Strength, Support, And Pinch Focus

[Scott Styles]

12-27-2005 - Workout 19 of 20 - Playing: Avril Lavigne DVD

ROOOAAAAAARRRR! Burrito Power!

Warm Up: Wore my gloves for 5 minutes while setting up for the workout.

Levering: Using my 6lb sledge, number indicates inches from the head of the sledge my thumb is minus 1. Same sets and reps for both hands.

Front Lever: 5x10, 5x13, 5x13

Rear Lever: 5x17, 5x21, 5x21

Forgot to take the rear levers up to 22. They were pretty easy. Will definitely do 22 for my last workout.

2" partial deads: 5x85, 5x135, 5x180, 5x180, 5x180

Fueled by the all mighty Chipolte Burrito, I got my reps today! I attribute it to my new grip, resolution of the drinking issue, and the pressure I wanted to avoid of needing to hit these weights on my last workout of the cycle. I will do 185 for workout 20 and see how it goes.

Block Weights

Decided to screw around on these a little after getting my reps on the deads. Got my 30lber up lefty and righty, in spite of the thickbar deads. Still can't do that 35lb blob, but think I am close. Also did a curl with my 25lbers

Looking Forward to the Next Cycle

So for my next cycle, I am now thinking the following:

Yoga DVD

Bending Double Underhand

Block Weight Curls

Wrist Roller (hitting extensors, alternating hands)

This will go for 6-8 weeks, at which point I'm going to start talking to Wannagrip about putting together a 12 week squat program. Upon initiating that, I will also initiate a new grip cycle. I'm thinking right now it will be focused on dynamic movements for my wrist, crush, and pinch. The crush is still a grey area for me, since the knuckles on my middle fingers haven't healed totally and going all out on the grippers aggravates them. I'm wondering if a grip machine would let me work around the injury.

I've also decided I'm going to go ahead and give the supplements a shot for one month. It will be about $60, which kinda sucks. My bigger concern is if I'll actually take them every day when I'm supposed to. The DHA is once per day, the creatine is once per day, and the glutamine is 3x per day. Sounds like a pain in the butt. Clearly, I'll need to try them one at a time to see what works.

1 chance left to get stronger before the end of the year. I want 3x5x185.

[Starkmann]

I'm looking forward to your squat cycle a lot. I think with Wanna's help you will blow your old max out of the water. On suggestion for you and us voyeurs, get some vids and photos of your form.

[Scott Styles]

The squat should be interesting. Gamidon has offered to meet up with me to look at my squat form as well, so I'm hoping to get together with him once I'm a good bit into the yoga cycle and have my flexibility back up. I haven't stretched much lately.

I'll definitely get video of some workouts. Is it better to tape from the front or the side? I always assumed from the side, but I remember a thread on here where Rick Walker was telling Clay Edgin to get him a video from the front.

[Starkmann]

I think your squat will be better than mine, real soon.

Personally I prefer side. You can see a lot more about your form from the side. That could easily be a personal preferance thing though. I won't complain, I'm just curious to see how your form is. You may want to think and talk with Gamidon about if you are willing to go with a wider power squat or if you are wanting to stick with a very strict closed squat.

[Scott Styles]

12-31-2005 - Workout 20 of 20 - Playing: Simpsons Season 7 DVD 3

Well, my best friend since I've been 10 was in town from Tuesday evening to Friday evening. He moved to Santa Monica, CA about 6 months ago. Needless to say, I didn't do the greatest attending to my recovery since the last workout...

Warm Up: Wore my gloves for 5 minutes while setting up for the workout.

Levering: Using my 6lb sledge, number indicates inches from the head of the sledge my thumb is minus 1. Same sets and reps for both hands.

Front Lever: 5x10, 5x13, 5x13

Rear Lever: 5x17, 5x22, 5x22

22 was highly doable.

2" partial deads: 5x85, 5x135, 3x185, 2x185, 3x185

All things considered, not too shabby.

Block Weights

Played around with them just having some fun. Then 30lber was sweating a little bit, but went up without too much trouble.

[Scott Styles]

Lessons Learned

Since continuous improvement of the process is what ultimately yields the best product, it's time for my cycle retrospective. I collected all the important points I could from my log and consolidated them into 4 key lessons I will take away from this cycle.

1. I need to be more conscious of overlap on exercises when designing my training routine. Thick Bar, Overhead Levers, Narrow Pinch, and Wrist Roller all hit my thumbs in a similar way. I had workouts this cycle where I did all 4, meaning like 10 work sets for thumbs. Over training my thumbs really hurt my progress in the middle of the cycle. I'm lucky I didn't get injured.

