Training -- Thur 31/10/2013

'Tis Halloween, and for the first time in my life I'm doing something about it other than telling all them young whippersnappers to get of the dang lawn. I'll be going to Fright Night at Movie World this evening, and I'm currently preparing my attacked-by-his-last-experiment scientist costume.

High Bar Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x10x100kg -- It feels good doing this high bar and beltless, remembering back to a time a year ago when this was my belted 10RM, and a couple years before that when doing 3x5x90kg low bar took everything I had and then some.

Deadlift

8x60kg
5x100kg
1x130kg
3x5x155kg -- 1 right under left over; 2 right over left under; 3 straps.

Muscle Fibre Types and Getting Big

There are several different types of muscle fibres in humans. According to Wilmore, Costill and Kenney (2008), we have the following fibre types (and as research techniques develop, we may distinguish fibre types even further): "I; Ic (I/IIa); IIc (IIa/I); IIa; IIax; IIxa; and IIx." Clear as mud? Excellent.

For the sake of this post, we'll narrow that down to Type I, IIa and IIb (with IIb being more or less equivalent to IIx). Note that fibre types aren't so much a distinct classification as they are a sliding scale of qualities. Here's more or less what each of the above three types look like:

	Type I	Type IIa	Type IIb
Twitch	Slow	Fast	Fast
Colour	Red	Pink	White
Energy	Aerobic	Aerobic, anaerobic	Anaerobic
Power	Low	High	High
Endurance	High	Moderate	Low
Hypertrophy Potential	Low	High	Debatable

The twitch is a full stimulus --> contraction --> relaxation period. Thus slow-twitch muscle fibres go through that sequence slowly, and fast-twitch fibres go through the sequence quickly. Type II fibres can typically go through 5 twitches in the time it takes a Type I fibre to go through 1 twitch. Type I and II fibres of the same length and width in the same location will produce about the same amount of force, but because Type II fibres can perform many more twitches in the same duration, they can produce much more power.

The colour of the muscle is directly related to the energy source. As aerobic energy sources use blood oxygen, aerobically dense muscle fibres are red. As anaerobic energy sources don't use blood oxygen, anaerobic muscle fibres lack redness. As aerobic energy pathways allow long-duration tasks, while anaerobic pathways do not, the colour of the muscle fibre is also related to its endurance.

The hypertrophy potential of the muscle fibres is an interesting issue. Hypertrophy seems to occur when two training conditions are met:

1) Adequate load is placed on the muscle fibres.

2) Adequate volume is placed on the muscle fibres.

I'm not sure how much biological potential slow twitch fibres have for hypertrophy, but from a loading perspective, we run into an immediate problem: they can't take much load, and with the load that they can take, it's really hard to wear them out.

As for Type IIb fibres, I'm led to believe that biologically they do have high potential for hypertrophy. The problem, however, is that their is very low, and exposing them to high training volumes may promote them converting to Type IIa fibres. Following this is how impractical it is to expose Type IIb fibres to high volume. If we assume the classic hypertrophy vs max strength rep ranges (6-12 = hypertrophy; 1-5 = strength; in reality, just like fibre types, this is actually a sliding scale), the closer we get to max strength and thus focusing on white fibres, the less reps we can do in a set. Let's take the extreme and compare 12 rep sets vs 1 rep sets. In a standard hypertrophy workout, you might do 3-5 sets of 12, for 36-50 total working reps, and that might take you 10-30 min, depending on intensity and rest periods. In contrast, with enough weight on the bar to make heavy singles worth doing (probably 90% 1RM), you're looking at 3-5 min between sets, maybe longer as you get fatigued, which means it would conservatively take you 36 min plus actual lifting time just to make up the volume of the first hypertrophy set.

For these reasons, focusing on Type IIa (pink) fibres is far more practical when it comes to hypertrophy. I don't know if they are biologically better at hypertrophy than white fibres (ie, given the same volume, I'm not sure that pink fibres would still grow faster than white fibres), however their combination of being both fast-twitch and decent at endurance makes them generally the easiest fibre type to hypertrophy. Moving closer to max strength (white) loads makes it hard to accumulate sufficient volume for hypertrophy. Moving closer to endurance (red) loads makes it hard to apply sufficient intensity for hypertrophy.

Training -- Tue 29/10/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x70kg
3x5x80kg
1x85kg

Pull Ups

3x8.75kg
4x8.75kg -- My shoulders were playing up, so I did a bunch of rotator cuff stuff and called it quits on pull ups.

OHP

10x20kg
5x30kg
3x5x35kg -- Made my shoulders feel happy again.

