Re-Rack Your Weights!

So I went to the gym this morning (4:30) for a good hypertrophy workout. I was supposed to head in yesterday morning, but couldn't sleep all night after that stupid long run. It probably wouldn't have been good anyway since it was leg day and my legs were pretty worn out. At least that's what I tell myself so I don't feel too guilty.

Anyway, after my normal fifteen minute warm-up on the bike, I headed over to the weights. The gym I have a membership to has several barbell bench press setups in the central area of the weight room and a bunch of different types of Olympic plate-loaded machines around to the side of them. I noticed as I entered the area that every one of the bench press bars had at least 45 pound plates on each side of them and that most of the machines were fully loaded as well. This struck me as a bit strange because at that point in the morning, I was the only one in the weight lifting area. Evidently some lifters had ignored the signs posted around the area and had left their weights loaded at the end of their workouts the previous night. No doubt, they thought that it would be convenient for the next person to have weights pre-loaded for them. This theory would have held up if I was the first person to use one of these stations. However, I was working legs and arms this morning and had no reason to even approach those benches or machines. About the time my workout was done (and I was tired), a friend of mine from work, a 40-something woman who probably weighs about 120 pounds came into the weight room. From across the room I could see her struggling to remove the weights and put them away so that she could actually use the machines. She had to drop the 45 pound olympic plates to the floor and roll them to the weight tree, where she could only lean them up against it. I went over and helped her clear off the rest of them so that she could work out.

I don't think I'll ever understand the people who don't realize that their lack of common courtesy seriously hampers other people's ability to work out. Just about everyone I have known that lifts weights, really enjoys it and tries to convince their friends that they need to take up this form of exercise. I certainly do. So why are there so many (I assume) men who can't figure out that having to remove other people's weights (among other reasons) ruins strength training for so many people (esp. women) to the point that several I've talked to just avoid the weight room? That's really a shame, because strength training can have benefits for everyone. Like I said, the signs are clearly posted and even threaten membership revocation if a staff member catches you ditching your weights three times. What's so hard about lifting the weights one more time to put them back where they belong? Just one of my pet peeves.

Turkey Day --> Whoops

I haven't really been as lazy as it looks. I've just been lazy about posting about what I've been doing. I went through my anatomical adaptation circuit again at the gym on Wednesday morning last week. My hamstrings were still sore from the wind running on Monday, so I substituted a couple different exercises for the leg exercises I usually do. Instead of doing two groups of four lifts, I did one group of six and then a group of three since there weren't as many people as usual in the gym (it was 4:30 am). I don't think I'm making any progress with AA thing and I'm getting tired of it anyway.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, which meant the third annual Simmonster-Ketfish Thanksgiving Football Challenge (we don't really call it that). We headed to Blackfoot to play some six-a-side touch football in the 10 degree weather. It was a whole lot of fun, although it was a whole lot of basically wind sprints which meant I had sore quads, calves and hip-flexors for a couple days afterwards.

Saturday, I decided to start the hypertrophy phase at the gym. This is a six-week phase during which the goal is to constantly stress my creatine phosphate/adenosine triphosphate energy system, which will cause my muscles to grow. To do this, the load is increased to the point where I end up failing to be able to lift the last (couple) rep(s) of any set. The first week or two, this doesn't usually happen to me as I generally underestimate my 1 rep max, but I'll get there. Saturday, I hit legs, arms and abs and Sunday, was chest, shoulders, back and abs.

Today, my goal was to do a long, slow, easy run after work. The weather was pretty good, with calm winds and it wasn't too cold when I left. By the time I got to Sunnyside, however, the traffic was very heavy (must have been about 4 pm) and I could no longer hear the mile marker beeps from my phone. It had also cooled off a bunch as I found out when I had to wait for the walk signal on a traffic light for a couple minutes. I ended up doing seven miles, which was about a mile more than I wanted to. The pavement I was running on was pretty brutal on my joints. I was feeling great after 3.5 miles. Wish it had been less than 3.5 miles back to my house from that point. On the bright side, I broke 250 miles on the year with this run and am now sitting at 252.6 miles.

This is too hard.

So the little cold turned out to be a nasty head cold. Fortunately it didn't migrate to my chest as those things usually like to do, but it still put me down for most of the weekend. I went to the gym on Sunday afternoon and did my circuit, but could only make three sets for each group of exercises and I was ridiculously tired by the end. And I'm sore again, which is weird because I thought I was past that.



I'm not a huge fan of running in the wind. However, because I live on the Snake River Plain, I get to run in strong winds if I want to run in the spring or fall (which I do). My legs were tired from lifting the day before, which just made it all the more difficult on the way out. The return trip kinda felt like I was flying. I guess that makes up for it.

Arrrrr-[cough][hack]-gggghhh!

