Bench and... skullcrushers?

After working a little late on Monday night, I found myself unable to make it to the gym.  Unfortunately, I just got home too late.  It was unfortunate because on Tuesday, it was pouring, and the traffic home from work was terrible.  I left work kind of on time, but sat in traffic forever, and got home late anyway.  I still went to the gym, I don't like not going for more than 2 days.  And it feels like I've done that a few times recently.

I did flat bench, and tried skull crushers for the first time in like 10 years?  I think I did them once when I was in college.  They were awkward, and I kept the weight light, but I feel like they worked the shit out of my triceps.  Dunno if it's because the exercise is effective, or I'm just not adapted to it.  For bench, I started well, busting out 2 sets at 185, but the 3rd set I lost my focus.  2 "bros" were standing in front of my bench, having a pleasant discussion about something.  I don't even remember the topic, but it was distracting.  I let it mess me up, and it kind of ruined my 3rd set.  Their fault?  My fault for not staying focused?  Probably the latter.  Here are my sets.

11/29/11
Bench Press - 3 sets
95x9 (warmup)
135x5 (warmup)
185x5
185x4
185x3

Skull Crusher - 3 sets
60x8
60x8
60x8

Easy as pie.  But I'm already sore in my tri's.  Thursday is either squats or may some clean and press?  We'll see how I'm feeling.

Saturdays pulling (and football soreness)

So, did I mention how ridiculously sore I got from playing football on Thursday?  It's Monday, and I'm still a little sore, especially in my calves and feet.  Now, sprinting isn't really a part of my training regimen, but maybe it should be.  I didn't expect to get my ass kicked this hard.  I also think that I sat on my ass this weekend, and it didn't help my body recover at all.  I didn't eat enough either.  Surprising, considering it was fucking Thanksgiving weekend.

I had planned on doing squats on Saturday, but my legs were in no condition to take that kind of a load.  Instead, I did a "regular" pulling session, without deadlifts.  Here are the sets.

Oh, and on the bicep curls I did 4 sets... 2 with the "hammer" bar, and 2 with the curved bar.  The hammer was a barbell that you added weights to, the curved bar was off of a rack, meaning there were multiple bars of different weights I could pick from.  I put the hammer barbell on the gym scale, and it came to exactly 22lbs.

11/26/11
1 hand dumbbell rows - 3 sets
65x8 (warmup)
75x5 (warmup)
100x6
105x2
95x6

Barbell Preacher Curls - 4 sets
40x8 (warmup)
72x8 Hammers
92x5 Hammers
80x6 Curved bar
80x5 Curved bar

Barbell Shrugs - 3 sets
135x8
185x8
225x3 (grip slipping)
185x7

With shrugs (and deadlifts), it always seems like my grip is failing.  I don't know if I should be specifically working on my grip, if I need to get one of those stupid grip things that people use while driving to increase their strength.  It's an idea, I guess. On the 1 handed rows, when I jumped the weight to 105, it was the same thing.  Grip fails.  I'm gonna start googling how to increase your grip strength.  It's holding me back.

A Late Happy Thanksgiving

It's a few days late, but I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.   One thing that's become a tradition with my family and friends, is that every thanksgiving we play football in the morning.  A turkey bowl, if you will.

This year was no different.  We had a huge turnout, and got in a long game of 8 on 8 with an automatic QB.  As usual, half of us were hungover, but everyone had a blast.  After 2-2.5 hours of running our asses off, it was time to pack it in and get ready to eat.

I won't get into too many specifics, but as expected the turkey was huge, there were too many side dishes, and there were 3 desserts.  Ok, one specific:  my mom makes a pumpkin cheesecake that's ridiculously good.  And a mean apple pie.  And my wife made one hell of a pumpkin pie. 

Anyway, good times were had with friends in the morning, family in the afternoon, and with my wife in the evening ;)

Hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving too.


PS - I made it to the gym on Saturday.  I'll post up the workout later today.

Bench and Shoulder Press

Ok, so I've been making some progress on bench... not so much on shoulder press.  I think there's something off in my right shoulder.  If I pull my arm back too far while it's over my head, I get some serious sharp pain in there.  It doesn't really impact my workouts too much, but if the weight gets too far behind my head during the shoulder press, I instantly have to stop, pack up, and go home.  The next day it won't hurt, but it'll be tight when I move the arm too far back again.  It's part of the reason why I've been doing dumbell press more often lately, I can keep the weight just above my head much more easily, and it allows me to do the exercise easier.

