Went to the gym, played some ball today. I'm still super rusty, but this is a good place to get back into rhythm due to the less competitive nature of the games.

So I showed up right as 7 were looking for an 8th. I snap agreed despite not having an opportunity to warm up. The only thing that really hurt me was not warming up my shot, I missed the 2 jumped shots (air balls, actually) that I took.

So the teams were actually pretty even. It was 6 little dudes, like 14-15 years old, 4-6 inches shorter than me. All pretty competent with the ball. The other guy was black, about 2 inches taller than me and freakishly athletic (easily dunked in warm ups).

Man these little dudes have a crazy motor. At the park I'm playing games to 11, taking a good 5 minute break in between games. These guys all played to 15 and literally had no break in between games. I didn't know what we were playing to and when we won the first game I couldn't figure out why they got the ball. It was because were starting a new game, lol. I didn't even get it until they said the score was 3-1 or something.

Game 1: Victory 15-11

I got owned in my matchup (obv) but my defense was actually pretty good. I stopped my guy a few times and got it to the point where he started settling for jumpers or passing which is a big part of the reason we won. There was a little guy on our team who was very skillful and our main scorer. We worked really well together on pick n roll stuff, tho it was mostly just him scoring off the screen.

Game 2: Loss 15-12

It was pretty funny, the dude guarding me actually stopped guarding me to take the little guy on my team who was a scorer. It created a pretty good mismatch for me, but I was only able to take advantage of it a few times. It was a pretty good switch for them as it ended up winning them the game + other dude ran hot as fire from the arc.

Game 3: Win 15-13

I really stepped up my defense and help defense along with even more aggressive rebounding. Pretty good battle between both of our teams. I eased up on the offense a little bit to save my energy for defense. With the good little scorer on the team, I just tried to make it easier for him to score.


Basically, for every good pass I made, I made a really bad one. For every great post move I made, I did a really dumb post move, most of everything went like that. If I could have warmed up I think I woulda been slightly better, at least on my shots. I just need to be playing more in general to get back with it.

Great workout tho, if nothing else. It was about 45 minutes of straight Ballin'

Life is good, WIM

I worked out today, just a quick update.

Squat: 255 for 5 sets of 5 reps

Feelin' good. gonna get dat

Also did some curls because why not

Life is good, WIM

Well, I just played a pretty silly game of 21 at the gym. I was shooting around when a couple guys asked if I wanted to play 21. They were quite a bit smaller than me, but I think they were decent.

I've never shot the way I shot in that game, I think I missed 2 shots.

Final score: 21-1-0

It was borderline embarrassing. They asked if I wanted to break. Swish. I only took it inside to the rim once. I kept taking increasingly tough shots, jacking up off balance contested turn around jumpers. Double cross-over lefty sky hook from 15 out, it was pretty silly. But I just kept making it.

And I couldn't miss my free throws either. I actually wish the game had been more competitive, I hardly exerted any effort in the win, and they snap didn't wanna play any more, which was a bummer.

Oh well, guess you just gotta dominate sometimes.

Not even close to a thinly veiled brag.

Meh, if anyone had watched, they would have been notimpressed.jpg

For whatever reason I haven't been updating my log. Guess I'll get back into it.

Monday I squatted 260 for 3 sets of 5 reps. My lower back didn't feel good so I stopped my workout there.

Basketball stuff:

Went to the gym yesterday in the afternoon, there was only one other little guy shooting around. After warming up a little bit I asked if he wanted to play 1 on 1 and he agreed.

I had about 8" on him, but he was quick with good ball handling and a nice shot. I beat him the first game and I only scored in the paint 3 times. I opted to take basically all my shots from behind the arc for a couple reasons. It really wasn't close if I took it inside because he had no chance at defending me so wanted to make it a little easier on him since we were so mismatched. Part of it too was I was shooting pretty well, and made like half of them. The most obvious reason tho, is basically every time I popped it from behind the arc it was a 2 for 1 opportunity. I make it, or have a pretty solid chance at getting the board.

We played again and I ended up losing. This was due to 2 reasons. He stopped settling for outside jumpers and taking it in and finishing, which he was actually very skilled at. A lot of that was due to the fact that he kept beating me off the dribble because the damn floor is too slick. Another reason that I lost is I kept taking long jumpers inside the arc. I wanted to work on shooting mid range jumpers and this was a pretty good chance. It was close, the final score was 13-15. Pretty fun match up.

