Blarg's Training

[Blarg]

Wednesday did deadlifts and shoulders, yesterday did one-legged squats and one-armed push-ups and general forearm work, today did grip work only.

Both hands still a little sore from combo of deadlifts and grip work two days ago.

Right hand: 2x trainer, 4x #1, then many attempts at the #2. Got to half an inch away. Also did a lot of negatives, both smooth outs and aggressive negatives, and did three VERY small range of motion negatives on the #3. Callous on ring finger is getting pulled out of shape and all over the place. That finger seems to take all the pressure; only the tiniest of callouses anywhere else on the right hand.

Left hand -- the weak hand got some trainer work, then some work on the #1, and finally some smooth-outs on the #2. The #2 is still very tough for this hand, but I want to subject it to real strain so it doesn't just lag further and further behind. Again, surprisingly good at doing simple holds even on "tough" grippers -- I've just got much more hand endurance than strength.

Shoulders damn tight from one-arm push-ups yesterday, right thigh sore too.

I've started eating more to try to gain a little mass. I even bought some protein powder, but haven't tried it yet. My stomach isn't all that keen on milk these days, and protein powders have never seemed like the kind of thing you want to mix with water.

Ordered Pavel's Beyond Bodybuilding book and his More Russian Kettlebell Challenges DVD.

Realize I've been doing very little of anything for my calves lately, and I could get some shrugs in, too.

[Vice]

Congrats on almost closing the #2! You'll have that shut within a couple of weeks.

[Scott Styles]

Good news on the #2 attempt! You should get in within a month.

[Blarg]

Still a bit sore in the shoulders, but did some good endurance work anyway.

Shoulder presses:

16 kg. kettlebell, 5x5 each arm, 10 each arm, 7 each arm, then a few more sets until I started feeling my form get bad and I could no longer do five comfortably.

Triceps:

KB 5x5

Bands: 75 lb 3x5

Deadlifts:

100 lb bands x2(200): 5x

plus 75 lb. (275): 5x

plus 75 lb (350): 5x5

Grip:

Right hand:

Trainer x 1, #1 x 2, then cracked myself up by squeezing the #2 so hard I got a cramp in my calf. The other night I started giving myself a charlie horse in my back from attacking the #2. Every time I try the #2, I'm waiting to see what will tense up in response next -- chest, neck, tricep, forehead, whatever. Funny thing is, I'm paying attention to my hand so I probably have enough focus not to injure that, but who knows, maybe I'll bite my tongue off one day because all my attention zeroes in on my hand and I kind of blank out on the world for a second or two. Good thing there are no open manhole around to walk into.

Another attempt on the #2 got it to under half an inch, then a small set to get my pinky on and I got it to 1/4 inch again woohoo! Got a couple more tries to 1/2 an inch after.

Left hand: a few squeezes on the trainer and the #1, and just a couple smooth out negs on the #2. I'm taking it easy on this guy, as the deadlifts plus gripper work is kind of a strain on him.

I was wondering why my hands were so sore just from doing deadlifts the other day. I know deadlifts use a lot of weight(or virtual weight, in the case of my Jumpstretch bands), but still, the discomfort was delayed, so I had to guess what it might have been for a while before I came up with the deadlifts. When it hit me, it was strong enough that it got me wondering why it would be that strong.

Today I figured out what was of course obvious. Using the 100 lb bands, I'm grabbing onto something about 3 inches wide. The stretching keeps me from curling the bands in my palm to any narrower than that, so I'm going through the deadlift with a pretty wide open hand, and it's sort of like doing them with a thick handled barbell. Sort of. With bands, it's all sort of "sort of," because bands are like nothing else. There are some negatives factored in, for example. I don't drop a barbell to the ground, I slowly come down to release the tension on the bands. That will probably use up strength and prevent me from doing as many attempts at max effort, but is also good for building mass, too, and that's not a bad thing either.

