KarlM: It's all about the log.

[EricK]

Wife and I have been busy getting ready for our freaking Mediterranean cruise! I promised this to her years ago when she finished school, lol, and we are finally doing it. I’m currently on a plane to Frankfurt, where we’ll catch a second to Barcelona. We board in Barcelona then disembark 10 days later in Venice.

Awesome! Have a blast!

Dips
+80 X 8 X 2
+80 X 7

Seated Incline Curls
32.5 X 18
32.5 X 14
32.5 X 12

Seated incline curls are like viagra for the biceps.

Big dips and bicep viagra. I need to spend more time around here...

Squat (H, 80%)
325 X 5r X 4s

DB Curls
40 X 20
40 X 16 X 2

Jeremey has a pair of 20s and 40s. I chose the heavier pair for curls.

What @DCR said. Plus, nice squat volume.

[JohnHelton]

@KarlM Have a blast on this trip. Sounds awesome.

[KarlM]

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.
******

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.

[KarlM]

And thanks for the well wishes @DanCR, @EricK, @JohnHelton!

[cole]

glad you had a good time karl

[EricK]

Sounds like an excellent trip! I'd love to do something like that some day!

[KarlM]

@cole, @EricK, it was a blast. Unfortunately, something like this isn't in the cards until maybe another decade. We had a pot of vacation money squirreled away for this thing, and now it's all gone. But it was worth it!

[KarlM]

log catch up
******
5/6/24

AMBW = 183.8 lbs

Chin-ups
+45 X 5
+45 X 4 X 2

T-bar rows (these are chest supported)
+107.5 X 8 X 3

Seated Incline Curls
32.5 X 17
32.5 X 12
32.5 X 11
******
5/7/24

AMBW = 184.8 lbs

Squat
315 X 5 X 3

Deficit Deadlift
325 X 5 X 2
******
5/8/24

AMBW = 183.6 lbs

Rest day. Wanted to log diet low.

[KarlM]

Fell off the logging wagon a bit there. As per normal, I haven't missed any training, just got busy with a lot of travel and didn't get to the logs. I decided to drive to Memphis, TN to handle my buddy Aaron at the USAPL world masters. He competed on 5/12/24. We had a blast. The drive to and especially back was a bit tedious, but I really do enjoy long road trips. Something about all that time to mull things over and seeing bits and pieces of both rural and urban America, well, it scratches some sort of troubadour itch I seem to have. I found gyms to stop at on my drive and while in Memphis to get my training in. One in Goodman, Kansas was in a rec center, and it felt just like I was back in my high school gym.
Aaron had his best meet to date, and... placed last.

Of note was that Brad Loomis of 3DMJ fame competed in Aaron's division. He's a genuinely nice fellow. He's currently quite lean and is pretty damn strong. He took second (out of 5). It's always inspiring to see other old heads out there getting it done and looking pretty damn good doing it.

After my Memphis trip, my wife and I travelled to Tucson, AZ to attend my niece's high school graduation with the rest of my raucous family. That was a lot of fun, and once again, those fuckers party hard and I managed to keep up with them. Not my niece, thank God. She headed out with her friends after all the family congrats and after we showered her with graduation money. But the rest of us so called adults, well... I also managed to get my training in at an LA Fitness close to my brother's house, but I was not up to my usual standards, because I was strung out and hung over.

After partying all weekend, my wife and I rented a car (on her company's dime) and drove to San Diego, CA. She had travel for work so I got to tag along. I worked remotely from the hotel (again, on her company's dime) and saw my boys. I trained with Ryan at a neat gym in Point Loma, called Point Loma Sports Club. He's switched back to powerlifting from body building, and we got a nice session in with all the good feels. He's doing really well out there and seeing him fills me with relief and pride We flew back home on 5/25, and I headed straight to the gym. I'll pick up my log from there.

I'm on a push/pull/legs/rest split right now. Weight loss is still the goal, but the travel put a dent in it.
******

5/25/24

Squat
340 X 5r X 3s

Deficit Deadlift (I stand on a 35lb bumper plate and wear my shoes. It's about a 1.5" deficit.)
350 X 5 X 2

Squats feel strong and dialed in. I'm also of the opinion that deficit deadlifts are better than sliced bread.
******

5/26/24

Comp. Bench
245 X 5 X 3, freaking moved well!

Incline Bench
197.5 X 5 X 3

Cybex Side Lateral Raises
120 X 20 X 3

Pete Rubish recently talked about this for bench, and I find it to be true in my case as well. When I bring the bar down fast on the eccentric (fast but controlled) I explode off the chest. I can probably lift 10-15 lbs more that way than if I'm tentative with my eccentric. Similar to @DanCR’s multiple log entries on the topic, there seem to be certain lessons I need to learn over and over!
******

5/27/24

Chinups
+45 X 6 @10
+45 X 5 @9.5
+45 X 5 @10

The above was probably not the best decision, lol.

T-bar rows (chest supported)
+112.5 X 8 X 3

Seated Incline Curls
32.5 X 19
32.5 X 12 X 2

When I get that damn SIC top set to 20, I'll go to the 35s. I'll lose about 5-6 reps or so and it will take several months to progress the top set to 20. Then the 37.5s will fall.
******

5/28/24

AMBW = 186.5 lbs. Not too bad considering the travel, partying and post-travel socializing. We've been jamming with our neighbors recently. They have musician friends that I've played with a couple times now. Really amazing to play with actual professionals. I play, and they adapt to what I do and it sounds so cool. Or we pick a random song, look up the chords/lyrics and jam along. It's time for me to get serious about playing with other people. Which means I need to learn some basic music theory.

SSB (-10% heavy day)
305 X 5 X 3

Deficit Deadlift (-10% heavy day)
315 X 5 X 2

The above is like a perfect workout.
******

5/29/24

Rest day. AMBW = 185.2 lbs.

[DanCR]

Pete Rubish recently talked about this for bench, and I find it to be true in my case as well. When I bring the bar down fast on the eccentric (fast but controlled) I explode off the chest. I can probably lift 10-15 lbs more that way than if I'm tentative with my eccentric. Similar to DanCR’s multiple log entries on the topic, there seem to be certain lessons I need to learn over and over!

Ironically, one of those lessons is exactly this one. I read this and immediately realized that I’ve been doing the same shit with my eccentric. No wonder that my bench has been junk lately.

When I really was benching well a few months ago, I was doing @Zak’s progression, and I found myself moving through sets much faster in desperate bids to get the required reps and continue moving along. Often to my surprise, I did keep getting them, for far longer than I expected. You’ve now made me retrospectively think that part of the reason was that I really went for it with rep speed.