Wittering

[peterbirks]

Well, two four-day weekends back-to-back are definitely welcome.

I spent last Thursday night heading down to Lower Sydenham to pick up my new TV, which is now duly installed.

On Friday my left shin started hurting quite badly, presumably inflamed through a heavy training session during Thursday, followed by a five-mile drive back from Lower Sydenham at an average speed of five miles an hour. The continual depressing of the rather stiff clutch did not have a good effect on my already weary left leg.

However, I made it to the gym on Saturday and Sunday for some upper body and lower body work respectively, plus some serious cardio stuff on Saturday.

I've made considerable progress since I started my gym sessions again at the beginning of February, but most of the progress has been since I took on a personal trainer for two sessions a week. We've set some targets, and the focus has mainly been on strength rather than on just burning up the calories (the theory is that if I can build up strength through weight-training and keep to a good diet, the fat will vanish of its own accord). I'm down half a stone since Feb 1, but I was up to a horrific 12st 13lb at that point, so my current weight (12st 4lb) is still half a stone more than I would like and at least a stone more than I would be if I was really fit. But at least I can get into nearly all of my old trousers again (and three new pairs of jeans and two new pairs of trousers are now consigned to the "too baggy" drawer)!

The main target is the dead lift, which has the advantage of using just about every bloody muscle in the body, as far as I can see. So we're training all of the muscles and then, every couple of weeks, going for a personal best on the dead lift. Managed 107.5kg today, which may or may not sound to you like "a lot". It is and it isn't. I couldn't lift an old 80kg television, for example, because the balance is all wrong. But it's probably more than the average man in the street could attempt.

I'm targeting 130kg and if/when I reach that, we'll see how it goes from there.

+++++++++++

Poker continues to be hard work, and I'm still a little bit down for the year. Although the games are tougher, I'm getting the feeling that I really am kind of running bad this year. I've looked at the chart and I notice that I've actually had six-month sessions (in one case, a hole year) nearly as poor as this, but never from January 1 on. They've normally appeared from May to November, or March to September, something like that.

+++++++++++

Two movies I've managed to squeeze in recently were Iron Man and Female Agents.

The former was great fun, if only because RObert Downey Jr and Jeff Bridges can do wonders with the most ridiculous premise. And, let's face it, you can't fault a comic strip that near the end has to resort to the "master override button" or something similar, which will cause the entire building to blow up.

Female Agents was a mainly French-language movie starring Sophie Marceau as Louise Desfontaines a character loosely based on Lise de Baissac. Although the plot has some glaring holes in it, the narrative shoots along nicely and is quite gripping. Star of the show is definitely Julie Depardieu, one of the five female agents tasked with the rescue of a British geologist from a German hospital. She has inherited much of her father's talent, and not a little of his comic timing.

++++++++++++

So, with the training, and my somewhat foolish commitment to the UK and Ireland Pokerstars tournament league this month (I keep forgetting how tedious it becomes having to play a couple of penny-ante tournaments every night), and piano practice, and work, the days just fly by. I'm focusing reasonably well on my diet, without going to extremes (thus I allowed myself a three-flavour ice-cream scoop yesterday after a pleasant lunch with Peter Berlin). I've been listing the protein/carb/fat contents of everything I eat on an excel spreadsheet. Not with any real purpose in mind except to keep a vague eye on my food balance. In six months' time we might be at the six meals of 50g protein a day stage. (50g protein roughly equates to 180g chicken breast. It is, in other words, one fuck of a lot of meat.)

There are boring technical reasons for eating six meals a day rather than three, but the basic reason is that the body can only convert so much protein at a time into things which are useful. Any more just gets converted to fat. The carbohydrate/fat balance is more interesting, and what I've read on the matter (and we are talking about strength training here, which eventually requires you to put on weight, rather than lose it) mainly boils down to our old favourite ketosis.

