I am woman hear me roa... Er... What?

[Seanp156]

Yeah, it sucks. Thankfully I think my injury is fairly easy to recover from relative to DB's. What type of injury did you get?

I'm pretty sure my injury's less severe than DB's as well. Both my shoulders and hips I guess were techinally strained, but the right sides of both were/are far worse than the left... I'm not exactly sure how it happened with the shoulders, mostly I just recall doing pullups and there'd be a clicking sound in my right shoulder at the top of each rep... The next time I was at the gym I was doing incline flyes, and I think I went a little too low and it got pretty painful. With the hips, I had changed my stance from fairly narrow to fairly wide without gradually changing it, then that same day I did some DB lunges... I guess that didn't mix well either .

 

[CowPimp]

I'm pretty sure my injury's less severe than DB's as well. Both my shoulders and hips I guess were techinally strained, but the right sides of both were/are far worse than the left... I'm not exactly sure how it happened with the shoulders, mostly I just recall doing pullups and there'd be a clicking sound in my right shoulder at the top of each rep... The next time I was at the gym I was doing incline flyes, and I think I went a little too low and it got pretty painful. With the hips, I had changed my stance from fairly narrow to fairly wide without gradually changing it, then that same day I did some DB lunges... I guess that didn't mix well either .

Hrm, interesting. Do you stretch? It almost sounds like a lack of flexibility was behind some of this...

 

[Seanp156]

Yes, I scretch after every workout now, and sometimes on off days too... I'm not exactly sure how to stretch my shoulders other than some basic stuff I learned back in middle school playing tennis... my hammies are very flexible though, I can easily touch my hand to my toes sitting down with a straight back...

When the injuries happened, I didn't stretch every single workout, but if I did legs, I generally always stretched them afterwards.

 

[CowPimp]

Yes, I scretch after every workout now, and sometimes on off days too... I'm not exactly sure how to stretch my shoulders other than some basic stuff I learned back in middle school playing tennis... my hammies are very flexible though, I can easily touch my hand to my toes sitting down with a straight back...

When the injuries happened, I didn't stretch every single workout, but if I did legs, I generally always stretched them afterwards.

You should try stretching every day. I honestly think it makes a difference. Occasionally my left hip would bother me slightly after being at work all day. Wieght training never seemed to aggrivate it. It was totally ignoreable, so that's what I normally do. I recently started trying to stretch every day and it hasn't acted up once since I began.

 

[Rocco32]

You should try stretching every day. I honestly think it makes a difference. Occasionally my left hip would bother me slightly after being at work all day. Wieght training never seemed to aggrivate it. It was totally ignoreable, so that's what I normally do. I recently started trying to stretch every day and it hasn't acted up once since I began.

I said the same thing in his journal back when he was having problems, never heard back from him

 

[CowPimp]

I said the same thing in his journal back when he was having problems, never heard back from him

Ah well, the advice is out there. Hopefully he makes use of it.

Anyway, just as an update I hit the weights yesterday. I was able to do deadlifts with fairly heavy weight (3 plates) without protest from my shoulder. YES. My strength is only down very slightly. If I had gone to failure, I probably could've hit 315 x 8-9, and 10 was my previous best with HIT. Not too bad all things considered. Everything on the posterior of my body is sore today: middle/lower traps, erector spinae, glutes, and hamstrings. I love it. My workout was: Deadlifts, unilateral bench press, Yates' rows. I cut out the ab work because I was running a bit late for work. Whateva, it was a good session.

I have my interview at Gold's tomorrow instead of today now. I went there, and the interviewer called saying she got caught in rush hour traffic. I hate the beltway. I hate it so much. New time is tomorrow at 2. Woo.

 

[Seanp156]

I said the same thing in his journal back when he was having problems, never heard back from him

Eh, sorry Rocco... I try to respond to every post, but sometimes I overlook some .

 

[CowPimp]

Hit up some physical therapy this morning, then followed that up with a workout. I did hack squats, unilateral overhead pressing, chinups, and decline situps. Finished up with some good ol' stretching.

I just came back from my Gold's interview. I think it went well. She gave me a week pass to the gym so I can meet the people and see how it works a little. She said she's gonna call my references Monday/Tuesday and get back to me later in the week to probably set up a 2nd interview. Yay.

 

[BulkMeUp]

I just came back from my Gold's interview. I think it went well. She gave me a week pass to the gym so I can meet the people and see how it works a little. She said she's gonna call my references Monday/Tuesday and get back to me later in the week to probably set up a 2nd interview. Yay.

Sounds promising. Wish you best of luck!

 

[Seanp156]

Hit up some physical therapy this morning, then followed that up with a workout. I did hack squats, unilateral overhead pressing, chinups, and decline situps. Finished up with some good ol' stretching.