Because I've been hitting the gym less frequently, last night I combined bench press and shoulder press into one session.  I also tried doing less sets and reps with higher weight.  Here's what I did.

11/22/11
Bench Press - 3 sets
95x9 (warmup)
135x6 (warmup)
185x3 - nailed this very easy
195x2 - worked very hard at that 2nd rep
185x3

Standing Shoulder Press - 3 shitty sets
45x8 (warmup)
115x3 - easy
125x2 - very very difficult
115x2

Reverse Curls (Triceps) - 2 sets
60x6
60x6
55x7

25 bodyweight dips


Overall, I'm happy with the bench.  Doing less volume allows me to increase the weight more.  Increasing the weight increases my muscle growth.  Shoulders, I felt some pain in there which really screwed me up.  I wanted to go heavier with less reps, but it just wasn't working.

Strangely enough, after the 25 dips I felt a huge tightness in my chest, like my breastplate needed to be cracked.  You know, the way you would crack your knee, or to a much lesser extent, your knuckles.  I've had that feeling before, but never as a result of anything at the gym.  And this time, it was much more hardcore.  The tightness was intense, and I was unable to crack it.  I felt it still when I woke up this morning, and today, while stretching, it finally cracked.  It definitely relieved most of the pressure, but I still feel it a little.  Weird.  I'm sure it'll go away though.

Tomorrow is Turkey Day, and that means football in the morning with friends and family.  I'm pumped.

It's been a while

It's been a full week since I last posted.  Life has been a little crazy, and time has been scarce.  I've lifted twice in the past 7 days, and I'll post my workouts in 2 posts to make it easier to follow.

First... a little catch up on what's been going on the past week.  It's been fun, it's been busy, and I've loved it.

Wednesday night my brother and I went to NYC to watch Bela Fleck and the Flecktones perform at Town Hall.  As expected, the show was phenominal... each of the guys in the band played different instruments, and between the banjo, the piano, harmonica, the bass and drummer... it was all pretty mind blowing.  Each guy got his time to shine with numerous solo's, and they all really played their hearts out.  It ended up being a really fun and awesome night with my brother, and I can't thank him enough for inviting me.

On Thursday, my wife took me to the Hamptons (eastern LI) for my birthday.  The weather was rain, but we drove around a bit and saw some sights where we could.  Our destination was a bed and breakfast, where we spent the night.   The room we stayed in was huge, with a really big screen TV, a jacuzzi, a back porch, 2 big couches, plenty of board games, and a king sized bed.  Yes, it was epic.  Thursday night, we went out for dinner and enjoyed a fantastic meal of fish and filet mignon, oysters and a fudge sunday to top it all off.  It's safe to say we gorged ourselves with no regrets.  The food was fantastic.  Friday morning we enjoyed a delicious breakfast that was a little unusual. I had a LOBSTER fritatta, and Anna enjoyed an omelet with all sorts of crazy shit in there, including sun dried tomatoes, bacon, and some kind of Vermont cheese.  All in all, it was a really great time and my birthday couldn't have been better.

Saturday night, Anna and I went out with some friends who wanted to treat me to some drinks for my birthday.  Another fun night... this time with shots, spilled beers, and darts.  Oh and weird thing happened... some dude knocked Anna's beer over INTO her purse.  He looks at what he just did and says "someone needs to get her a new beer," or something like that and then gets up... we assumed he was getting her another beer.  But no, the guy ran away from the scene of the crime.  One of my friends and I went outside just in time to see him peeling out with his girlfriend in tow.  Go figure... Asshole.

Sunday was spent at my parents house with some of the family, they had a little birthday cake for me which was nice.  I also got to see my niece and nephew, along with my cousin and his fiance.  It was really a nice time with some family I hadn't seen in a little while.

All in all, I was spoiled like crazy for my birthday.  Poor Anna has a bag that still smells like pumpkin beer.

Now... to my workout on Saturday.  Since it had been a little while since I had last done deadlifts, I did some RDL's instead.  I just went a tiny bit lighter on the weight, and really concentrated on using more hamstring tension to raise the weight.  I also did some weighted chin ups and nailed biceps a bit.  Here are the sets.

