Jim vs. Pull-ups

Once again, a late start led to this one.

Pull-ups x 5 x 20

It took a little over five hours, because I didn’t always want to drop out of group missions in SWTOR. Yes, seriously.

Jim vs. Pull-ups

My energy levels were not high today, so I settled for an old favorite.

Pull-ups x 5 x 20

I usually spread this one over seven hours, but I got a late start so I did it in five. Groove, greased.

Jim vs. Greasing the Groove aka Many Pull-ups

Why do so many great means of training pull-ups have such terrible, terrible names?

In any case: my legs hurt like hell today, but I wanted to do four days of work this week, to celebrate coming back from my annoying injury. Since I was gonna be home most of the day, “greasing the groove” seemed the way to go.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term — and currently looking at me askance — it refers to doing lots of sets of an exercise over a long period of time. For pull-ups, it usually means I do a set of five every twenty minutes or so until I’ve done twenty total sets.

It went well, and was a good way to end the week. Terrible, terrible name, though.

Jim vs. The Return of the Groove

Some constraints on my workout today: I was sick as a dog yesterday, so nothing too metcon-y.  I was working from home to keep an eye on Nina, who’s still sick, so even if there were a good gym open at Cornell I couldn’t use it. And I had quite a lot of work to do, so nothing that would keep me away from my desk overlong.

So, we saw the return of Greasing the Groove: twenty sets of 5 pull-ups, spread out over the whole day. Exactly what I was looking for, and it afforded me the opportunity to try out a few different grips, especially some wider ones.

Jim vs. the Groove

For the first time since December* I “greased the groove” with pull-ups today: 20 sets of five pull-ups, spread out over several hours. I really dig how doing that many sets lets me play around with various grips on the bar that I don’t always try during other workouts. I’m not sure how well groove-greasing will mesh with better weather, but I worked this one around a pretty long hike, so that strikes me as a good sign.

I eschewed the expanded groove I was trying towards the end of last year; I think this workout’s simplicity is one of its major selling points, so I’m not gonna mess with it. My only regret is that my post naming convention made it infeasible to crack a joke in the title about getting my groove back.

* I can’t believe it’s been that long. Benefit of keeping this blog, I suppose: it keeps me honest.

Jim vs. Grooves

Today I managed to get through my expanded groove-greasing plan from last week, despite problems with my time. Twenty sets of five pull-ups, ten sets of ten sit-ups, ten sets of ten air squats, for a total of 100 of each exercise. It’d be more impressive if it wasn’t just 3/4 of Angie as Rx’d, but it still works for me. I really focused on doing full-extension pull-ups, and my form on those was solid throughout. Felt great, really.

Jim vs. Partial Grooves, Push-ups

I decided to add a wrinkle to my usual weekend of greasing the pull-up groove: after each set of five pull-ups, I’d do either ten air squats or ten sit-ups. It went well, except that time constraints limited me to ten rounds instead of twenty. Sadly, 50 pull-ups, 50 squats, and 50 sit-ups just doesn’t feel like a solid enough workout to me, so I’ll need to get in all 20 next week.

I did get to my push-ups, though: 23-28-23-23, then got 25 in before working my way up to 33. I must say, it’s cool to see improvement every week on this plan, and it encourages me to stick with it.

Jim vs. The Groove and Push-ups

Another weekend, another go-round with greasing the groove and doing some push-ups. The former went well: doing twenty sets of five is a challenge mainly in remembering to keep at it so I get all the sets in. My muscles are tired by the end, but I can do the reps. The push-ups are a more focused challenge, but I did 16-21-15-15 then maxed out at 23. Since I’ve been exceeding my mandated minimums on final sets all week, I think it’s time to change things up. On Tuesday, I’ll find my new max, and that’ll determine what numbers to use next week.

Jim vs. Greasing The Groove, More Push-ups

Another weekend spent greasing the groove with pull-ups: I did twenty sets of 5 reps over the course of the day, and am really loving that as a bit of exercise on the weekend. I also took 15-20 minutes to knock off Day 3 of Week 3 of the hundred push-ups plan. The rep counts of my first four sets were 16-21-15-15, and then I maxed out at 16 in the final set, rested briefly, then knocked out five more. I think I’ll do the same numbers next week, see how I’ve improved.

Jim vs. The Groove, Push-ups, & Tyler

First off, I feel like this post’s title contains at least one, and maybe several, really great band names.

Before I talk about today’s workout, lemme cover yesterday. I decided to play around with the whole “greasing the groove” concept for pull-ups, doing 20 sets of five reps apiece, focusing on form, over the course of the day. It went reasonably well, though my palms hurt more than my arms or back.

Today, I led with another experiment,the “one hundred pushups” plan my friend Mike sent my way. I used my max push-ups number from a few weeks back as my “initial test,” which placed me in Week 3. This meant I did five sets of push-ups, resting a minute between sets, with the following number of reps:

12
17
13
13
max (at least 17)

Turns out my max on the last one was 9, but I kept pushing out reps until I hit 17. If I consistently have difficulty hitting their “at least” numbers in the final sets, I’ll back off a bit.

After that, I did a Pack-scaled Tyler:

“Tyler”
Three rounds for time of:
7 muscle-up progressions
21 sumo deadlift high-pulls (65lbs)

Got through it in 8:15. I also worked on my jump-rope again today, getting through 50 consecutive single-unders twice. Definite improvement, there.