I'm glad to see you are lifting with such heart and vigor.

Amazing C2 rowing.

Congratulations on your weight loss.

Your DLs look strong and fast. Based on the bar path, they look to me like they start a little too far ahead of your midfoot. But I DL wearing squat shoes, so take my feedback with a grain of salt.

Good luck lifting and weight lossing.

Happy Birthday Monty! I'm sure you had a damn fine dinner and dessert. what'd you get?

6/17 (188.4 lbs)

A
5/3/1 Incline Bench (Round 2, Week 2): 3x135, 3x155, 6x175, 3x10x125
DB Row: 4x10x100
Lat Pulldown (strict): 6x12x72.5

B
5/3/1 Front Squat (Round 2, Week 2): 3x145, 3x165, 6x185, 3x10x125
DB Bench Press: 11x85, 10x85, 9x85, 8x85
DB Curl: 3x12x40

C
Good Mornings: 4x10x135
Tricep Pushdowns: 4x15x72.5
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x12.5

Two weeks off (one to go visit my folks in PA with the family, one to go to France for work) with no opportunity to lift; not so bad for the first day back I don't think. Boston trip early next week, then LA the following week, but I will bring lifting stuff and should be able to do so both weeks.

fakeb,

Thanks, you may be right re: my DL bar path. I'll try to move the bar back a bit next time and see how it goes.

BTM,

I drove 11 hours to PA on my birthday; we ate dinner at a teppanyaki joint in WV. The boys liked it.

I made these chicken tacos along with the roasted corn salad I posted a few weeks back for my Dad's birthday. It was a huge hit.

Made this chicken tonight on the grill, along with some grilled zucchini and a tomato, red and orange pepper, cucumber, and feta salad (dressed with a bit of white wine vinegar, since we were out of red wine vinegar).

It came out really well; I probably had the fire slightly too hot, but was wrangling the kids myself since the wifeacore is working late and didn't really have the inclination to get it to a perfect temperature. Cutting up the chicken into cutlets, pounding it flat, and searing it entirely on one side is a really good technique and one that I think I'm going to borrow; it's a little more labor up front, but produces really juicy chicken that cooks in less time and is essentially impossible to overcook if you're at all paying attention.

Impressive without kid wranglin'. Super impressive with.

[QUOTE=Montecore;50147017]Could probably fit another half to full cup of strawberries in it and it would be even better, imo.

6/23 (189.8 lbs)

A
5/3/1 DL (Round 2, Week 3): 5x255, 3x290, 3x325, 3x10x195

B
5/3/1 OHP (Round 2, Week 3): 5x110, 3x120, 4x140, 3x10x95
Seated Cable Rows (strict): 6x15x72.5

C
Dips: 4x8x+45
EZ Curl (strict): 3x12x55

It turns out eating like ****, traveling a bunch, getting no sleep, and not lifting for 3+ weeks has an adverse effect on gym performance; I, for one, am shocked. Feel pretty sluggish at this weight too.

6/24 (187.8 lbs)
C2 Row: 10:12 mins (2500 m)
HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x35.5
Farmer's Walks (85 lb DBs): 2x50 sec

Similar regression here; not really a surprise. Going to try to be better about getting my lifting in next week in LA; planning on lifting tomorrow, then hopefully two lifting sessions and one rowing session (at least) on the four nights I'm going to be in LA. We'll see I suppose.

6/25 (187.4 lbs)

A
5/3/1 Incline Bench (Round 2, Week 3): 5x145, 3x165, 4x185, 3x10x125
DB Row: 4x10x100
Lat Pulldown (strict): 6x12x77.5

B
5/3/1 Front Squat (Round 2, Week 3): 5x155, 3x175, 4x195, 3x10x125
DB Bench Press: 2x11x85, 10x85, 9x85
DB Curl: 3x12x40

C
Good Mornings: 4x10x135
Tricep Pushdowns: 4x15x72.5
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x12.5

Managed to fit this in while the kids napped after their birthday party at the local bouncehouse place; hard to believe they'll be 4 tomorrow.

