Merkley's guide to pretend lifting

[Merkley]

Monday Bench

 Nothing special here other than we were working on the concentric/eccentric part of the movement. For the first two sets it was concentric focused and the last two sets were eccentric focused. All sets were 12 reps and every rep was done with a 4 count for the concentric/eccentric part of the movement.

 Followed by 100 push ups

[ShawnJ]

Sounds like a productive session, nice work on the push-ups as well

[Merkley]

Deadlifts didn't happen on Wednesday, I had a migraine that was...intense to say the least.

 Squaterday! = Success!

 Barx10
 135x10
 185x6
 235x6
 285x6
 335x2
 285x4
 185x12
 185x17

 ~Fin~

 

[BLK00TJ]

Way to get back in there for Squaterday.  Hard to do anything with a migraine.

[ShawnJ]

Beauty squats! Those drop down volume sets are a beast!

[Merkley]

Beauty squats! Those drop down volume sets are a beast!

 Tell me about it, my legs are still feeling it!!!

[Merkley]

This week has been interesting....

 I've been training but its been weird shit, METCON stuff, bootcamps, etc.

 I know, I know....dafuq? 

 The reason I have been doing this is for my new job.

 I'm now working as a coach at my gym! I've been kinda helping during the powerlifting classes but things have progressed and here we are. I'm currently doing this part time (mainly before my other job) but if all goes well this could turn into a full time gig, but one day at a time.

 So where does me doing these classes fit in to me coaching?

 Simple.

 By participating in the classes (in the evenings) this gives me a unique perspective on the exercises, speed, structure, and flow of the classes themselves making me a more well rounded coach. That's at least my theory.

 Diet has been a little looser than it should be, but come Monday I'm back on the horse all out and with the projected end weight of 175 lbs.

 Then I will access and perhaps reverse diet again and do another cut.

 Currently holding at 198-199.

 

[Merkley]

Squaterday...

5 min rower
15 min stretching/yoga
Barx10 - right knee pain
95x10 - right knee pain, more.
95x10 - right knee pain, really bad.
185x1 - right knee pain, holy shit.
repositioning and the like
185x10 - pushed through and got them done, not too sure if it was a good idea.
235x6 - PAIN! It really bad in the knee, got angry and decided to see if I could rip my knee apart for fun!
285x3 - Same as last set
185x6 - not so bad
185x6 - this set was pain free
185x6 - this was enough, fuck it! Threw in the towel.

 Not too sure what the fuck was going on for squats but it wasn't good. Anyways I got shit done and that was that.

 

[Merkley]

Today was a upper body hypertrophy workout.

 This workout was a nice change of pace! Normally doing what I did today would cause my elbows to go full retard but today was one of those rare, unicorn, days where I felt like I was 20 years old and training like a fucking animal.

 I'm not going to go into ALL the details, but I can tell you this. I managed 340 reps for hammer curls and my last set was 60 lbs d-bells for a set of 10 (which by the way I haven't done since i was 20-21 years old). There was no momentum to these curls either! I did these curls in a slight bent over row position to remove any ego lifting whatsoever. I was really proud of myself!

 Plus there was some solid benching if I do say so myself. 

 Best part, pain free!

 I have struggled with doing pull ups/chin ups/bicep curls of any kind for awhile now. My elbows tend to start screaming immediately when doing these exercises and the recovery time can be lengthy. So when I started doing them it was with great precaution and expectations of giving up the ghost with in 10 reps or less. But luckily they felt perfect!

 So I went balls deep and pushed until the wheels fell off!

 Not too smart I know but it isn't often I feel like this so I ran with it!

 In any case as promised tomorrow I will be tightening up on my eating and heading towards my projected goal weight of 175 for this cut. I will be cutting between now and Dec 1st. I'm currently 198-201, I'm confident I will reach this no problem.

 Wish me luck!

[ShawnJ]

Nice work and grats on the pain free training. You are in a good spot to take a run at 175, giddyup!

[piperdown]

Congrats on the coaching gig Merk!

I think with all the massive amounts of activity you have going on you'll hit 175 in no time at all.

[Merkley]

Morning Everyone!

 I hope everyone in IS land is doing well

 So it's been roughly a couple weeks since I have posted....what has happened in the past couple weeks?

 Well I have busy as fuck at my full time job (We have been getting getting a beating with a hefty workload increase as well as the heat we have been receiving has been a challenge to deal with) as well as picking up more shifts with my coaching gig. So my days tend to look like this.

 4am - Wake up
 5am-7am - Coaching
 7:20am - Drop the fur baby off at the salon
 8am-5pm - Working in the Pit
 5:30pm-6:30pm - Go back to the salon and help Mrs.M close up shop and then bring them both home
 7:15pm - Gym (this sometimes varies)
 8:20pm-9pm - Home
 
 To top it all off I'm now doing some at home schooling! I'm working towards getting my PTC, again. I originally took my PTC with canfitpro back in 2005. But because I didn't up keep it, it expired and left me with having to retake the course. As most are aware canfitpro is owned by Goodlife and I don't have a very good opinion of Goodlife at all and I refuse to support them in any way whatsoever. So instead I would rather get my PTC through a much more reputable organization. So I'm now working with ACE (American Council on Exercise) working towards this goal. Also there are other courses I am strongly considering to take down the road to help broaden my horizons.

 Minus all that, everything else is going well.

 Thats pretty much it in a nutshell, I'd love to get into more details but I have lots of studying to do.

 Have a great weekend everyone!

[Merkley]

Morning!!!

 I'm alive just been busy as you all know.

 Training is you going well.

 Here are the highlights

 Deadlifts  275x20, 275x22, 275x26, 275x31
 Squats 205x20x4
 Bench 185x20x4
 
 This morning I made a surprise visit to world gym and trained with FLEX and Lisa. It was awesome! I haven't seen either of them for well close to two years! It was like nothing ever changed which was awesome. We trained, chatted, and hopefully will make plans to train a little more together in the future. Plus I have a couple birthdays to catch up on for steak dinners!

 Did some bench, nothing special.

 225x6x3, 275x1, 295xFAIL. I fucked up 275 and it took a little too much outta me. Plus I haven't trained anything close to that for a while.

 Cable rows 300x4x2 (plus warn up sets)

 And then some arms.

 Everything was on the fly and just having some fun. Though I really should have stuck to my higher volume. That's ok Though, it's good to change it up now and again!

 Now it's time to get my Friday moving.

 Have a great day everyone!!!

[FLEX]

#chattycathy is back!   

[Merkley]

So I quick update.

 This past week wasn't the best for training. I missed out on Bench due to the holiday Monday, hit Deadlifts, and missed out on Squats due to being under the weather.

 This is based off the scheduling at my current gym.

 ION.

 I have stepped back from my coaching role at my current gym and after some discussions with Mrs.M I believe that I will be also changing gyms as well. I've spread myself far too thin as well as the scheduling for my gym training has become more and more of an issue.

 I'll figure it out.

 Anyways, have a great night everyone.