Saturday, November 22, 2008

New stuff -- starting to really get it....

This week was kind of a back off week. I felt really tired from lack of sleep.

Here was my training for Friday and Saturday (my heavy WSB days):

Friday:

Morning
TGU: 32kg x 6:00; 40kg x 6:00
Various Swings/Snatches: 12:00

Early Evening
Speed Benches: 205 x 3 x 3; 225 x 9 x 3 (not real strong)
Incline DB Presses: 85 x 2 x 10; 95 x 1 x 10 (eh)
Pec Deck: Worked up to rack x 10
Lat Pull Downs: Rack x 2 x 10
Close Grip Bench: 135, 185, 205, 225 x 1 x 3 (easy)
Various snatches and swings: 10:00

Saturday:
Box Squats: 275 x 10 x 2 (not real strong)
Leg Press: 6,8 x 1 x 10; 10 x 2 x 10 (felt really strong)
Leg Curls: Stack x 1 x 2
Front Squat: 135, 185, 225, 245 x 1 x 3; 275 x 1 x 1 (felt strong)
Snatches: 15 minutes of top of the :30 swings (24kg x 7 reps) -- felt like I could have done this all day.

Bowling: We massage each other in massage class. I got a massage on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was relaxed and I was absolutely stroking the ball. I lost carry in the last game, but still finished with a 652 (213-248-194).

Massage: Getting better, but still a lot of work to do.

Cooking: I made some oxtail for class on Thursday. Excellent.... the class loved it.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Some of this week's training....

Tuesday:

Morning:
Renegade Row: (2 x 24kg) x 3 x 10
Swings: 32kg x 5 x 20
Soloflex Bench Press 3 x 10; 5 x 5

Evening:
Towel Rows
Towel Curls



Wendesday:

Morning:
* TGU: 32kg x 11:00
* Swings: 2x24kg x 6 x 12
* KB Crunches: (2x24kg) x 15

Evening:
* Hack Squats: 24kg x 5 x 5
* SLD: 32kg x 3 x 10
* Front Squats: (2x32kg) x 5 x 5
* Snatches: 32kg x 2 x 15L/15R
* Jerks: 2x24kg x 2 x 15

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

This week's training...

Monday:

DE Bench Day:
Flat Speed Bench: 205 x 6 x 3; 225 x 3 x 3
Cable Crossovers
Lat Pulldowns: Stack x 2
Hammer Incline Press (I hate the groove on these)
Close Grip Bench: 185 x 5; 205 x 5; 225 x 3
KB MP: 32kg x 3 x 5; 32 x 2 x 7 (these felt better than I thought they would)

Bowling Practice: 8 games in 45 minutes (I was bowling well, averaged 232 with a 260, 250, and 3 games over 225.


Tuesday:

After Monday's DE bench day, my shoulders hurt pretty bad the next day.

TGU: 32kg x 11:00 (these made the shoulders a lot better)
KB armbar: 24kg and 32kg
Not really up for swings -- just went for a walk


Wednesday:
Good Mornings: 135, 225, 275 x 1 x 5; 315, 355, 375 x 1 x 3
Single Leg Press: 2,3,4,4.5 x 1 x 10
Leg Curls: Stack x 1 x 10,15
Romanian DL: 135, 225, 275 x 1 x 10
Front Squats: 135, 185, 225, 245 x 1 x 3; 265 x 1 x 2
Snatch Sprints: 3 x 20L/20R (these were fast and felt good in the shoulders.)

Bowling League: 203-257-203 - 663 (only 3 opens)
Made a great adjustment in 8th frame of the 1st game and rescued it. At least doubled in the 10th frame of every game. Ball speed was up because I corrected a timing problem where the pushaway was too high.

Tomorrow:

Get Ups/HoC Cardio

Friday: Will not squat on ME Bench Day, but will do KB C&P. Hopefully will work up to the beast.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Yesterday's stuff.......

Today was WSB Dynamic Squat Day:
Box Squats: 245 x 3 x 2; 265 x 3 x 2; 285 x 2 x 2; 295 x 2 x 2 (felt really strong..)
Leg Press: 540, 720, 810, 900 x 1 x 10 (easy)
Rack Pulls (+4"): 225, 315, 385, 435, 455 x 1 x 1
Seated Leg Curls: Stack x 2 x 10
Tire Flips: 2'+ x 40

Went to a wedding yesterday. It was held at the old Masquerade.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Updates on some new stuff

Hey all - thank you for reading my blog. Here are some updates (Gonzo style - taken from porn lingo, it means "not scripted or structured"):

* Message Therapy class. I gave my first 1/2 hour massage all on my own (including efflurage, petrisage, compression of the paraspinals, lats, traps, delts, and .sternocleidomastoids. No one was telling me what to do. I am sure the student was disappointed in my work, but I was satisified that:
- the muscles were more relaxed that when I started
- I did not hurt him
==> he offered no real criticism.

What I need to work on.
* Body positioning/mechanism
* Petrisage/compress/friction techniques.
* Relaxing.