11/19/11
RDL's - 3 sets
135x8 (warmup)
225x5 (warmup)
285x5
285x5
285x5

Weighted Chinups - 5 sets
25x8
25x7
25x5
25x6
25x4

Biceps Preacher Curl (2 hands)- 3 sets
80x4
70x7
70x6

A couple of things here.  This was all last Saturday, and I'm not sure if I did 3 or 4 sets of the RDL's.  I don't want to post more than I'm sure that I did, so I'm only putting 3 sets down.  Also, I don't remember the exact breakdown of the chinups, but I know I did 30 reps total.  And finally, the preacher curls were done using a "crooked" bar, not the straight bar.  Between the chinups and the preachers, my bi's were shot afterwards. It's Wednesday, and my forearms are still sore from this workout.

I'll post my workout from last night in a separate post, so things don't get too confusing.

Another Day, Another Terrible Night's Sleep

Well, as the title of this post suggests, I slept like dog shit last night.  You could say that I set myself up for failure because I stayed up somewhat late playing some MW3.  But to make matters worse, like clockwork, I wake up at 4am for no reason.  As usual, I laid in bed pretending to sleep until around 630am.  I got out of bed in zombie mode, and managed to put some soap on my body and get myself wet in the shower.  1 big thermos of coffee later and I survived my morning commute to the office.

The plan tonight is to go see Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.  Ever hear of them?  They're led by this guy: 

Mr. Bela Fleck himself

I haven't, but my brother has assured me that I will enjoy myself.  If I remember correctly, he said they're a damn good bluegrass band.  I don't usually like that type of music, but he's never been wrong when it comes to stuff like this, so I believe him.

Plus, something tells me I'm going to have more than a few beers in me.  I think it's gonna be a good night.

Incline Bench

I switched to incline bench last night, and it worked out well.  I'm definitely weaker when I'm pressing on an incline, but I think it's a great way to mix things up and help strengthen your chest.  After incline, I did some flat bench dumbbell press, and finished up with some triceps using cables.

Here are my sets.

11/14/11
Incline Bench - 5 sets
95x8 (warmup)
135x5 (warmup)
175x5
175x4
165x4
165x4
155x6

Flat Bench Dumbbell Press - 3 sets
75x4
65x9
65x7

Triceps Cable Pull down - 4 sets
50x7 (reverse grip, as if I was doing bicep curls)
50x7 (reverse grip)
50x6 (ropes)
50x5 (ropes)

This was an up and down night at the gym.  Incline I started out strong, but died really quick.  On my 1st set at 165, the bar moved way too far forward on the 2nd rep and I needed a spot to get it back up.  I finished the set with 4 reps, but it tired the shit out of me.  By the end, I knew I had to drop the weight to 155, else I embarrass myself trying to put up 165 again.

On the dumbbell press, after my first set I decided to opt for less weight and more reps.  My chest was feeling super destroyed by the end of this.  As were my triceps.  I switched things up from the dips this week, and used the cables... which I usually hate doing.  The "50lbs" I used is such an abstract weight, because it's using pulley's.

I have no plans to train tonight, but I might have to squeeze something in.  Wednesday I'm going to a show with my brother after work, and I have off for my birthday on Thursday and Friday.  My wife has hinted at something crazy during those 2 days.  Like I need to pack an overnight bag crazy.  So the gym may be out of the question for the rest of the week.

Deadlifts are next on the menu.  If not tonight, then maybe Friday?  We'll see.

Either way, guess what I'm doing tonight?

Ye olde back, sans deadlifts

Lately my time has been scarce.  After work, it's a mad rush to either meet with a real estate agent and look and some new places to live, or get to the gym.  And then afterwards, it's always late and I can barely fit in some dinner.  I've been trying to fit in some MW3 too, but obviously there are more important things going on.

Friday I was able to train some back and biceps, and left out the deadlifts.  I did barbell rows, weighted chinups, and a few sets of biceps.  Here are my sets.