Today I went and played and a couple of guys asked if I wanted to play 21 after warming up for a bit, of course I agreed. After watching them warm up I could tell it was not going to be a close game, but I would still try to ball hard and work on some new offensive moves. The final score 21-7-4 and it a pretty easy victory. The way they played defense on me was kind of unusual, though. Instead of having one come up on me high and having the other one hang back under the rim as help defense (standard 21 defense) they both kinda just camped in the paint in a sort of zone style. It was actually a pretty good idea as I was only able to get to the rim and score that way a few times, I had to try and get close and settle for a short jumper. But I was hitting and making my free throws so it was pretty easy.

Life is good, WIM

B ball stuff again, played the best I ever have in my life so... PR?

Got to the gym, after warming up a little it looked like we had enough for full court 5s (yay!).

We shot for teams and I weirdly enough missed my free throw (first time in a while I missed when shooting for teams, wasn't fully warmed up I guess)and after 3 people had made it, we sort of just divvied the rest of the players to balance the teams since it ranged from little guy was like 4' and 10 years old to 3 older dudes all about my size. We actually made the teams extremely fair as it was very close the whole way. The game was epic.

Victory: 25-23 Same style of 1s and 2s but we played to 21 and had to win by 2. I dominated this game. I had 10 points and a ton of boards. My shoes were not sliding and it helped me get to the rim at will. I was destroying people off the dribble. We had a pretty good little player on our team (he said he's a sophomore in HS) and plays like a little kobe. Chucks up way too many shots but also makes an absurd amount of them.

Something kinda weird happened right toward the end of the game when it was tied 23-23. I got the ball, did a quick crossover, blew by my guy and took the ball into the rim for a score. I turn around and apparently had mowed down a little guy on my to the basket. He laid there for a second before getting up. He was fine but we ended up waving off the basket but keeping the ball. Interesting decision.

After that we played a game of 3 on 3.

Victory: 11-5 Had probably half the teams points and was on the same team as little kobe. Again chucked way too many shots that were contested/off balance/ill advised but made enough and I was able to get enough boards to win this game.

I stuck around for 1 more game of 3 on 3 after mixing up the teams

Victory: 11-10 I thought we had to win by 2, but I guess not in 3 on 3, was fine with me I was so gassed. This game was a lot more fun for me because I changed teams from little kobe and made it clear that I was going to guard him. He owned me on a couple of tough shots, but I destroyed him in the overall battle. I forced him into even tougher shots than he would normally take and he continued chucking but with less success (obv) and my sick defense worked against him. Combine that with the fact I destroyed him when he tried to guard me and I was really happy with how I played against him. He's obv a much better player than me, but I held my own.

I went hard for like 90 minutes and can now barely walk.

ETA: Second b ball session in a row with zero turn overs while handling the ball (!!!)

Life is good, WIM

Ok, great lifting sesh today. Here is what I did:

Squat: 265 for 5 sets of 5 reps

First four sets good, last set was a struggle, mostly form wise. I feel like I can pretty much always muscle my way enough to avoid failure but the form must look awful.

Bench: 175 for 5 sets of 5 reps

My right arm didn't love this, but didn't protest too much so at least I got it done.

DL: 225 for a set of 10 reps

Been slackin reall hard on DLs, just gotta bet back into that.

Now I'm gonna go to the park and work on some stuff, unless people are playing, then I'll play.

Then I'll have to go crush the PLO at my work

Life is good, WIM

Lotta wiming and goating going on it looks like.

Damn straight.

I played a very brief game of 2 on 2 on monday at the park. We lost 11-9 though we were on the better team. I didn't really understand what I was doing wrong on offense, though I could tell I was messing something up. I realized later that my off the ball movement was bad and it basically kept turning into a 1 on 1 iso situation with out any other options than chucking up a low % shot. Hopefully I won't fall into that again.

Today I played and did much, much better. In the beginning at least.

As soon as I showed up at the gym, I was asked if I wanted to play 4s, and of course I agreed despite not getting any chance to warm up. All these guys were about my size, which was pretty cool since usually there's a big mix and usually some smaller kids playing.

