Caught a cold over the weekend, could have been less pleasant.

I did some shitty oly lifting on Friday, snatched 215lbs, tried to do some power snatches and fucking blew at them? C+jed up to 255lbs with a press-out and cleaned up to 265lbs.

Did some clean pulls, weighted chin ups, rounded-back back extensions and curls to finish up. +45lbs x 5 on the chin ups followed by +65lbs x 3.

Today I clean-and-pressed 172.5lbs for a double and another single, then front squat 325lbs for a triple and a double, hit +55lbs x 4 weighted ring dips, +55lbs x 6 weighted chin ups, and banged out some quick hammer db curls but only did 2 sets so this workout does not count towards my goal of curling 5 sets 2x a week. I am glad I did not fucking blow terribly hard after this weekend as I’ve lost a few lbs and was sweating like a motherfucker five minutes into training.

JC writes:

I love that people come here via links on Stronglifts and see you telling them and Medhi to go fuck themselves.
So, serious question: are you still training intuitively or do you have some form f programming at the moment – you seem to be keeping/improving strength on weightlifting and powerlifting movements atm.

lol

I have a schedule I follow, basically Texas Method without a light day and I try to do the oly lifts every training day (though I may be adjusting the frequency of these, or at least how hard I go when I do them. I should prob do more variation than attempting max-effort singles all the time). I haven’t made very many lifetime PRs yet, other than high bar squat PRs but I have not improved them beyond my low bar performance yet. 172.5lbs x 2 press is kind of a lifetime PR since I did both reps dead-stop. I may have front squat a lifetime PR sometime recently. My curling has definitely seen some lifetime PRs recently though.

mdm writes:

I thought this was funny and yeah the first guy you posted from the SS boards now posts on BBcom, great! As for Medhi I personally cannot stand him and I usually get along with everybody but its just something about how he presents himself that I can’t put a name on. Just not the fact on how he words the “articles” he writes but ALSO that for about maybe three years now whenever Deadlifting comes up he ALWAYS has to first mention how he is a natural athlete and can pull 500lbs @ 165. Three years and you can’t even add 5lbs?

I want to see what SL.com looks like with 90% of its user base having been banned.

Tell me how you guys feel about this thread.

Snatched and c+jed like shit, I felt real weak tonight. I did manage to make the session semi-productive by doing some snatches off of blocks for position work. I wish the boxes were like two inches higher, right now the bar rests at exactly knee height when I lift from the blocks, which works, but I’d like a few more options for above and below the knee. I think I can make something work for starting below the knee, there’s some rubber matting that should stack fairly well.

I benched 240lbs for 5, 4, 4, 4 and a final set at 2 (was attempting to take 20 reps total) tonight. I’ve been rolling the fuck out of my triceps the past couple days and have been hitting a legit 9/10 on the pain scale, seems to have worked pretty well, my lockout feels quite a bit better.

Front squat 315lbs for a triple and a couple doubles, wish I felt stronger here but this is all I had for tonight.

Mark showed me this thread which was real fucking good – this fucking guy, who CAN’T DEADLIFT 300LBS WITHOUT STRAPS, is being a real fucking virgin about lifting weights. See Marotta’s opinion of him. Guy is A+++++++ unintentional troll. He definitely gives too many fucks. BRB posting more about lifting than actually lifting. BRB “Johnnie Jackson did 765 pounds with straps. His grip ain’t exactly suffering. So how come he uses straps and he can DOH DL 400 pounds?” BRB “Strongmen use straps. The best deadlifters in the world use straps. Their grip isn’t exactly suffering. If I have to, I’ll just do some fat gripz work. Can’t be too hard. Kroc uses straps for god’s sakes.”

Mark, I loved this response to him as well (Marotta aka Puke deadlifts a lot for those of you who don’t know him).

There have been a few links to this blog from the “StrongLifts Inner Circle,” bothers me because I can’t stand SL.com, so if you’re reading this, and you’re a subscriber to Mehdi’s forum – can you ask him what he benches and post it in the comments? You probably don’t want to do that since he’d just ban you though. I can’t stand heavily-moderated forums (since you can’t troll them).