11/11/11

Barbell Rows - 3 sets

95x8 (warmup)

155x7

155x7

155x8

Weighted Chinups - 6 sets

25lbs x 6

25lbs x 6

25lbs x 5

25lbs x 4

25lbs x 4

25lbs x 4

Bicep Curls - 5 sets

40s x 7 dumbbells

35s x 8 dumbbells

35s x 8 dumbbells

80 x 6 barbell

70 x 7 barbell

Not a bad job.  I was suffering on the chinups, using the wide bar on the smith machine.  The barbell rows I was using a little bit of an exaggerated motion to get the bar up.  

Tonight the plan is to nail some incline bench press.  And afterwards, I'm gonna eat like a champ and then play MW3 until the wee hours of the night.

Squats, Shoulders and Being Exhausted

Between picking up a mattress on Monday, and looking at properties on Tuesday, I couldn't make it to the gym till Wednesday.  Of course, after getting some amazing sleep Monday night on the new mattress, Tuesday night was terrible, tossing and turning all night.  I'm lucky if I got 4-5 hours of sleep, and Wednesday I was like a zombie at work.

I was so exhausted that I almost didn't work out, but I knew that Thursday we were looking at more properties, and there was no way I was gonna put off training till Friday.  So, I zombie shuffled my way over the gym.  Here are my sets for squatting and seated dumbbell shoulder press.

11/9/11
Squats - 3 sets
135x8 (warmup)
185x5 (warmup)
245x5
235x5
235x5

Seated Shoulder Press - 3 sets
35s x 8 (warmup)
45s x 5 (warmup)
60s x 5
60s x 5
60s x 4

I wanted to do more, but I was really exhausted.  Afterwards, I came home, ate huge amounts of roast beef, then proceeded to make a 4 scoop protein shake with 1.5 bananas, whole milk, heavy cream and water that my wife and I split.  I went to bed with a very, very full stomach.

PS - I managed to get "decent" sleep Wednesday night, 1130pm - 6am.  Straight through, no waking up or anything.  6.5 hours isn't great, but it's better than 4.

PPS - MW3 is the fucking bomb.  Kill confirmed, anyone?

The value of a good night sleep

Last night my wife and I went and picked up a mattress and box spring from my late grandfather's house.  The mattress was only a couple of years old, which is a newborn baby compared to our old mattress.  For the past couple of years, Anna and I had been sleeping on a bed that was older than me.  It was my brother's OLD mattress, and he's 10 years older than I am.  The thing squeaked, it was hard, uncomfortable, and...well old. 

Picture this, just older and shittier. And not cut open..yet.

Yea.  It was pretty ridiculous.  Either way, we picked up the new mattress, and had a fantastic night of sleep.  My first one in a long time.  Seriously, my first night of good sleep in a really long time.  Let me start from the beginning.

Sleep is so fucking important.   It plays a role in just about everything you do.  How well you can perform tasks.  How well you can handle stress.  It effects your mood, your pain, your motivation level.  I could go on and on, but it literally has the potential to impact everything you control in your life.

How do I know all this?  Well, aside from reading about it, I know because I used to be a beautiful sleeper.  I'm serious.  I would sleep 8 hours a night, almost every night.  I'd wake up feeling like the man.  It didn't matter if I left the lights or the TV on.  I could go the other way too, turning off all the lights and TV.  I would fall asleep no problem in a pitch black room.  

Everyone else I knew would complain of having shitty sleep, or just not getting enough, etc.  Not me.  I slept like a baby on morphine. Every single night.  Or at least, 99/100 nights.  Every once in a while I'd have a poor nights sleep, but that's just because some asshole let his car alarm go off at 3am.  Even then, I'd go back to sleep with no problems.  This also excludes nights where I purposely would limit my sleep, to play a new game or to stay out drinking with friends.

Then something changed.

About a month before my wedding, I woke up in the middle of the night, around 2am.  That's not really unusual, it had happened before. Sometimes I'd go take a piss, or just roll over and fall back asleep, no problems.  But this time was different.  I woke up, and was WIDE AWAKE.  Like I had just slept a solid 8 hours and woke up, pumped and full of energy.  So, I got up, turned on the xbox and figured I'd play a video game for like a half hour till I got tired and went back to sleep.  Moment I turned on the TV my wife woke up and told me to shut that shit off.  I can't blame her, the thing is bright and loud and woke her up.  So now I'm sitting in darkness on my couch.  I tried going back to bed, but as I said earlier, that mattress squeaks like a motherfucker, and woke up my wife even more.  I'm laying in bed, not tired, tossing and turning and waking my wife up every 10 minutes.  Add to it that at this point, I'm feeling guilty that I'm continuously waking her up, and I move back to the couch, where I figure I'll just sit for a little while and wait till I get tired.