I really felt the deads at the sides of my ribs today. Guess I'm getting some good tension going. I'm enjoying trying to refine my technique. Can't wait for the "monster" 200 lb. bands I ordered to come in. They'll probably be here sometime around this coming Wednesday. They'll be even wider than the 100 lb. ones, so that will give my hands an even more brutal work-out.

[Scott Styles]

"Trainer x 1, #1 x 2, then cracked myself up by squeezing the #2 so hard I got a cramp in my calf. The other night I started giving myself a charlie horse in my back from attacking the #2"

[Blarg]

Couldn't resist doing some pathetic attempts at smooth-out negatives with the #3. Let's just say I didn't get it too far in before the smooth-outs began.

Left wrist's aching. Gonna have a protein shake and get some contrast baths in; I'm overdue. I should do them after every work-out, but I don't. They're friggin' time consuming!

[Blarg]

Good complete forearm work-out with the bands, almost no grip work with the left hand(it's just not recovering anywhere near as fast as the right does), and with my right, LOTS of attempts at closing the #2 and negs, both smooth-outs and aggressive ones. Also a little resistance against the bands with my head, forward and back, for the neck.

Soft tissue in my pinky finger hurts like living hell on closes. I wonder how, when, or if that's going to change. My other fingers know they're taking abuse, but the pinky feels like someone's grinding their heel on it. Ouch!

Played around with the bands looped behind my chair and managed to duplicate cable flys for the chest with them. Not perfectly through the full range of motion, like I like them, but I always found cable flys put meat on my chest, and evenly, far more than anything else, so I'm still happy to have an approximation.

[BigT]

Good complete forearm work-out with the bands, almost no grip work with the left hand(it's just not recovering anywhere near as fast as the right does), and with my right, LOTS of attempts at closing the #2 and negs, both smooth-outs and aggressive ones.  Also a little resistance against the bands with my head, forward and back, for the neck.

Soft tissue in my pinky finger hurts like living hell on closes.  I wonder how, when, or if that's going to change.  My other fingers know they're taking abuse, but the pinky feels like someone's grinding their heel on it.  Ouch!

Played around with the bands looped behind my chair and managed to duplicate cable flys for the chest with them.  Not perfectly through the full range of motion, like I like them, but I always found cable flys put meat on my chest, and evenly, far more than anything else, so I'm still happy to have an approximation.

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Nice workout buddy, your pinky should heal up in time. My pinky used to get mashed up on negatives but the condition of my hands improved in time and now my pinky's feel fine.

[Blarg]

Yeah, I'm hoping and I figure that's probably so. I'm getting callouses and such on my fingers, but none of them felt even remotely like my pinky does. That finger hurts so much on closes it's almost useless.

[pdoire]

Put some electrical tape on the handle your fingers wrap around it will help with the abrasion until your hands adapt more.

[Blarg]

It's not the abrasion, it's the sheer pressure. My pinky finger feels like it's being stepped on and ground into the floor. My other fingers merely feel like they're being used hard, no big deal.

[Blarg]

Deadlift work, still using my hands on the bands, as the bar hasn't come in yet. Gave my hands a good work-out too.

Did quite a few sets, going for that Russian Bear kind of work-out of many sets, never more than five. Did quite a few at 375, though. I think it's getting easier; maybe I'm getting a little stronger. I guess I'd be surprised if I wasn't. After a work-out with the deads, my lower back can feel anywhere from very stimulated and tired to "on shaky ground" like I'd better move real carefully because I might snap in half. So I'd guess I'm getting in what's needed for hypertrophy.

I'm also eating a ton the past few days, determining to go on at least a few weeks of "bear" style eating and PTP. I admit I'm mixing squats in with pistols, though, so it isn't an exact PTP. I feel that both exercises are known to promote general hypertrophy and both are compound exercises that involve a lot of muscles, so that's close enough to PTP to make things essentially PTP.

I do think there's a notable slow steady general hypertrophy going on. Forearm, bicep, tricep, thigh, and especially shoulder seem to be shaping up in small ways. I feel pretty good about that.