I loled while reading this thread as well. If StrongLifts ends up burning to the ground, all the ex-members could go to bodybuilding.com, they’d be all right. Have some flame wars in the misc for a few days too, I’d bookmark a couple of those threads.

Matt writes:

Speaking of girls.. how about this [http://www.buzzfeed.com/burnred/katy-perry-topless-nsfw-281t]
Brent what is your take on this photo?

Lettuce beans and real tea here, I don’t think Katy Perry is that hot. Her tits jiggle, yeah, and yes I like “California Girls” and “Teenage Dream” but other than that I don’t really give any fucks. I think Ellen Page is real cute though.

YES she plays a 17 year old in this movie but she is 24 IRL go fuck yourself thanks. Favorite parts are 3:35 and 3:45. And then when she loses it at 4:00 I lol too. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST this is pathetic.

Funny story guys, I was actually watching bloopers from this movie and SuperBad at like 3am last night and I was legit loling real hard alone at my computer, that’s all I got, I’m done now, if you need me I’ll be outside on my second story balcony – I’ll be the guy hanging by his fucking neck.

I got one more though:

And also this one:

I was going to have a bad training day – I had missed 225lbs twice and was about to quit but both misses were close, bar was overhead and arms locked out, I was just being a real virgin about staying tight and just standing the fuck up. I was considering being conservative and moving on to c+js but I thought it’d be real fucking dumb to not make a weight that I was very clearly good for so took a third attempt and made it and probably prevented my almost assured suicide. I would like to make it a habit of hitting 100k+ as I have mentioned before.

C+jed up to 265lbs and made an attempt at 280lbs but wasn’t too strong with the jerk there. The clean also felt heavy in the pull, and I doubted I could take it again for a second attempt, though standing with the weight wasn’t difficult. My posterior chain has felt stronger.

Clean-and-pressed 160lbs x 5, 160lbs x 3, 150lbs x 5, 160lbs x 4, and 160lbs x 3. I think I may have rushed my second set, as in rested maybe 3 mins and could have used another 2. These are much better clean-and-presses than I have been posting in the past. I’m not sure what made me suck so fucking bad for the past couple weeks but it feels like I’ll be ready to start making some progress here.

Snatch pulled and did some snatch-grip DLs, hit 330lbs x 7. I forgot how fun these were to do, and I enjoyed an overall back pump after doing them, which would be compounded by rounded-back back extensions.

I finished up with a lot of curls and some ring dips, hitting two triples at +55lbs.

There is an indoor soccer league which shares a building with the gym, and I may have mentioned it before but it sounds like really authentic soccer when the some of the players/coaches shout in Spanish. Saul and Becky love it when the players shout in English though, because apparently one night they were training and one of the guys on the sidelines was screaming frantically,

“PUT IT IN MIKE PUT IT INNNNN!!!!!!!!”

and also

“TAKE IT OUT TAKE IT OUT!!!!!!!”

so they thought that was real funny. So funny, in fact, that whenever there’s an eruption of noise after a goal or whatnot, Saul will join in the shouting with “PUT IT IN MIKE!!!!!!!”

Also, Becky says some fucking guy was judging me as we walked out, I’m assuming because of the soffes, so I said, “Why? Because I have better quads than him?”

I think it’s OK if the soccer folks don’t like us since they’re a bunch of slow-twitch pieces of shit anyway. BRB not training legs because they get strong from running.

biggy writes:

hey brent u should slam the weight fucking hard on the ground in the commercial gym and scream fuck yea usa so all the chicks would look at you. it would also help with your anger issues.

I am not an angry person. The last post demonstrated misery as the pre-dominant emotion. One of the primary themes of this blog isn’t rage at the world, it’s acquiescence to things that can’t be changed – i.e. “I’ve gone beyond the event horizon of the friend zone BRB there is no escape” – and the lowering of standards – “BRB quitting competition just gonna flex in the mirror to slay mildly attractive pussy.” The art is in the ability that I can take something that should make you want to kill yourself, and produce a low-grade lol when you read it. There are other ideas that I try to communicate as well but it’d be pretentious to talk about them here.

