2025 Training Log Part 11

On the stereo today- Led Zeppelin IV

Monday

Regular (sort of) training.

3km run

All pressing motions are aggravating my injury, so I’ve to figure out upper body training each day depending on how I feel. Today’s main movement was the incline cable front raise. Of course it was. Off you go to Google it now.

(BFRs on)

1. Incline Cable Front Raise 30, 15,15,15
2. Low to high cable flyes 30, 15, 15, 15
3. Seated Neutral Cable row- 3×15
4. Curls 30, 15, 15, 15
5. Weighted Decline Crunch 3×15
6. Swiss Ball Plank 3×60
7. Cable Pushdowns 3×20

Tuesday

Working in the BFRs seems like a tricky one to master in terms of output. After all, if you get the weights wrong in the 30 rep first set, you might not get a good session right? 30 too light and you get no stimulus, or 30 too heavy and you only get to 20 reps before you have to stop. So let me simplify it for you.

Whatever weight you think is good, subtract 10kgs. 30 reps is always hard, and I have boiked at 23 or 24 a lot.

1. Bike 10 mins
2. Goblet Squats 30, 15, 15, 15
3. Supported single leg step ups 5×12
4. Seated Quad raise 30, 15, 15, 15
5. Single leg RDL 30, 15, 15, 15
6. Crunches 200

Wednesday

3km run.

Thursday

Farted around the gym but was really there to sauna. When I went in, the thing was like a warm room. Very frustrating. So I went for a swim.

Now to call what I do swimming seems like an insult to swimmers. I am to swimming what a guy walking his dog having a cigarette is to running. I’m just keeping afloat with effort really. Still, something different and a nice change of pace.

Friday

To the gym working just with bands. I have this half-remembered thing in my head that banded tension is better for neural recovery because you’re not working with gravity. You’re not arresting the drop of a weight, and have to exercise more control during the constant tension. I’m not sure who taught me that. Could have been one of 4 guys I’ve worked with, and it could also be bollocks.

1. Lat Pulldown 4×15
2. Single arm pulldown 3×12
3. Seated Band Neutral Row 4×18
4. Strap Row 3×15
5. Bent over shrugs 3×15
6. BFR Curls 30, 15, 15, 15
7. Single Arm pushdowns 3×10

For those of you wondering what the hell I’ve been on about the last while about BFR training, here’s a pic in the straps.

Now if you’re wondering if I wear a vest to training normally, the answer is no. I actually wore a vest so I could video and track my scapular movement during the pulldowns. I don’t usually dress like Cletus the slack jawed yokel.

Training Thoughts of the Week

I feel really good and ready to come back to training, but when I do some of the tests on myself, i’m not where I want to be. I’ve learned the hard way over the years that there’s a point at which you feel ready to return, and when you hit that point, the best idea is to wait one more week. Most injuries regress to the mean first. You think because you’re pain free and moving relatively normally, that you have full function. You forget that you’re going to be asking your body to do something above normal. So wait one more week.

Non-Training Thoughts of the Week

Here’s something about a friend I don’t see much, we live a few thousand miles apart now, but kind circumstances had him walk into my kitchen last year, and we picked up our previous conversation from 8 years before pretty easily. He’s that type of guy. Anyway, I said, “Something’s different about you”, and he said “Yeah I don’t read the news anymore”. An oddly, it turned out that was what I had noticed. “Just family, friends, the people around me. Everything else can fuck off”.

Not something I’ve managed to master, but it seemed to be doing him some real good.

See you on the mat,

Barry