I'm currently sticking to the "safer" levels of balance. But, like I say, I'm currently in the "increase strength, lose fat" stage. Muscles can gain a considerable amount of strength through training (in effect, bringing idle fibres into play), without increasing in bulk, before the brain actually says "fuck me, it wants to do more -- I'd better make it bigger". Once I reach that stage (actually, IF I reach that stage -- since it's a long way off yet and will require lots of hard work) then I'll have to focus on diet and the training regime a lot more. This, in other words, is the easy part! Although it doesn't always feel like it.

But, all in all, getting this personal trainer is one of the best things I have done, ever. It hasn't "turned my life around". There's not been a Damascene conversion. But it has made me feel that I have something to drive towards, and it's pulled me out of a rut. My posture is improving, and my self-belief has improved. I hadn't actually realized how low my self-esteem had gone.
___________________

Comments

[tchernabyelo.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to picture you as a gym bunny (but then, I find it hard to picture me as one, either, and I go pretty regularly, though probably not as often as I should). The increased muscle mass concept is valid, since even resting muscle consumes a certain amount of energy, which fat does not, and so the more muscle you have, the more energy you will burn. My problem has always been a low metabolic rate in general - I have a lower-than-average body temperature, meaning that my body doesn't have to burn as much fuel to maintain what it thinks should be the status quo (it also means I sweat horrendously when doing any kind of exercise as my body immediately goes "you're overheating!"). I try and mix some fairly intense cardio with weights - mostly upper body weights, since the legs get the cardio workout (plus hiking, dancing/zumba, and tennis, though we haven't played yet this year). I tend, though, to go for specific target areas rather than the whole-body thing (I'm trying to remember what a dead lift is).

You're lighter than me - I'm currently 13.5 stone, maybe a touch under. That's a good 20 pounds from where I ought to be, but on the other hand it's 30 pounds less than where I was three years ago. Unfortunately all my excess weight still concentrates in the middle - I've got, frankly, skinny arms and legs and I even lose more weight from my face and neck then I do from my midriff.

Still, I'm fitter than I used to be and fitter than a lot of people of my age (especially over here in the US - though Silver City attracts a lot of outdoor-oriented retirees, we have people in their 60s who can run up mountains, and people in their 80s who still go to local gyms), and (touch wood) so far no health problems to speak of. Food-wise, I was able to cut out the between-meal snacking over here (mainly down to working from home and not in an office with a constant dripfeed of biscuits and cakes), and I eat fewer carbohydrates and more fats than I used to (hardly ever have pasta or rice any more) which broadly seems beneficial (though, yes, ketosis can be an issue).

Nope, still can't picture you in the gym, though. :)

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I've been going to the gym fairly regularly since 2002, after giving up smoking pushed my weight up by 20lb in 18 months. But it's mainly just been a matter of staving off decline rather than making progress. I got ver lax in December and January, and my weight started ballooning again, so clearly it's not something I can aford to give up.

The midriff is the last place where the excess weight departs for a man, unfortunatley, so you end up looking thin in the face and neck before you get a flatter stomach! Exercising the abdominal muscles and focusing on posture has helped me look a bit better, even if the actual progress on the waist front has only been a couple of inches. "Stomach in, back straight, walk tall" isn't just a homily.

Strength work and cardio work are very different, so I suspect your legs have the stamina of a runner, but little strength. As such, they have no reason to get "stockier", because the stamina fibres in muscles don't get bulkier.

The "easy overheating" mode isn't one that I experience. Can't be much fun.

PJ

Nice Deadlift

[slowjoe.livejournal.com]

Is that 107.5 for how many reps?

The best way to compare dls is as a proportion of bodyweight: you would be lifting 1.37 x bw.

Obviously with dls, small increases FTW (eg 2.5kg per week), don't deadlift more than once a week, 1 work set, use chalk, and reverse your grip for the heavy set. Chalk is worth 10-15kg extra. Reverse is 15-30kg extra if you aren't using them already.