Fast forward to like 530am, I'm finally feeling tired again, and I get back to bed (waking my wife up yet again.)  It takes me a while to finally fall asleep... and then my alarm is going off waking me up for work.  I ended up with like 3 hours of sleep.  Ok.  I figure it's just an anomaly, whatever - no big deal.  But then, the next night it happens again.  And continues to happen sporadically over the next few weeks.  Not every night, but maybe every other night, or every couple of nights.

Next thing you know, I'm literally having fucking anxiety over being able to sleep.  People are telling me, "don't worry it's just nerves over the wedding."  Ok, my wife and I get married on September 1st.  On our honeymoon, the sleep deprivation happens EVERY NIGHT.  We're in the Dominican Republic on the vacation of our lives and I'm fucking tired as hell the entire time.

We come home from the honeymoon, and it's still happening.  Thankfully, not every night, but often enough that every time I think I'm beginning to sleep normally again, it would happen and I'd be back to sleeping shittily.  And, whenever I would wake up, even just to roll over, my mind would instantly start thinking, "Am I going to be able to fall back asleep?  What if I can't? Etc, etc..."

I'm sure everyone knows how terrible it is to try to do anything when you're extremely tired.  

No good dude.  When I don't get enough sleep, It's like i'm just slogging through the day, not really caring about anything.  Just being tired.  Oh so tired.

Now, a couple of months later it still happens, but I'm a little less nutty about it.  I also make sure I follow a few straight forward things to help me sleep.  1) I sleep in darkness.  2) When I do wake up, unless I have to take a piss, I don't get out of bed.  It may take me a little while to fall back asleep, but I still lay there and close my eyes.  3) I try not to think about "will i fall back asleep?"  I think about how comfortable I am, and try to let myself fall asleep, rather than forcing myself to fall asleep. If that makes any sense.  4) I finally got a mattress that isn't hard as a rock and doesn't fucking squeak.

Do these things always work? No.  They sometimes do.  And I still sometimes start my day with only 3-4 hours of sleep.  What sucks is I'm slowly beginning to just accept that I'm going to be a shitty sleeper the rest of my life.

Here are some other tips, straight off of the MDA website.

• Sleep in a dark room.
• Read, rather than use a laptop or TV, before going to bed.
• Get exposure to "blue" light during the day.  (aka the sun.)
• Sleep in a cooler temperature.
• Have someone give you a massage before bed, or use a foam roller.
• Get yourself into a routine before going to bed.

There are more tips at that link, but some of them are a little out there.  Either way, if you're having trouble sleeping, following some of those tips can give some help.  I've found that if I go for a walk during the day, I tend to sleep better at night too.

The whole point of this story?  Get your goddamn sleep.  You never know when you might lose the ability to sleep well.  

And here's the pictures of people sleeping that I promised.

awww... she's fucking sleeping!

  

P.S. - No training tonight, going to look at a few properties with my wife.  Tomorrow it's on like donkey kong.

Cleaning it up

It was a day of cleaning on Saturday... and boy, did I clean.  I think I've done cleans maybe 3-4 times ever in my life, and every time I do them... A) they wreck me.  B) I say "I should do these more often."  and C) I don't do them again for a while.  For those of you who don't know what cleans are, take a look below.  That's the same demo video shown on www.crossfit.com.

Doing hang cleans fucking annihilated my traps and upper back, my forearms and wrists, and of course my life.  And again, I'm an asshole.  I workout on Saturday and don't update the blog till Monday... I'm going to forget exactly how many reps for each set that I did.

11/5/11
Hang Cleans - 5 sets
45x8 (warmup)
95x8
115x6
125x5
125x5
125x4

Bicep Curls - 3 sets
35s x 8 (seated)
35s x 8 (seated)
35s x 8 (standing)

Rear Delt Raises - 3 sets
25s x 8 (warmup)
45s x 8
45s x 8
45s x 8

The cleans were sloppy as hell, but that's just a lack of practice.  If you're wondering what the hell a "rear delt raise" is, I took two dumb bells, bent over, and raised my arms to the side.  Kind of like this guy.  I've never actually done these before, but my back is sore today.  I guess it did something.

