TLDR: Major Pain

Too Long Dad Recap

“It’s been two whole weeks since I killed me a man, and I’m already startin’ to get the itch.  Problem is, I got nothing to scratch…I’m hungry. Hungry for action, hungry for blood. Hell, I’m just plain ol’ hungry.”

– Major Vincent Winifred Payne

This quote and scene from the start of the 1995 comedy “Major Payne” captures my mood right now.  It’s only been a week since my meniscus surgery, and recovery has been excellent so far, but it will be another few weeks before I can start squatting or deadlifting again. And I always have the urge to lift…

Not being at full capacity sucks, but it reminds me to appreciate being able to train.  Many people don’t have that privilege. 

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about what to focus on next. It would probably be smart for me to focus more on building size over strength for a few months here before getting back to high intensity deadlifts and squats.  Hypertrophy training is inherently lower intensity per set, lighter overall loads, which may help me avoid beating my body up as much as I have lately.

The biggest headwind to getting stronger for me is overreaching on the weight.  When the program calls for RPE 8, I tend to go up to RPE 9 and convince myself it was an 8.  This has limited my progress and probably led too much fatigue leading to my nagging shoulder pain and recent knee injury.

Things I Watched this Week

While pondering hypertrophy more seriously this week, I naturally spent some time watching videos by Mike Israetel, the king of hypertrophy. There is a lot more to building mass than just lifting higher reps and holding some reps in reserve. Programming principles for hypertrophy will require some additional reading or might require me to buy a program from Renaissance Periodization. For now, the videos are a good place to start.

• Hypertrophy conversations with Joey Szatsmary
• Differences between Training for Size vs. Strength – Renaissance Periodization
  • Mike Israetel makes a pretty compelling case for mass focus over strength focus, but obviously he’s biased!
• Buff Dudes – Fun chicken and broccoli video experiment video
  • These guys ate nothing but chicken and broccoli for an entire week, which I guess is a good way to cut if you only have a week.
• Fray Fitness “Commercial Grade” pulley machine review by Garage Gym Review.
  • I wasn’t convinced that such a large footprint piece of equipment was worth it
  • If I was going to take up that much real estate and spend that much money, I’d probably want to get a leg press/hack squat combo or belt squat or something

Things I Read this Week

• Pain in Training. What Do? by Barbell Medicine
  • I had read this before, but this post by Barbell Medicine on pain management for weight training is still great, and something I find myself returning to whenever I have a non-structural pain issue.
  • My shoulder has flared up recently.  I plan to implement the plan outlined here to reduce the load dramatically, reduce the frequency of training (more rest, but not total rest).
  • If that doesn’t improve the pain over a few weeks, I can reduce range of motion with pin presses or block presses.
  • In any event, this is a fantastic resource.
• Coincidentally as I ponder my tendency to overreach, Tony Gentilcore posted about the balance between working hard and overreaching
  • Testing strength vs. building it, good general thoughts on the subject
• As I try to return to more discipline with my nutrition in the coming week, I read this post by my friend Shawn at MorningLifter on Nutrition, which has some good tips and thoughts.

Things I Listened to this Week

I didn’t listen to much fitness content this week.

• Although Reactive Training System (Mike Tuscherer) and Iron Culture (Omar Isuf) posted new podcasts, I didn’t get around to them, so maybe next week.
• I finished up the audio book of Helter Skelter, the story of the Manson murders and trials, which was really good.
• Continued Principles by Ray Dalio.
  • Dalio is a titan in the asset management business, and the story in his own words of how he built his firm and how he approaches investing and the world in general is worth listening to.

Things I Ate this Week: Diet Break, Not Broken

Early in the week, when I wasn’t moving much while recovering from surgery, and I followed my plan of eating way below my usual calores (1700-ish). On Tuesday, I started to walk and get 10,000-12,000 daily, so I started to eat 2,000 per my cutting plan.

I lapsed in discipline late in the week and splurged on treats that are omnipresent in my house (ice cream and cookies mostly). As a result, I will target 2,000 calories per day again this week, but be strict about it.

If weight stays flat and doesn’t drop on 2,000 calories this week, then I’ll drop another 100 calories from the daily target for next week.

Progress Update: I’m about 10 weeks into my weight loss phase, and my average weight is 178.2 lbs over last 7 days, basically the same as last week, which makes sense because of how loose I was with eating. That weight is 8.6 pounds less than the 7-day average when I started the cut, and 12 lbs from my peak

I think it would be cool to keep going for a few weeks and shoot for 175 lbs as the target for now. The next tricky part will be figuring out how to stabilize my weight at this new lower body weight, and reverse diet out of the lower calories.

Things I Lifted this Week

Training this week was actually pretty good, despite not being able to do any deadlifts or squats. Monday was heavy slingshot bench day, Tuesday was a back focused session, Wednesday was single leg and core work, Thursday was bodyweight only, Friday was overhead press focus.

Throughout the week, I did lots of core work and direct arm work, which is always rewarding, especially while in a weight loss phase because you can really start to see things changing in the mirror week over week. That part of this week was great.

Recently, I re-connected with a couple guys from high school after our 20-year high school reunion Zoom call. One is in NYC and the other is in L.A., but they have been doing a virtual push-up challenge 3 times a week on Zoom. The workout is 25 minutes with 1 AMRAP set every minute.

I participated in the session this week and got 365 push-ups total, but these guys that been doing it consistently are trained up to the point where they are hitting 575, 600+, which is an average of almost 25 reps per minute. It’s been humbling and fun to be involved.

Dad Report: “The One Constant Through All The Years, Ray, Has Been Baseball”

Little League baseball is starting in my town this week, 4 months after we drafted teams. I’m head coach of my youngest son’s squad. We haven’t been keeping up with our skills as much as I would have liked, but we are going to get back into it now for sure.

There was a long list of new rules to make practices and games possible, including temperature checks, wiping down of baseballs, limits on the number of people in the dugout at any one time (other kids will be seated 6-feet apart outside the dugout). It should be interesting trying to enforce the rules, especially because some parents probably don’t believe the virus poses a threat to their suburban bubble.