Day 4 week 19

Cloudy morning this morning. Lately the ocean is cold, a lot colder than the warm, late-summer air. So we get clouds until midday, which just kills the natives. Poor babies, to have to suffer a few clouds until noon in the midst of warm 70s. Heh.

Started my morning training today. Honestly, it's hard for me -- once I'm up, I want to go into the office and get to work. Once up, work. Which I did, but it's hard not to leave the house. Drink coffee, check email, see what's up in the world, shower, move...except insert hard work with weight before the shower part. Just seems odd.

Started with AtLarge Results and the Shelby mix, elbow sleeves, wrist wraps. I Spiked my peri-workout Shelby mix, added extra carbs (malto today at 150% of norm), and got to it.

I did a fair amount of dynamic work and a lot of bar work to warm up before getting to it. Shoulders were fine today, though my right shoulder has been fussing lately now that I'm back to throwing with the boys. Honestly, throwing with the 13 year olds has forced me to step up my game a little, as some of them have cannons. Can't be the slacker I was last year, so I can't muscle it with a strong arm and shoulder -- have to use good form and upper body torsion. Kind of nice, actually.

All exercises were 3 sets of 5-7 with about 180s between.

Military press, seated, fat bar: 3 x 7 reps with 5 kilos more than last week. Every set was easy today, actually, though I wasn't comfortable enough to go up even more. I warmed up on these slowly, afraid of my recent right shoulder weakness. Worked pretty well, and the weight went up.

Elbows-out triceps extensions: 3x7 reps I used my 30kg DBs with skinny handles and did simple presses, holding the weights together from mid-point to chest. I did these doggcrapp style, getting 18 reps for first, 14 second, 12 third. Really felt them, so I'm happy. I need a second fat DB bar set so I can do these too, as I hate constantly changing the weight on the fats. So, another set of bars and collars are in order. Fats would rock for this, or I'll have no sternum left after I drop them on my chest.

Squat: 3 x 7 reps 150 kg on the 1500lb Texas bar. Backed off the weight after a couple of orthos checked in after last time to tell me that post-op scars take 6 weeks to reach full strength and I was probably prolonging my tear healing completion. As paranoid as I am, that was enough to make me back off another week. I'm gonna be so weak when I go back to it it's scary, but discretion is the better part of valor. Better safe than sorry. Bird in the hand...whatever. Insert your own platitude/cliche. I did sets of 20 today with roughly 300#. My left hip wasn't happy, though I know why -- nothing bad. My left hand barked where the blood vessel ruptured last week -- kinda surprised it's still painful, frankly. Most of the hematoma has dissipated, so I'm a little confused. Oh well.

All in all a great way to start the day. Hope everyone has a productive day. Extra props to Tim Hull for a great effort in his first true strongman comp -- lots of good things to take from what happened, even though it didn't all go the way he wanted. Additional kudos to Bob for being a faithful friend and trucking over there to help him out, much less feed him and his brood after. Everyone should be so lucky as to have friends like these two.

Great day, guys. Make it one.