CK's Journal - Mixing it up to confuse my muscles and shock them into growth

Well I'm glad I haven't entered into any sort of Shape Up, because I would be severely lagging behind at this stage. Haven't trained since Saturday, and haven't been in the gym since last Tuesday. This is due to the abysmal road conditions that are seemingly all over most of Dublin. And to make matters worse I have had an awful cold/sort throat affair for the last two days, probably from trudging around in the snow trying in vain to move cars.

The only positive is that my diet has been good. I have no idea when this snow is meant to ease up, but hopefully I'll get to the gym at the weekend.

Been such a boring week, I miss training so much! To emulate the experience as much as possible I've been constantly listening to the kind of music that I normally train to, like this:

Another sh1t day today. Snowed in again, so spent the day watching the darts and ready steady cook. Also I feel so sick today that my appetite is just non-existant, the only thing I've consumed since I got up is a goodfellas pizza and about 7 cups of tea. Not good, I'll count this as a 'cheat' day, or something...

I saw on the news last night that this weather is due to keep up for AT LEAST the next 10 days. WTF? Never in my life have I witnessed snow in this country for any sort of prolonged period (ie. more than a day), let alone this long. Global warming? Or just some malevolent power that doesn't want me to train? F.UCK THS

Go watch Rocky IV (at least I think it's that one) for inspiration, then you can go run around in the snow with a log across your shoulders

HicSuntDracones


Go watch Rocky IV (at least I think it's that one) for inspiration, then you can go run around in the snow with a log across your shoulders

Lol i was thinking the same thing

LOL good idea! Nah I reckon seeing as the weather is going to be so bad for the next few days I'm going to resign myself to not being able to use my gym. I do have a weights set at home but with extremely limited weight. Thankfully I also have a chin up bar. So I reckon tomorrow or the next day, depending on whether I feel any better than I do now, I will do a workout consisting of mainly bodyweight stuff, and some isolations that I can do with the limited weight I have.

So I imagine my workout will look something like this:

Pull Ups/Chins
Push Ups/Incline/Decline Push Ups
Single Arm DB Shoulder Press/Push Press
Skull Crushers
Flyes of some variety
Curls of some variety

I also have a sort of stool type thing that I could use for Step-Ups (with DBs perhaps), or Box jumps or something.

This certainly won't be in any way a sufficient substitute for my regular workouts, but more just to be able to actually use my muscles and stop this awful feeling of wasting away!

Can i ask where you live?
Snow sounds bad, if i believe your excuses for not training

I don't really want to say my exact location on the internet like this if that's ok. But I live in north Dublin, about half an hour from the city centre, near the top of a hill, on the coast... haha. If you were from Dublin that would narrow it down quite a lot, but suffice it to say the roads are particularly bad where I am because of the fact that I'm basically on a mountain. I haven't seen the roads in the rest of the city for the last two days because I have been sick and haven't been able to leave my house anyway, but according to the news it's bad everywhere. Most schools are being shut down until Thursday, and a lot of my mates who are working are being told to stay at home. It's a f.ucking disaster, we're not used to this sh1t!

Fair enough mate, sounds pretty ****e to me I'd be gutted to not be training, but anyway, im slightly injured so i feel ya pain!

Sh1t what kinda injury? Sorry to hear that! Yeah dude I am f.ucking seriously gutted to not be training! I'm getting serious cabin fever here!

Overtraining basically, been hitting heavy/very low reps week in week out since beginning of december.

Pulled shoulder/pulled back. Its just aching rather than total pain, but still lay off the training.
The cold never helps, it fcks my knees up and my shoulders. Bring on summer!

****, well I know how you feel what with my dodgy rotator cuff giving me grief every now and then. But you know what they say, "accumulating injuries are the price we pay for the thrill of not having sat around on our asses"!

(Well actually only Rippetoe says that, but you get the idea)

Ive had really bad snow where i am too but ive got no excuse as my gym is a 5 min walk away

LOL that would be handy! My gym is in my college which is a a 40 min drive away (depending on traffic)!

Also this

Bit of Everything - 9/01/10

Felt very weak today, still quite sick, but I figured a bit of a workout would make me feel better, which it did.

Chins
BW x 6
BW x 5
BW x 3

Incline Push-Ups
BW x 25
BW x 15
BW x 10

Decline Push-Ups
BW x 12
BW x 12
BW x 10

Bulgarian Split Squats
Right
35kg x 8
35kg x 8
35kg x 8
Left
35kg x 8
35kg x 8
35kg x 4
At this point my glutes began questioning why I didn't warm up.

Standing Arnold Press
17.5kg x 8
17.5kg x 7
17.5kg x 5

Skull Crushers
22.5kg x 10
22.5kg x 10
22.5kg x 9

Thumbless Grip BB Curls
22.5 kg x 14
27.5kg x 10
27.5kg x 8
27.5kg x 7

Flyes
Couldn't get full ROM here
10kg x 10
10kg x 9
10kg x 8

Floor Wipers
20kg x 10

I have no idea whether I have lost any strength or not over this week's unplanned hiatus, because I wasn't able to do any of my regular exercises. Anyway for some reason I always feel weaker working out at home, particularly so today because I am sick, but it was still a decent enough session.

DOMS, Glorious DOMS! How I missed your vicious dichotomy of pleasure and pain!

Good to see you doing an actual workout for a change ;)

LOL cheers!

Just had some cottage cheese mixed with peanut butter, it was absolutely foul Never doing that again!

Push - 12/01/09

DB Press
36kg x 8
36kg x 8
36kg x 6 (-1)

Incline Bench
62.5kg x 8
62.5kg x 8
62.5kg x 7 (-1)

Dips
BW x 8
BW x 8
BW x 7

Skull Crushers
29kg x 7 (+2kg)
29kg x 6
29kg x 5

Incline Flyes
9kg x 10
9kg x 10
9kg x 9 (+1)

Surprised my strength wasn't down more than that tbh. And it could also be due to the fact that I still had severe DOMS in my arms and pecs from my push-up-fest on Saturday. So I'm pretty happy.

CitizenKane

Just had some cottage cheese mixed with peanut butter, it was absolutely foul Never doing that again!

Dear god! that sounds painful. I can't stomach cottage cheese however I eat it.. it's not really the taste of it, more to do with the texture. What kind of peanut butter do you use? I recently switched to Whole Earth and it's outstanding, trumps Sun-pat big time!