I just came back from my Gold's interview. I think it went well. She gave me a week pass to the gym so I can meet the people and see how it works a little. She said she's gonna call my references Monday/Tuesday and get back to me later in the week to probably set up a 2nd interview. Yay.

Sounds good, good luck to ya !... I hate interviews .

 

[DeadBolt]

Congrats pimp hope you get it bro!!!

 

[CowPimp]

Thanks fellas. Today was a slack day. No exercising. I stayed up a little too late last night and had to wake up early for class. I ended up taking a 3 hour nap later. My only plan is to hit up my home theraband routine for my shoulder and a little stretching shortly.

Ah well, I'm gonna try to do some jogging tomorrow morning. Next week is my last week of PT. Hopefully I can start doing some real pressing movements soon. I can almost do some pushups without pain. I think I may possibly start hitting up sets of pushups in my fully body routine if I feel comfortable enough beginning Monday. I'm also going to give squats a try and see if my shoulder doesn't mind holding the bar in place.

 

[CowPimp]

Hit up Gold's on their free week offer today. Man it's so much better than my gym, heh. I did some deadlifts, DB presses, bent rows, and decline situps. I actually did DB presses with my bad shoulder. I started with 10 pounds and worked my way up slowly. I got to about 40s before I decided that any heavier might actually do some harm. I have a tiny bit of pain right off my chest then it's gravy. Actually, really on the first couple of reps hurt a little, then it dissipates after that. I followed up with a set to total failure with my good arm and some real weight.

 

[DeadBolt]

Hit up Gold's on their free week offer today. Man it's so much better than my gym, heh. I did some deadlifts, DB presses, bent rows, and decline situps. I actually did DB presses with my bad shoulder. I started with 10 pounds and worked my way up slowly. I got to about 40s before I decided that any heavier might actually do some harm. I have a tiny bit of pain right off my chest then it's gravy. Actually, really on the first couple of reps hurt a little, then it dissipates after that. I followed up with a set to total failure with my good arm and some real weight.

Awsome bro...progress thats what its all about. Don't try and break and records jsut yet just strengthen it up man! Believe me in no time you'll be back nto normal! Your doin great bro!

 

[CowPimp]

Awsome bro...progress thats what its all about. Don't try and break and records jsut yet just strengthen it up man! Believe me in no time you'll be back nto normal! Your doin great bro!

Thanks for the kind words. I'm definitely taking it easy. I'll probably stick with the same weight for another session or two at least (Unless there is zero pain). I figured this would be fine since I was using the chest press machine during my PT sessions, and the pain was about the same level. That was the gauge I used.

 

[CowPimp]

Thank God, I was able to squat today. My shoulder really didn't have issues keeping the weight on my back. I may even give back squats or good mornings a try in the near future, although I'm still a tad leary about supporting weight on my rear delts. We shall see. Also, I decided to go back to HIT style today and start recording some weights. My damned legs are already sore; tomorrow is gonna be bad news.

Squats
237 x 8 + 3

DB Press
30 x 15 x 2
Unilateral w/ good arm
55 x 10 + 1

Chinups
BW x 13 + 3

Farmer's Walks
80s x 1.5 + .5 + Static

Hanging Leg Raises
BW x 10

Thankfully I lost very little in the way of squat strength. I actually don't know if those reps are exactly right. I was so in the zone on the RP set that I can't remember if I got 2 or 3 reps. I'm pretty sure it was 3 though. I seriously don't know how I did it. That last one took about 10 seconds to complete.

I did some light overhead pressing with both arms, then finished with some heavy pressing with my uninjured arm. I should've taken another couple of deep breaths before my RP set, and I probably could've hit another rep. I was really close.

Just wanted to see what I could do in terms of BW chins. Big PR for bodyweight chinups. Hell yeah. I held out on the negative of the last repetition for a long time before giving in at the end too.

I think my FWs are about the same, but I worked out at Gold's today. I have no idea how the length I walked compares to my gym. Whatever, my grip was fried. That's all that matters.

Hanging leg raises were fine until I started letting myself hang totally lose. My shoulder didn't like that. I just decided to stop before tempting fate. I'll go with lying leg raises next time, or maybe some captain's chairs.

Awesome workout. Felt fucking great.

 

[DeadBolt]

Awsome w/o bro....congrats on putting pressure on the shoulder. Maybe you should hold off on BB squats for another week or so and let that shoulder heal up nicely. Or do em nice and light!

 

[CowPimp]

Awsome w/o bro....congrats on putting pressure on the shoulder. Maybe you should hold off on BB squats for another week or so and let that shoulder heal up nicely. Or do em nice and light!

I'm just worried about PL style back squats and good mornings. I'll put them off until Monday next week. Then I'll start out real light and acclimate the weight slowly and play it by ear. If I have to bail then I will, but I think I'll pull it off.

Thanks for the support as always DB.

