Checking back in one month later, let’s check my poundage* for the final week of my last 5/3/1 cycle

Deadlift = 7,136

Front squat = 2,400

Overhead Press = 1,885

Bench Press = 2,835

Total = 14,256 lbs // 7.128 tons

*I didn’t add assistance work (though I did count the 50 deadlifts @135 from my Sunday class) in this time, and instead focused on my main lifts.

@beths10 showed me a fitness video today in which one of our favorite strength athletes and coaches, Dr. Stefi Cohen, was talking about maximizing your training without over-training.  The easiest way to do this, she suggested, is to calculate your weekly tonnage (weight x reps x sets for each movement, then add each movement to arrive at total tonnage) and compare how you feel week-to-week based on your totals.

Here is a breakdown of last week for me:

I’m currently using Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 system for building strength, so I’ll break down my calculations into my 4 main movements [Front squat, Deadlift, Overhead press, and Bench press].

Deadlift

Here I’m going to include my main deadlift working sets, as well as the trap bar deadlifts I did in my assistance work for farmer’s carries.

315×12 (farmer’s walks) = 3,780

Tonnage = 9,730

Front Squat

For this movement, I included the thrusters and back squats I did in my Sunday class.

105×32 (thrusters) = 3,360

105×20 (back squat) = 2,100

Total = 8,390

Overhead Press

I am also going to include the same sets of thrusters I did for front squats, but impose a -25% penalty since they use momentum from a squat to generate movement.

105×24 = 2,520

Total = 4,850

Bench Press

For bench press, I’m going to include my dumbbell pressing (floor and neutral incline) press work since the movement pattern is really similar to the barbell press.

80×30 (DB floor press) = 2,400

65×45 (DB neutral incline press) = 2,925

Total = 9,740

Grand Total = 32,710lbs = 16.355 tons*

*this does not take into account the extra volume I accrued from assistance work like dips, chinups, good mornings, lunges, split squats, step-ups, and one-leg deadlifts.  I also went bouldering with @hugo, @douglasawesome, and @chimp for the first time in a month, adding extra volume to my back work.

…a workout I built today for @beths10:

• Bodyweight squats 4×15
• X-band walks 3×10/side
• Rear-foot elevated split squat 4×12/side

Finish with 16-min EMOM

• 10 reverse lunge x 4min
• rest x 1min
• 12 jump squat x 4min
• rest x 1min
• 14 walking lunge
• rest x 1min
• AMRAP squat x 1min

*optional 20-min incline treadmill walk

@theanchor @hugo and I tried something new this week:  the Geoguessr daily challenge!  We didn’t completely understand the rules (5 rounds with a 3 minute time limit for each round) going into it, as evidenced by our first score being pretty poor compared to our normal average.  We recovered to have a pretty solid (approximately 16,000) round after mistaking Peru for Mexico in our first location.  After finishing up and checking in on the high scores for the round, it seems as if some of these people either cheated or tried the challenge again after doing it the first time.  It’s hard to believe that someone could score > 4,990 on all 5 locations in less than 3 mins… Because of the time limit on the daily challenge, we had time for a second round this week and decided to throw ourselves a softball with an NYC map…

As you can see, we nailed this one.  A pin near Coney Island in Brooklyn was the only location that kept us from getting a perfect score.  We know our city!  Thanks to @sunday for joining in this week =)

Our Geoguessr crew was back at (World Map) it again this week!  Thanks to @theanchor and @hugo for their consistent support in geoguessing this year!

We crushed the world average (about 9K) on this one- maybe due to 3 locations being in the U.S.- coming in at 22,086 for our final Geoguessr round of 2018.  The biggest challenge to us in this map was the final location.  We spent almost as much time on this one as the other 4 combined, eventually figuring out we were either in Ireland or Northern Ireland (mostly thanks to @hugo).

Is anyone even reading this/these post(s)?!  If so, and you want to challenge the ALC-NYC Geoguessr crew, email me at ryan@nycagile.org and we’ll face off in 2019!

With love and agility,

Ryan

Back in action for another Geoguessr round this week was @theanchor, @hugo, and yours truly.  We decided to keep it American again, and had pretty good success.

The Arkansas location required a but of guesswork, and so we were furthest from our target there.  In Montana (which we guessed off the bat due to the landscape), we got a hint that we were close to the Canadian border when we passed a van with an advertisement for “American Imported Vehicles” featuring graphics of the U.S. and Canadian flags.  Colorado was almost an exact hit, as @theanchor identified that we had to be in the east (near the Kansas border) due to the less mountainous, desert-like terrain.  In Florida we found one of the weirdest things we’ve ever seem on a Geoguessr map… Ever seen this speed limit anywhere?

Until next time!

With love and agility,

Ryan

[25 years ago, my father decided to leave the law firm he worked at to start his own.  It was a risky venture, but he built one of the most successful personal injury law firms in Central PA, and more importantly, dedicated his life to helping those in need in the way he could best.  This letter is for him, in honor of his 25 years of hard work]

…

The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

It was sort of lonely Geoguessing this week, with only @theanchor and I checking in.  We decided to try a U.S. map after having done mostly world for the past few weeks.  We also decided not to poke around too long, spending 5 minutes or less on each guess.  Here’s how we fared:

Not bad for spending <30 minutes on this map.  Our only big miss was a shot in the dark at Tennessee, when the actual location was in northern Iowa.

This week, @hugo suggested we try a London city map.  This provided a unique challenge because the point system is based on a much smaller area, making it harder to achieve the perfect 5,000 point score. Here’s how we fared:

Special thanks to @hugo, who was a great help due to the fact that he used to live in London (one location was even on his old route to school)!

This week in Geoguessr, we tried a U.S. