Kangaroos, Skulls and Vodka.
It has been week since my last post and for this I apologise. In the meantime, however, I have managed to get back to the gym, eat kangaroo, spend a weekend sleeping on a beanbag, and purchase and drink a glass skull full of vodka. Yes, I am the King.
20/07: saw me stagger around the gym, still unsteady on my legs after the half marathon. I focused on upper chest and biceps, to keep as much off my legs as possible. I performed ncline bench presses, incline flyes and dips. Biceps was the usual array of bar and bumbbell curls.
21/07: I did back and triceps, merging bent barbell rows and chin ups with pulldowns and pull-across…es. It worked well enough, but I was somewhat dismayed by my inability to do chin ups. A few months ago, I could manage sets of clapping chins – now I can barely do three sets of ten normal chins! This needs to be resolved.
I spent the weekend of the 22-24/06 drinking and sleeping on the floor of Matt’s house in Fulham. Not good for the fitness for the Gold Challenge, but fantastic to exploring the sphere of the human soul. We went to Borough Market, where we ask kangaroo burgers and steaks, drank cider and visited the whiskey exchange. In there, we bought various spirits, including a bottle of Kraken Rum and a glass skull full of vodka!
25/07 was another chest workout, which combined flat bench at 90, 80 and 70kg, followed by an incline bench and some cable flyes. Biceps largely involved running the dumbbell rack, though I ran out of steam quite quickly.
On the morning of the 26/07, I decided to use shock tactics, by returning to the incline bench less than 12 hours after my last chest workout. I kept the weight low and reps high, to squeeze out as many reps as possible. I then performed super-sets of 40kg standing barbell shoulder-presses and chin-ups. Finally – and somewhat randomly – I did some sets of sumo deadlifts with 120kg (from which my butt is still aching) and finished with a couple of sets of shrugs, with the same weight.
Throughout all this training, I have realised something. I am considerably weaker now than when I started the Gold Challenge, back in March. I’m not sure why this should be the case, but put it down to excess drinking, partying and not really paying attention to my training… The skull of vodka may be the proof.
Sets clapping chins are now struggling chins, 90kg bench sessions are now limited to a single set, deadlifting is down to 120kg from around 160kg – none of this is good news!
Though the volume of training has been alright, I haven’t really be concentrating on improving. A quick look back over my training record shows that, though I have been training fairly regularly, the actual exercises I have been doing haven’t been getting much harder.
So, what I need is a detailed programme, which will help me improve. I need to measure my strength and then work out the best way to progress – rather than just tick over and slowly get worse.
That is the next stage of the fitness element of this challenge. To get strong again!
Oct 11, 2011 at 11:26 AM /
[…] Read all about it here. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]