Push Press

2x5x40kg -- Hindsight says this wasn't a good idea. Shoulders felt unhappy again.

Cable Row

2x15x40kg
15x50kg
10x60kg
2x15x40kg

Upright Row

2x10x8.5kg
4x10x13.5kg -- For all the bad press upright rows get, these really helped my shoulders feel better again.

Training -- 28/10/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
1x120kg
3x5x135kg -- Each set was a grinder, although I still managed to do it without psyching myself up for each set.

Pause Squats

3x5x100kg

RDL

3x6x100kg

GHR

3x5xPurple -- I'm advancing through the different bands on my way towards (hopefully) bodyweight.

Calf Raise

10x8x320lb -- Mostly done between sets of pause squats, RDLs and GHRs.

Bird Dog

2x10

Training -- Sat 26/10/2013

Band Pull Apart/Rotator Cuff

2x15xOrange/12xOrange

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
10x70kg
9x70kg
7x70kg

L-Pull Up/CGBP

2x6xBW/10x50kg

L-Pull Up/OHP

2x6xBW/8x30kg

Fat Gripz Row

4x8x60kg

Training -- Thur 24/10/2013

High Bar Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x10x97.5kg

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x100kg
2x125kg
10x145kg -- Weighed in this morning at 71.75kg, putting this at a hair's fraction above double-bodyweight. I think I'm doing something right. I realised the belt was too loose in the middle of the set, so I tightened it up a notch before switching hands to right over/left under.
8x145kg
6x145kg

What You Say/What I Hear

What you say:

I'll try anything once.

What I hear:

I'm lying to sound super adventurous so that you'll like me.

My imagination is very lacking, and I haven't really considered what "anything" might entail.

I really will try anything once, therefore it's amazing that I haven't gotten myself and/or others killed yet. Hey, is that a toaster I can stick this knife into?

What you say:

I hear what you're saying.

What I hear:

...and what you're saying is wrong.

What you say:

I'd really say I'm much more logical than emotional.

What I hear:

I'm deeply emotionally dependent on the belief that I'm logical rather than emotional.

There's a 95+% chance that I have no idea what logic is and can't tell a logical argument from a logical fallacy.

What you say:

Be reasonable!

What I hear:

Be emotional!

Agree with me! 

What you say:

If people were just better educated, this problem wouldn't exist.

What I hear:

I wasn't really listening when they told me you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Training -- Tue 22/10/2013

BPA/RC

2x15xOrange/12xOrange

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x7x77.5kg
6x77.5kg

Pull Ups/Board Press

6x7.5kg/7x77.5kg
6x7.5kg/5x77.5kg

Pull Ups/Incline DBBP

2x6x7.5kg/6x25kg

Fat Gripz Row

4x10x55kg

Training -- Mon 21/10/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
1x120kg
3x5x130kg

Pause Squats/Calf Raises

5x95kg/10x300lb
5x95kg
5x95kg/10x300lb

RDL/Calf Raises

3x6x90kg/10x300lb

GHR/Calf Raises

3x8xRed/10x300lb -- I was surprised by how easy the red band was, given that it's only slightly more than half as wide as the green band. Maybe it's a shorter band or something. I did a lot of calf raises today. I expect to wake up with 30" calves tomorrow or demand a refund.

Glute Bridges

12xBW
10x20kg
2x10x30kg

Training -- 19/10/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
10x70kg
9x70kg
8x70kg

L-Pull Up/CGBP

2x7xBW/8x50kg

L-Pull Up/OHP

2x6xBW/10x27.5kg

Cable Row

4x8x60kg
10x40kg

Suitcase Walk

3x50mx20kg

Training -- Thur 17/10/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
3x6x125kg

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x100kg
2x10x140kg -- Unfortunately, due to talking business and helping people to not die in the gym, I didn't have the time for a third set. Oh well. This is still a pretty significant PB (even though I've been hitting rep-PB's on deadlifts every week for the last month): 3 plates for 10 reps. Once upon a time, doing 3 plates for 1 rep was a massive feat.

Training -- Tue 15/10/2013

Band Pull Apart/Rotator Cuff/Hyperextensions

15xOrange/10xOrange/10xBW -- I did hyperextensions because, after getting tossed around from kneeboarding on Saturday, my lower back hasn't been too flash the last couple days. Wanted to make sure it was obeying me before I go ahead and bench.

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x8x75kg
7x75kg

Pull Ups/Board Press

6x6.25kg/10x75kg
6x6.25kg/8x75kg -- I think I went lose somewhere on the final rep, because it felt a whole lot harder than the 7th rep; harder than fatigue itself would warrant.