Game 1: Victory 15-9 I DOMINATED this game offensively. I had 6 points and a lot of what I was able to do created shots and points for my teammates. It was weird being the #1 offensive option, I'm not used to people looking to get me the ball. A big part of it was due to my matchup and the opposing team being bad at interior/help defense. I was defended by a bigger, slower black dude and completely torched him when I got the ball. We played really well as a team, passing and cutting scoring worked really well.

Game 2: Victory 15-12 We ended up each losing a player and picking up a new one. The guy we picked up is an absolute beast, I've played with him a bunch at the park am usually not on his team. I've mentioned him before, the biggest collision I ever had was against him. And he's apparently gotten a bit better. He's nearly unstoppable when he drives and it's fun to watch the tallest guy on the court (by 3" or so) do most of the ball handling and crushing. I had two really good scores in this game. 1 came from an off the ball screen that giant dude set for me and finished a pretty tough fadeaway/layup/finger roll thing. The other came from a rebound where I came up super strong, was hacked by 3 people and still got the ball into the basket. They also switched defenders on me and I had a much harder time with him.

Game 3: Victory 11-6 Full court 5s this time. I made my first free throw (ldo) to get on the first team and we were pretty good, with me and giant dude. We won this game pretty easily though I saved most of my energy for defense and only scored once I think. Giant handled most of the scoring.

Game 4 Loss: 11-4 Not sure what happened here, other than me and Giant couldnt seem to make a single shot. He must have went 0/10 in the beginning. Plus I think we were a little tired and not playing as good team defense. Oh well.

Overall it ended up being pretty much 60 minutes of all out basketball, pretty good exercise. Myfitnesspal said it was ~700 calories worth.

My gf cooked a salmon asparagus ginger stirfry dish that came out pretty good for my post workout meal.

Life is good, WIM

Alright. I didn't workout yesterday because my lower back was killing me so I just said F it. I'd rather stay healthy than add 5 pounds to my 5x5 squat work set.

But I did play basketball today! 5 games, I was there for a solid 2 hours, almost no stop ballin. This was an interesting mix of players, lotta old dudes. 2 guys on my team were def over 65, I think one was at least 70. They mostly just passed and took open shots, were pretty neutral teammates. We played 2s and 3s with these guys.

Game 1: Victory 21-4 I just played strong D and rebounded a lot and let the other guys do most of the scoring. I def was the hardest worker on my team though it wasn't on offense so much. I ended up guarding this asian dude who was a little smaller than me but about an equal skill set. I owned him in this match up but he got better as the games went a long.

Game 2: Victory 21-7 Same teams, dude I was guarding was able to score a couple more times, but my D and rebounding were plenty to easily win this game.

Game 3: Victory 21-11 I had been playing pretty bad on offense up to this point so I decided I wanted to step it up and try to score more, the opportunities were certainly there. I did end up with 10 points, but hardly dominated. I probably shot 50% at most, at that was in the paint which is pretty bad for me. The asian dude who was guarding me really stepped it up a lot and really made it tough for me.

Game 4: Victory: 21-8 We each ended up losing a player and picking up another one and man my matchup was pretty rough, though I snap volunteered for it. Dude had about 2 inches on me and weighed about 260, built like a football player. Def a lot of fat but a lotta muscle under there, too, and he knew how to move it. I did a really good job on him, and despite him being much bigger than me, he wasn't that great around the rim. I kept to well under 1/3 of his shots and was a big reason we won the game.

Game 5: Loss 30-24 Guy I was guarding was able to get a few more to go, I was pretty tired on O and D, but the main reason we lost was because the other team picked up a player who was wayyy better than anyone else. We actually got to 21 first but since the last game was to 30 we sort of collapsed at the end as the really good (also fresh) player just sort of took over. Oh well.

Overall, I was there for over 2 hours, probably playing ball for at least 100 minutes. Sweet.

Life is good, WIM

Ok, I've really been slacking on updating my log but w/e I'm still kinda lifting.

Here is what today looked like:

Squat: 275 for 4 sets of 5 reps

Should be perfect to get at 275 5x5 on monday and maintain that for the new year, for quite a while, anyway. Hopefully just gonna keep this at 275 while I work on other stuff (upper body/vert training) in the new year.

KB press: 35 for 5 sets of 12 reps

I'm considering doing more hypertrophy stuff for upper body this year. I barely even lift, and looking at my upper body it certainly looks like I def don't even lift. Hopefully I will be able to add the illusion of working out after sticking to it for a while.

