Topic: Zachary Cohn's Training Log

[ZacharyCohn]

I'm not sure how complete this will be.. I do SOMETHING every day. My current schedule of official events:
Mon: TKD
Tues: Gymnastics
Wed: Juggling
Thurs: Swing dance
Fri: TKD
Sat: Parkour
Sun: Parkour then Gymnastics

I do other things throughout the rest of the week, but that's a good idea of my weekly evening schedule.

I recently started doing Starting Strength in the mornings (MWF schedule) with Charles Moreland and some other friends from school. For the first two weeks we're going to be doing mostly skill work and finding our maxes, then we have a two week christmas break, and then the rest of the school quarter we'll be doing the full workouts. I will at least post what I did each SS workout, I probably won't be posting much about most of my other activities on a regular basis.

My short and long term goals broken into categories:

Injury/Health:
1) Finish fixing final 5% of elbow pain.
2) Eliminate dysfunctional inflexibility in the upper back
3) Complete final 15-20% of posture correction in hips (currently tilted down a bit too much)
4) Full splits.
5) Correct shoulder posture (linked to #2?)
6) Figure out what's causing burning sensation in instep when I run for longer than 1/4 mile (and fix it).

Tricking/gymnastics/Parkour:
1) Increase the height on my side summi
2) Round-off back handspring & round-off backtuck
3) Flashkicks
4) Hold a handstand consistently for 10 seconds.
5) Frontflips from a height of 3 ft.
6) Feel comfortable throwing back layouts outside.
7) Feel comfortable throwing wallflips outside.
8) 6ft Rail precision
9) Work on getting more distance from reverse vaults (see: Jereme)
10) 540 kicks on my non-dominant side.
11) B-twist

Strength/Fitness:
1) Squat: 300#
2) Deadlift: 225#
3) Chest press: 165#
4) Overhead press: 115#
5) Increase vertical jump by 12 inches
6) Increase horizontal jump by a foot length
7) Press-handstand progressions
8) 10 muscle ups on bar (with no elbow pain).
9) Explosive pike pushups
10) Stair progression of explosive pushups

[ZacharyCohn]

2008/12/08 - Monday

Warmup:
Run 1/4 mile
Row 500m
Taught/learned air squats with a broomstick. Probably about 4x5.

Workout:
N/A. It was most people's first time lifting, so we spent most of the time teaching squats, deadlifts, and chest press. Mostly with an empty bar, increased to additional 10-20#s just to ensure comfortability with the movements.

[ZacharyCohn]

2008/12/10 - Wednesday

Warmup:
Row 500m
4x5 air squats with broomstick

Workout theme: Skillwork and finding maxes.

Workout:
Squats: 5 reps, didn't count sets, estimate 7-8. Built up to 145#.
Chest press: 5 reps, didn't count sets, estimate 7-8. Built up to 110#.

Notes:
I can definitely increase the weight of the squats more. I was having minor discomfort as bar started to slide further down my back, but had absolutely no issues squatting the weight. I could easily hit 175, my estimate of my max is in the 190-200# range.

I was having major stability issues with the chest press. This is my first time chest pressing, so I'm sure that's part of it, and I haven't ever done much stability work in that position. I had no strength issues, pushing the bar up was easy even at 110#. I'm wary of going past 110# until the stability issues are worked out.

[Charles Moreland]

GOMAD
GOMAD
GOMAD
GOMAD


NOW
NOW
NOW
NOWWWWW!!!

[ZacharyCohn]

Go(n)ad's and strife?

[Eli Kurtz]

Gallon Of Milk A Day

P.S. - SS rocks my socks.  I LOVE it.

[Chris Salvato]

2008/12/10 - Wednesday

Warmup:
Row 500m
4x5 air squats with broomstick

Workout theme: Skillwork and finding maxes.

Workout:
Squats: 5 reps, didn't count sets, estimate 7-8. Built up to 145#.
Chest press: 5 reps, didn't count sets, estimate 7-8. Built up to 110#.

Notes:
I can definitely increase the weight of the squats more. I was having minor discomfort as bar started to slide further down my back, but had absolutely no issues squatting the weight. I could easily hit 175, my estimate of my max is in the 190-200# range.

I was having major stability issues with the chest press. This is my first time chest pressing, so I'm sure that's part of it, and I haven't ever done much stability work in that position. I had no strength issues, pushing the bar up was easy even at 110#. I'm wary of going past 110# until the stability issues are worked out.

Don't worry too much about "maxes"....though i am fairly certain you meant that you were just finding suitable weights to start with...

If the bar is sliding down your back, you likely need to raise your scaps up and together...try to pull them together and force your elbows to go behind the bar -- this usually makes it nice and secure.  Only time the bar would slide along on me was when I would lose scap retraction (like my chest caving).

By the by, whatever your current max is, I recommend starting with 1.5xBW as a goal for DL and Squat -- then 2.0xBW.  Just my opinion, though

Woot, keep up your morning barbell thing - Charlie was telling me all about it

[ZacharyCohn]

Thanks for the advice.

2008/12/12 - Friday
Warmup: Row 500m

Workout theme: Skillwork and finding maxes.