2. Treating my recovery as an activity I do to improve my workout performance makes a world of difference. Tracking what steps I take to recover forces me to face the reality of whether or not I am doing what it takes to progress. This leaves very little room for question when things go wrong. Lack of progress typically correlates with doing something dumb outside the weight room.

3. A significant barrier to recovery for me is appropriate time management. I do things in my day that seem highly unreasonable when viewed from a distance. The two biggest problems I encountered in this cycle were missing sleep for the internet and working too hard at the expense of everything. I solved the internet problem by keeping my computer off after work. I think I've taken the steps needed to solve the work problem by giving up the paid overtime and returning to a 40 hour week. I have also resolved to take time off if I am sick or getting sick.

4. It takes a LONG time to learn how to do a grip exercise effectively. After 10 weeks of doing the thickbar deads, I'm still learning how to optimally grip the barbell and setup for the lift. Same with the levering. However, due to consistent practice, I have made significant progress on both lifts. I appear to do much better if I ramp into the exercise slowly and give myself enough time to learn. I jumped into intense v-bar work, maxing out each workout. The results were poor and I almost got injured. Looking back, I should have gone for lower weights, more reps, and only added a few lbs every week. That is how I learn and progress.

[Scott Styles]

Attending to Recovery - Workouts 17-20 (Microcycle 5) Results: 78% compliance

About what I'd expect. The last half of this week killed my recovery, but I had fun. Also, turns out that my last microcycle was only 80% compliance, I had the formula in the Excel spreadsheet screwed up.

Environment

1. Keep the humidifiers at home and work full: 14/14 - 100%

2. Wear gloves to bed: 14/14 - 100%

3. Wear gloves when outside: 14/14 - 100%

4. Grip message boards max of twice per day: 0/14 - 0%

5. Get 7.5 hours of sleep: 99/105 - 94%

Still need to figure out the sleep. Not doing terrible, but about 30 minutes short on average. I just like doing things. I'm done trying to moderate the internet. It's apparently a waste of my time to worry about it. I'll just be careful to take my computer out at night only when I really need it.

Active Recovery

1. Do finger extensions: 12/14 - 86%

2. Play with dexterity balls: 13/14 - 93%

3. Do ROM exercises with my shoulders: 9/14 - 64%

4. Do contrast baths the 2 days following a grip workout: 1/8 - 13%

5. Do yoga the day following my grip workout: 0/4 - 0%

I don't really have a good excuse for the contrast baths, I just didn't do them. That will need to improve. The shoulder ROM exercises I do not feel are doing much and will be dropped. Yoga gets rolled into my workouts now, so it drops from the active recovery.

Diet

1. Eat each of the following per day

1.1 Flax Cereal: 8/14 - 57%

1.2 Beans: 10/14 - 71%

1.3 Yogurt: 13/14 - 93%

1.4 Seed Mix of Pumpkin Seeds, Sunflower Seeds, and Brazil Nuts: 14/14 - 100%

1.5 Lettuce: 12/14 - 86%

1.6 Celery and Carrots: 12/14 - 86%

1.7 1 Piece Fruit: 12/14 - 86%

1.8 3/4 cup Berries: 5/7 - 71%

1.9 Soy Patty - 10/14 - 71%

1.10 8oz Soy Milk - 12/14 - 86%

1.11 12oz cup of milk - 12/14 - 86%

2. Drink iced tea in place of soda where practical: 14/14 - 100%

9 weeks since any soda. It's habit at this point, but I'll carry it through to the next cycle. Most of what I missed was a result of being on vacation. I eat better when forced into a structured schedule by work. I only get 2 weeks vacation a year, so I'm not going to worry about it. The bagged lettuce is working well and worth the extra $5 a week.

I feel like my nutritional program is pretty well set at this point. I will be phasing supplements in slowly. First on the agenda is DHA. I'll take it for the month of January and see if there is a noticable effect on how I feel or any negative impact. Since DHA is an Omega-3 fatty acid my diet is clearly deficient in, I'll probably keep taking it if there are no negative side effects.

In Summary

This cycle laid an excellent foundation for recovering appropriately from strenuous work. I feel like it is an effective way for me to lead a healthy lifestyle without too much effort. While the data collected seems excessive, actually tracking it takes me only a few minutes per day.

[Scott Styles]

My next cycle can be found here:

http://www.gripboard.com/index.php?showtopic=17360