After having to skip last weeks bench workout because of the infamous kidney boulder, I wasn’t sure how my benches were going to go this week. I had planned on sticking with last weeks planned weight of 297, but my warm-ups were so light I went with 308, which would have been my weight anyway if I had worked out last week. As you can see in the vid, it was ridiculously easy, and I believe I am back to 100% on the shoulder. I’ll move it up to 319 next week, and then depending on how easy it is I’ll either recycle back to 308 or move it up the next week.  The rest of my workout was stronger than usual. Everything I usually do for 8-10 reps I was instead knocking out 12-15 reps. I think my body is finally adjusting to the increased work load, as well as the track work that we are doing on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. I’ve been staying pretty lean on the diet, and have also started doing shots of lemon juice for the kidney stone issue (thanks Laura, I think).

If you follow my tweets or facebook posts then you know what happened to me Friday morning. Around 3:00 in the morning a slight ache in my left side woke me up. It quickly escalted to the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It literally brought me to my knees. My wife, Alisha, wanted to call the ambulance, but I didn’t want to wait that long, so I practically crawled to the car. At this point I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me, just that it felt like my body was shutting down. I was paralyzed with the pain. When we finally got to the hospital, with my wife driving through town like a bat out of he’ll and me writhing in pain in the back seat, she ran in to tell them that her husband was in severe pain and that I was too big to get out of the car by herself. They came out, decided to try to get me out on the side where my feet were, and then seemed to scratch their heads on how to do that. I had already opened the door on the other side, so I said heck with it and crawled out of that side. They rushed around to me and finally got me into the wheelchair. Once inside I got a look at the two who had my life in their hands. A security guard and a male nurse. The guard had us stop at the self check-in station and started asking me questions while Alisha parked the car. I could barely open my mouth, and this idiot was trying to figure out the computer. “gee, something’s wrong. It won’t enter the info. I wonder if the system is down.” Tweedledee and Tweedledum seemed to lose interest in me and focused more on the computer. At this point the f-bombs started to fly. My opening salvo started with “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?” and I believe also included something about “fuckety fuck fuckin fuckers”. This is when the othersecurity guard and more nurses started wandering over to ou area, and the decision was made to take me to where they could get my vitals and then check me in later. Good decision. Until the nurse from he’ll came in to draw blood. Somebody had already pissed in her cheerios and she decided to take it out on me. She took out a needle that looked like you could shoot a basketball through it and told me lie flat. No. I wasn’t moving. I was still paralyzed. She kept trying to twist and push me back, but I was too stubborn and too big. She finally rammed the needle in my left arm, the only one available to her. In an pissed off tone, she announced that no blood was coming out, that she stuck me perfectly and nothing was happening. She then takes a small pitcher and hangs it on the fingers of my right hand, which was attached to my right arm and tucked underneath me, and tells me I have to give a urine sample before the Doc will see me or give me meds. I let the pitcher hang there for a few seconds, then said “I can’t move, F NO!” and let it fall to the floor, where she just looked at it and then walked out. Alisha told them that I had a very high pain tolerance, and for me to be reacting this way meant that something was very wrong, and they should give me something quickly. More f-bombs were flying through the air, and I believe I scored a few direct hits, because a Doctor that seemed to be just walking by stuck his head in the door and said “give that man some Dilaudid, he’s in severe pain!”. Thanks Doc. Well, that wasn’t immediate, so I waited in agony while several nurses tried to get me set up. Finally the Dilaudid arrived, and I watched the male nude shoot two syringes into my IV. I felt the drug wash over me, a weird sensation. The pain was gone almost instantly, and I could finally lay flat on my back and relax. That is some kind of great shit, I’m telling you. No pain, nada. An hour later I passed a stone the size of a sesame seed, and I couldn’t believe that something so small could take me down so hard. They let me go at 5:45am, so the whole thing last less than three hours, but that was the longest time of my life. The doc said that more will follow, so I am going to work on my cussing, just to mix it up. I don’t want them expect the same old thing out of me every time I hit the er.

