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:

Nuts

Three goals today: Get back to work with my staffing/consulting business, finish the mash tun and try to box squat worth a shit. I made some decent decisions about the direction and focus of my business. I think with my background and current situation, working with Emergency Departments and EMS is going to make the most sense. I still have enough contacts in IT and a few other random industries to work there as well, but someone in my position is well-served by specialization. I also drafted contracts finally today. Exciting, I know. Enough of that though, let's get to the blog-title-worthy stuff.

Max Effort Lower

Box Squat
45x10
45x10
135x5
185x3
225x3
275x3
315x1
335x1 PR

345xf

Felt great today. Just barely failed 345 because I was fatigued. I think coming in fresh, I could be back to where I was a couple meets ago. My meet best is a paltry 353 and I think I could hit that again (finally).

Mutant Glute-Ham Raise/Roman Chair?

Bodyweight x 8

25x8x4

Weighted Decline Situps
10x15x3

BB Rear Shrugs
185x20x3

After yet another hardware store trip and a visit to Austin Homebrew Supply, I was able to get the right parts to get the ball valve watertight on the mash tun. I also finished out my sparge arm with ugly drilling for special home-made charm.

Yeehaw.

Also bought some ingredients for a very basic blonde ale. Nothing fancy, just some pale malt extract, two-row, Cascade and Willamette hops and good old bullet-proof WL001 yeast. Gonna simul-brew this with my friend Aaron in Charlotte, NC so we can compare notes and see where we mess up.

Believe in yourself as long as other people tell you how.

I've had a tough but rewarding week in the gym, and today's lift was a great way to cap it off. I decided to forgo the box and just free squat for my dynamic effort day because of the apprehension I have been having about my strength level and form. Thank goodness I did - even though DE days aren't meant for big numbers, I still felt good and solidified some small tweaks I have been working on.

Dynamic Effort Lower

Squat
45x10
135x5
225x2x8 - Video

315x2 - This felt amazing. About time.

Rack Pulls

365x8, 8, 6

Reverse Hypers

4 sets of 10

DB Shrugs

80x20x3

Weight 205

Since the point of DE is to move the bar as fast as possible, I think the video shows I have a lot of work to do. Still, I felt more explosive than I have for a few weeks. The major thing I tweaked today is the width of my stance. I have been squatting out wider since I attended a Learn to Train seminar with Dave Tate and his EliteFTS crew earlier this year. Dave works with a lot of equipped lifters, so I think absorbed some of that. I mean, the wide stance is tempting because it shortens the bar path and gets glutes and hams more involved.

However, I think for a smaller, weaker raw lifter like myself it gets to be a diminishing returns thing at a certain width. I am also trying to protect my right knee, and getting the quads out of the lift certainly made sense in that regard. The problem was that my lack of strength and size was causing instability and consequently a rotational force on my knees as I hit the hole. Today I brought my feet in a few inches and I instantly felt more stable, strong and pain-free. I'm still relatively wide, certainly not Olympic squatting.

On a side note, I got to see one of my favorite varieties of gym wildlife: Guy lifting in scrubs. I know very well what life as a resident and attending is like, and there is absolutely no excuse for ever doing this. You can take 20-40 minutes to drive to and from the gym, work out for an hour but can't possibly make time to change into some fucking shorts? It takes everything I can muster to not stand next to him, point and yell "Wow! Are you a doctoooorrrr???!?" The next step above this is "Dr. Scrubs at a Bar, M.D."

Tomorrow could be very cool. I could either go to the Texas Craft Brewers Festival as planned, or I may end up going to a local Celtic Festival to watch some Highland Games. OR I COULD DO BOTH! Life has too many possibilities, it's overwhelming.

Ugly Squats, Pretty Lady

The wife and I hit the gym together today. We squatted in side-by-side cages. Isn't that adorable? My training was okay, I suppose. Squat numbers still aren't what I'm used to, and my form feels pretty unstable. I suffered a torn meniscus in my right knee several months back and I can still tell that I am gun-shy about it. Didn't help that it's been tender since last week's dynamic effort squat day.

Max Effort Lower:

Low Box Squat

45x10

135x5

135x3

185x3

225x3

255x3

275x2

305x1

315x1

335xf

Reverse Hypers

3x8

Cable Crunches

2x15

45 Degree Back Raises (plate behind head)

25x10x3

Band Pull-Aparts

3x15

Weight - 205

I have a long way to go to even get back to where I was in my last meet. I don't yet feel like the training methods I am using are paying off. Being as relatively small as I am for powerlifting, I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't be better served by a program with more volume and hypertrophy. I made good gains on Wendler's 5/3/1 last year, and it kinda calls to me on tough stretches like this.

For months I've really been trying to fix problems with my form that I overlooked while I was making decent strength gains early on. One step back, two steps forward I suppose. Still, it's frustrating right now.

I almost completely forgot that The Texas Craft Brewers Festival is this Saturday. I think I will try to convince the family to go down to Town Lake and watch me taste beers, scratch my chin and give opinions that sound well-informed but are not.