Re: Nice Deadlift

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

The 107.5kg was a single lift. I did two of 100, which was my previous PB. Going for dead lifting once every two weeks, PB each time. Could probably have done 110kg today TBH. But we're only just over amonth in.

Will try for 115kg in two weeks, I think, but it won't be long before the rate of improvement slows.

Using reverse grip all the time. Used chalk last time but not this time (simply because there wasn't any to hand).

PJ

[tchernabyelo.livejournal.com]

Actually, my leg strength seems to be pretty good, as far as I can tell - I can all but max out the machines in the gym that do leg work, whereas on the arm work I'm usually somewhere between 1/3 adn 1/2 their max capacity. of course, this may be skewed by the fact that most gym weight machines are designed by men, and men (for various reasons) usually concentrate way too much on upper body strength (so, for example, the leg press machine goes up to 300lbs and I can do 250 or more without an issue; the bench press machine goes up to (IIRC) 350 and I am just about capable of doing 190; as for the shoulder lift, I'm bloody rubbish).

My posture is better then it used to be but I am still, and always will be, round-shouldered.

[bryangb.livejournal.com]

Helma found that having a personal trainer has helped her a lot, as well.

I still haven't seen Iron Man yet, although (rather carelessly) I've seen Iron Man 2 - which is also preposterous fun. Thor has had good reviews too, by the look of it.

Re: Nice Deadlift

[slowjoe.livejournal.com]

If you've been deadlifting since Feb, I'd not really be keen on heavy singles. Too much chance of blowing a disk or something. A weight you can pull 3 times (or better, 5 times) is far less likely to do damage, and more likely to produce a useful training effect.

I've been deadlifting since 2007, and only made 3 1RM attempts in 2010: 195, 202.5, and 220.

Re: Nice Deadlift

[slowjoe.livejournal.com]

One other thing that worked well for me was to keep a 3rm pb, and a 5rm pb. I'd work on the 3rm for a number of weeks, until I missed a week, then try the 5rm for a number of weeks, adding 2.5kg each week. In your case it might look like:

100x3
102.5x3
105x3
107.5x3
110x3 - miss
95x5
97.5x5
100x5
102.5x5
105x5
107.5x5
110x5-only 4 reps
112.5x3
115x3
etc.

Re: Nice Deadlift

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

For me at the moment, it's basically a case of "in personal trainer we trust". The PB sets mainly cosist of a 12-rep at an "easy" weight (yesterday, 60kg), then an 8 or 10 at a tougher weight (80kg), then perhaps a 4-rep at a stiff weight (we missed this out yesterday, but it would have been at 90kg). Then a 2-rep at the previous PB, followed by the single lift at the PB. The rest periods between each set get longer and longer, up to about 3 minutes I think before the final PB attempt.

No real worries about the back yet. If I can get it off the ground by a centimetre, then I'm okay! But I haven't had an instance of not being able to get it off the ground yet.

PJ

Re: Nice Deadlift

[slowjoe.livejournal.com]

I typically step up to the working set: 60x5/80x5/110x5 or 60x5/100x5/120x5/140x5

The thing about a 1RM is you just have a higher chance of a major cooler, bit like raising for the second last bet on the river with a K-high flush.

Re: Nice Deadlift

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, every 5 rep set has to start with a single lift - :-)

So, obv I see what you are saying, but I trust my PT enough on this one in that I don't think he is pushing my body to anywhere near those potential game-enders.

Indeed, at the moment I'm just making the muscles stronger week by week – a relatively speedy process compared with later, when the muscles, bone, ligaments etc actually have to increase in size.

So these apparent rapid increases in PBs are just a mirror of the fact that my body is starting from a very low base. When we began it was just a matter of picking up the bar for 12 reps (for those unaware of the dead-lift 'long' bar, it weighs 20kg). Every session with Nick consists of focusing on two or three of the muscles used in the lift, so that the next time I come back to the lift I should, theoretically, have improved all of the component parts.

