Bamp the weights on the squats if you're eating a lot and they feel easy yo

Hmmm... that's a good point.

I def planned on raising the squat weight at some point, I guess when they started feeling a lot better, it's as good a time as any.

I'd be pretty stoked if I could get my 5x5 squats up to 275 for the new year.

Ballin'

I lifted today. Just a bench workout, though it took nearly an hour, even with shooting for 4 minute rests.

Bench 180 for 10 sets of 3 reps (85% +10 pounds)

Felt heavy, glad I was able to get em. Feels good to be progressing.

Now I'm off to eat burgers, then drink and gamble all night.

Life is good, WIM

Alright, on to the 3rd week of this smolov jr. Pretty encouraged with my progress so far, hopefully I set a WR when I'm done with this cycle.

Pre-workout: Footlong subway tuscan chicken. The herbs or flavoring or whatever it is they use on the chicken is decent, but the balsamic vinaigrette makes it pretty nomonoms.

The I did:

Bench: 155 for 6 sets of 6 reps

This was remarkably easy. Like, easier than last week. Form is feeling more consistent which helps.

That's all for today.

Life is good, WIM

I forgot to update my log again on Saturday. I did:

Bench: 165 for 7 sets of 5 reps

Felt good.

Ok, gross personal problems incoming:



And now onto what I did today:

Squat 230 for 5 sets of 5 reps

Ok I finally feel like my body is on board with eating and adding weight here, my goal is to get this to 275 so I can do that 5x5 in the new year. Should be doable. This felt pretty good.

Bench: 175 for 8 sets of 4 reps (80% +15 pounds)

Pretty happy to be doing this program as written. Hopefully I nail all my reps tomorrow on the final workout of the cycle.

I think I strained my right hamstring while squatting, it feels kinda tense and sore, hopefully it will go away.

Now off to watch THE BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life is good, WIM

LETS GO BRONCOS

some performance in the second half

Lol Norv

Haha I read that Norv is the worst coach in history against the spread.

Game was sick tho, also pretty profitable, heh.

Alright, on to my workout update!

Final day of this cycle of Smolov jr.

Bench: 185 for 10 sets of 3 reps (85% +15 pounds)

Really happy I crushed this cycle. Anyone have a suggestion of optimal time to test my 1RM? I'm thinking maybe saturday?

Anyway, now I'm off to play O8, then do basketball league, then O8 and drinking

Life is good, WIM

Man I went to a league game finally and we got blown out

We were outmatched pretty bad, and I'm not in as good of shape as I'd like to be. I think we lost by 30ish. Most of that was due us being unable to get anything to fall and them shooting like Jesus.

I didn't get to the line at all despite a few drive a attempts. At least I finished a few of em.

We actually really only had 4 players so we recruited some 13 y/o. He could shoot alright but was a liability anywhere else.

I got banged up pretty good but I made it.

I won't be able to play next week (most likely) which sucks because I need to get back into shape, hopefull ill be able to get to the park for a few games.

Life is good, WIM

Run some sprints bro.

<Rip quote about cyclists not being athletes because they don't want to do any training off the bike to get better at their sport>

Yuck I'm feeling really lethargic/apathetic/unmotivated to lift

I did it anyway but it's a lame feeling

Bench 150 for 6 sets of 6 reps

I guess now that I'm not so emo I can actually update my log. I'm doing my 3rd cycle of smolov jr bench routine. I forgot to update on saturday, that looked like:

Bench 160 for 7 sets of 5 reps

Felt reasonable enough

Well yesterday I felt like I was going to die. About 9:30 am I started feeling awful and by 11:00am I felt death was coming. I felt so bad that I turned off football (!!!) and went to bed. I woke up and took my gf over to my parents for the Bronco game (F YEAH BRONCOS) and after some food, multiple doses of airborne I felt a little better, but still opted to go to bed at like 11. Wayyy earlier than usual. Was good to sleep for like 12 hours.

I still don't feel great today but I felt good enough (barely) to lift. My head was absolutely pounding halfway through my squats and I was tempted to quit but finished them anyway. Gotta have WIM yo

Here is what my workout looked like today:

Squat: 240 for 5 sets of 5 reps

Felt heavy and my head wasn't helping. I really wish I just felt better in general, I'm probably fighting something. Hopefully I win.

Bench: 170 for 8 sets of 4 reps (80%)

Felt perfect.

Now I gotta figure out how I'm going to do a fantasy basketball draft on my iPad with my friends while I'm playing cards.