Top sets of bench and squat felt heavy, which isn't really a surprise given the layoff. Feeling pretty DOMSy, but hopefully that passes soon.

6/27 (189.6 lbs)

A
5/3/1 Bench (Round 3, Week 1): 5x155, 5x180, 8x205, 3x10x155
NG Chins: 2x8x+35; 1x7x+35, 1x6x+35
Facepulls: 6x12x57.5

B
Squat (Round 3, Week 1): 5x165, 5x190, 10x215, 3x10x165
Arnold Press: 4x8x50
DB Hammer Curl: 3x15x35

C
RDL: 4x8x195
Skullcrushers: 4x12x70
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x12.5

The minis had their birthday weekend Saturday and Sunday, so food was kind of a problem. Made this cake Sunday, which they liked; ganache frosting is thinner than I'd expected and pretty hard to work with. Tasty, though I'm not sure I like it better than the good ol' yellow cake/store bought frosting my Mom makes.

This was the first time I've back squatted in four weeks, so I redid the weights from the last cycle. Lost a bit on the upper body accessories; felt fat and weak on the chins, lost about a rep on the arnold press, but I kept roughly where I was for the main lifts when I did started this cycle six weeks ago, so not too bad.

I worked out at a Gold's Gym near my hotel (I'm in LA), and I think there's a Crossfit convention here because there were a bunch of jacked dudes and dudettes (a bit too thick for primo BTM spank material, but he'd probably toss a pair of shoes to a few of them) milling around the hotel lobby all day. Didn't see any of them at the gym, though.

Once at the gym, I chatted a bit with the chick who was using the squat rack before me; had probably the greatest squat chick ass I have ever seen in person (not the BTM/krunic waif squat ass, but the weight belt/knee wraps maybe-she's-powerlifting squat ass with an upper body that makes it effectively a certainty she was on some sort of tine) and was doing about 15 sets of ATG powerlifting squats in the 3-8 rep 185-225 range. Impressive.

After she cleared out, I offered to share the rack with a dude that was, generously, saw height; he asked me what I was going to squat and I told him. He then proceeded to wrap a towel around the bar for his sets and do sets 5 sets of 10 with 95, with sort of reasonable depth and a fair bit of knee cave. The powerlifting chick caught my eye once or twice and shrugged; it was even more annoying because it was one of those half racks with multiple hook built in, and I had to half squat the bar down and weasel it into the rack so it was the right height for the guy. Luckily he left before I did my work sets. The rack next to me was taken up by two 135 lb guys attempting to front squat 55 lbs and getting about half of the way down. #Golds

Minis grow up awfully quickly. Fun age. My four year old is beginning to show signs that he might actually behave like a human someday soon.

Solid ggo post. Excellent use of H&F characters. B+.

This

Floppy,

No doubt. Swim lessons today for them; we've progressed past the "splashing around getting comfortable in the water" lessons to "actually teach the ****ers how to swim" lessons. Past time imo, but we were lazy wrt scheduling. We also got them big boy bikes with training wheels, which they're really into, if a bit apprehensively at times. Time flies.

Re: gym midget,

I forgot to mention that when I was unracking 190, he said "good luck" like I was going for a max PR or something; at the time I thought it was funny, but maybe I should have been insulted? Pretty amazing regardless.

That'sHighPraise.jpg

Especially coming from the maestro of the draft thread fanfic.

I'd go with funny. No one squats heavy to depth in the wild. And in the wild, 190# is heavy.

Keeping up with all of the things you would like to get your kids involved in is tricky. We have been really lax with the swimming lessons and it was a bit of a fight to get the four year old to go but their swimming is still coming along. It won't be all that long and those training wheels will get tossed aside I'm sure. I can't quite remember the timeline but I think our oldest was zipping around on his own right around his 5th birthday in the fall. The following summer he could do 8 - 10km with us. Swimming + Gymnastics + Skating (lolcanada) have been our mainstays, with some "sports ball" in the early going and a hilarious MMA period thrown in for good measure.

Hb to minis!

