Exerbabble for 12-2-6

Today’s Workout:

HGM Phase IV “Gimme a V!”, Workout XIV, Leg Day Of Death

BB Back Squat: 3 @ 135 lbs

Superset A
DB Bulgarian Split Squat: 10, 9, 8 @ 35 lbs/15.9 kg (+5 lbs)
One-Legged Air Hump: 3×12 @ BW

Superset B
BB Squat: 12, 10, 8 @ 155 lbs/70.5 kg (+10 lbs)
DB Traveling Lunge: 12, 10, 8 @ 20 lbs/9 kg (+5 lbs)

Superset C
One-Legged DB RDL: 12, 10, 8 @ 30 lbs/13.6 kg (+4, +2, +0)
Seated Calf Raise: 12, 12, 12 @ 100 lbs/45.5 kg (+0, +1, +2)

stretches and stuff.

current bodyweight: 156.6 lbs/71.4 kg (no change, weekly average of 157 lbs)

First, a slight commentary. I finished working out, and there was a guy in at the bench near my locker. With his daughter near him. I’m horrible at guessing ages. Three? Four? About yay high? :: makes height with his hand :: This immediately caught me off-guard. I was about to get naked, and the thought of getting naked in front of a little kind of makes me a little.. uncomfortable? Thankfully they quickly left and I could strip in front of half a dozen other men. Oh yes. That’s how I like getting nekkid!

I had time to think about this while I showered. What about this bothers me? Yes, I suppose I don’t really want to flash little girls with my willy. (Which is a good thing in this anti-intergenerational society. We have a lot in common with Rome, but that isn’t one of them.) I’d be afraid of scarring the little girl with penis! Of course, thinking further, this isn’t necessarily always true. I can picture a society where adults and children get naked together, matter-of-factly, and there isn’t problem. Maybe it’s different in EuroLand.

But the fact of the matter is that there’s four locker rooms: boys, girls, women, men. It says right on the door to the men’s locker room Nobody Under 18. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t proper etiquette be to bring his daughter into the boy’s locker room? Children are effective gender-neutral before puberty. Man, I’m reminded of my mom dragging me into the ladies’ restroom when I was little. All I remember is LINES. And that faint smell in the air of.. I can’t even put my finger on it. Like everybody’s powders and perfumes combined into one smell that barely covered the fact that everybody was pooping and pissing. ..I digress.

Anyway, if there was just a guy’s locker room, and a girl’s locker room, I can totally see bringing his daughter in the room. I’ll deal with my insecurity of being seen naked by little girls (who are not my own offspring). But, the guy was in the wrong room.

BSS were tough. I made the mistake of thinking about how much weight I was using. 35×2 is 70 lbs. Meaning, if I was doing it bilaterally, I’d be doing at least 140. I was having issues getting to 10 for that first set, so I stopped there. And my balance was starting to go. I noticed my control of the ball for one-legged air humps is better. Not nearly as erratic like it was when I started. Huh, so there IS progress.

Squats were a trial. Of course, I didn’t consider doing less for a second. After my first set, I noticed a guy quarter-squatting my weight. No matter how bad my form is, it’ll never be as bad as somebody trying to quarter-squat with their legs close together. Huffing and puffing after traveling lunges, I told him to open his stance up. Not like he’ll listen, but hey, if you squat MY bar, I’m going to give you advice whether you ask for it or not.

There was a guy opposite me squatting 315. Not too shabby, eh? I saw him do it for at least three sets. Now a strange thing: He did smith machine front squats. Ah! But after that, I saw him doing traveling lunges in the small space between the dumbbells and barbells. I’ll just assume he’s on to something I don’t know about, squatting 315 is all the credentials I need.

The lunges burned, but I was in FAR better control of myself than I was when I started. No falling down, I just dealt with the burn. One-legged RDLs make me feel it in my .. deltoids. Must be how I’m holding the weight. I seem to be in better control if I go slower.

While this is one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever done, I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress. In Phase II, I never felt like I got my wind under me. I’m squatting what I did then, with my legs pre-exhausted from bulgarian split squats. And I’m doing it while being supersetted with lunges. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is. I suspect all this heart work will really shine next phase. It’s not that the Phase V isn’t challenging, but it’s supersetting legs with abs, rather than legs with legs. The decrease, relative to this phase, will probably cause me to grow. Something like that. You don’t see results from a program until the next phase, when you return volume to normal. I whole-heartedly recommend doing this as an upper/lower split to anybody with a bit of mental endurance. I just can’t see getting enough out of this leg day if you only do it four times total in a month.

Again, it’s mental. When I bench, I make sure I don’t kill myself. But when I squat, my body argues a lot. Legs tend to have more reps left in them. I have yet to hit failure on back squats. I keep that in mind. So I just keep pushing.

Weight, weight. The average came out to 156.95, so I rounded up. I have to weigh an average over 157.3 to get an average over 157. TIME TO EAT.

Adjustments: Level up calf raises to 110. Push all reps to max, unless form goes horribly wrong. I like going out with a bang.

Otherwise throw caution to the wind and lift until I drop.