/kills self

Matt writes:

Once you go Black/Matt you never go back… Find another girl to get rejected by. Bullets are on sale I will email you the link. Could you throw a ninja star at yourself hard enough to kill? Try it out.

Rejection is a primary motivation for me to train. I would argue that the vast majority – if not all – of the PRs I’ve made in my lifetime have been fueled by asking myself “how do you feel about the fact that this girl is making out with a guy who is NOT you” or “I wonder what this fucking other guy benches? Is it more than me? Fucking goddamn it his arms were like 18″ he prob benches like 285lbs for reps. That’s not fucking typical, ‘oh I’ve got a tribal tattoo around my arm and I benched a lot on the high school football team’ give me a fucking break.” So 1.) yes, I will be seeking another female to tell me I’m a nice guy, and 2.) I would rather continue working towards curling 135lbs x 10 than kill myself at the moment.

freak writes:

Have you considered killing OTHER people? I think it would help.

The only reason I’d kill someone is if I were in 2/75th Rangers and was assigned to jump off the back of a helicopter and smoke the fuck out of some religious extremist pieces of shit who cut people’s heads and genitals off for no reason.

Mark writes:

He’s too much of a limp wristed pussy to kill someone.

and also writes:

Brent how is your shuffling going?
I bet you gave up on it like a fucking pussy.

Can’t hear you over LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem.

Friend at work wants to go out to a real good Salvadorian/Mexican restaurant. I have been wanting to eat there for a while – I had some steak with churrasca sauce or something when I went and it fucking rocked my world – but nobody wants to go with me. Plans have been made multiple times – not plans that I organize, in case you were fucking wondering – but typically everyone bails and I end up eating ground beef alone at home while watching anime in front of my laptop. It’s not that bad now since I’m eating grass-fed ground beef. Anyways she says “we should invite VPVG.”

I say, “Can we invite Girl With Very Pretty Smile?”

She responds, “Why do you always like girls who don’t fit you?”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re not your type.”

“In what way are they not my type?”

“You’re not theirs.”

“Well what is her type?”

“Black. Or maybe white. But definitely not Asian.”

So if you need me, I’ll be in the bathroom – I’ll be the guy painting the shower with his fucking brains.

Training has sucked lately. I did manage to hit a 275lbs c+j which matches a personal best, and that is about the only productive thing I’ve done in the past couple days. Benched 255lbs x 4, which couldn’t frustrate me more. I’ll prob do legit 4×5 volume days starting now and start at something manageable like 240lbs or 245lbs and come back up as I was having some good success with that. That same day (Friday) I attempted to squat 355lbs for max reps which at the time was 4. I had to get to work and obv I felt like shit so I terminated that workout immediately after.

Wanted to train Sat but ended up spending most of the day at work.

Tonight (Sunday) I snatched up to 215lbs with difficulty (took quite a few attempts, even with Saul slapping my traps for one attempt at 220lbs which was the most disappointing miss of the the night), c+jed 255lbs and couldn’t clean 265lbs, and squat 355lbs for 7, 6, 4, and 4. Which is better than squatting 355lbs for 4 on the first set. Didn’t sleep much and trained late. Squats weren’t very great but I will take 20 total reps and putting what was essentially 9.5 RPE for the day. I have tomorrow off and will hopefully be more than 70% awake for training, so as long as I’m not fatigued (legs and posterior chain have felt tired for a week or two) I may post some better results.

I have also been mildly anxious because I set a goal to curl AT LEAST 2x a week and do 5 sets each time I curl and I only hit 1x a week last week due to waking up late Friday and not training Saturday. So I am pretty happy about curling tomorrow.

Stroup writes:

Nutmeg, do you do any band mob work at home? Where the hell do attach the band for such stuff? Also I got mad lame internal rotation issues with my right shoulder from sitting at a desk clicking on a mouse all day for work. Any suggestions to help me not have a tvale/gordonfuck right shoulder?

For you other guys, Stroup is referencing the vid of the corgi skateboarding I linked a while ago. The corgi’s name is Nutmeg. Stroup thinks the name works for me as well. My response to that was the first response in this thread, although you should read the whole thread as it is pretty good (I don’t give a fuck about blacking out names since you all post on the blog anyway):

Anyways, Patrick, I have a door from pull-up bar that I use for my mobbing. I just set it outside my door so the handles immobilize it from moving in and use the band to pull into the bedroom for the best shoulder mob ever. I then mount it on the top of the door frame for shoulder IR stretching.