Overall, I'm happy with the workout, but want to increase the weight on the cleans.  Can't wait to do more  next week.

Oh and one last thing - Jets and Giants took care of business this weekend.  With the victory over the Bills and the Patriots loss to the Giants, the Jets are now tied for 1st in their division.  Nice!

The value of a good night sleep

Last night my wife and I went and picked up a mattress and box spring from my late grandfather's house.  The mattress was only a couple of years old, which is a newborn baby compared to our old mattress.  For the past couple of years, Anna and I had been sleeping on a bed that was older than me.  It was my brother's OLD mattress, and he's 10 years older than I am.  The thing squeaked, it was hard, uncomfortable, and...well old. 

Picture this, just older and shittier. And not cut open..yet.

Yea.  It was pretty ridiculous.  Either way, we picked up the new mattress, and had a fantastic night of sleep.  My first one in a long time.  Seriously, my first night of good sleep in a really long time.  Let me start from the beginning.

Sleep is so fucking important.   It plays a role in just about everything you do.  How well you can perform tasks.  How well you can handle stress.  It effects your mood, your pain, your motivation level.  I could go on and on, but it literally has the potential to impact everything you control in your life.

How do I know all this?  Well, aside from reading about it, I know because I used to be a beautiful sleeper.  I'm serious.  I would sleep 8 hours a night, almost every night.  I'd wake up feeling like the man.  It didn't matter if I left the lights or the TV on.  I could go the other way too, turning off all the lights and TV.  I would fall asleep no problem in a pitch black room.  

Everyone else I knew would complain of having shitty sleep, or just not getting enough, etc.  Not me.  I slept like a baby on morphine. Every single night.  Or at least, 99/100 nights.  Every once in a while I'd have a poor nights sleep, but that's just because some asshole let his car alarm go off at 3am.  Even then, I'd go back to sleep with no problems.  This also excludes nights where I purposely would limit my sleep, to play a new game or to stay out drinking with friends.

Then something changed.

About a month before my wedding, I woke up in the middle of the night, around 2am.  That's not really unusual, it had happened before. Sometimes I'd go take a piss, or just roll over and fall back asleep, no problems.  But this time was different.  I woke up, and was WIDE AWAKE.  Like I had just slept a solid 8 hours and woke up, pumped and full of energy.  So, I got up, turned on the xbox and figured I'd play a video game for like a half hour till I got tired and went back to sleep.  Moment I turned on the TV my wife woke up and told me to shut that shit off.  I can't blame her, the thing is bright and loud and woke her up.  So now I'm sitting in darkness on my couch.  I tried going back to bed, but as I said earlier, that mattress squeaks like a motherfucker, and woke up my wife even more.  I'm laying in bed, not tired, tossing and turning and waking my wife up every 10 minutes.  Add to it that at this point, I'm feeling guilty that I'm continuously waking her up, and I move back to the couch, where I figure I'll just sit for a little while and wait till I get tired.

Fast forward to like 530am, I'm finally feeling tired again, and I get back to bed (waking my wife up yet again.)  It takes me a while to finally fall asleep... and then my alarm is going off waking me up for work.  I ended up with like 3 hours of sleep.  Ok.  I figure it's just an anomaly, whatever - no big deal.  But then, the next night it happens again.  And continues to happen sporadically over the next few weeks.  Not every night, but maybe every other night, or every couple of nights.

Next thing you know, I'm literally having fucking anxiety over being able to sleep.  People are telling me, "don't worry it's just nerves over the wedding."  Ok, my wife and I get married on September 1st.  On our honeymoon, the sleep deprivation happens EVERY NIGHT.  We're in the Dominican Republic on the vacation of our lives and I'm fucking tired as hell the entire time.

We come home from the honeymoon, and it's still happening.  Thankfully, not every night, but often enough that every time I think I'm beginning to sleep normally again, it would happen and I'd be back to sleeping shittily.  And, whenever I would wake up, even just to roll over, my mind would instantly start thinking, "Am I going to be able to fall back asleep?  What if I can't? Etc, etc..."

I'm sure everyone knows how terrible it is to try to do anything when you're extremely tired.  

