2x10 sec

Analysis: Had to reduce the weight used on the DB Bench Press twice today because I simply could not get the weights into initial position. Once I dropped low enough I no longer felt challenged by sets of five, so increased to sets of eight. This is the second time in three weeks I've had to do this, which has me wondering if I should stop going for heavy DB presses and stick to moderate weights instead.

Food: Last night was homemade chicken gyros.

Strength: Leg Day

Squats 4x10
BB Step Ups 3x10
BB Hip Thrust 4x10
Seated Leg Curl 4x10
Seated Calf Extend 4x10
Cable Crunch 4x10, 15, 20, 25

Analysis: The other day when I was having trouble with the DB Bench Press, I inadvertently dropped one of the DBs on my left quad. No visible bruising, leg still held me upright, I pushed through it. Bit of stiffness throughout the day was all I had to deal with, but I knew today was leg day and was worried it wouldn't hold up under stress. But I took extra time to warm up gradually, and my leg was able to power through my entire workout, even increase the weight used. Right up until the final exercise of the day, the seated leg curl (moved to the end due to waiting for others to free up the station). My hamstring muscle was willing, but when I braced the pad against my quad and started to push against it, HELLO, my quad finally started to complain. I decided to just call it a day and give my leg a week to recover before trying again next week.

Food: Last night was lasagna with side salad

Lifting: BB Day

Bench Press 5x5
BB Row 4x10
Incline Bench Press 3x10
Pullups 30 total reps
BB Shrugs 3x10
Seated BB OHP 3x10
Preacher Curl 3x10
Cable Pushdown 3x10
Cable Woodchoppers 2x10
Cable Palloff Press 2x10 sec

Food: Last night was pizza and chicken wings while watching the Super Bowl.

Workout: Cardio - Incline treadmill walk - 1hr (805 calories)

Food: Dinner last night was breakfast (French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon)

Workout: Cardio - Incline treadmill walk - 1hr (805 calories)

Food: Dinner last night was homemade spicy orange chicken with rice

Strength: Leg Day

Squats 4x10
BB Step Ups 3x10
BB Hip Thrust 4x10
Seated Leg Curl 4x10
RDL 4x10
Seated Calf Extend 4x10
Hanging knee raises 2x25 <<alternate>> Plank 2x90 sec

Analysis: My quad was still grumpy with any pressure from the leg curl machine pad, but I didn't want to skip hamstring work two weeks in a row, so swapped in RDL's. This got me to thinking how I really haven't been doing anything for my lower back, which has started to be grumpy, then it hit me: I can swap out the hip thrust (always uncomfortable the way the bar rests on my hips) and the leg curl/RDL, all while hitting my lower back, if I throw back in deadlifts. This time, however, I will do the trap bar version to save my back. Plus, I need to introduce my son to deadlifts now that he's been lifting with me for a couple months now.

Food: Last night was grilled honey chicken with broccoli.

Food: I mostly cook at home day in, day out, but today we got Panda Express after church. Surprise! Nearly 900 calories for lunch. My downfall was the walnut shrimp (370 cals for the 107 grams I ate). My sugar grams have also been creeping back up with Valentine's weekend and 50% off on chocolates.

Exercise: half-swim, half-treading water for 33 min. in the pool with my son today. Lots of other parents in the water with their 2-6 year olds. The difference is, my boy is a teenager and severely autistic. I'm not having a pity party but I'm going to acknowledge here that it is hard pretty consistently and sometimes sad that he's never gotten past the toddler stage. We had a lot of fun splashing around, though. He'll never have a normal life, but our goal as parents is for him to have a good life.

Considerations: I joined another DietBet, a 4% in 4 weeks one, but realistically that's a lot of weight to lose after dropping 8% of my body weight over the last 4 months. I have very few pounds left to lose for my 6-month Dietbet transformer (ends in April). I keep promising myselt the summer at mainenance. The next 2.5 weeks are going to be stressful enough with work. Luckily DB has a 7 day guarantee, so I"m going to see how this week goes and then possibly withdraw from the DB kickstarter & get my $35 back.

Lifting: BB Day

Bench Press 3x10
BB Row 3x10
Incline Bench Press 3x10
Pullups 30 total reps
BB Shrugs 3x10
Standing BB OHP 3x10
Preacher Curl 3x10
Cable Pushdown 3x10
Cable Woodchoppers 2x10 <<alternating>> Cable Palloff Press 2x10 sec

Analysis: Years back I injured both shoulders by being stupid on the bench press, avoided surgery, but forever after had limited range of motion. Fast forward a decade, I'm now teaching my son how to lift properly and safely, and of course he notes how my bench press stops with the bar several inches above my chest. He also made an observation which floored me, how the bar seemed lower on my warmup sets than on my working sets. Got me to thinking, self-analyzing my bar path, and I came to realize that over time I had unconsciously been creeping the bar higher on my sternum when the weights went up, since it felt more stable at my "limited" range.

So today I forced myself out of my comfort zone, intentionally moving the bar to hover lower on my sternum, and sought to lower the bar to make actual contact with my chest. Sure enough, I could get the bar to touch, where I had been convinced my range of motion would prevent it, and what's more there was zero discomfort. So for the rest of my bench press session I systematically increased the weight, fearing I would have to stop at a relatively light weight, like 30% of normal.

Completely floored me that I actually didn't start to have any issue until I got all the way up to 75%! And what's to say how much of that issue wasn't a combination of cumulative fatigue from all the sets leading up to it, plus the normal weakness of doing a familiar exercise in an unfamiliar way? My incline press similarly surprised me, working my way up to 62% of normal, not quite getting all the way down to my chest before encountering resistance to going any lower (an inch compared to six inches).

Bottom line is my work this past decade must have helped heal my shoulders more than I had realized, which is a great thing. The follow-on regret is how much more could've been done had I not convinced myself of a permanent limitation and instead kept working at it. But that's the past, it can't be changed. What I can do going forward is continue to work with this "true" bench press motion, systematically work my weights back up again. Who knows, maybe working through this larger range of motion will force parts of my chest previously ignored to join the party, resulting in bigger appearance, bigger strength, or both.

Who says you can't teach an old lifter new tricks? (Or for the cynic, it's never too late to stop lying to yourself.)

Food: Last night was pot roast

@ninerbuff

It's too bad your corporate office makes you treat the employees that way. You have to treat people you employ with respect if you want them to respect the company. If their hours keep getting cut, it should be no surprise when they just fail to show up when scheduled or leave for greener pastures. I presume most of the help is young and inexperienced enough that they don't know how to unionize.

It must be difficult for you to be the person who delivers these work reductions. I don't think I could do it unless I also cut my own hours (or salary if exempt) in solidarity. I don't know if I'd be willing to do that, especially if I already felt underpaid.

I hope you figure out a way to make everyone happy from the line level folks to the vice presidents in the home office.