Also from the comments, most of you will probably enjoy reading this thread if you haven’t already. I definitely did. But I enjoyed fucking killing myself after reading it more.

Also, Patrick, you probably want to know this – the hot hispanic milf you keep telling me to bang was talking to me about sex with her boyfriend today.

Well hey guys I think that’s about all I can take, I’ll talk to you here in a little bit.

After I’ve put a bullet through my fucking forehead.

It’d be better if Saul was into boba tea or Starbucks because it’ll be about 4 hours round-trip but it’s fine. I hope Saul likes techno.

I’ve told a few people at work that I am going to pick up 87.5lbs of grass-fed beef and none of them care. Actually, they are puzzled and are like “why would you do that,” then all the girls say, “I only eat lean meat, I don’t want to bulk up. Is that why you are getting it?” to which I respond

“Yeah, because I wanna get real fucking jacked.”

Then they stop talking to me.

Tonight I clean-and-pressed 170lbs x 3 dead-stop, followed by 155lbs x 5 dead-stop, which is the first non-shitty press workout I’ve had since I’ve started clean-and-pressing. It was pretty OK. 170lbs x 3 was about a 9 RPE and I think it’s a dead-stop PR (when I pressed 170lbs x 4 it was touch-and-go. I was also belted, and I haven’t belted up for my clean-and-presses in a while).

330lbs x 7 RDL, followed by 330lbs x 5.

Weighted ring dips, +50lbs x 5, then 4. These were pretty hard today. I wanted to do quite a few more sets but decided against it since I’m trying to follow a volume-volume-intensity-intensity schedule for bench/OH press.

Finished up with rounded-back back extensions and a lot of curls, which were hard today.

Leeuwer writes:

Brent,
In a(power)clean and strict press, how does one transition from the wrist position in the clean to the wrist position in the press?
I can do both movements fine separately, both once I combine the two in a clean and press, problems arise. I do my pressing with very straight wrists due to an injury caused by hammer throwing.
Cleaning with straight wrists causes pain and vice versa, pressing with the wrists in extension also causes pain.
Any advice is welcome.
Bert

I’m not very good at it and I’m not c+ping a lot of weight but I clean the bar directly into a press position i.e. I don’t push my elbows up to rack. If you are pretty proficient at power cleaning, you can use the time the bar comes off your shoulders after standing with the bar after the clean to immediately adjust your hands under the bar into press position, then pull your elbows back and down to begin the press. That probably wasn’t a very good description. But I would think that having to adjust your hands after the bar is racked will prob make for a pretty shitty press. Doesn’t look like Klokov moves his hands after the clean for his pressing. You could try seeing if doing some mobs for your wrist might help though – soft-tissue tack-and-stretch for forearms, some banded stretching for the wrist, then doing the externally-rotated stretch here to bias the fascia in the flexors of the forearm.

Another issue may be your actual front/press rack – improving your front rack by working on shoulder external rotation in flexion may take some strain off your wrists. Take at look at these three guys once a day for a week and see if you get anything out of them.

oldman writes:

ok mgmt, maybe but the first song was fucking weak. I am going with this:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNaQ8hj8ymE]
in combo with your mgmt song to out do the gayness that exists with purposely listening to mgmt before a workout.

lol link another song like that again and I’ll perma-ban you from my blog.

Brian writes:

Hi Brent, I have been listening to this song a lot today, I’m real impressed with it. I figured I would share it with you.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPxn8pDfwlk]
also, I hope you liked my “corgis on boats” post that I shared with you.

I enjoyed and favorited the song and the corgis on boats link was pretty good too.

Penn, 270lbs is not a c+j PR, I’ve hit 275lbs, but 270 is the most I’ve gotten recently.

The girl at work I am currently hoping to hang out with fist-bumped me this morning, I forgot for what reason … actually I think I remember, I think she was saying she was taking a drug screen class for the clinic (as in she was celebrating the fact that we would be both be certified collectors to do DOT drug screens). It simultaneously was a sign that I was definitely friend-zoned and also another reason that I want to date her. This is probably why I clean-and-pressed so well tonight.

