#1383
Post
by KarlM » Mon May 06, 2024 9:53 am
I'm back from my Mediterranean cruise, and I'm sad. This was an amazing experience. Going in, I didn't think I was a "cruise type" but I was wrong. 10 days where you're completely taken care of is like crack, not that I know what crack is like, but, you get the point. How do you come off something like that? We had a freaking butler, for crying out loud. We boarded in Barcelona, Spain and disembarked in Trieste, Italy. We took a bus from Trieste to Venice, then took a water taxi to our hotel and spent two days running around Venice's alleys/canals. If I were to do this again, I would load up the front end with extra days to get used to the jet lag faster. It took about 4 days to adjust enough so that I wasn't feeling too tired during the daylight hours.
While on the boat I did a push/pull/legs split. They had machines and light dumbbells, so I made due. Push day was machine chest press, machine overhead press, cable overhead triceps extensions and DB side lateral raises. Pull day was lat pulldowns, cable rows, seated incline curls and DB bent over rear delt flys. Leg day was the most challenging in terms of making due with the meager equipment. I did Bulgarian split squats with 35 lb dumbbells in each hand. Then I did machine leg extensions and seated hamstring curls.
For the BSS, I put my rear foot up on the rotating pad from the machine leg extension machine. This was a nice hack, and let me get used to the movement pretty quick. I was doing sets of about 15 and I felt these mostly in my glutes. My glutes would start to burn and I'd call the set. I didn't notice any significant differences between my right and left sides. It's a good movement, but IMO it's probably not a realistic substitute to maintain strength for heavy squatting, if you're without a squat rack for a long stretch of time. I'd focus on hypertrophy if I found myself in that situation. They lit up my glutes, but I'm more glute dominant anyway, so YMMV.
I left for my vacation weighing 185.0 lbs, which is a bit heavy for me. These days, I need to be below 180 lb to look good (well, good enough that is lol). I weighed 187.2 lbs when I returned. I was rather pleased I didn't push my weight all the way up into the 190s, where I start to look sloppy. But 187+ is still too much, so my top priority right now is weight loss. I will get below 180 lb and then reassess. I might camp out there, or if I'm feeling good and liking the results enough, I may push back down to below 175 lb.
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log catch up
5/1/24, PUSH
Got this workout in the day I returned from Venice! Woke up at 6 am Venice time, and worked out around 5 pm Colorado time - I'd been up about 19 hours.
Comp. Bench
225 X 5r X 3s
Arsenal Standing Overhead Press (it's like a Viking press)
worked up to +180 lbs X 8 X 3, not sure I really like it
Cybex SLR (side lateral raise)
125 X 15, too heavy after OHP. Maybe that's a good sign?
120 X 17
120 X 15
The machine overhead press on the boat was angled in a way that let me press without shoulder pain. I am not able to reproduce that using any the machines at my home gym, but I hadn't tried this new Arsenal machine, so I gave it a shot. It worked pretty good. It's definitely an option.
******
5/2/24, PULL
AMBW = 187.2 lbs.
Chin-ups
+45 X 4 X 3
T-bar rows (chest supported)
+105 X 8 X 3
Seated Incline Curls
32.5 X 16
32.5 X 12
32.5 X 11
******
5/3/24, LEGS
AMBW = 185.6 lbs
Squat
305 X 5 X 3, felt fine. A little heavy, but not bad for taking about 2 weeks off heavy (for me) squatting.
Deficit Deadlift
315 X 5 X 2
******
5/5/24, PUSH
AMBW = 183.8 lbs
Comp. Bench
230 X 5 X 3
Incline Bench
185 X 5 X 3
Cybex SLR
120 X 20 X 3
Bench felt heavy. Hard to tell where my bench strength is since I'm pretty aggressively cutting. Doesn't matter however. Goal is weight loss and muscle retention. I'll worry about SBD numbers when I'm done with weight loss.
Last edited by
KarlM on Mon May 06, 2024 10:11 am, edited 3 times in total.