Deadlift: 245 for 1 set of 10 reps

Felt pretty good. Hopefully gonna get this up to an easy 3 play 10RM to maintain at.

That's all for today, life is good, WIM

Ok Vegas TR:

We got to the Rio (never staying here again) pretty late due to our flight being delayed and it was about 1am before we were settled in to our room. I hit up KY and he met me at the bar where I was slamming new castles. After a bit we went to the Pai Gow table and goofed around a bit while winning a little money. After a 6 pack of new castles and a day of traveling I crashed out.

The next day I got up, my GF and I smashed the Rio buffet. The quality of the food was meh but jeebus the buffet was gigantic. I thought it was huge and mentioned it to my gf, and she asked if I had been to the other side past the bar. ZOMG I HAD NOT.

After that I met up with KY at the gym and signed up for a day pass. I ended up playing a solid +60 minutes of all out basketball, I didn't even lift. My gf skipped out on the whole gym thing (she has never even lifted) and cruised over to the Orleans.

After the gym, KY and I headed to the Orleans to sweat a bet we had both placed on a NBA game. We didn't win, but we all decided to play the 7pm tournament so we didn't have time to go get the all you can eat sushi we had planned on. We went to the chinese restaurant and besides the sweet and sour shrimp my gf got that was OMG SO GOOD, the rest of the food was meh.

During the tournament, Bro Sagan found me, and after I busted outta the tournament we chilled at the bar and chilled for a while I proceeded to get pretty drunk and BS nursed a beer. We made plans to eat Thai food the next night and parted ways for the evening. KY played in the tournament for a while before busting and then we chilled for a bit while I waited for my GF in the tournament. KY ended up leaving and I finally gave up waiting for my GF because she had just made it to the money with a healthy stack. I was crashing pretty hard. Lotta beer, Lotta losing (over 1k on sports) and not a lotta sleep.

My gf ended up 9th (bittersweet finish, though more sweet) and we got up the next day with my brilliant plan to eat at Benihans for lunch. We cruised over to the LVH where the restaurant is and they were only open for dinner. Lame! So I ended up placing some wagers on the games and sweat them at the bar while proceeding to get intoxicated. KY met up with us and BS generously volunteered to pick us up for dinner from the LVH so we wouldn't have to cab it. All my sports wagers were finished before dinner and I went 3-0 to make up my losses for the previous day's sports losses (yay!).

So BS and his GF picked up the 3 of us and we all went to Lotus of Siam and it was very very good thai food and I tried some new things. There was a 90 minute wait (!!!) but BS was shmart and had made a reservation. I even found something my gf would eat (she doesn't even eat thai food) so that was cool.

After dinner we pretty much just degen'd it up around the city while having fun. Some highlights were:

-At the Venetian every time I would get a good hit on a black jack hand I would shout HAMMERED IT! and after a wild we had the dealer doing it, lolloll.
-At PH we played some black jack and everytime the dealer would bust we would shout BUSTOOOO INNNNN HAWAIIIIII!!!!!!!
-Me and BS had some money on 20 on the roulette table on the 2nd spin (I had 10 or 11 on there I think) and we NAILED IT!

So we ate some crappy food with crappier service after that and by 5am or so I was exhausted. I crash reallllly hard when I've had little sleep and am not drinking, it's pretty wild. So I ended up having a much better day and much more profitable day than the previous one.

I didn't get up in time the next day to bet on the 1st round of football games (saved myself money on that one) and ran well enough on the next round of games for some nice profit. After that I decided I would do a hail marry and take a chance on the night game and place my biggest wager on a sporting event I ever had and bet 770 on the Seahawks. It was a close sweat.

I didn't even watch the 2nd half of the game and went to Benihana's for dinner with my gf, KY and BS were probably too tired from the degeneracy the night before. The food was great, the sake bombs were sweet, and we ended up doing a bit more degen stuff before crashing out and coming back home.

Pretty fun trip.