Showed her my dance vid – was that a good idea or no?

I PRed my db hammer curls by quite a bit Friday, hit 40lbs for a set of 10. I also snatched up to 215lbs and c+jed up to 265lbs. I hit 255lbs in the c+j a few more times. Becky said my split sucks so I worked on it. Clean pulled up to 305lbs x 3 for two sets, clean-and-pressed 160lbs x 4, 4, then 165lbs x 3, then 150lbs x 5. Did a bunch of curls obv, 105lbs x 6 or 7 with the regular barbell, then 105lbs 3×5 with a fat bar, then the db hammer curls.

Thursday I did a belted 1rm for Chris’s study in the back squat, then drove back to Carrollton and finished up with some front squats at 315lbs, hit 5 and then 3 after a short rest period and went to work.

On Sunday I did an un-belted 1rm for Chris’s study. I squat 417.5lbs with a belt and 410lbs without – both times I was squatting blind and could only choose my weights up to my last warm ups which were 385lbs belted and 365lbs un-belted. Ask Chris about his study if you are curious, he will answer questions about it better than I can. After squatting I benched 260lbs for a paused double and did some shitty close-grip benching.

Today I snatched up to 225lbs, c+jed 270lbs, and front squat 325 and 330lbs for triples, then another double at 330lbs.

I was missing jerks today and I think it was because my torso was soft during the dip-and-drive so I thought about not flopping around and staying rigid. Helped a bit. 270lbs was about as hard as 255lbs. Something that probably doesn’t help is when my back sometimes unlocks momentarily after I stand with the clean, when the bar comes off my shoulders and then back down. “Belly tight” helped with that.

Think I’m friend-zoned by the girl at work. “Which girl are you talking about this time Brent.” It’s kind of irrelevant since every girl I have ever mentioned in this blog has friend-zoned me. In fact, I would be disappointed if a girl DIDN’T friend zone me – I feel like I have a legacy to uphold. I’ll enjoy PRing in a bunch of lifts this week. If all else fails I will def PR in some goddamn cheat curls if that is what it fucking takes.

JC writes:

I hate blogs, yet this is consistently entertaining. It’s probably because you’re able to somehow combine bitterness, anger and sarcasm in just the right amounts that it actually becomes endearing. Keep up the good work. I like that 70sBig has this whole other weird section hidden away behind the main page.

It’s been established that I am the only funny part about 70s big.

Some fucking guy writes:

Way to play it cool with the VPVG, and totally kiss her ass for her. Solid strategy.

…

oldman writes:

i’ve moved onto techno at the suggestion of others. this song is currently in my workout play list:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WOwRVTKJUw]
as is this
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8srSHJ9jLAw]
make suggestions

Both those songs fucking blow dude. This one is old but it should make you want to squat or press pretty aggressively. I listened to this one driving to the gym today and it prob helped me by at least 5% on my sn. and c+j.

I met Cristina at raw nationals and she is pretty cool, she started a blog about what she thinks about when she thinks about lifting. Her blog is called What I Think About When I Think About Lifting. I would say it’s like xkcd.

About the mega pretty powerlifter chick at ISystems Gym – she’s also apparently a fitness model? Have I mentioned that? Anyways I was training one day a few weeks ago and I thought I heard her say something like,

“Hey! When did you start training here?”

but I did not stop to see if she was talking to me. I automatically assumed she was not talking to because we’ve never spoken with each other before, and again, while I’ve seen and noticed her at meets, I just would find it pretty hard to believe she would give any fucks about some piece of shit Asian who, back then, was more than 15% bf, did not curl, and wasn’t wearing a tank. There were three other people in the gym at the time, a trainer and his two older clients. She could have said fucking anything okay? I didn’t really hear. And I would think if she were addressing me she would have tried more than once. It’s possible that she somehow recognized me though and now I look like a real pile of shit for being too hard to take a break from sweating profusely in my tank top to talk with her, but lettuce beans and real tea, it’s real real REAL unlikely she was talking to me. I am mentioning it because I feel like it is something I should be putting on this blog.

