August 2003 archives

First workout after a month in China. Besides working the grippers once or twice per week, my workouts consisted mostly of walking, talking and climbing (including three days on Mt. Emei — where I also sneaked in some presses with a concrete weight before limping on up the never-ending staircase with my cane).

Whereas my grip improved to the point where I could very nearly close the number I Captains of Crush gripper, the question is how much I lost on my other lifts. Going for a max bench today I got an easy 80 kg/177 lbs as compared to the 85 kg/188 lbs bench I did in mid-July. My groove wasn’t so good and it was midnight, but I’m quite happy with the result. A few workouts, and I should be back on track pushing for more records.

Not much to say about this workout. I felt quite slow off the box after not doing it for over a month. I pretended to compensate for the lower weights on the box by doing a very hard three sets of kneeling cable crunches…

Had so sore abdominals and legs that just getting on the bench was a chore. Serves me right for not easing into my training after a month’s layoff. Trained outside at a sunny Toffe’s gym. Not very good lifts today, but I enjoyed doing lying rear delt raises, which used to be among my favorites. I don’t know why I haven’t done these in a while.

As I anticipated back in June, Gold’s Gym Helsinki is back after originally having been shut down in December 2001 after the lease on its premises next to the Helsinki railway station expired. Instead of immediately reopening, the gym forked into a new gym chain, Wellness, with much of the original Gold’s equipment placed at the Ruoholahti branch in Helsinki. Since Wellness caters for the average health oriented person on the street, the new gym chain apparently made a conscious decision to avoid such hardcore elements as power racks and heavy dumbells (which were limited to 40 kg/88 lbs, lest the heavy Gold’s dumbells scare away customers). As a result, part of the Gold’s crowd made the switch to Wellness with many others disappearing to more hardcore gyms such as, presumably, Töölö Gym or Metal Gym.

Apparently for some the Gold’s nostalgia became too much bear. The original Gold’s equipment was pulled out of Wellness and relocated in another premise in Ruoholahti, Helsinki. There is only one gotcha. The gym was opened to the public two days ago not as Gold’s but as Mayor’s. The reason seems to be that some licensing issues still remain with the Gold’s Gym franchise headquarters. If they are resolved I believe the idea is to unveil the second coming of Gold’s in Helsinki. Logo issues aside, the equipment is the same regardless of the name so I don’t really care all that much. Have power rack and donkey calf machine, be happy. The characteristic dark dungeon atmosphere is gone, but the music is loud and the equipment sturdy. Results should follow.

Not surprisingly, good mornings in the power rack became the first exercise of the day. My adductors were still really sore, but they did not seem to hamper the stiff-legged deadlift too much.

After rejoicing over again having a power rack, it felt a little sour to find it occupied by two squatters today. I had looked forward to doing floor presses with a barbell for the first time since late May. Not having had enough food during the day I was in no mood for waiting and headed for the powersmith instead. Once there and in action it felt good, but then suddenly everything literally stopped at 90 kg/199 lbs. I was left 12.5 kg/28 lbs short of what I did in June before heading for China. I don’t know if I just happened to lower my elbows to a spot outside my groove (on the floor press this is critical, since the elbows can’t be moved once they hit the floor) or if I’ve actually lost this much strength. Let’s see what happens next week.

The dumbell presses didn’t go that much better and my cable side delt flyes were quite sloppy. On the positive side, I finally got some chalk which did make it easier to hang on to the bar when rowing.

Didn’t realize how sore my hams still were before I sprinted to catch a bus in the morning. Did a couple of feeler sets at the gym to see how the box felt and then decided to go for it as the reps felt snappy and good. Went for a lower than normal box (step board without extra plates) and lowered the weights with 10 kg/22 lbs to ensure that I would retain the speed. Worked well, and made me feel like training harder. Since my hams were sore, I held myself back from pin pulls in the rack and was content with going a little heavier on the speed deads. Ditto for the kneeling cable crunches where I dropped the reps from last workout’s 3x20 to 3x8.

Since the workout felt very easy and the sun was shining in through the window I cranked out two sets of calves. It would probably be wise to move the calf training to DE SQ/DL instead of the current ME SQ/DL (when I’m usually to wiped out to care much about calves, not to mention the fact that clocking in before the 60 min mark is already tough enough whereas DE SQ/DL is a shortish workout).

Yup, got a runny nose and a rising fever. ME Squat/Dead tomorrow is out of the question; with some luck I will be benching on Wednesday.