I'm/I was so late on swimming lessons, it's embarrassing. At least the Mini-DTs are going now. It got to the point where my now-6yo when she was 5 would just be like, Daddy, do you know how to schedule swim lessons? Like I was ******ed. Those are my favorite parenting moments, where as my kids get older (well, just the 6yo for now) are like Christ on a crutch smdh this is my dad? She was not wrong to shame me.

We should start a dadding thread, I think there may have been one at some point(?). Hopefully we have not missed the window for JDock (RIP murdered driving Uber(?)) parenting hot takes.

In for JDockianisms.

Wood subscribe to dadding thread. May need it in a few months

May? By Monte's count you've already got at least 7 at this point.

DT,

Dadding thread is a capital idea; jdock talking about how cosleeping and breastfeeding through age 8 being optimal would probably never get old.

My kids aren't quite to the point where they realize I have an extra half chromosome or so, but it's likely not far off (especially if they get better at reading my wife's body language).

BTM,

Is there a story here?

As an aside, I was daydreaming about creating kind of a mobile whack-a-mole game modeled after your dating life, where hot emaci-ripped krunic style chicks pop up and you "whack" them and toss them shoes for their time, actually attractive chicks pop up and it saps your health bar if you accidentally "hit" them, and mega fat chicks pop up and instantly sap your health just from you looking at them. Days would speed by at an accelerated rate, and every so often one of the emaci-ripped or normal chicks that you banged pops back up at any appropriate interval and you have to toss either the morning after or RU 486 into her mouth after distracting her with your amazing texting game. You lose extra points if you miss and then she has twins.

I wish I knew how to program.

I would back that at the highest possible tier on kick-starter.

Poor-ass kids in the ghetto can be taught to code with scratch, so I'm sure an american millionaire could figure it out

In, only read the first and last pages. Seems like you made some great progress in those 5 years

Still working out in Hollywoodland:

6/29 (??? lbs)

A
5/3/1 DL (Round 3, Week 1): 5x225, 5x265, 7x295, 3x10x195

B
5/3/1 OHP (Round 3, Week 1): 5x95, 5x110, 8x125, 3x10x95
Seated Cable Rows (strict): 6x15xw/e

C
Dips: 4x8x+45
EZ Curl (strict): 12x60, 12x70, 10x70

Feeling fat, hungover, and weak. Now I know how KC and DT feel all the time.

7/5 (191.2 lbs)

A
5/3/1 Bench (Round 3, Week 1): 5x155, 5x180, 9x205, 3x10x155
NG Chins: 3x8x+35; 1x6x+35
Facepulls: 6x12x57.5

B
Squat (Round 3, Week 1): 5x165, 5x190, 10x215, 3x10x165
Arnold Press: 4x8x50
DB Hammer Curl: 3x15x35

C
RDL: 4x8x205
Cable Pressdown: 4x15x72.5
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x12.5

Pretty ridiculous last few days:

Saturday: Arrive home from CA on the red-eye at 8 AM; sleep for two hours, entertain family for an hour, then go to the grocery store to buy the stuff to make this, this, and this for the Fourth of July Symphony concert (outdoors, with fireworks); soup to nuts, including cleaning the kitchen, it all took around five hours. Probably not ideal planning on my part. Took an hour to get out of the parking lot afterwards with my aunt and uncle; took my wife (in the other car) almost two. One of the minis took a dump in the grass. #parenting

Sunday: Smoked 50 pounds of meat (four chickens, two pork shoulders, and one giant brisket) with my brother-in-law, made this and this, and hosted about 25 people for the fourth. The beans were ridiculously good and should be added to anyone's rotation that likes that sort of thing, by the way.

Monday: Had the neighborhood potluck, drew dessert, and made this. Kids stayed up until 10:30 to watch the fireworks; had some friends over with their young kids and spent the evening wrangling four toddlers.

Intermixed in all of this was too much food and booze, so naturally I feel like **** today. I'm going on vacation with the family on Friday, so I'm going to try to get two gym sessions in before we leave, and I'm going to bring my gym stuff with me, since I'm leaving directly from there for my next work trip. I just repeated Week 1 of my last 5/3/1 round since I was too wiped out to do my incline bench day last week; I actually did a little better this time around, which was a little heartening.