Well hey guys I am gonna go kill myself now so I’ll talk to you here in a little bit.

Hopefully catch another hour tomorrow morning. Gonna squat up to a 1rm for Chris’s thesis in a belt shirtless. Oughta be good. So oldman go fuck yourself, I guess I will be getting a fucking tan now.

Another story about Very Pretty Vietnamese Girl – her and her friend were going to teach me Vietnamese because I couldn’t say her friend’s name. So she asked me what I wanted to learn.

Brent: “How do you say, ‘has anyone ever told you you’re pretty before?'”
VPVG: “Uhh – ”
Brent: “How do you say, ‘you’re pretty enough to be a part-time model.'”
VPVG: “What? Okay, this is – ”
Brent: “How do you say, ‘you could spend part of your time modeling and part of your time with me.'”
VPVG: “I’m done with this conversation.”
/VPVG walks away

Today I snatched up to 215lbs and c+jed up to 255lbs. I had racked 225lbs overhead in the snatch a few times but couldn’t stand with it, and I went from 255lbs to 275lbs in the clean and didn’t jerk it.

brickhouse writes:

brent its time for you to get with the vpvg. its time.

Doubt she’s actually interested. It was the first time we hung outside of work so maybe she just saw that I was funny and cool and laid-back so I’m still in the friend-zone, she just actually wants to hang out now.

Jake writes:

Brent,
How do you feel about this video?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO0kRE5OTZI]

Saw it 10 years ago? It’s not that funny.

Nathan writes:

brent what is your favorite romantic comedy (preferably with a sad ending)

Closer.

Puke writes:

Hey Brent, what do you think of this haiku?
Nobody likes you
you were told that you have friends
but you were lied to

How do you think I feel about it?

The very pretty Vietnamese girl was at my clinic this past Friday, her, some other coworkers, and I all went out to dinner after work. I was wearing the soffes underneath my scrubs and immediately after I clocked out I ripped the scrub pants off, much to my doctor’s disgust. My friend Alex aka to Chris as Johnny Tran had taken me to work so I rode with her to the restaurant and she also dropped me off back at my place. We had some pretty good conversation.

/car pulls out uncomfortably close to our lane
Very Pretty Vietnamese Girl: “Uh oh…”
Brent: “We’re about to die.”
/we pass car unharmed
Brent: “I don’t know how we survived.” <– the previous three lines are something I stole from Justin, and I have used them with Saul in the car as well
VPVG: “We would have been ok. At least it would have hit your side.”
Brent: “That’s true, I am wearing my tank top after all.”

Here is a haiku I wrote about hanging out and riding in the car with her.

Cold in soffes and
tank, her warm brown eyes lit a
fire inside me.

I should note that prior to this night, VPVG gave no fucks about me. I called her once and she didn’t answer or call back, and we sent like, a total of five or six texts between us. Two days after hanging out with me in my tank and soffes, she calls me after work just to talk???????????? Oh Brent I can’t help but notice you are 13% bf, which I mean is “okay” but certainly nothing to be up in arms about, but I guess I’ll give you the time of day now since you’ve become mildly attractive compared to the mean level of attractiveness in our dating milieu?????????????

Kind of irrelevant now, I am usually thinking about the other girl from work with a pretty smile and super chill personality. She knows I am a loser though so uh this oughta be real good, and by that I mean when she friend zones me I’ll prob snatch 245lbs for a PR and then later that night season my ribeye steak with the salt from my tears as I eat alone in my apartment.

Can’t really remember what I’ve done for training on what days specifically so

– snatched 230lbs last Thursday for sure
– snatched 215lbs last Saturday
– c+jed up to 265lbs on Thursday???
– c+jed pretty terribly on Saturday
– clean-and-pressed pretty terribly on Friday, 165lbs x 2, 160lbs x 3 or 4? did a few back off sets at 145 for 5+
– back squat 375lbs 3×5 on Saturday, which was hard
– possibly because I back squat 390lbs x 3 on Friday, which was also hard
– 330lbs RDLs x 6 and 5
– lotsa reverse hypers and curls on Saturday

Tonight with Saul I benched 255lbs x 4, 3, and 1 (lol), then hit a few back off sets at 240lbs for 4 and 3. I would like to hit 5 @ 255lbs but uh I guess I am being a real piece of shit. These did feel better than last week. I felt stronger out of the bottom and through the middle, I am guessing this is a product of doing ring dips quite a bit. I just hit a fucking wall on the fourth rep and then on the third set. I will be doing some paused reps for an intensity day next bench session.