Pull Ups/Incline DBBP

2x6x6.25kg/6x25kg

Fat Gripz Row

4x7x60kg
15x50kg

Training -- Mon 14/10/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
3x120kg
3x125kg
3x130kg
3x5x65kg -- Going for power on the way up.

RDL/Calf Raise

3x8x85kg/10x320lb

Bird Dog/Calf Raise

3x5/10x320lb

Training -- Thur 10/10/2013

High Bar Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x10x95kg

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x100kg
2x10x135kg
6x135kg

Training -- Tue 08/10/2013

Band Pull Apart/Rotator Cuff

15xOrange/15xOrange
--/15xOrange

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
3x8x72.5kg

Pull Ups/Board Press

2x6x5kg/10x72.5kg

Pull Ups/Incline DBBP

2x6x5kg/12x20kg

Cable Row

4x15x50kg

Training -- Mon 07/10/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
8x120kg
6x120kg
8x120kg
6+4x100kg -- Racked the bar mid-set to adjust belt.
10x100kg

I was quite pleased to be able to do squats today, after repeatedly wounding myself from dancing on Saturday night. The most significant wounds were:

1) Impact forces through my left shin causing a spot down the bottom of the shin being painful to touch. This is right on the bony part, but it's also down the bottom where small muscles start attaching, so I don't have to jump to the absolute conclusion that I've broken my leg. The fact that it's fine to stand and walk on (and apparently even squat 100+kg on) reinforces the belief that this is not a fracture, even though in the moment it occurred I thought it was.

2) High heel to my foot. I actually managed to avoid stepping on anyone's feet all night (I did kick someone's foot once, though), but my years of practice caught up to me and my feet got stepped on all over the place, exclusively by people I wasn't actually dancing with.

RDL/Calf Raise

3x10x82.5kg/10x300lb

GHR/Calf Raise

10xGreen/10x300lb
6xGreen/10x300lb-6x220lb-6x160lb-6x100lb

Training -- Sat 05/10/2013

BPA/RC/LT

15xOrange/10xOrange/20"x1.25kg

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x55kg
3x10x67.5kg

L-Pull Up/CGBP

2x6xBW/12x45kg

L-Pull Up/OHP

2x6xBW/12x25kg

Fat Gripz Row

3x6x60kg
6x60kg/6x50kg/6x40kg/8x30kg/10x20kg

Training -- Thur 03/10/2013

3+10=13. It's amazing.

High Bar Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x10x92.5kg

Deadlifts

10x70kg
5x100kg
3x10x130kg -- 3rd set may have been 11 reps. My bad counting happened again.

One-Legged Calf Raise

8x120lb
3x6x120lb

Three Common Misconceptions About Christianity

Yes, I'm deviating away from discussions on physical training for a moment to talk about my spiritual side. Before I get into this, I'm going to make a note here that this is hardly an exhaustive list. For what is supposedly the dominant religion in the western world, in my experience, Christianity is very poorly understood by the majority of westerners, and that includes a lot of Christians (with special thanks to bad teaching, lazy reading and lackluster discipleship). I make no claim to be an authority on the subject as many have studied the scriptures in far greater depth than I have and still disagree on a lot of issues in the bible, however the following are three common sentiments that, in their most conventional use, demonstrate what seems like a profound ignorance on the bible from my point of view.

1. "Turn the other cheek."

This is both easy and hard for me to talk about, because the statement itself is actually in the bible. The problem I have is not with the statement but with its misuse. The way most people I've interacted with use "turn the other cheek" means something along the lines of "when someone says or does something you don't like, just turn around and walk away." Let's see what the bible has to say...

Luke 6:27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.

Now, is that saying to just ignore those who offend you? No. It's saying that if someone punches you in one cheek, you turn the other cheek for them, point at it and say: "You missed a spot." The heart of what's being said here is not to evade conflict. Rather, by non-discretely responding to evil by showing evil that it is evil without repaying evil with evil, you allow holiness to be set aside as holy, and wickedness to be set aside as wicked (that was a fun sentence). I think the heart of what Jesus is saying here can be found in Proverbs 25:

21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
    if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
22 In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
    and the Lord will reward you.

2. "God does not give you more than you can handle."