-jf leaves $100 in video poker machine in first hour of being in vegas and writes it off, I tell him to go to security and he asks a guard walking around(lol) lucks out anyway

-jf makes a wesley snipes quote "always bet on black, I dare him to, and we all load on black for a spin at ph, black hits jf wins $200, me and bro sagan scoop a few

-even though I'm counting cards JF waits till the count gets the nut worst every time, then raises his bets

-I started the nailed it/hammered it by saying it every time i hit win/lose just goofin, tryin to loosen up the homies who may not gombool as much as me and are sweating every hand usually followed by hi-fivin

-I won at bj at every location we played at 6/7

-bro sagan making us stop at walmart to get his gf sandals cause she was wearing heels and getting owned then refusing to get her miss piggy slippers or anything but what she wanted(whipped)

-jf playing baccarat not having a clue how to play and we win a few bets and bail

definitely a fun weekend, both jfons and brosagans gf's checked out

tl;dr

confirmed good time

LOL.. sickos.

Solid work here everyone. I'm a little bummed for you that you didn't make it to Goyemon.

770 on the Seahawks and not even watching the second half is fabulous.

Man I'm kinda bummed. I have a re-occuring right arm injury that I aggravated pretty bad a few days ago playing ball. When it gets really bad my arm goes numb and I have no strength in it. Not sure how I did it but it really sucks. It usually gets aggravated when I do any sort of repetitive swinging motion, golfing/batting/throwing if I do a bunch at once.

Lifting doesn't bother it unless it is already flared up so it's really lame to be flared up right now when I want to be lifting.

I managed to get through my squats, tho. Here is what I did:

Squat 275 for 5 sets of 5 reps

Felt pretty heavy. I think my plan for the year will just be to do this every monday, and add 5 pounds a month. I'm am 95% sure this is the heaviest 5x5 set I've done, so at least that's good for a PR.

Hopefully a week of rest and just keeping my activity low will get me back to where I want to be. I think that should get close.

Life is good, WIM

Happy NYE H+F

5x5x275 is pretty solid work, getting fat helps the squat so much.

It's not intentional!

I would say that it'll be easy to keep the squat weight current while I drop a few pounds over the next few months (hopefully it will be) but I'm not exactly breezing through my sets atm

Hopefully my significant protein intake increase will make a big difference

In my experience, total cals >>>>>>>>>>>>> protein content for lifts. As long as you don't eat like a complete ****** at least.

Did it didsappoint you that I dont drink anymore while you were in town getting a bit schlitsy? I tried to make up for it with all natural idiocy.

lol of course not

Well I never log my vertical jump stuff, so I figure I would just kinda list everything I do. I still plan on adding to it as I go but this is just what I've been doing:

Jumping rope

Lateral jumping back and forth over my bench

Box jumps

Putting a box on my bench and jumping over it

Weighted reactive jumping

Weighted jump up step downs

All for sets of 3, varying reps

Gonna keep adding to this as I get used to it.

I felt like freaking crap when I woke up today. Ugh. A shower helped loosen up the phlegm in my throat, I took an airborne and some Ibuprofen and I feel somewhat better. So I def lifted. Here is what it looked like:

Squat: 275 for 5 sets of 5 reps

Actually filmed my 1st set. I could upload it if anyone cares but it wasn't awesome. Not terrible, but I'm back to the old habit of coming too far forward on my knees at the bottom. My right leg caves a little bit on the way up but it's not awful. Last set was pretty tough. Gonna stick to this weight for the rest of the month.

Bench: 145 for 5 sets of 10 reps

Well not exactly, I failed the last few reps on the last set, just too much fatigue. I don't really care, I'm just glad I made it through all those reps without any pain in my shoulder. YAY! I'll def get my strength back and add some size with the hypertrophy I hope.

Deadlift: 255 for 1 set of 10 reps

Might not be able to consider this 1 set, but that's nitty, it took me a couple minutes to get through it all. Not that it was heavy, my grip was struggling and it was oddly tough on me in a cardio sense.

I also did some curls because... why not.

Off to do some other things.

Life is good, WIM

Let's see it dude. on the bench. Not so odd that you get tired from high rep DL sets, especially if you're not used to them.

Ok it's Thursday so I did vert training. It looked like:

Reactive jumps unweighted 3x20

Rim jumps unweighted 3x20

Jump rope 3x100

Side to side jumps over bench 3x20

30" obstacle jumps 3x10

Box jumps 3x20

Single leg lateral jumps (per leg) 3x20

I set my timer for 60 seconds in between sets and it was basically vertical jump training at a circuit tempo.

Took me 45 minutes to shred through this

I'm going to upload a nood here since its the cool thing to do

Life is good, WIM