Monthly Archives: November 2006

Short Course

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I worked fairly late last night getting things ready for a demo I have today. I didn’t get home till 10:30, so it was after midnight by the time I was settled down enough to sleep. But I still got up this morning and swam a little. Once again, the pool was quite crowded. No military people this morning, just a bunch of old people and slow swimmers. I’m going to have to find a better time to swim, because morning isn’t it. The old people are nice enough, but they cake themselves with perfume (before coming to the pool?) which then gets into the water and makes everything taste bad.

500 Free warm-up
5 x 100 Free @ 2:05 (coming in at 1:20)
5 x 50 Kick
200 Free warm-down
———-
1450 yards

Military Morning

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It’s been a while since I’ve driven in early enough to swim before work. I didn’t sleep very well last night, due to some big things that were going to happen at work this morning. Those things did happen and we’re about to have a meeting about it, but I doubt very seriously if I am allowed to write about it. But I found myself staring at the wall for over an hour this morning, so I decided to drive in and swim.

When I began walking around the pool enclosure, the water seemed very calm. I started thinking that I would have the pool to myself, but then I saw a few ripples coming from the slow lane. No big deal. Someone is going slow in the slow lane. That’s fine. But then I got to the end of the pool near the locker room and saw something I haven’t ever seen at Gold’s Gym. Four or five men in regular swim suits (non-speedo) were standing at the end of each lane of the pool. There was a coach (or similar) in street clothes giving them instruction.

My only hope was that they were almost finished and I would soon be able to swim. I was wrong. They did consolidate down to just two lanes, but only because there were several old “walkers” (as opposed to swimmers) that had gotten in the pool. So I got to share the slow lane with the walkers. It wasn’t enjoyable, so I got out quickly and came to work.

200 Free warm-up
2 x 50 Free @ 1:30
100 Kick
100 Free warm-down
———-
500 yards

Back and Biceps

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Well, we’ve all agreed that we need to speed up our workouts so that we’re not gone from work so long. Today we had 4 guys doing back and biceps. After the first set of dead lifts, we started doing super-sets, which means we would do a set of one exercise, then a set of a second exercise, then back to the first exercise, etc. This made it easier to keep at least 2 people exercising at once, speeding up the time it took to complete all of our sets.

Dead Lift:
95/12 115/12 155/12

Preacher Curl:
55/12 55/12 55/12

Lat Pull-Down:
170/12 180/10 190/8

Bent Row:
135/12 135/12 135/12

Hammer Curl:
30/12 35/8 35/6

Swimming at lunch

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There was a big group at the gym today. Joey was setting Kyle up with the girl that has started working out with Joey’s wife. Scott led Joey and Kyle in a back workout. Joe did a shoulder workout. And I swam. If I had known that nobody was going to be working out with Joe, I would have skipped the swimming and worked out with him. But by the time I saw the hose pouring nice cold water into the pool, that was all I could think about. It’s not often that the pool is as cool as I would like it, so I try to take advantage of it when I can.

500 Free warm-up
8 x 100 Free @ 2:05 (coming in at 1:15)
200 Free easy
8 x 50 Kick @ 1:20 (coming in at 0:55)
200 Free warm-down
———-
2100 yards

Swimming with the herd

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I couldn’t break away from work until about 6:30, which meant I would have to swim while the herd of sea cows did their best to simulate open water conditions. Curiously, they failed to scare off the crowd of people relaxing in the hot tub.

300 Free warm-up
5 x 100 Free @ 2:05
300 Kick
500 Free
150 Free warm-down
———-
1750 yards

Legs up

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When I jumped out of bed this morning I realized something. My legs had finally recovered from last week’s leg routine. As quickly as I realized that, I also realized it was Tuesday again. Tuesday is legs day.

I went up on almost everything today, so I was pleased with the results. It’s amazing how much difference a week can make. Joe, Joey, and Kyle came along today, but it looks like we may have scared Travis off again. Kyle was pretty much keeping up with me on every exercise, and I out weight him by a lot. I guess that’s my motivation to push myself harder. I had them test my body fat today. 22.0%.