Jerked 245lbs out of the rack for 4 singles, then jerked 255lbs for my fifth single. I did the most recent internal rotation mob prior to doing any of this and it’s pretty fucking legit. Killed a lot of the anterior tightness I get usually after lots of pressing, and it seemed to have cleaned my shoulder extension so that ring dips felt a lot better – most interesting is that it also somehow indirectly improved my shoulder flexion quite a bit, as I was jerking with a pretty decent shoulder position even after benching which is kind of unusual for me and my shoulders. Possibly improving end range function in extension meant my shoulders were less inflamed after pressing so that I could actually keep moving them through a better ROM?

Did a lot of barbell rows, hit some weighted ring dips at +45lbs for 5, 4, 4, and then five sets of curls. A side goal I’m trying to accomplish in training is to 1.) increase the frequency of my curling to 2-3x a week as opposed to 1-2 and 2.) do 5 sets of curls every time I curl. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.

Here are a few vids from tonight:

Me being a scrub on the rings and doing a pretty terrible job at externally rotating at the top:

Nathan wrote something that definitely made me want to kill myself. I don’t really want to talk about it so if you guys want to read what it was you will have to ask him about it.

Then I showed him something I wrote a couple years ago and he told me I should keep writing. I said I’d rather do more weighted ring dips with Saul, because my pecs could not be more fucking sore right now. And my anterior shoulder bits could not be more tight. I mobbed for quite a bit tonight but will probably have to mob a little bit more before training tomorrow if I want to not snatch like a piece of shit.

I used to write a lotta soft-cocked virgin shit but I’ve realized that the time I spend writing is time that I could spend mobbing, or perhaps banging out barbell curls and squatting sets of 10. Also, my preferred modality of art is currently dance, and I am still developing my ability to shuffle so that I can interpret another fucking sweet song.

Training with Saul and Becky has been pretty A++++, my mood’s been a lot better just from having IRL friends to train and hang with. I keep telling them, “I could not be more pumped about today” in my characteristic monotone, and Becky said, “I like how you say that but you don’t look excited at all.”

“This is me real fucking pumped,” I say.

“Well I guess there is kind of a sparkle in your eye.”

I high-bar squat 350lbs x 9 + 1 rep after racking the bar, then went 6 and 5 and finished up with another set of 5 at 365lbs which I almost fucking did not complete which would have been bad because I was not squatting in a rack and I did not have spotters. Some real jelly-dicked shit really. Glutes felt tight and Becky remarked that my bar path was a \ path towards my toes as opposed to |. I haven’t done tabletop stretch in a while so I collected 5mins both sides tonight, which was agonizing for the first couple minutes.

Benched 255lbs for 3, 3, 2, and 225lbs x 5, this was kinda shitty but I suspect it was from benching the first two sets off of a bench that had a separate seat cushion and body cushion – my hips were not supported very well by the separate seat cushion.

Snatched up to 215lbs after all that, which was surprising, and cleaned 255lbs which was real hard and did not jerk it. I was real tired. Throughout all this I was also doing quite a few ring dips with weight and unweighted and banged out two sets at +25lbs x 5 and then repped out with bw up to 7-8 once or twice. I tried to externally rotate the rings at the top of the dip and can get like 30-45 degrees of external rotation but it creates an unparalleled peak pec tension and is really just an awful experience. My pecs, again, could not be more sore, but Zyzz would have done it for the sake of being more aesthetic which is reason enough for me to continue doing them with vigor.

We also made a new friend in this training session, which is actually a guy that Justin and I had met in Van Alstyne last year. We told him he looked like our friend Chris and got a picture with him, he was kind of weirded out by it, but we’ve exchanged numbers and now we will all get real fucking swole together.