Life is good, WIM

Sounds like you got a bad cold/the flu. Lifting with a fever might not be too brilliant. Nice WIM tho.

I think I'm just a huge puss. Or ate something. And I think I'm turning into a hypochondriac

Along with still not eating potatoes in case I developed an intolerance, milk might be really making my stomach mad. So now I'm skipping dairy for a while. Everything bad started happening yesterday after 2 big glasses of milk. Developing a strong case of lactose intolerance would make me just furious.

And now I'm re-evaluating my manic-depression. I just looked up the symptoms for seasonal affective disorder and damn if that's a lot more accurate sounding. I guess that would explain highs and lows, I just get bummed out in rainy cold weather.

The main problem is if someone told me they had seasonal affective disorder I would say lol ya sure.

Either way I'm pretty mad bro

Confirmed freak and very weird dude

Yup, confirmed.

I lifted today, it looked like:

Bench: 180 for 10 sets of 3 reps (85%)

Workout D, week 1 on my 3rd cycle of the smolov jr bench routine. Was heavier than I would have liked.

Off to drink and gambool.

Life is good WIM

Just a quick bench workout today.

Bench: 160 for 6 sets of 6 reps

Felt pretty good

Life is good, WIM

Alright, I'm pretty forgetful. I benched on saturday, forgot to update. It looked like:

Bench: 170 for 7 sets of 5 reps

Grinded my way through it, felt reasonable enough

Well last night I passed out pretty early, sometime between 11 and 12 I think. I was all set to sleep for a much needed 10-12 hours. Unfortunately I woke up about 5 hours later. I tried absolutely everything to go to sleep, but 2 hours later I said 'f it' and got up.

So I'm just getting an early jump on the day, laundry, lifting, cleaning, etc. Hopefully I can get a nap in later this afternoon.

Here is what my workout today looked like:

Squat 245 for 5 sets of 5

Felt pretty solid. Really wanna make sure I can get this to 275 for my work sets every monday in the new year, should be easy if I stay healthy.

I also benched (ldo) here is what it looked like:

Bench: 180 for 8 sets of 4 reps

Workout C, Week 2 on my 3rd cycle of smolov jr bench routine.

Now I think I'm going to go eat a whole bunch because I'm starving. I'm planning on trying some potatoes and praying it doesn't kill my stomach because I really don't want to have a potato intolerance.

That's all for today.

Life is good, WIM

Being lactose intolerant isn't that bad. I just keep a pack of lactase pills in my car/office/kitchen/livingroom etc.

Yeah true, my gf is so she always has pills in her purse.

So far so good after eating potatoes ~12 hours ago, I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that my intestines don't end up rebelling later

Alright, workout D on my 2nd week of my 3rd cycle of Smolov Jr. bench routine:

Bench: 190 for 10 sets of 3 reps

Feels good to do a bunch of triples at ~BW. Also considering that my 1RM was roughly 195 when I started doing the smolov jr stuff it feels like good progress for sure.

I have a league game later tonight. I would be more excited if I was in better shape, but it will still be fun. NBA back on in full force is making me really want to get out and play more.

Then drinking and gambling all night after that.

Life is good, WIM

Alright! Basketball write up time!

I haven't played any ball in 3 weeks or done any cardio for that matter. But I was still excited to play.

I showed up about 20 minutes early, warmed up, felt pretty good. Shot was falling enough to not be worried.

My team:

Me, little guy who invited me who actually is a pretty solid SG/PG player, old guy who was decent but I think kinda stupid, a guy who was about my size and decent on defense and weak on offense, small guy who wasn't awful but not really good at anything, and a bench player who was amazing at getting to the rim but WOAT at finishing.

Their team was basically 3 young, small athletic shooters, an old guy who was pretty skillful, and this old slow guy who was about 6' 6" 300 and unbeatable in the post if he got position.

So here is how the game went:

I spoke up right away saying I wanted to take the big guy, none of this stupid zone stuff. So what actually happened was I went man on man with ogre dude and they ran a 4 man zone. We were a little out of sync on this but it worked ok.

I should note: the refs called 3 seconds in the key only on offensive players, if you are on D you can hang out as much as you want.

I actually got the 1st score of the game on a box out/rebound/put back. Felt good.

Then on defense I kept battling with Ogre dude. I really tried to just push him around and do as good of ball denial as I could, but if they wanted to just lob it up to him it was tough to intercept. But as long as I had position on him I kept making him pass or take really tough shots and do a great job of shutting him down. I was actually able to draw a 3 second violation on him in the 1st Q (just a turnover).