Ok workout today, wasn’t as psyched about it like I was last week, but it still went alright. I stayed at the same weight as last week, 374 x 3 reps. I somehow skipped a set, said he’ll with it, I’ll make up for it next week. Used too much of my back when pulling, not enough legs, will work on that next week as well. Sayanora.

The increased activity to which I’m subjecting myself (said tongue in cheek) is affecting my immune system. I caught some kind of 24 hour bug Thursday evening, lasting through Friday night, causing me to miss my bench workout. That sucked, because I was really looking forward to it, especially since I was going to wake up my oldest son to come workout with me. On Saturday I was in the woods all day with my brother in law, father in law, my son Garrett, and ten of his friends. Sunday I still wasn’t feeling the greatest, so I used that as an excuse to skip squats and just work biceps. To make up for this indiscretion, I hit a light chest, shoulders, and triceps workout today. Tomorrow I’ll keep active with some cardio and stretching. Wednesday I’ll be back at it heavy again with deadlifts. Ciao. (throwing some culture atchya, huh!)

First, a quick update on Sunday’s squat workout. The week before I had a lot of pain in my IT band, but I had been taking an anti-inflammatory all week, and I walked into the gym feeling good and ready to squat. I kept the suit off this time, since I was feeling zero pain, and I worked up to an easy triple with 297. Then we strapped on 330 for a final set, and on the first rep I felt my upper hamstring twang a bit, so I racked the weight. With so much time before I compete, no need to push it until something snaps completely.

Now, the reason I went over this is because I normally deadlift sumo style, meaning my feet are wide, wider than my squat stance. However, with my hammy still sore I switched to a conventional stance to take some of the pressure off of it. Last week we worked up to 330 for a triple, this week I planned on hitting a top set of 352, but that was so easy I upped it to 374 for a final set, and that was easy as well. So, long story short, I’m sticking to conventional deads for awhile. I just felt stronger in this stance.

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Shoulder coming along fine, now, but I did feel it all the way from my shoulder down to my wrist starting on my 2nd set. Moved my top set up to 265 x 5 reps. Looking on the video, it looks a lot easier than it felt. I still have not been feeling completely tight in my benches. I finished off with an easy down set of 20 reps with 198.

Time to put away the Hatfield bar and start doing regular squats. The shoulder was tight at first, with just the bar on my back, but after it loosened up, it felt fine, and I forgot that it was supposed to be injured. Still keeping it easy, no rush, not doing any heavy loads yet, or wearing any equipment other than a belt. I worked up to an easy set of 286 x 5 reps. Felt a little twinge in the left hip, or rather, where the upper thigh meets the hip on the outside, so I cut that one off about an inch high. Other than that, the weight was easy, and it felt good to do regular squats again. I’m going to hit a light bench workout tomorrow to loosen up, and then deadlift on Wednesday. Looking forward to a solid week on training. I’ll give you an update on diet and cardio tomorrow.

Best day yet or the shoulder! Very little pain. Hit 253 for 5 today, super easy, then a down set of 187 for 20 reps. As the video shows, both sets were very easy. The only time I felt very much in my right shoulder was the 1st set of incline DB presses, and only until I put myself in the right position, then it was fine.

Still sore from squatting on Sunday, so I stretched a little longer than normal to warm up. Funny thing about stretching. Back in the day, late 80’s, I stretched 2x a day, at least 30 minutes a session. Now, not so much, just 5-10 minutes before working out. I can tell a big difference, too. I spend the majority of my day stiff as hell now. I have to change my habits and stretch everyday, starting today.

Still trying to hang with the overhand grip. Today was the first sign of grip failure. On my last set of deads, 319 x 5, my grip was giving out on the 4th and 5th reps. I’ll probably switch to alt grip next week. I have small hands, so working the grip is essential to me. My sets and reps this week went as follows:

132 x 8 x 2 sets
197 x 5
231 x 5
275 x 5
319 x 5

Once I switch my grip, the weight will jump up a lot, it makes that much of a difference. My bodyweight is at 213 now, but I haven’t increased (or even started) my cardio like I intended.