Jim vs. Clean & Jerk, Helen

I meant to get up early and workout this morning, because it’s steam-shutdown week at Cornell. Nothing encourages a home workout like ice-cold showers.

Unfortunately, nothing discourages a home workout like nightmares and restless sleep. So I found myself at Teagle today anyway, determined that if I had to endure nigh-hypothermic showers, I was going to get in both the metcon I’d planned and some barbell work.

Clean & jerk
115 x 1
135 x 1
155 x 1
145 x 1
125 x 1

So that was the barbell work. 155 is 90% of my max; maybe next time I’ll use 95% as my peak.

“Helen”
Three rounds for time of:
400m run
Kettlebell (52.5lb dumbbell) swings x 21
Pull-ups x 12

Knocked this out in 10:48, 45 seconds slower than my PR but almost a minute faster than last time. Cool, especially as I needed to walk through a crowded gym twice each round to get from where I was doing the swings and pull-ups to the door outside.

Jim vs. Moving

As in, a friend of mine moved today and I spent part of the morning lugging boxes and furniture.

I’m counting it because it was hot as hell out, and I felt blasted afterwards. If it was a bit light for a workout, I’ll try to make it up later in the week.

Jim vs. Half-Mile Sandbag Run

Today was a day I really didn’t want to work out… but I want to have worked out. So I got me my sandbag and went for a run.

Run a half-mile with a sandbag on your shoulder
25lb bag, finished in 4:48

That would be a PR, except that I let myself run too short a distance. I find msyelf doing that a lot: “Oh, I know how far it is. I don’t need to check MapMyRun. [checks MapMyRun after] Huh, ran too little. Damn.”

At this point, I’m concluding that it’s a psychological thing in my head. So I’m registering an account and saving my 400m, 800m, and 1 mile loops. This needs to stop being an excuse that messes with my progress tracking.

Jim vs. Deadlifts

Would my off-kilter pyramid work as well with five-rep sets? Let’s find out.

Deadlift
225 x 5
265 x 5
305 x 5
285 x 5
245 x 5

Set #3 was 90% of my 5RM, and this definitely felt like hard work. Good stuff.

Maybe I should try to covert all five sets to percentages-of-max? That might work better than just doing 20 or 40lb jumps.

Jim vs. Push-ups, Hanging Leg Raises

One more early morning workout this week.

AMRAP in 7 minutes of:
Push-ups x 5
Hanging leg raises x 5

Did 17 full rounds, plus two push-ups. Definite improvement over last time. I did not expect that. It pleases me.

Jim vs. Goblet Squats

I’m in 9-5 seminars most of this week, which wreaks havoc on my workout schedule. So early morning it is. I’ve had bad experiences with jumping into metcons this early, though, so I’m just doing some strength work.

Goblet squats
53 x 5
53 x 5
53 x 5
53 x 5
53 x 5

I admit that I was thinking of this as a light workout… but damn, goblet squats never really feel “light”. Glad I got this in.

Jim vs. 400m Runs

I managed to forget my Vibrams on campus this weekend, but decided that was no excuse not to run. Neither was 80F weather.

400m runs
1:39*
1:50
1:48
2:06

That asterisk is from me running around 360m the first time. I need to remember to stop guesstimating those. Overall, those times were not great… which is why I need to keep running.

Jim vs. Rowing, Overhead Squat

Had to get into the gym early today, which meant I needed to warm up in the upstairs gym at Teagle. And seeing as I finished that five minutes before the downstairs gym opened, I did the rowing part of my workout first.

1km row – 4:55

Wow, I manged to be slower than my slowest time by ten seconds. I don’t know what’s going on with my old-school cardio, but it’s getting worse even as my other conditioning stuff seems to get better.

Finally, the gym downstairs opened and I got my overhead squat on.

85 x 1
105 x 1
125 x 1
115 x 1
95 x 1

That, at least, seemed to go nicely.

Jim vs. Hang Cleans, Box Jumps & Hanging Leg Raises

Stared out today with an exercise I haven’t done on its own in a long, long time: the hang clean, aka the hang squat clean. Starting the bar at thigh-height and catching it in a squat, that’s something I don’t practice much.

95 x 1
115 x 1
135 x 1
125 x 1
105 x 1

Those went really well, and I actually felt like starting from the hang made it easier to catch the weight low. I didn’t cop-out to a power catch on any of the reps.

After that, a short metcon:

30/15, 20/10, 10/5 of:
box jumps
hanging leg raises

Finished in 4:00 on the dot, one second faster than last time.

Jim vs. Bench Press, Weighted Hip Thrusts

Back in for some strength work.

Bench press
165 x 1
185 x 1
205 x 1
195 x 1
175 x 1

Went well, but again it’s weird when my middle set is a high percentage of my max — 95% in this case — but also my 3RM.

Weighted hip thrusts
95 x 10
95 x 10
95 x 10

Decided to give these a go with the barbell. Oof.