Lifting when you don't wanna

It wasn't that I was sick or anything. And it wasn't like I really was dreading going to lift. No, it was just that I wasn't really fired up to lift. I usually am, so that was sorta weird. And it was a "heavy" day, a day that I usually love. But I was just a little low on energy. I still lifted, finished the whole workout, but I took longer in-between sets as a means of compensating.

It probably didn't help that this is a ridiculously tiring workout. The first superset was chin-ups and DB decline bench press. That is just a warm-up for the deadlift and single-leg standing calf raise. On the deadlift I did 25 reps of 290 OTB (335 total). It took me 8 sets with 3 of the last 4 sets being doubles. Boy was I tired. And on the 25th deadlift I tore a huge callous off the middle finger of my left hand. Ouch. It was going to be the last rep no matter whether it was my 25th rep or not — I wasn't lifting any more with that hand.

On that topic, I just ordered Lynx Performance Grips. They're recommended by Eric Cressey as being easier on the hands. I guess I'll find out if they work.

Third day of Get Big

Today's protocol was to lift "light", which means lift a weight I can lift 20-22 times (quickly and under control) and do each exercise for a total of 50 times. The book says to do 25 reps but I'm assuming this was a typo since every other "light" day had 50 reps. Here are the exercises:

• Superset
  • High pull, 50 lbs OTB
  • DB incline press, 35 lbs
• Superset
  • Squat, 90 lbs OTB
  • Hammer curl, 20 lbs

(BTW, when I write "OTB", I mean "on the bar", meaning that the weight of the bar isn't included in the weight that I'm recording.) I'm sure that I went too light on a couple of these, but I find it really hard to figure out what weight to use for these high rep days. Even when I'm done I'm not sure whether I could have done more. I'm always so tired aerobically that I have a hard time figuring out if my muscles could have done more. So next week I'll be doing more on each of these exercises.

Today's program only took me 32 minutes. I'm sure that I will be able to do this more quickly next time. I took a lot of time between the two supersets. I wasn't really into it this morning — real tired from getting up with one of our dogs who wasn't feeling very good last night — so I struggled a bit with energy. That's okay. I know it'll be better next time.

Second day of Get Big

Today was much different than the first day. Today was exclusively unilateral work. I did all of the following as one big giant set (that is, exercise 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, and then start back with 1 again) with minimal rest in-between. I had to go take my daughter to school for a club meeting (before school) so I had to finish quickly:

• 1-arm bent over row, 65 lbs
• 1-arm shoulder press, 40 lbs
• Bulgarian split squat, 2x40 lbs
• Standing 1-arm triceps extension, 20 lbs

The first exercise was supposed to be a 1-arm seated cable row, but the cable machine is still out of order. This substitution seamed to be fairly reasonable. I will increase all of my weights next week. I tend to underestimate the weights that I can do during the first week of a new program. That's going to be especially true with programs from this book with its emphasis on lifting speed.

I finished all of these in 28 minutes. Pretty amazing. With the combination of giant set protocol and unilateral work, I could basically eliminate the rest time in-between exercises. The benefit of unilateral work is basically two-fold. First, it reduces the overall weights that can be lifted and thus is easier on the body (at least, that's my experience with it). Second, it also naturally takes more time to complete the exercise since you have to do it separately with each side; this extra time can be counted as "rest time" between exercises although you're actually working out.

Starting the "Get Big" program

Today I completed the first workout in the "Get Big" program in Huge in a Hurry by Waterbury. It was a killer. The protocol for today was 25 reps of a heavy weight (a weight you can lift quickly and under control for 4-6 reps). Here's what I did:

• Superset
  • Chin-up, 35 lbs (on my belt)
  • Deadlift, 315 lbs
• DB Decline Bench Press, 2 65 lb dumbbells
• Single-leg calf raises, 140 lbs (Smith machine)

The program calls for barbell decline bench press, but we don't have any kind of set-up where that would be easy to do. So I had a buddy load me up for the 5 sets. Next week I'm going to go up in all of the lifts.

It took me just over one hour to complete this workout, not including the mobility warm-ups before or the stretching afterwards. I was absolutely whipped after completing it. I had my protein shake before, a protein shake right after I got home, and then I slept for about an hour. I was wiped out. I had a meeting at 10am that I almost slept through. I'm okay now, as I write this, but I'm glad I was able to take that nap.