No good dude.  When I don't get enough sleep, It's like i'm just slogging through the day, not really caring about anything.  Just being tired.  Oh so tired.

Now, a couple of months later it still happens, but I'm a little less nutty about it.  I also make sure I follow a few straight forward things to help me sleep.  1) I sleep in darkness.  2) When I do wake up, unless I have to take a piss, I don't get out of bed.  It may take me a little while to fall back asleep, but I still lay there and close my eyes.  3) I try not to think about "will i fall back asleep?"  I think about how comfortable I am, and try to let myself fall asleep, rather than forcing myself to fall asleep. If that makes any sense.  4) I finally got a mattress that isn't hard as a rock and doesn't fucking squeak.

Do these things always work? No.  They sometimes do.  And I still sometimes start my day with only 3-4 hours of sleep.  What sucks is I'm slowly beginning to just accept that I'm going to be a shitty sleeper the rest of my life.

Here are some other tips, straight off of the MDA website.

• Sleep in a dark room.
• Read, rather than use a laptop or TV, before going to bed.
• Get exposure to "blue" light during the day.  (aka the sun.)
• Sleep in a cooler temperature.
• Have someone give you a massage before bed, or use a foam roller.
• Get yourself into a routine before going to bed.

There are more tips at that link, but some of them are a little out there.  Either way, if you're having trouble sleeping, following some of those tips can give some help.  I've found that if I go for a walk during the day, I tend to sleep better at night too.

The whole point of this story?  Get your goddamn sleep.  You never know when you might lose the ability to sleep well.  

And here's the pictures of people sleeping that I promised.

awww... she's fucking sleeping!

  

P.S. - No training tonight, going to look at a few properties with my wife.  Tomorrow it's on like donkey kong.

Progress on Bench

Did some bench, incline fly's and some weighted dips last night.  For once in my life I'm actually getting stronger on Bench.  It's fantastic.  I didn't up the weight, but I added an additional set at 185.  Here are my sets.

11/3/11
Bench Press - 4 sets
95x8 (warmup)
135x5 (warmup)
185x4
185x3.5 (needed a tiny spot to finish the 4th rep)
175x4
165x5

Incline Fly's - 4 sets
60s x 5
60s x 5
60s x 4
55s x 5

Weighted Dips - 3 sets
45lbs x 6
45lbs x 9
45lbs x 9
bodyweight x 15

I'm happy.  I'm making progress with bench, which has been a serious problem for me in the past.  On incline fly's I actually tried 65's, but I just couldn't get them up on the first rep.  My chest was fucking annihilated.

And, as I mentioned the other day, the weight belt is back.  My weighted dips actually dropped a bit because I haven't done them in a few weeks.  I expect them to come back quickly.

I plan on doing incline bench next time.  I don't know if this will replace flat bench, or if it will be in addition to it.  We'll see.

Cleans are on the menu for Saturday.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!  I know I am lol.

Oh and I started typing up a whole article on sleep earlier this week.  It was after I had a particularly shitty nights sleep and was feeling the effects of...well... a shitty nights sleep.  I'll have it up next week some time, complete with pictures of people sleeping!

Take it deep.

Finally Deadlifts

Finally was able to bust out some deadlifts.  Oh, and they finally repaired the weight belt.  Did weighted chinups as well.  Here are my sets.

11/1/11
Deadlifts - 3 sets
135x8 (warmups)
225x5 (warmups)
305x4 PR
295x4
285x5

Chinups - 6 sets (28 weighted chins)
25lbs x7
25lbs x7
25lbs x6
25lbs x4
25lbs x4

Bodyweight x5

I had some trouble with my focus yesterday, and it kind of screwed up my rhythm.  I still hit a PR on the deadlifts, although the last rep the weight practically fell out of my hands.  My grip was shitty on the bar.

Oh, and the video I promised of deadlifts?  My wife brought the camera, but as we pulled it out the batteries died.  It sucked b/c she hit a PR on deadlift too, 185x4.  I'm really proud of her, she's been working hard for a long time to get that up.  She wanted a video of her attempt too.  Either way, next week we'll be more prepared..

I need to get a video, I'm worried my form is turning into a half squat/half deadlift motion that's not fluid.  I got the weight up yesterday, but it was not pretty.