50th year PRs

rest day yesterday was 50mins of very easy stationary bike. slept great, felt great this am. kept weight high but took one or two reps off the heavy stuff and that made a huge difference to my ability to stay fresh

leg curl single legs 3x12-25kg
leg press 4x9-310kg
hack squat 3x12-100kg
hip thrust machine 3x16-160kg
leg extensions 3x10-89kg
3x ss -10xskullcrushers,25xclose grip press 45kg on ezy bar

have forgotten to log but have been a little de-loady.....nothing programmed but more in a 'listen to your body' way

Friday push day. Have decided to go back to only DB for pressing...the machines and barbell press motions are giving me shoulder impingement issues and shoulder was in pain throughout this

DB Bench 3x8-35, 2x14-30kg
Flye Machine 5x16-61kg
seated DB Press 3x12-20kg
DB Front Raises 2x14-12.5kg

Sat
Wide grip Pull downs 3x11-89kg
Chins 5x10
gave up at this point...trained fasted at 1pm after being up most of the night with the gf and didn't have anything

Sun rest

Mon 55mins stationary bike

Tues
Leg curl single leg 3x12-25kg
Leg Press 5x11-260kg
Hip Thrust machine 4x15-200kg
Leg Extension single leg 3x11-40g
Tricep Push Down 4x12-36kg ss with
Tricep Extension 4x12-26kg

am ever so slowly getting fatter. (definitely heavier and I've just learned to basically never think it's more muscle at my age)

I still look pretty good but the low weigh in for the week has started sliding up from 81 to 81.5 to 82 etc and is now at about 83-83.5. Not much, particularly when I was 88-91 for most 2022 and 2023, but I'd rather take a few weeks of action now before I have something to worry about. And probably having a 50kg Brazilian smokeshow GF adds some pressure to stay in tip top shape

So I'm getting back into fasting til lunchtime and being strict on snacking during the week...definitely for the next month, but hopefully this will become more habitual again. And for at least one weekend I'm going to not relax the rules but maintain it through until the end of next week, when I have my best buddies up to stay for a weekend.

Push day - shoulder is getting a little better but kept a little weight off

DB Bench Press 4x10-32kg
Incline DB Bench 3x13-28kg
Flye 1x12-20kg
Flye Machine 3x15-61kg
7x15 Face Pulls 17.5kg (done in ss with Bench)
3x12 DB Front Raises - 14kg
3x11 DB Lat Raises - 12kg

good session and happy to be a lot less pain free

Pull Day

wide grip pull downs 4x11-87kg
close grip pull downs 3x12-87kg
chins 10,10,8
chest supported wide grip hammer row 3x12-130kg
4xbarbell curl myo/drop set with 5 sec pauses 7@40,4@40,10@30. last set also did 20 with 20 at the end
preacher curl 1x10-40kg

500m row warm up
leg extensions 3x13-47kg single leg
leg curl 2x15-25kg single leg
leg press 4x9-310kg
RDL 1x8-80kg *
4x15/15 Tricep Push down 36kg ss with Tricep Extension 24kg

felt a little back tweak in the first set of RDL and snap stopped and racked the bar. I'm finally learning to listen to the first warning sign of back issues, rather than ignore/hope the go away

complete rest day Saturday, then got stoned with the gf and got 9+hours sleep Saturday night. very very rare for me to get that much sleep without a sleeping pill

of course felt awesome on Sun and had a good push day where I felt stronger than I have for a while. shoulder impingement is also receding substantially now i'm back just doing dumbbell press movements

Flat Bench 8,9,9-35kg DB
Incline Bench (high) 10,11,10-30kg
Face Pulls 6x20-17.5kg (did these after each set up Bench)
DB Front Raises 3x12-15kg
DB Lat Raises 3x12-12.5kg

then went out to lunch and got lured into drinking but also getting on the bag so am feeling dusty today

Mon - Pull

wide grip pull downs 12,11,11-87kg
close grip pull downs 11,10,11-87kg
chins 3x10
power clean 3x5-75
barbell curl myo/drop sets with 5 sec breaks
3(7x40kg,7x40,7x30,7x30)
preacher curl 1x14-40kg

Tues - Cardio
20min bike
1min row
25min cross trainer

What happened on the rower? 😃

I can’t relax on it for steady state because I’m too aware that I’m favouring my stronger right leg. I forget about it if I ever do something faster but I just feel weird and don’t want to do anything slow anymore

Shame as I do want to up my cardio. I might try a UT1 type thing once or twice a week to see if I can do that ok

light leg day

leg extensions 3x12-84kg
leg curls 3x14-53kg
leg press 3x15-250kg
hack squat 3x12-100kg
hip thrust 3x18-160kg
ezbar skull crushers 3x14-42.5kg ss with
ezbar close grip bench 3x28-42.5kg