Finished with a long overdue soaking of hands. Been hitting the grippers kind of hard and taking only a day off here and there, not extended rests on the hands. And deadlifts are straining the hands even when I'm on a gripper off-day. So I guess I should be soaking the hands every day.

[Soilworker]

I'm overdue.  I should do them after every work-out, but I don't.  They're friggin' time consuming!

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Come now, how long can they possibly take?

[Blarg]

Well, I find that the hot water cools really quickly after the first time I stick my hand/forearm in cold water then bring it back to the hot water. The heat gets sucked right out by that cold hand. By the time I've done two soaks(I'll soak for a couple/few minutes in hot, then one minute in cold) in the hot water, it's tepid, so I have to heat enough water to get everything hot again to do the other arm. And that's if I only do 2 soaks per arm, whereas I like to do three. So I can wind up heating the water maybe three or four times all told, and it adds up to an hour of time.

I know, I know, it's worth it, but ... just kinda wish the whole process was quicker. Only way it could be, I think, is if I had really big containers so I wouldn't have to heat the water so many times, or could just keep pouring more really hot water in without starting from zero on the temp multiple times. Or maybe just one, for the hot water. The cold stays cold pretty easily.

I think I'll look into that. A big container for the hot water, and one of my standard ones for the cold water. I could theoretically cut the time down to like 15 minutes to soak both arms, or less, instead of an hour with a lot of jumping up and down and waiting for the temp's to be okay.

P.S. -- ah, that soak today really seems to have made my hands feel better. Not perfect, but better. I'm overdue for a few days of no grippers, especially since the deadlifts work the hands a good bit, but we'll see. My typical thing is to overdo everything, and it's fantastically successful when time doesn't matter, but in physical healing and growth, time matters. At some point, I'll start to get a feel for how hard I can push without setting myself back, but I'm probably going to do some overtraining along the way.

[Scott Styles]

I'd say over all 3 cycles of the contrast baths take me 15-20 minutes. I've just got 2 2.5 gallon buckets that I fill with hot and cold. I put them on a folding table that's a little lower than waist hight and just stand there soaking one hand in each bucket. I switch buckets every 90 seconds or so. Since I'm doing both hands at once and the buckets are so big, the water doesn't change temperature enough for it to matter.

[Blarg]

Yeah my buckets are too small.

[pdoire]

I do my contrast baths under the faucets..water always cold or hot as needed total time...5 minutes I do it three times a day. It works for me just fine.

[Blarg]

I have a cheap landlord. I don't even turn on the cold water to take a shower; full hot is fine, and not even really that warm.

[Blarg]

Got my 200 lb. stretchbands in. Squatting low into the bands to set myself up for a squat is tough; I'm 6'2" and the bands are just not that long. I can muscle through with the 100 lb bands even in combo with the 75 lb ones, but the 200 lb ones are very unforgiving. Well, not to mention, it's tough to move them just because their combined "weight" is 50 lbs. more than the two 100's and 75's I have. Anyway, I couldn't get a full rep of a squat out using two of them. I will probably have to buy one of the expensive ($250) sumo deadlift/squat platforms to hook the bands onto to even think about it.

Maybe after my legs get significantly stronger or something, I dunno, I'll be able to just squat with them without any special means of setting them up. If they were at least a little longer so i could get into a really comfy position first, I'd have a fairer crack at them. I feel like if I could just get a little higher out of the hole with them instead of crunched on myself like a balled up monkey, I'd have a chance at them. Oh well.

It is cool having something with such tough resistance, though. I think I'll be able to use one or both of them in deadlift work, especially if I use the dumbell-type grips I got in with my order yesterday.

I also got a bar I thought would have some sort of slit to hold the rubber bands. Damn, it's just a silly plain old bar, like a very heavy thingy that cheerleaders twirl, I forget what they call 'em. Anyway, it will be of pretty limited use. Anyway, the handles will be cool. Hope they can take the pressure of my trying deads with them. It's gotta be easier on the hands than just grabbing multiple thick bands.

