Do I suck a lot more, or a little more?

Got a good week of training in last week, and I'm ramping up for the off-season fairly well. Hannah continues to rob the wife and I of precious sleep, so I have to make do with what level of rest I get. I got the "lift heavier" bug these past couple of sessions, so I loosened up the routine and kinda did whatever. Nothing wrong with testing myself a little to see what I lost over the course of the season in terms of top-end strength.

Cleans, snatch and deadlifts:

Squat variations and ugly, ugly, bench press:

I have been really getting into the idea of experimenting more with hard cider recipes, so I picked up the following at Austin Homebrew today:

• Bavarian Wheat Yeast
• Champagne Yeast
• 1 lb. Wheat DME
• 1 lb. Golden Light DME

...and then I forgot to get apple juice. It's tough to be this way. To be me.

I mean, it's the blog title

I made out like a bandit on Christmas. Check it:

Glass Goodies

- Dallas Cowboys Mugs

- Set of Beer Glassware

- 4 Pilsner Glasses

- NXNW Growler

Books

- Brew Chem 101

- Yeast

- Beers of the World

- He Said Beer, She Said Wine

Other Goodies

- Subscription to a "Craft Beer of the Month" Mailing List; a 12-pack every month!

- A chalkboard tap handle

I guess I should get good at making beer now.

Today I was right on, thematically speaking. There was strength stuff and there was beer stuff.

Squats

45x5

135x5

225x3

315x3

375x1 10 lb. PR

385xF

Bench

45x5

135x3

185x3

225x2

260x1 5 lb. PR

Barbell Good Mornings

135x10x3

Weighted Dips

45x10, 10, 9

Felt really great to break through on two lifts that have stalled for a while. I haven't mentioned it previously, but my current training is being programmed by Matt Vincent, a former LSU track and field standout and current pro highland games thrower. Matt and I got to know each other back when I was running a previous website. Since I have taken to the highland games, he asked me to be a guinea pig for a training program tailor-made for throwers. It's simple but effective, and I can feel that the gains I'm getting are going to translate to longer throws.

As much as I feel like I know about programming, I have to admit now that I'm not ready or able to do it for myself. Matt knows his shit, so I'm doing what he says.

After training, I picked up the little man from daycare and started a brew day. I am doing my own take on a Scottish Ale this time around. Partial mash yet again, as I bought the ingredients before I got my 20 qt. brew pot for all-grain.

If you live in Central Texas and haven't picked up a bottle of what I'm drinking in the last pic, you are missing out. It's Real Ale's Coffee Porter. Great cold weather brew.

The brew session went ok. I didn't have Ashley there to help, and I really missed the extra brain and hands. She's nice to look at, too. The only two problems were a slight sanitation slip up (tip of garden hose in cooled wort) and the wort temperature being too low at yeast pitching because how cold the damn ground water is now. Still, hoping to see bubbles soon.

The biggest change I made to the Scottish Ale was the addition of .25 oz Saaz hops for aroma. I had some leftover from a failed lager, so I thought it might rein in some of the hoppiness from the Kent Gold hops. Kent Gold were 5.8% alpha acid and the Saaz was 3.5% or so. I figured by splitting the final .5 oz of hops between the two, I could mellow it out and show some malt while adding a little "USA, USA" feel to it.

Check out the recipe on Hopville.

I also finished the keg of cranberry ale. RIP.

I take requests

New program. Working on maximal strength in this phase.

Warm-up:

5 min. treadmill

Foam Roll

Stretch

3 sets of jump rope

Squat

135x5x2

225x5

255x5

275x5x3

Bench

135x5

155x5

195x5x3

Barbell Good Mornings

115x10x3

Weighted Dips

25x10x3

Met with the wife and kiddo and worked on my open stone for a little bit. I have a very small coach:

Yeah, I'm happily married. No big deal.

Woke up early and got the little guy to school this morning, and I was feeling refreshed and well-rested for once. Ashley and I hit the Barton Creek Greenbelt for a morning hike/run and it was awesome. My wife can always tell when I'm spending too much time inside my own head, and she knows just how to snap me out of it. While enjoying the decent weather, we solved pretty much all the world's problems in between runs. Well, okay...It was more like me spewing out all my goals and future plans and "what-ifs" while she listened.

There are a lot of things I want to do that involve both strength and beer (heyo) that I feel like I'm having problems getting momentum on. Add to that some career uncertainty/indecision and it was a recipe for a brooding dude. Ashley is great about putting things in perspective and reminding me of everything I've accomplished. Plus, she makes me go trail running occasionally so I don't use strength sports as an excuse to become a disgusting lardass, so there's that.

After the hike, we dropped by Austin Homebrew Supply to price out some all-grain brewing equipment. These guys rock, and I love going to a place where I can just look, learn and get prices without being pressured. Honestly, that approach is the best way to make me spend my money with them. They will even tell you which of their items are overpriced and can be made cheaper at home.

I'm going to make the switch to all-grain soon and I think I can build some of this myself. I'm a big believer in the idea that you learn more by crafting things yourself than buying them ready-made. Plus, it makes troubleshooting later a ton easier. I'm trying to decide if I want to go the cheap route and make my liquor tank and mash tun out of plastic coolers like these or just pony up the cash and use steel pots that I have to drill for spigots. Either way, I am going to buy the stuff I can't build, like the burners, valves and false bottom.

Also scoped out a Blonde Ale recipe. I'm thinking that's next.

Because of all the excitement I trained a little later in the day. I hit up the closest Gold's Gym because these kind of days aren't very equipment intensive. I have started digging out of my little pity party about my lifts due in part to the aforementioned wife awesomeness as well as my friend Jay sending a long e-mail about some amazing strength breakthroughs he is having. He keeps shit pretty simple, and that's always refreshing.

Dynamic Effort Upper

Bench Press

45x10

95x10

135x5

155x10x2

Pretty low percentage speed work today (60%). I really feel loose and out of sync on bench, so I wanted to worry less about the weight and more about set-up and bar speed. Found some weak points to work on for sure.

Skull Crushers

80x10, 10, 8, 6

Chins

10, 10, 8, 5

Tate Press

30x20, 13, 10, 7

Weight 205

Had better intensity and more energy for my accessory work today.

Also, this finally came in the mail:

Guess I'm legit now. I have mastered business.