So I did end up getting a stupid cold and have been kind of stuffed up and hoarse for the last few days. I've been trying to kick it really fast by drinking lots of fluids, eating all my vitamins and getting way too much sleep at night. Hopefully, I'll be able to run or lift after work tomorrow night without fearing a relapse. Anyone ever notice how you don't really miss something until it's gone; or am I the first?

What a tiring week...

Since I was pretty lazy on Wednesday and Thursday this week (although I did play a bunch of disc golf), I started out Friday with pretty aggressive goals for the weekend (which is always three days for me). I ran three miles in the morning which were a real chore. I guess they can't all be great runs. I don't know if it was the cold or still being tired from lifting or from climbing trees to retrieve discs but my legs just didn't want to go. My pace wasn't much slower than it's been of late, so maybe it was just a problem of perception.

Then I got cleaned up, ate a second breakfast and headed out to run errands and hit the gym. For strength training, I try to follow a periodized system such as the one set out in the book Serious Strength Training. I really like the information in that book, although it can be kind of difficult to get past the pictures of ridiculously huge meat heads that adorn many of the pages. It's really targeted at people who want to compete in body building, but it has lots of basic info that can be understood and used by even beginners.

Right now, I'm in a phase called "Anatomical Adaptation" (AA), during which the goal is to gradually wake up all of my muscles, ligaments and tendons from their recent period of inactivity and get them ready for heavier weights that will be used in later periods of training. I hate this phase. It's when I experience the most soreness and am tired for the longest time after a workout. It's also the phase when I'm lifting the smallest amount of weight on many different exercises, so I look like a complete weakling to anyone else in the weight room. I challenge any of the muscle-bound guys in the weight room to do four sets of 15 reps of four different lifts, with no rest in between them and tell me it's not a more intense workout than what most of them do. It doesn't matter that the weights are light, I'm tired after two groups of four exercises.

Anyway, on Friday I decided to test for my max on several lifts, which is tiring in a different way. The book I mentioned above contains a chart that allows me to extrapolate my max from the number of reps of a sub-max load, which really saves my joints. I worked out pretty hard and am now paying for it with some soreness, but I found that my maxes aren't as low as I thought they would be after a couple three years of not lifting regularly. I have two more weeks of AA phase, and then I can move on to the Hypertrophy phase, where I look like less of a weenie.

Saturday, I went fly-fishing for steelhead on the Salmon River with Walkley. We left IF at about 4 am and got to the first hole sometime around 7. It was cold. I spent half the day with either numb hands or toes and we didn't find any proof that there are even fish in that river. It started absolutely pouring rain an hour or so before we packed up and left and our clothes were soaked when we got back to the car. Steelheading is everything I'd heard that it was. And I'm crazy enough about fishing to want to try it again.

So after all of that, I woke up this morning feeling like I have a cold coming on. I think I'll just hang around and clean the house today. I might go run later if I really feel up to it. We'll see.

The End of Daylight Saving Time

This is always a tough time of year for me. The end of DST means that I will now be going to work in the dark and be getting home at or after sundown for several months. It's always hard the first couple weeks to feel like going out and starting a run in the dark and dealing with traffic in the dark can be an adventure.

Contrary to the above, tonight's run was one of those runs that reminds me why I like running. Starting out, I felt like I could do anything and all my body parts were playing well together. Most of the run was in pretty heavy traffic, so the adrenaline from running in front of so many people may have had something to do with it, but I just love it when I'm not just running to get home so I can quit running.

This route also goes past a McDonald's restaurant between miles three and four. Seeing all those people lining up to shove high-calorie, low nutritional value food into their bodies always blows my mind. I mean, seriously, there must have been fifteen cars in line. Everyone knows that stuff is not good for you and the restaurant is right next to an Albertson's grocery store where one can even buy pre-prepared food that might not clog one's arteries at such a rapid rate. The added nutrition they put into real food is worth the extra dollar or two that it costs. If a single guy like me can find the time to make home-cooked meals that taste good, I have a hard time believing that anyone needs to eat Mickey D's for dinner. I'll never understand it.

3.22 Mile Morning Run

Beautiful morning for a run! Wish my body had been feeling as great as the weather. I just felt tired the whole time and my lungs were really struggling to keep up.

Would have been pretty cold this morning if it wasn't for my new jacket. I always thought that buying the expensive, technical running clothes was a waste of money and that my cotton t-shirts, shorts and sweats were every bit as good. I'd just wear several layers if it got cold. I'm finally figuring out that some of the expensive garb is worth the money. The jacket is extremely lightweight, but it has enough pockets for my phone, mp3 player and gloves or hat when I've warmed up and don't want to be wearing them anymore. It's reflective for running in the dark after work and is comfortable and unrestrictive without any annoying, ill-placed tags or seams. It also keeps the wind from cutting through me and is supposed to be waterproof too (although I haven't tested that property yet). So far, I love it and it'll definitely keep me running through the winter.