Today's work-out:

Alternate pistols and one-armed push-ups(both cheated) in sets of five until I started getting pretty damn tired. Quite a few sets, but I rarely count. Funny thing is, the less I do, the more I count. When I'm feeling inspired, I just blast myself and forget about numbers.

I noticed I felt much weaker on the pistols. I've been ignoring them for a week and a half or so for deadlifts, and I guess it shows. I hope I can manage to do both exercises regularly without one slowing down the other too much. If I have to choose which one to back off on, I'm not sure which one it would be. I really want both some mass and some full-body hypertrophy, and supposedly both strain the system enough to make the body slap on general mass. But I don't have any goals with the deadlift, whereas with the pistols I really want to be able to do them completely smoothly and uncheated, and I don't feel like giving up on that goal no matter how good deadlifts might be for me. (sigh) I guess I'll have to see how I feel in time. But I really didn't like that not hitting the pistols every day or two led to me going backward today. Maybe it was just one of those things that happens sometimes.

Hands not feeling perfectly fabulous, but I think I'll do some gripping anyway.

[Blarg]

Some very strange experiences.

Picked up the grippers and was surprised and disappointed at how weak my hands were. I seriously had trouble on the trainer!

Did some deadlifts with the strap handles on my new 200 lb. bands. Only 2 x 5, per PTP guidelines.

Came back to the gripper and wow, my hands had gone from extreme weakness to strength! Got the #2 gripper RH to 1/8" several times! I even made some very good squeezes on it with my left hand.

Did a LOT of work on the #2 and negs on the #3. I also did more work on the #2 than usual on the left hand. This time, instead of doing one or two sets of three on each hand and then switching, I alternated hands every squeeze. I think I kind of like this; it kept me at a very high energy level throughout, and I really got in a lot of tough work this session.

I saw, on the outside of my right forearm, a quite noticeable round bubble pop up. It looks to me like a small spot where I see a trace of a vein, but now it's BIG and it's not going down. No bruising, so nothing popped. I also noticed veins popping up on the back of the first joints of all my fingers that I have never seen before. There are some that I've seen that also are suddenly larger.

Thinking about the volume program and vascularization enhancement it's supposed to cause, I decided to end this brutal session with just some squeezes of the trainer in both hands. When I did, the veins went berserk. I did a couple of sets of 8.

On the inside of both wrists I was then startled to see quite a few veins I've never seen pop out before, some going down into the hand and some going diagonally out toward the wrist. They really stuck out, raised against the skin. There were also some small veins showing on the back of my hands, especially toward my pinky knuckle. Not only that, but the meat on the outside of my hand, along the edge going from my pinky to my wrist,has become bizarrely larger than I've ever seen it.

This all sounds kind of nutty, but I've never seen my hand or wrists look like this before. I swear, I feel like an acid freak staring at his hands. I must have pushed them over some threshold or something, because I've never seen this before. It's been a little hard to type this, but I'm getting my coordination back in the fingers now. Some of the vascularity is subsiding, but a lot is still there, especially on my left hand and wrist. The outer edges of the hands are flattening out and losing that weird bulge now -- I had been thinking they looked in their round, projecting curve kind of like pumped biceps. Not that extreme of course; it's just a figure of speech, or thought or whatever.

I think I'll try this routine next time! Alternating hands instead of doing sets with each before switching, and winding up with a bunch of quick easy reps on my lowest gripper. This was too bizarre. But I was making a bunch of really great attempts, and getting all this blood vessel involvement has got to be a very good thing.

You know you got in a good gripper work-out when your neck is still stiff from the tension 15 minutes later and your chair is soaked with leg and ass sweat.

[BigT]

Some very strange experiences.

Picked up the grippers and was surprised and disappointed at how weak my hands were.  I seriously had trouble on the trainer!

Did some deadlifts with the strap handles on my new 200 lb. bands.  Only 2 x 5, per PTP guidelines.