Training:

I have been doing a WSB protocol recently. Feeling stronger!:
* Yesterday I was able to BP (competition style) 285lb (PR since dislocating my shoulder in May 2007). I also close gripped 245lb.
* Today I worked up to 295 in the box squats, and they are fast. I am sure that I have a 375-400lb box squat in me.
* I did a deep 375lb Good Morning (PR)
* My leg presses feel really strong - doing 10 plates on a side pretty easily
* Got a little epiphany today while doing box squats - just like the deadlift, you need to really wedge under the bar.
* Rack pulled 455lb today (bar 4" above floor). Felt really good. And this was after box squatting and the leg press.
* There is a really big tire their (Over 2' think). I finish my leg day work with this for some GPP/conditioning. I have not seen anyone else flip the tire.

I got my Beast (DD 106 lb. kettlebell) last Friday:
* Out of the box, I did a TGU on each side.
* I got some TGU's on video, but I got a new computer and I need to download the software so I can upload them for your viewing pleasure.

Other training -- recently did 80 24kg snatches with the right hand only.

Diet: Trying to lose 13 lbs (to get to 189 lbs) by X-mas. Going hard core with this - my diet is going liquid 4 days/week, including:
* Juice fruits and vegetables.
* Protein shakes
* Soups
* Water

Take care and God bless, Faizal

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Massage Class/KB PRs/The election/The Cowboys

MASSAGE Class

I am in my second week of massage therapy class (Body Systems). Fun stuff. What is really cool about this class is how you learn about how all of the systems are interrelated. Even though as a message therapy you are primarily working with muscles, you still have to understand the other systems.
* Circulatory (this is why efflurage moves blood towards the heart)
* Lymphatic (would you do message on a cancer patient)
* Nervous (why does a client react how they do)
* Muscular (this should be obvious)
* Skeletal (what does muscle/tendons attach to and bony landmarks)
* Integumentary, i.e., Skin (what do you think that you are touching)
* Endocrine (Why do you feel better after a message)

KB PRs:

I set some new PR recently:
* TGU with the beast (just got it Friday, I love it)
* Snatch: 24kg x 80 (see video)

Going to set another PR this weekend, but not sure which:
* Snatch: 24kg x 64L/64R
* Snatch: 32kg x 32L/32R
* BP: 300lb (I have benched more in the past, but not since I broke my back in 2002)
* Squat: 450lb (I have squatted more in the past, but not since I broke my back in 2002)

My thoughs on the election:

1) Is it me, or did Obama just sound more confident than McCain during the debates. This is especially true when talking about the economy. While I don't agree with everything in Obama's plan, McCain showed that he absolutely has no clue about the economy. This is probably because:
a) He has never in his life created any value which he in turned used for income.
b) He has been a senator for so long it made him stupid (watch C-SPAN for 12 minutes, and you will see what I am talking about) and distorted his view of money.

2) When I hear people say "the economy is going to go down hill if Obama is president", I think how can the economy get any worse when:
* Banks are going out of business (when the fork has it happened to this degree)
* Credit is frozen (even when the economy sucked arse in 1992, credit was freely flowing)
* Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch have been bought (it used to be that Merrill Lynch in a bad economy used to be ONLY company that would be hiring)
==> Can the economy get any worse. It would be like finding a paralyzed man having a heart attack and thinking "I don't want to give CPR, I don't want to hurt him".

Here is the problem - and it is a fundamental one - is that we had a unstable economy, and the reason for it was simply. We have too many people/too much money in our society who are either measuring something (property appraisers, accountants, brokers), trying to sell something (salespeople, marketing, writers), trying to regulate something, or trying to hide something (CEO's) and not enough people doing the two things that provide economic value:
1) Making something, or
2) Providing an essential service so that someone else can make something.

Too many retards were trying to make money on their house, and our economy blew us. Surprised? I'm not. We live in a country where every man, woman, and child can live in the state of Texas and be given an acre of land. With that, why would a 2BR condo in Tampa cost $500K -- that's right, it shouldn't. Thus we have the downward spiral of our economy.

Taxes are not fun, but they are needed. They are good when they are used to pay for stuff that individuals/businesses cannot pay for on their own, i.e. for the common good (roads, schools, law enforcement, etc.) but they are bad when they are used for redistribution of wealth (long-term welfare, financing stadiums for millionaire owners, bail outs of poorly run businesses, etc.). By the way, most of your federal taxes go towards the following:
* debt service (if it is ghetto-fabulous to spend now and pay later, what is it when government does it)
* Social Security (which is only sustainable if MANY more people die than enter the work force)

==> I may get flamed for this, I don't care.

Bowling:

I had been bowling badly, but hit a 690 last week. Will have to see what today holds. Need to work on the following:
* Don't rush timing step
* Stay behind the ball. If you want to bend it, stay behind it but release off middle finger.

I am trying a new diet:
* All liquid, 5 days a week. The liquid is going to come in the following three forms:
a. Water
b. Protein drinks
c. Juiced fruits and vegetables
d. O'Douls when bowling

Dallas Cowboys
Kinds of sucks when your starter (a mobile quarterback) goes down and the replacement quarterback(a statue) makes you change your offense. Sounds like bad planning. Sounds like my favorite teams (Knicks, Yankees, and Cowboys) all have bad management. I think that the Cowboys can finish 10-6 and still make the playoffs. Also, did you have to wait for an overdose to know that Isaiah Thomas was on drugs.