I'm also surprised that it took that long. Let's see why it took that long. Assuming that there's 4 minutes of tear-down and set-up time between the exercises, and that each set takes 2 minutes including rest, and each 25 reps took 6 sets, then that would be 4 exercises x 6 sets/exercise x 2 min/set + 3 breaks x 4 min/break = 48 + 12 = 60 minutes. Wow, I didn't know I would be that close. I also don't think it should have taken that long. I could probably get 15 seconds off the time for each set and maybe 1 minute off the break between exercises. Both of those would save 9 minutes total. I'm going to set a goal of finishing this program in 52 minutes by the end of this program (if not before).

Playing basketball

The Huge in a Hurry program calls for lifting 3x/week. This might be good for some people, but it makes me nervous. I need to stay in a habit of going to the gym. I don't want to have the decision facing me when I get up "should I go to the gym this morning or shouldn't I?". Don't want it. I want to simply go to the gym. It's what's most comfortable for me. Maybe I can miss a day or two here or there due to other circumstances, but I generally want my plan of activities every day to include going to the gym.

So, like I said, this program calls for lifting 3x/week. I've been looking for what to do on those other days. Can't really lift because this program has full body workouts all three of those days. Not going to do treadmill or bosu-ball aerobics or spinning or whatever. Just not going to do it. Too boring and not the benefit that I'm looking for. So, what to do?

Well, on M/W/F a bunch of guys about my age (some younger, some older) play basketball in the gym from 6-7am or so. Then they come up to lift afterwards. They're all a good bunch of guys. I played a bit (rec & ed type stuff) and frequently shot on the hoop in our driveway when I was a kid, but I've had a hit-and-miss (mostly "hit") relationship with the sport as an adult. The last time I played hoops was about 8 years ago playing with a bunch of guys about my age; I got a concussion and was knocked out with an errant elbow. The previous time I had played hoops (about 5 years before that) I got a broken rib when taking a charge (knee driven up into my rib cage); not a good deal. Both of these soured my desire to play the sport so it is with some reluctance that I went down to the gym this morning.

Ended up having a lot of fun. The guys were a bit surprised to see me in the gym but they were nice to me. I'm more of a pass-first, get-the-rebound, set-the-pick kind of guy anyway so I don't tend to take too many shots away from the other guys. Played about 45 minutes before I had to leave to pick up my daughter from her early morning session of her softball tryouts.

It was quite a shock to my body. All of the muscles around my hip girdle are quite sore. Haven't had to stop and start and accelerate (other than lifting) in a long long time. If I can keep it up, I can imagine that this will be good for my body composition. Tomorrow is going to be interesting since I will be deadlifting. Doing those will tell me a lot about how my body can handle this activity. I don't want to take away from my 3x/week lifting, but this might be just the thing to keep me interested and engaged. We'll see.

Sets and reps or just total reps

I'm just starting to follow the programs in Chad Waterbury's Huge in a Hurry. I'm only on the second week of the "Get Ready" program, so I can't comment too much about the effectiveness of the program. (Though I will later.) But what I am going to comment on is emphasis on total reps done in varying "chunks" (my term) versus the usual sets and reps prescription.

In short: I like it.

Okay, you probably want a bit more details out of me.

Waterbury's method feels like it will enable faster progression or, at least, more fluid progression. Let me explain with an example. Right now, using the standard sets/reps specifications, I am using 2 70 lbs dumbbells on the incline chest press (that's not me!) when doing 5x5. But, problem is, I can't do 5x5. I can do 5, 4, and then I drop to 65 lbs for the last 3 sets of 5. That's not bad, but doing this I have been stuck at 70 for 6 months. I can do 5x5 of 65 lbs without much problem but I haven't been able to get even 2 sets of 5. Not good. I haven't been able to figure out how to progress.

Let's see how Waterbury's method would work. I am supposed to choose a weight that I can normally do from 4-6 times and get 25 reps in. That would be 70 lbs. So I do 4, and then 4, and then 3, and then 3 (that's 14 so far), and then a couple sets of 2, and then drop to 65 to finish up. That allowed me to do 18 reps at 70 which has simply got to allow me to progress faster than I would otherwise. I'm a big believer in stress making the body adapt, so this just feels right.

I'll report back on how this actually turns out, but I'm hopeful.