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06-03-22 03:56 PM - Post#919783
Last Friday was my 40th day of ES. Here's what I learned:
1. With enough rain, everything eventually soaks through.
2. Though the lion shall lie down with the lamb, the tiger shall NOT lie down with the unicorn. Lesson learned.
3. ...
Sorry, wrong 40 days.
My routine:
Assisted pullups 3x3
Log clean and press 2x5
Clean grip deadlift 2x5
Abs on the suspension trainer
Loaded Carries
Notes:
-This is the best I've felt with any weight lifting program, ever.
-I just did the same weights every day. I didn't try to do more on good days or less on bad days. I think that's probably fine.
-I got stronger around days 20-25, depending on the lift.
-I started to get twitchy around day 30 and got to thinking about what's next.
-I work from home, and I found it worked best for me to do the weight workout mid-morning or early afternoon before lunch. It gave me a nice little break between meetings, and made lunch taste better.
-I'm returning to a higher level of activity after a long spell of... less activity. At this point, I prefer treating walks as a practice unto themselves, focusing on movement quality, posture, and engaging with the environment. Rucking, marching, heavy hands, heart rate monitors, etc. are not what I need right now. I think that's probably fine.
-Grip strength is the limiting factor for me on almost everything-- pullups, deadlifts, and carries. My grip is slowly getting stronger, but I'm not having the elbow and hand issues I've had from dedicated grip training in the past. So I reckon my grip will continue to improve slowly, and will continue to be something of a limitation. I think that's probably fine.
-I really like the log clean and press. Even though the clean is something of an explosive movement, there's definitely an element of manhandling the weight that has to be there at all times. I think that transfers well to life outside the gym.
Takeaways:
-With doing the same thing 5 days a week, I can see how adding a little bit of appropriate variation is not such a big deal. Confusing on paper, maybe, but pretty simple in practice.
-I'm going to do another 30-40 workouts of the same thing, but changing the grip on the DL to an opposed grip so I can go a little heavier, and changing the log clean and press to 1 clean + 5 presses x 2.
-After that, I'm going to experiment with adding 1 or 2 days of Complex A in each week in place of everything except DLs or carries, to give me more of that manhandling weights activity.
-I'm also going to experiment with the cadence of "same but different" with the press and DL. I don't know if I'll do it every couple of weeks, or just change each exercise every time the magic "easy" shift happens for that particular movement.
Overall, it's been really nice to turn off my brain, take it easy, and just enjoy the routine and the accumulation of benefits without beating myself up. "Little and often over the long haul," indeed.
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