I loled real fucking hard at the interaction between Joe, Cristina, and Mark in last post’s comments. A+++ guys, would read again.

Cute girl at work mentioned a while ago, was just talking about work one day or something and she had said, “It was busy but I didn’t like, kill myself.”

I loled – and asked her if she had somehow gotten that from me. She said no, she hadn’t heard me say it.

“I say it all the time,” I told her. “That’s like my thing.”

She made a face and said, “That’s crazy.”

This probably isn’t going to work out.

Last week Jacob showed me a picture on facebook, it was him about to snatch something, and one of the comments said, “how many velociratpors is that?” to which Jacob responded, “That is 8 velociraptors.”

me: dude
dude
“how many velociraptors is that”
jesus
that’s fucking good

Jacob: oh i haven’t told you about that?
sometimes we measure weights in dinosaurs
1 velociraptor weighed up to 33lbs
the largest pterodactyls weighed up to 100lbs
so we use the top end limits

me: RPFLAJSDF
i thought
it was a unit of like how cool something was
but
this is better

Jacob: Put it to use my friend
did you train today?

me: yeah benched and squat one intuitive set of 3

Jacob: how much

me: i benched 255lbs x 3 paused with no belt and squat 365 x 3
which is the first “heavy” squat i’ve done in 3 weeks

Jacob: i’m sorry Brent
i don’t
understand the units of measurement you’re using
try again please

I found out this real hot chick that I saw at USAPL Texas State and Raw Nationals apparently trains at the gym Saul and I just signed up at????? I have not seen her around, which is a good thing, because if I did I would leave the gym and not train that day. I am hoping she trains in the AM so I will just never see her. If she ever appears at the gym while I am training I am going to terminate my workout in the middle of the fucking set and just pack my shit up and leave. She is too hot. I can’t deal with it. I just can’t.

Another thing is – has she noticed me at these meets as well? I mean, I doubt it, which is fine, and in fact I’d actually prefer that. What I’m concerned with is not, “Hmm, I wonder if she finds me remotely attractive,” I am more concerned with her thinking, “Uh I saw this guy at a couple meets and now he is training at my gym? Is he stalking me? What a fucking creeper. By the way nice shorts, faggot.”

There is a cute girl at work who smiles every time I wear the soffe shorts since I usually come from the gym if I work in the afternoon. Today as she was leaving she said, “Bye, Brent, don’t wear those shorts again.”

I said, “I’ve been wearing them every day.”

“Brent Kim. Brent Kim if you wear those shorts again I will never take you seriously.”

“That’s fine.”

Guess I’ll kill myself.

I have two favorite reactions to the soffe shorts so far:

One is from a coworker, a super experienced LVN who is usually unflappable. She’s seen it all and doesn’t give a shit. Dick head patient? She’s a smooth operator. Some fucking weird guy patient hits on her? She’s fucking ice. Doctor being grumpy? She wishes she cared. But I walked in with the shorts and her eyes went wide and she immediately turned away and burst into laughter. It was a pretty good reaction.

Second one was from a random dude from Starbucks and much more subtle but just as enjoyable. I walked in and he was sweeping and he sees me then goes back to what he’s doing, but he makes this face to himself that says, “I guess this is what kids are doing for fucking fun these days.”

Other than that, most guys think I am a fucking loser and girls smile at me like I have a chromosomal abnormality. It’s fine. If we are going to be real tea, this isn’t very different from when I wasn’t wearing the soffe shorts every day.

Training was short but considerably productive today, I snatched up to 220lbs, c+jed up to 260lbs, with the snatch being a baseline that I’d like to hit on a pretty regular basis (and hopefully reach into 230+). The c+j was kinda weak today, though it’s possible with longer rest periods I may have felt better for a little more. The good news is I did not miss any jerks and felt pretty good overhead. Did all this in about 35min, would have liked more time and taken more attempts for both lifts. I’m off tomorrow though and will be training with Saul and Becky, if the squats I do don’t fucking wreck me I’ll see if I can take a fucking swing. I’m thinking that I might get there before Saul, do my squats, have a boba tea and rest and then come back to do the oly shit. Maybe change my tank top while I’m at it.

PS