Even this "speedy" improvement probably has quite a ways to go (six months?) before my brain says "this is the best I can do with what I have got -- better create some more muscle". In fact it's even more complex than that, with the tendons, ligaments, bone and nerve endings all interracting.

At the moment, provided I keep to proper form, I like to think that I couldn't pop a disc because the brain would shut down the relevant nerve-endings and thus stop me even attempting the lift. As one practises more and more the brain gets a bit more relaxed about shutting down those nerve-endings, because it "knows" that you are pushing the body to its limit, so it cuts you a bit more slack before saying "Whoa, down tools!". Then I'll have to be a lot more careful about pushing too hard, because your body has become a bit like a Transocean safety valve.


Would just like to point out that, in a "relaxing" session today (me on my own), I did a personal best over 4km on the rowing machine. 18 min 13.9 sec. Three months ago I was struggling to manage 20 minutes.

Even better, there wasn't a single sprint in the row. Just stroking at 23 per minute rather than 21, using improved lung capacity and improved upper body strength (my legs were already pushing out quite hard enough).

Very pleasing.

PJ

Get Backlinks

[(Anonymous)]

Im glad im able to join this wonderful community. Buy Backlinks (http://www.seomarketingservicesonline.com)

Re: Nice Deadlift

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

23 strikes me as a bit low, btw. I think you'd get more benefit by cutting the distance (2km is quite enough for me, but feel free to go for 3) and upping the rate to 26 or 27. I'd be aiming for 30, myself, but then I haven't touched a blade in twenty five years.

Four kilometres? Four? Jeez, that's Cambridge eights distance. Admirable, and all that, but it veers too close to the professional...

Anyway, the main thing is lung capacity and of course cardiovascular efficiency. Upper body strength be damned -- you need a different work-out for that.

Re: Nice Deadlift

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

If I was shooting along at 30 I would be doing 500 metres in about 1 min 55 sec, and that's a rate that I can barely keep up for more than 45 seconds. In fact, for 4k, 23 is for me actually fast. Yesterday I did a stonking 17 min 50 seconds (or something like that -- it was so good that I didn't even remember to take note) at an average rate of 21 per minute (2 min 15 sec per 500m) for the first 3200 metres and then a rate of 23.5 a minute (2 min 10.5 sec per 500m) for the last 800 metres – and not a single "spurt" in the lot.

Normally if I "speed up" near the end it's a sign of muscle tiredness, so my actual speed per 500m does not improve. This time the increase in pace was not at the expense of drive (through the legs) or pull (through the upper body).

Now, I wasn't claiming that rowing increased the strength in the upper body (although if you put the resistance up to maximum, you do get some improvement) but that doesn't mean that increased upper body strength (achieved through strength training) doesn't make a difference. Sure, lung capacity and "oxygen throughput" is important, but it's only any use if the end materials (the muscles) are there to do the requisite contracting with sufficient force. Almost uniquely in my training history, I appear to have improved all three within the period of a couple of months -- and by a significant degree. I'm now about 7% to 8% faster over 4k than I was six weeks ago.

The shorter distance "spurts" on the rowing are mainly for "warming up" and/or for cardiovascular improvement. If I'm planning on one of these, I try to keep something back in reserve for the first 3.2k, before gradually cranking up the pace until the end.

Alternatively, I'll sometimes put in a 30 seconds spurt about a third of the way through. I've got it down to 1 min 44 sec per 500m for that, but it destroys any chance of a record time.

PJ

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I would also hazard a guess that you have an ectomorphic build, and this would tend to work against "explosive" strength, but would work in favour of endurance. On the plus side, a rigorous running regime would quickly get rid of that excess weight! On the minus side, this can make you look "drawn". Indeed, I have looked drawn in the past when I have lost weight, but this time round I don't. My face is definitely thinner, but it doesn't look "drained", if you know what I mean.

PJ