DB Bench 10,8,7-35kg
High Incline DB Bench 10,9,20-30kg
Flye Machine 3x17-59kg
Face Pulls 5x20 ss with bench movements
DB Front Raise 3x12-15kg
Lat Raise machine 3x15

chest supported wide grip hammer row 3x12-140kg
seated close grip row 3x9-89kg
chins 3x10 ss with
back extensions 3x12-10kg
preacher curl 3x21-45kg
barbell concentration curl 1x20

had Sat and Sunday off - had my good mates staying from Adelaide and Melbourne and had two giant days on the booze and chems. Felt shoddy on Mon too but managed to get into the gym on Mon night.

slightly annoying session as I had to go straight to leg press because leg ext and leg curl and all 3 squat racks were in use. did a long warm up on the leg press but my quads still cramped during the first heavy set

leg press 4x10-310kg
hack squat 3x10-110kg
leg curl 3x15-22.5kg single legs
hip thrust machine 3x15-160kg

Tuesday pm Push

DB Bench 10,10,7-35kg. Might go up to 37.5kg next time
High Incline DB Bench 10,10,8-30kg
DB Bench 1x15-30kg
Face Pulls 4x15-24.5kg ss with
DB Front Raises 4x12-15kg
Lat Raise machine 2x20

Weds am Pull - did this on very bad sleep

Wide Grip Pull Down 4x14-77kg
Close Grip Pull Down 3x13-77kg
Chins 10,10,8 ss with
Back Extension 3x10-15kg
Barbell Curl 3x24(8-8-8)-35kg
Seated DB Curl 3x12-14kg

thurs am. 45 mins on cross trainer. trying to do this a few times per week to give the body an extra day's rest in the lifting cycle and I simply can't force myself onto a rower any more

deload session today

skullcrushers 4x10-45kg ss with
close grip press 4x20-45kg
leg extensions 3x15-87kg
leg curl 3x12-47kg

went away for the weekend and then came back and did half sessions Sun pm and Mon

Sun

DB Incline Bench 5x12-30kg ss with
Face Pulls 5x18-21kg
DB Front Raises 3x15-12 ss with
DB Lat Raise 3x12-10

Mon

Wide Grip Pull Down 4x11-87kg
Close Grip Pull Down 3x10-87kg
Preacher Curl 4x21-40kg (14-7)

Tues - deload over

Leg Extension 3x12-89kg
Leg Curl 2x12-53kg
Leg Press 4x11-310kg
Hack Squat 2x8-120kg
Tricep Push down 3x12-37.5kg ss with
Tricep Extension 3x12-24kg
Dips 3x15

then the gym has a monthly challenge for highest watt reading on the assault bike. Had one attempt and got to 840 which didn't feel like much but is the current leader, so w/e

might try that one again later in the month

also...it's my birthday today - 54. Which means it's been 4.5 years since I've started this thread. So far, it's chronicled

- an increased focus on fitness after a few years of basically just showing up
- a few lifetime PRs on the upper body lifts
- a very intense 2 year focus on indoor rowing with all the pain, suffering and occasional achievements therein
- my separation with all the drama, pain and work that came with that
- an 8kg fat loss once I gave up cardio (they don't talk about this in the fitness magazines)
- my current very happy focus on bro splits
- my also very happy (suspiciously so) current life as a single parent with a (so far) great new gf and mainly stable kids

the ex wife remains a thorn in my side - really struggling still with addictions and has been hospitalised twice in the past month. it feels selfish to say this but I'm really ****ing happy I'm not married to her any more, even though I'm constantly having to help bail her out in a variety of ways and trying to protect the kids etc.

who'd have thought....Going through 12 months of hell, losing 50%+ of the $$ I worked really ****ing hard to get, being a full time single parent but rooting a super fit younger Brazilian girl and being free of most of the worry and drama >>> being way richer, having more free time but being married to a lying, cheating crack whore

Push - went up 2.5kg on both presses which was good, but kept the reps lower

DB Bench 8,5,6-37.5kg
DB Incline 8,8,9-32.5kg
Dips for chest 1x12* had to stop as shoulder hurt
Pec Machine 2x15-63kg
DB Front Raises 3x9-17.5kg
Lat Raise machine 3x16

Pull

Wide Grip pull downs 4x11-87kg
Close Grip pull downs 3x10-87kg
Chest supported close grip hammer row 3x12-130kg
Barbell Curl drop set 3x9-9-9 40,35,30kg
Preacher Curls 2x15-40kg

snuck in last night for an extra mini cardio session - did two 1km rows and then some sprint intervals

then today did 40 mins on the cross trainer. Using days like today as a mini rest day and to give my legs time to recover before a heavy day tomorrow

single leg day. rep counts are for each leg

leg curls 2x12-25kg
leg extensions 3x12-47kg
leg press 3x10-150kg
KB rdl 3x10 28kg
ez bar skullcrushers 3x10-45kg ss with
ez bar close grip press 3x25-45kg

randomly slept 10 hours last night - guess the aggregate of bad sleeps had built up.

today is/was rest day. did easy ish 70 min hilly walk with the gf by the beach and then went to the gym and did 40 mins of stretching as lower back has been really tight.