I guess Christians say this either to comfort oneanother in times of suffering, or to alleviate the urge to blame God for suffering. It's not founded in the bible, though, nor is it consistent with the realities of the world. The world is place in which people struggle to survive, and along the way are emotionally and physically abused, scathed with illness, burdened with dysfunctional families, and then to top it off, they die (most often in a manner that is either slow and drawn out or utterly brutal). And the bible thoroughly recognises this. And this is incompatible with the belief that God does not give you more than you can handle: you might be able to handle persecution and illness and the loss of loved ones and having your family divided, but you certainly can't handle being dead. That's one burden you can't lift. To top it off, the bible actively gives us accounts of suffering beyond what the authors could handle.

2 Corinthians 1:8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

On the cross, Jesus himself cried out a chilling reference to Psalm 22:

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

Now, the Psalm is not all doom and gloom, and ultimately points to God's deliverance. But that's just it: God is the one who delivers, not us. Look back at the passage from 2 Corinthians: they suffered to the point that death seemed more appealing than life, "but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."

Does God give us more than we can handle? Yes. Absolutely. But whatever adversity He allows us to suffer, even death itself, is something He can conquer for us. I can't remember who said it, but I recently became familiar with this concept, which I find helpful: Superheros come in to save the day before evil wins. With God, it doesn't matter if evil wins, because God wins even more. Evil's greatest victory is death, and yet God is victorious over death.

3. "The bible is just a moral guidebook."

This is mostly an objection to the significance of the bible, in a way that dismisses the bible without giving a volatile resistance to it. It typically goes something like this: "All religions are just about being a good person, and that includes the bible. The bible is just a moral guidebook. But I know right from wrong, therefore I don't need to pay attention to the bible." Now, if those premises were true (1: that religion just tells you what to do to be good, and 2: that you know right from wrong [presumably without relying on the bible to have that knowledge]), then the outcome would logically follow. This is problematic on multiple levels.

The most fundamental level at which this is a problem is that we are not the main characters of the bible, God is. The primary goal of the bible is to display God's identity. This includes what He deems moral and good with regards to humans, but that's certainly not the full extent of God's identity. In the same vein, there are certain roles which are for God and God alone, and the bible keeps going back to that. For example, while mercy and grace are values espoused in the bible for Christians, only God can forgive the sin of sinners. And while humans can make babies and re/arrange elements of our world in creative ways (in the same way that I'm arranging these digital signals in creative ways to produce this text), only God can create something from nothing (tangentially, it's my understanding that there's a special word in the bible used to mean "create" which is only ever used when God is doing it).

Now, all human morality in the bible stems from the following core beliefs:

1. God is the uncreated creator of everything that has been created (as an aside, this point demonstrates why it's nonsensical for people to object to Christianity by saying: "If God created everything, then who created God?" This is basic theology).

Colossians 1:16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 

2. As God is the uncreated creator of everything that has been created, everything that is not God depends on God, therefore God is literally the most important thing in all existence. Therefore we are called to love God above all else.

Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 

3. God created humans in His likeness, therefore, where a role is not set aside for God alone, we are most human when our hearts and our actions are in line with God's character.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them. 

4.  As God's creations who have been made in His likeness, we have inherent value to God. Therefore, a chief act of love towards God is love oneanother, as doing so means that we place value in the same things God places value in.

Leviticus 19:18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Because of this, where morality is focused on in the bible, it is secondary to a deeper theology -- biblical morality is the natural consequence of God's character and of knowing God; practical moral instruction simply clarifies that. If you're not a Christian, I can almost guarantee that the bible makes moral assertions that don't sit comfortably with you. I can be confident int his because as a Christian I seriously struggle with some of the moral issues of the bible. For those that don't accept the bible as having God's authority behind it, I would be genuinely surprised if the bible didn't take some of the things you call moral and call them immoral, or take some of the things you call immoral and call them moral.

So, between the Christian and the non-Christian is a fundamentally different approach to morality. The basis for morality is different and the spiritual implications of morality are different, therefore the practical outcome of morality is going to be different. That's not at all to say that non-Christians cannot have morals, or that Christians and non-Christians cannot share certain morals. However, there won't be a perfect overlap between my morality and your morality, nor will there be succinct overlap on the assumptions upon which we base our varying moral positions. Because of this, treating the bible as irrelevant on account of you already having firm moral positions is missing the point.

Training -- Tue 01/10/2013

Dear Billie Joe Armstrong: Wake Up.

And to everyone else, please enjoy a friendly beating to welcome in the new month :) That is the tradition, isn't it?

Band Pull Apart/Rotator Cuff

15xOrange/10xORange

--/10xOrange

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x55kg
3x8x70kg

Pull Ups/Board Press

2x6x3.75kg/8x70kg

Pull Ups/Incline DBBP

2x6x3.75kg/10x20kg

Fat Gripz Rows

4x12x50kg