Weight: 251.4

Squat:
225/12 275/10 310/6

Leg Press:
670/12 760/10 850/6

Standing Calf Raises:
395/12 395/12 395/20

Leg Extension:
155/12 180/10 195/8

Hamstring Curl:
95/12 110/10 125/8

Wall Sit:
1:30

Monday night swimming

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Charmaine chatted me up at the end of the day and asked if I wanted to go swimming. How could I turn down an offer like that?

650 Free warm-up
10 x 100 Free @ 2:05 (coming in between 1:05 and 1:20)
100 Free easy
4 x 50 Kick @ 1:20 (coming in at 0:50)
200 Free warm-down
———-
2150 yards

Still Stuck at 265

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Today we had a big group doing chest. Joey is back from San Francisco. Kyle was there. Joe was there. Even Travis came back from a long while out. It will be interesting to see how long Travis sticks with it this time. Hopefully we won’t hurt him or scare him off like we did last time.

I seem to be running into a mental barrier at 265. I can’t get through more than 3 reps without help. Joe pushes me and gets me to do at least 3 negatives after I fail, but I really think I should be able to get 5 or 6 reps at 265.

Today I went up on Incline Bench and Incline Fly. My weight hasn’t dropped, though. Looking back on when I made my drop from 265 to 245, I was doing a lot more. Maybe I need to do more. I had been lifting pretty regularly for about 4 months without really losing any weight. Then I started swimming 2 or 3 times a week. A few months of that only helped me cut about 5 pounds. Then I started riding my bike to work and kicked up my swimming to 5 times a week. I dropped 15 pounds that month. Then I stopped riding my bike and cut my swimming back to 2 or 3 times a week. Then I stopped lifting and started gaining weight. Now I’ve stabilized, but I want to drop some more weight. I think that means I need to add something else to the mix. I want the answer to be more swimming, but I think it’s probably more along the lines of adding running or biking along with swimming.

Weight: 252.4

Flat Bench:
185/12 225/10 265/3(+3)

Incline Bench:
185/12 205/10 205/6

Incline Dumbbell Fly:
70/12 80/10 90/6

Bar Dips:
8 6 6

Incline Sit-ups:
20

Scared Off

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I went back to the pool on my way home from work last night.  Unlike the day before, the place was empty, which was fine with me.  I was just getting into the meat of the workout when a rather large woman came out and started arranging flotation devices around the side of the pool.  It didn’t take me long to realize she was the leader of the water buffalo that would soon appear.  Seeing them wade into the pool made it more than obvious why the place was deserted.  And I’m not just talking about the pool, either.  On Wednesday, the entire parking lot was full of cars and the whole gym was humming with people.  Having the water buffalo tromping around in their polyester tarpaulins is enough to scare everyone away… even me.  As soon as they removed the lane line, I got out and tried to avoid catching a glimpse of whatever they were doing as I high stepped out of there.

I had been trying to follow my own advice and take less rest between intervals and have more intervals per set, but the cows chased me away.

500 Free warm-up
5 x 100 Free @ 2:00 (coming in at 1:15)
200 Free warm-down
———-
1200 yards

More chest

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The original plan for today was to do back and biceps, but my legs are way too sore to even think about doing dead lifts.  Joe felt the same way.  He wanted to do shoulders, which I haven’t done for a long time… maybe 5 or 6 months.  But I talked him into doing chest again.  I have a really hard time swimming after doing shoulders and I really need to keep swimming.

I was happy with my results on bench, but my arms had turned to jelly by the time we got to incline fly.  And swimming after that was really difficult, but still pretty fun.  I wish I would have had more time to swim.  Maybe I’ll hit the pool again after work.

I’m not sure why I’m still gaining weight.  I push myself pretty hard lifting and even harder in the pool, but maybe I’m getting too much rest between sets.  I think that’s definitely the case while lifting, but I’m not sure I should adjust the rest I’m taking during lifting, because I seem to be gaining strength.  I do think I should try to do some longer sets swimming, and it looks like I need to swim more often.  Because I’m not going to change how, what, or when I eat.  I like it too much.

Weight: 253.6

Flat Bench:
185/12   225/10   265/3(+2) -> 245/3

Incline Bench:
155/12   185/12   205/8

Incline Dumbbell Fly:
70/12   75/11(+1)   80/6(+1)

Bar Dips:
6

Swim:
200 Free warm-up
4 x 100 Free @ 2:05 (coming in at 1:20)
100 Free warm-down
———-
700 yards