Month: March 2019

For a while my knee had felt buggy. I’d crack it, massage it, and yet the feeling persisted.

You know the issue?

Inactivity, a lack of physical stress.
(You know I haven’t done “healing fire” in some time either.)

See the body is incredibly adaptable. Not only do we need the physical stress and demands on the body for it to feel right, but the body thrives from it doing so. Newton’s law and all that.

I’ve said it before :

And I’m saying it again, squats build the knee.

Yesterday evening was my first meaningful lift in a while, the military press, and some empty bar overhead squats.

Those overhead squats were the first weighted squats I’d done in some time, and presto the knee feels practically 100% off of one small dose.

Squats build the knee.

Persistence & Tenacity

30 Days Of Reverse Curls :

Yesterday evening I finished doing my 30 days in a row of 50 or more reps daily of reverse curls with an empty barbell or heavier.

Very close to the start I began just doing all the reps without putting the bar down, rest pausing as necessary.

I didn’t push for weight at all like I’d initially thought I would. I did all but the first week or 10 days with an empty bar.

(Heaviest set was 95lbs for 5-8 reps. Heaviest day was 75lbs getting the reps in over 4 or 5 sets.)

I rest paused my way past 100 reps on a few occasions. Just not setting the bar down can become challenging as I found out the night where I paused every 10 reps for a couple deep breaths.

(Breathing curls : resting under tension for better hormonal response, like breathing squats but far lighter. Also good for the grip.)

(I recall a 1-10-1 pyramid with a few extra reps at the end, and a roughly 40-30-20-10 rest pause as two of the times I made 100 reps without setting the bar down. The 1-10-1 is a really long set. The fastest 100 rest pause was roughly 60-30-15.)

At the end I was regularly getting 50+ reps without pausing. Somewhere between 65 and 80 reps was the best I did in one go, no pause. 100+ would be pretty good, but it’s doable see Lift Run Bang on high rep curls.

There’s merits to pause and to not pausing. Where do you want to feel the pump?

It was really good pump training. I can feel more activation of my right bicep as I go about my day,. I did notice near the end that if I wasn’t paying attention to balancing the load that my right arm would take 65-70% of it.

(I may do db hammer feeders to correct this, and solidify up the gains. Probably a feeder run after a bit of time off arm training.)

Mid way through my pullups took a dip in rep count. The last week or so I didn’t do a set daily. 2 or 3 days before the end I hit a set at a public pullup bar, and got my usual minimum performance standard of 5 reps. With some recovery I can see this helping me.

No idea if this added brute force ability to my cleans. I haven’t done a clean in almost 4 weeks, and no near maxes as far as I can tell since the end of November.

I did all the reps thumbless, and almost exclusively wearing winter gloves. I did these sets at temperatures as low as 5° farenheit, though normally at about 30°.

Overall I enjoyed it. High rep arms was a nice change of pace. Whatever in general burn out as to lifting I’d felt I’ve mostly moved past. I’d needed the change of pace, it was fun pushing the reps with an empty bar.