Came back to the gripper and wow, my hands had gone from extreme weakness to strength!  Got the #2 gripper RH to 1/8" several times!  I even made some very good squeezes on it with my left hand.

Did a LOT of work on the #2 and negs on the #3.  I also did more work on the #2 than usual on the left hand.  This time, instead of doing one or two sets of three on each hand and then switching, I alternated hands every squeeze.  I think I kind of like this; it kept me at a very high energy level throughout, and I really got in a lot of tough work this session.

I saw, on the outside of my right forearm, a quite noticeable round bubble pop up.  It looks to me like a small spot where I see a trace of a vein, but now it's BIG and it's not going down.  No bruising, so nothing popped.  I also  noticed veins popping up on the back of the first joints of all my fingers that I have never seen before.  There are some that I've seen that also are suddenly larger. 

Thinking about the volume program and vascularization enhancement it's supposed to cause, I decided to end this brutal session with just some squeezes of the trainer in both hands.  When I did, the veins went berserk.  I did a couple of sets of 8.

On the inside of both wrists I was then startled to see quite a few veins I've never seen pop out before, some going down into the hand and some going diagonally out toward the wrist.  They really stuck out, raised against the skin.  There were also some small veins showing on the back of my hands, especially toward my pinky knuckle.  Not only that, but the meat on the outside of my hand, along the edge going from my pinky to my wrist,has become bizarrely larger than I've ever seen it.

This all sounds kind of nutty, but I've never seen my hand or wrists look like this before.  I swear, I feel like an acid freak staring at his hands. I must have pushed them over some threshold or something, because I've never seen this before.  It's been a little hard to type this, but I'm getting my coordination back in the fingers now.  Some of the vascularity is subsiding, but a lot is still there, especially on my left hand and wrist.  The outer edges of the hands are flattening out and losing that weird bulge now -- I had been thinking they looked in their round, projecting curve kind of like pumped biceps.  Not that extreme of course; it's just a figure of speech, or thought or whatever.

I think I'll try this routine next time!  Alternating hands instead of doing sets with each before switching, and winding up with a bunch of quick easy reps on my lowest gripper.  This was too bizarre.  But I was making a bunch of really great attempts, and getting all this blood vessel involvement has got to be a very good thing.

You know you got in a good gripper work-out when your neck is still stiff from the tension 15 minutes later and your chair is soaked with leg and ass sweat.

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First of all congrats my man on getting the #2 to 1/8 inches and last, your hard work is gripping at it's finest

[Blarg]

Thanks BigT!

[Blarg]

Wow, did another day of hard gripper work and deadlifts and when I woke up the next day I was up less than half the day before crashing again straight through to the next day. Think I may have worn myself out or something and just needed the rest badly.

[BigT]

rest easy, you'll have that #2 man...I know it

[Blarg]

Didn't do much yesterday, just a 2x5 set of deadlifts. Those 200 lb. bands are tough; I can really feel it in my sides, especially high along the sides of the ribcage. Did do a tough gripper session. Felt sort of weak, but toughed it out. Also some general forearm work with the bands.

Hands are a little weak-feeling today, and not very sore, but a little. I'll see if I want to work them later or not, but I think I've overtrained my body a bit with my deadlifting and squats lately, so I think I'll just do some small amount of active recovery to keep the blood flowing, but otherwise count it as a rest day. I could probably use a full week off, but I think a few days off will be fine too.

Got some 100% Whey protein powder in from Bulknutrition.com. It mixes really easily and tastes good, so I'm happy with it. They threw in a freebie jug of "Neuro-Stim" which has choline, acetyl-L-carnitine, L-tyrosine, DMAE and huperizine. Those ingredients are good and potent stuff, and I've taken most of those seperately before. Not sure how I'll feel about it as pre-work-out drink, which is the way I think it's intended. Especially since I don't really know the exact proportions I'll be taking if I try it, as they did that goofy thing of making the ingredients bundled into two mega-ingredients that they trademarked, so you can't really tell how much of what is in each mega-ingredient.