Workout:
Chest press:
1x5 - empty bar
1x5 - 95#
3x5 - 105#

Deadlift:
3x5 - 65#
1x5 - 75#
3x5 - 115#

Notes:
Got about 3 hours of sleep. Went out to pick up Hardcoretraceur from the bus station at 10pm, then came home and we + some friends watched The Dark Knight. Got to bed around 2:15am, got up at 5:30am to lift. Decided to skip the squats because my left ankle was hurting a little bit, and I wanted to fix my deadlift form anyway (Hence the three sets at really low weight). 115# was the highest I felt safe trying with so little sleep. I tried alternating the chest press between going slow and going faster.

Stretched for cooldown, then went to pick up KC Parsons and a friend of his from the bus station. Went to a diner, got a 3 egg omlette with turkey, and then two pancakes, home fries, and toast.

Came back home around 10:30, and everyone has been asleep since. We're going to the rock climbing gym tonight before we pick up Bryan Augstein and Chris Price, and then we're going to finish trashing our bodies by going out for Garbage Plates (wiki it).

I hurt all over. My elbows feel pretty tender, my ankle hurts, and I think I'm getting some referred pain to the knees as well... it's due to lack of sleep. No plans for tomorrow morning, so we'll all sleep in.

[Chris Salvato]

Jesus...

The last thing u need to do is introduce Jesse to garbage plates

[ZacharyCohn]

This counts as training:

I stupidly challenged Jesse to a Garbage Plate Race (Garbage Plates: A phenomeona naturally occuring in rochester. Grade F meat, mayo, mustard, macaroni salad, home fries, ketchup). We raced, and I got destroyed. The wager: Loser had to eat a second one.

I managed to weasle out of the wager with the alternative punishment: 100 Burpee challenge. Outside in the snow.

9:16.

[ZacharyCohn]

2008/12/15 - Monday
No workout. Had to drive Jesse and Bryan to the bus station during that time, class and work the rest of the day.

[ZacharyCohn]

2008/12/17 - Wednesday

Warmup:
2x10 squats with empty bar.

Workout theme: Skillwork and finding maxes
Squats:
2x5 95#
2x5 125#
2x5 145#
2x5 155#
2x5 165#
2x5 175#

Full ROM dips:
2x10

Deadlifts:
1x5 95#
1x5 115#
1x5 135#

Notes:
Got 3 hours of sleep, and woke up late. Discovered last night and confirmed this morning that most, if not all, remaining elbow pain is due to upper back dysfunctional inflexibility. When I am sitting with feet together, chin to chest, bending down to touch my toes, I feel tightness in specific areas of my upper back and neck, but it also was activating most (or maybe all? couldn't quite tell) the areas that were still painful.

This is my last gym workout of the year, our next scheduled one is Friday and I go home Thursday night. I plan on doing a lot of squats and dips at home, and then slowly working on pullups again. My goal is to spend an hour each day stretching, primarily my upper back and neck. I'll apply heat with a heating pad we have before and after stretching, and I hope I can help fix some of this problem.

I can deadlift more, I'm a lot more comfortable with my form now, I just didn't have time to today. I can squat a bit more, probably pretty close to my previous estimate of the 200 range. I'm going to switch (with charlie's recommendation) to 3x5 dips and start adding weight.

[David Boyle]

Glad to see you doing dead-lifts...imo the best iron exercise known to man..except kettle-bells of course.

[ZacharyCohn]

Wish we had kettlebells... Charles Moreland was thinking about making some for a sculpture project. I should bug him to get on that.

[Ozzi]

Happy to see you actually have a journal bro.

[ZacharyCohn]

I've been home the past couple days:
Workouts: Ice skating for an hour until I wore a hole through my foot.
Diet: crap. I don't want to talk about it.
Sleep: Staying up late, getting up pretty late.

Today, however, I got a workout in!

2008/12/22 - Monday
Warmup: 2x10 airsquats

Workout theme: Two-person exercises

Workout:
4x5 squats 110# (my sister) (5s rest between sets)

rest - 2 min

4x5 squats 110# (my sister again)

We tried bench pressing her, it didn't really work. She started laughing and then collapsed on me.

Couldn't figure out how to deadlift her.

[Eli Kurtz]

Heh, awesome.  How old is your sister? My brother is 13 and weight around 90 lbs., so he doesn't make for quite as good a workout.

Deadlifting your Lighter Siblings
A guide by Eli Kurtz

1) Have "sibling A" sit cross-legged on the ground.
2) Put a chair on either side of sibling A.
3) Stand on the chairs, and with sibling A, grab each other's wrists.
4) If all goes to plan, then you will be able to deadlift (albeit with a wide stance), and your sibling will get a core workout from holding the cross-legged position while being raised in the air.

[ZacharyCohn]

2009/01/05 - Monday

Skipped workout due to being sick. Sinus's slay me...

[ZacharyCohn]

2008/12/22 - Wednesday

Warmup: 500m row

Workout theme: Getting back into the groove.

Workout:
Squats:
1x5 65#
1x5 85#
1x5 105#
1x5 125#
1x5 145#
1x5 155#
1x5 165#
3x5 175#

Chest press:
1x5 65#
1x5 85#
3x5 105#

Deadlift:
1x5 95#
1x5 115#
3x5 135# (I think?)

Dips:
3x5 0#

Notes:
I think I'm building up too slowly and tiring myself. I need to stop increasing the weight by only 10 or 20# in the low-weighted sets. Decided to test this next workout.

[Samuel96]

Ice skating for an hour until I wore a hole through my foot.

Just ab hour? I've got hockey, and that's just like HIIT, probbably more tiring than mellow skating for an hour.
Imagine 3 games in a day. (and one the day before)