TLDR: Mission Accomplished

Too Long Dad Recap

This week was an unmitigated success in the areas of nutrition, fitness, parenting, and content creation. In fact, the only real disappointments this week came in the first game of my little league head coaching career, a 9-19 loss.

But just like when George Bush declared Mission Accomplished in Iraq in 2003, there is still more work to be done. A strong week of progress on all those fronts will inevitably give way to fresh challenges at some point. Celebrating both success and struggles is what it’s all about.

Content I Consumed This Week

Popular YouTuber, podcast host and hawker of creatine Omar Isuf posted a video this week with some strong tips for the overhead press.
- Overhead press is one of the toughest lifts to progress. I’m always appreciative of videos with some useful form cues.
- This latest video is up there with some of the ones Brian Alsruhe has put out on overhead press.
- Video is here.

Morning Lifter’s podcast this week was an interview with Zac Marrs, the creator of the very cool Marrs Bar
- Loved hearing the story about the bar’s origins, and Marrs seems like a great guy.
- Like most things inventions, Marrs created his bar when trying to solve a problem he experienced.
- Head over to Morning Lifter’s website to check it out.

Fitness blogger Tony Gentilcore had a post at T-Nation about deadlifting that I found useful, read it here.
- This post, titled “Deadlift Perfection: 4 Easy Cues” was a helpful reminder of how to set up and execute the deadlift.

Stuff I Lifted This Week

This week’s training went well. Not following a program officially has been fun for trying some new things. The lower body movements are returning to form after the knee surgery and after this week, I’ll be ready to get back to a structured block of training.

Sunday was SSB squats, competition bench press, hex bar deadlifts
Tuesday was reverse banded deadlifts, incline press, front squats
Thursday was paused squats, slingshot bench press and straight leg deadlifts

In addition to the weight training, I lunged for 400m daily, participated in one zoom pushup meet-up (420 total pushups in 26 minutes), and did the U.S. Army Fitness Challenge. Plus baseball practices and lawn care, and suddenly we’re talking about a very active week.

Deadlift with reverse bands in the garage gym! — 405lbs reverse band deadlift, good for the ego!

Stuff I Ate This Week: Great Landing!

Last week I claimed I would tighten up the diet and focus because of stalled progress on my weight loss…and I did!

Pilotwings graphic that captures how I feel about how my diet has been going. — Coasting to a nice soft landing with my weight loss phase, like in Pilotwings!

I kept my macros and calories on target this week and the results showed up in the scale, and I did in fact finish the week below 175 lbs. I updated the rolling average weight chart below for the first time in a month. Seeing this progress graphically is really rewarding.

But I have more dieting in the tank, I am not finished. I’m not as lean as I can be yet, so I want to press on despite being 12 weeks into this cut. Can I get down below 170 without much effort before I burnout? I think so!

Going on vacation this week, and while I will not travel with my garage gym, I packed my scale and food scale, because that’s what it takes.

Dad Report: Army Training

Highlight of the week was definitely when I took the afternoon off Friday to engage in a fitness challenge with my children.

MattDoesFitness has made a ton of videos where he tries to pass fitness tests. So, I thought it might be fun to try the US Army fitness test. The test was recently updated to include 6 total events, not just push-ups, sit-ups and running.

Participation and results of the challenge were both huge successes. I wrote a post about the video I made recapping the epic challenge, which you can read here.