2025 Training Log Part 5 and 6

On the stereo today- Soundgarden, Down on the Upside

Okay, 2 week’s worth of logs in one, because I missed last week’s. I’ll explain in a minute why. So here’s week 5.

Monday

Upper Body Strength Work

1. Ring push up 5×15
2. Single arm incline bench 3×8
3. Double Kettlebell row 3×10
4. Machine row… thing 3×10
5. Wobble board planks 3x60s
6. Curls 3×10
7. Halos 3×15

Evening Jiu Jitsu- 6×5 rounds

Wednesday

Morning lower body strength work. Well, when I say strength work I really mean movement.

1. RDLs, very brave, but back felt fine. Just 60kg- 5×8
2. Pistols 5×5
3. Quad raise 3×15
4. Hip pops 3×15, 15
5. Plank 3x60s
6. Weighted crunch 3×12

Evening Gi sparring. I felt very tight in the upper body so did round on round off. A foreshadowing of things to come…. Den den DEEEEEENNNN…

Friday

Friday pump.

1. Bike 10mins
2. Incline dumbbell press 5×5
3. Decline Press 3×15
4. Machine flyes 3xmax
5. Face pulls 3×15
6. Plank 3x60s
7. Hammer wrist curls 3×10

Left shoulder and bicep tendon on fire afterwards… more foreshadowing. Den den deeeeeennnn.

Saturday

A few rounds, but again had to take a round or two off. Very unlike me.

Cue inner monologue of training partner *Barry NEVER usually takes rounds off*

Week 6

Don’t worry. This one is short.

Monday

It was Brigid’s Day, so no training in the evening, so I said I’d go to my gym and train in Revfit downstairs for a change. A big, cavernous, empty gym full of great kit to play with. No training that night, so I says to meself, I’ll push the boat out a bit here.

*Foreshadowing music plays*

1. Bench w/u to 3 at 95kg
2. Single Arm incline press 3×10 at 35kg. Jesus these feel easy. I am very strong.
3. Dumbbell supported row with olympic handles. I am much strong man. w/u to a top set of 60kg x5. 60kg! Haha! I very strong. Very smart man! *foreshadowing*
4. Face pulls 3×12
5. Feet elevated plank 3x60s
6. Curls 3×15

No cool down. No stretch, went upstairs to the gym to record some promo things for Kyuzo, feeling smug and strong. Contemplated taking a top-off selfie for the gram. Looking ripped to be honest. Decided against it cos I’m not a dickhead. Ha ha! No I might not be a dickhead, but I am the greatest middle aged beast on the planet! What a guy! What an animal!

Hubris.

Went to sleep.

Awoke at 5am trying to supress a scream of agony. A pain in my upper back that felt like someone ripping my shoulder blade off. Literally bit down on my own hand not to wake the house. I’ve had pain, specifically back pain, a long time, and I’ve never felt anything like this. Like a hot needle into the nerve. Whatever shoulder tightness I was feeling the week before had developed into a full blown, nerve trapping, finger numbing, back spasm. I’m now in Day 7 and it’s just about tolerable to do daily tasks like lifting a cup of coffee, or typing this blog. I haven’t slept more than 3 hours in the last week even with painkillers, and last night, a muscle relaxant.

The worst part is knowing I did it to myself, breaking every gym rule I hold fast to that keeps me on the mat and training at a good level at my age. What a stupid, vain thing to do. Pure ego lifting.

So there is no week 6. There was a couple of trips to the sauna to see if I can do some hot-cold therapy to release it. The rest has been spent on painkillers and now diazepam to get some sleep. My first rodeo with that particular drug, and it hasn’t even made a dent.

Non-Training Thoughts of the Week

I’ll tell you a funny story about my Dad. It’s got to do with the above injury, don’t worry.

So my Dad was full of wisdom that he’d drop from time to time, usually in the form of a parable about some bloke he used to know who, would you know it, had a mishap doing the exact thing that his son was about to do. So if I was about to cycle to a mate’s house and my Dad was worried I’d have a few beers and get back on the bike, he’d tell me a story of John Smith, who cycled while pissed and is now dead/in prison/lost his foot. These stories were pulled from a seemingly bottomless barrel of terrible experiences, and many of them were probably true, but it’s hard to say. He was incredibly cautious and safety conscious when it came to his kids, and after raising 4 girls before me, I was probably a bit of a shock to the system. I, of course, would just roll my eyes and teenage off to do whatever teenage thing I was teenaging that day anyway.

When I got older, and we’d work together a bit, it was the same thing. I’d be going up a ladder and he’d say, “Now always keep a hand on the ladder when you’re using the drill. Pat O’Gorman once took his hand off the ladder and fell/was impaled on a fence/was decapitated/lost his foot.” Except now that I was older, I got to see him in action, and he was reckless! He’d do crazy stuff, one big toe on a ladder while he reached for a pipe with the other hand. His car up on a wobbly few blocks while he was under it. Mental! I could rip the piss out of him about his own behaviour then when he’d try to give me a safety lecture, which used to get a laugh out my Ma but a grumble from him.

And this is what I’m thinking of now. He used to say this brilliant thing when he was taking one of these mad risks. He’d have a spinning angle grinder in one hand, ready to shave his nose off if he slipped, the other hand on a small rope he’d tied to a plastic drainpipe so that he could swing out to cut the bolt he wanted to, and he’d look at me earnestly, with as much gravitas as he could muster in the circumstances while simultaneously being totally self-aware of the ridiculousness of his situation, and say “Now Barry, I’m breaking my own Golden Rule here…”

When I think of things like that, I miss him something awful. That might not be what he’d like to be remembered for mind you.

Anyway, I thought if him the last week as I’ve been in agony. You see, I’m the weight room safety guy. I don’t push my maxes and I stay fit and healthy. “Never hurt yourself in the gym” I say to people. I lecture them like my Dad did me. Don’t red line. Stay within your range. Don’t fuck around. Don’t push the numbers, stay injury free. It’s not worth it.

So when I was loading up that 60kg on the handles, it would have been funny to have had someone to look up at and say, “Now, I’m breaking my own Golden Rule here…”

Hopefully this eases and I’ll have some training to share with you next week, but until then…

See you on the mat,

Barry