HIGHLIGHT: On a fast break I took the ball coast to coast and in a perfect blend of skillful ball handling and clumsy dribbling took it all the way to the rim, finished, AND drew the foul. AND ONE! But I didn't make the free throw so w/e


So at the end of the 1st Q the score was 8-12 (8 minute quarters). I was pretty gassed (LDO) so I volunteered to sit for a bit and get our bench guy into the rotation

WORST IDEA EVAR

I came back in after about 5 minutes and the score was 8-25 are you kidding me? There's no way I'm that much of an impact on my team on both sides of the floor, it was a pretty solid case of run bad imo. But, it was a combination of them going back into full zone defense, no one could stop Ogre, and the dude who took my place just couldn't get anything to fall.

So this is super interesting to me, and I was talking about it to my friend later in the night while we were playing O8. Here is what happened when I came in.

For whatever reason, old dude had sort of stepped in and told everyone what to do. Which I think is a good thing in most cases like this where someone like me really needs a defined role to succeed, on both sides of the floor.

So he goes, 'you go up and be on the top of the zone and be a wing defender' so in a 2-3 zone I was in the 2 spot. Which doesn't make a lot of sense looking at our teams height, but I'm a pretty solid on-the-ball defender so I went with it. Even though I prob would be better at lower defense, I stuck with it.

So this is where is gets interesting.

I break the zone and meet the guy bringing the ball over half court and just put insane pressure on him. TURNOVER. WE SCORE. Ok this repeats like 4-5 times and we start rallying. Man this felt good.

This is much closer to how I am used to playing at the park. Zone defense seems like it could be good, but in more casual games without extremely explicit instructions and a good scheme, I think that man on man with natural help rotations is wayyyyy better.

So, once again, dude bring ball over half court, I jam up on him and this old guy (now on the bench) is barking at me to get back into the zone and stop breaking it. I'm leaving the lanes wide open apparently.

But I mean wtf. If this guy can just bring the ball over half court and do whatever he wants, find players passes efficiently, etc. But now if I put pressure on him, he struggles to keep his dribble, is more worried about getting rid of the ball, and not turning it over etc.

So w/e this whole zone thing is weird, old guy comes back into the game and they move me back to a low defender and we basically slowly start trying to grind into the game.

The frustrating part was that for the 1st 3 quarters, we would move the ball around, find players work hard and score sometimes. But every time we scored, they would run down, jack up a 3 and make it. They made probably +15 three pointers. I think we had 2 all game.

However, this brilliant offensive scheme wasn't working so great. They finally started missing and we kept trying to play disciplined ball and work our way into getting good shots.

In the end we were down 42-46 and were able to get last minute steal, shoot a 3 miss, rebound and score but the final score was 44-46. I would have set the line at like us +12 so we covered I guess. We certainly did a lot better than I thought we would after getting blown out by this team the last time we played and it was sure looking like that when I sat out.

So it was a lot of fun, I've got the drive to get out and play a lot more now.

Life is good, WIM

Hmm it looks like I keep forgetting to update my log after I lift, w/e. I'm doing the smolov jr bench program as written, haven't missed a workout yet.

I thought I was going to miss my workout today because I wasn't feeling very good this morning and instead of getting up at 11am I got up at 4pm. My plans ended up getting cut short a lot later than usual, so I was able to come home and work out.

Also, it's a little late but I was able to finally jump in and do my NBA fantasy draft. I don't know much about NBA fantasy and the subtle nuances of how it works. However, I'm really happy with my lineup, I hope they end up being good in terms of fantasy. Here is what my lineup looks like:

G
Tony Parker
James Harden
Kevin Martin

F
Rudy Gay
Paul Millsap
Danilo Gallinari

C
Dwight Howard
Tyson Chandler

Utl
Kris Humphries
Isaiah Thomas

B
JaVale McGee
Shawn Marion
Mario Chalmers

Pretty happy with how I drafted.

And I worked out today, here is what it looked like:

Squat: 250 for 5 sets of 5 reps

Although I feel ok, I can tell that my strength is not at 100% as this felt super heavy. At least I worked my through it and didn't fail/get close to failing. Should be able to hit the 275 work set that I plan to be at for the new year.

Bench:185 for 4 sets of 4 reps

Didn't feel so great, my right shoulder doesn't feel so hot. Bleh. I could have easily muscled my way through all 8 sets that I was supposed to do but my shoulder feels pretty awful so I'm just gonna try and rest it.

Besides all that, I think I'm gonna crush some in n out.

Life is good, WIM