 

[boilermaker]

Cowpimp,

Beginner question, but what exactly is a PR set? And is it best to do one set until failure on chinups, or should I be doing 3 sets?

 

[CowPimp]

Cowpimp,

Beginner question, but what exactly is a PR set? And is it best to do one set until failure on chinups, or should I be doing 3 sets?

When I said PR, I was talking about a personal record. PB, for personal best, is another similar acronym.

RP sets are rest pause sets. Basically, you hit failure on your main working set, rack the weight for 10-15 breaths, and then crank out as many more as you can until failure.

Do whichever method you prefer. If you are hitting complete failure and doing things like rest-pause sets, statics, or negatives to further increase the intensity of effort required to finish the set, then one set is plenty.

Higher volume approaches work well too, and I have had success with those as well. Just make sure you aren't applying the same techniques as you would during an HIT type protocol unless you follow this small bout with overtraining with lower intensity workouts.

 

[boilermaker]

Thanks for the info Cowpimp. This is starting to remind me of all the swing thoughts I go through with golf. I usually end up playing my best when I just hit the damn ball. Oh well, I'm a quick study.

 

[CowPimp]

Thanks for the info Cowpimp. This is starting to remind me of all the swing thoughts I go through with golf. I usually end up playing my best when I just hit the damn ball. Oh well, I'm a quick study.

I feel you on that. Having an analytical mind can be a pain sometimes. One tends to overthink things; I often do the same thing. However, it does often go hand in hand with being a fast learner. I'm happy with it.

 

[CowPimp]

Thursday

When I was at the gym today there was a personal trainer at the squat rack I used to do squats yesterday with his client. He said the bar was 55 pounds. I asked him about that. He's like yeah, we have some 45 and some 55 pound bars. I thought it looked kinda thick for a standard olympic bar! So, I squatted 237 instead of 227. I lost even less strength than I thought. I lost like 2 reps. Boosted.

Anyway, I did some circuit training today. I felt my shoulder might be ready for a decent set of pushups, and it did pretty well. It bothered me a tiny bit for the first couple of reps. It got better with each subsequent set. I don't even think it bothered me at all on the last set. Here's what I did (The same as the GPP routine I posted in the training section):

5 Minutes Warmup Elliptical

4 Cycles - 60sec RI
Squats x 25
Pullups x 5
Situps x 20
Hyperextensions x 25
Pushups x 20
Rock Climbers x 20

Stretching

 

[soxmuscle]

hyperextensions. crap, i knew i was missing one part of the circuit training you love.

 

[CowPimp]

hyperextensions. crap, i knew i was missing one part of the circuit training you love.

Gotta get the posterior chain movement!

 

[BulkMeUp]

4 Cycles - 60sec RI

that sounds brutal!

 

[CowPimp]

that sounds brutal!

Indeed. Actually, I did really get too tired until the very last cycle through. I was surprised as I had totally slacked on my cardio the previous week.

 

[Rocco32]

Looking good Cow, nice to see you recovering nicely! That does look like a brutal circuit!!

 

[CowPimp]

Looking good Cow, nice to see you recovering nicely! That does look like a brutal circuit!!

Thanks man. Your shoulder doesn't seem to be acting up too terribly either, in general. It's not stopping your PRs anyway. Hehe.

 

[CowPimp]

Friday

Okay, as a precursor, I forgot my stuff to write down my workout today. I think I remember it all though. I'm pretty good at remembering numbers for some reason.

5 Minutes Warmup Elliptical

Deadlifts
315 x 8 + 1

Bench Press
95 x 15
115 x 10
Unilateral DB Uninjured Arm
75 x 14 + 3

DB Bent Rows
85 x 13 + 4

Leg Raises
23 + 4 + Static

Stretching

Good workout, but a couple of almost reps that pissed me off. Most notably on deadlifts. I was like inches from lockout on rep 9 and rep 2 of my rest-pause set. I'm not sure I've ever failed so close to the top before. I guess that's my upper back failing to retract my scapula into lockout? I don't think it was my gluts/hams, as I'm pretty sure my hips were all the way forward. Maybe not though, it's hard to pay attention to something like that during a super intense set of deadlifts. I think I'll do some RDLs next time.

Anyway, 2 reps short of what I did before I took off and couldn't do deadlifts for a while is cool with me. About the same as with squats. Not too bad of a setback.

My shoulder didn't complain too badly about the bench pressing. There was virtually no discomfort, except maybe for the first repetition, when I did 95 pounds. 115 was a little sore, but about on the level of my PT work.

The bent rows were another one where I almost had it. That lest rep was moving fairly steadily then stopped a couple inches short of contact with my trunk.

As a side note, both rows and presses were way higher than expected! I was aiming for more like 10 or 11 reps with each. Looks like I get to go heavier next time. Yay.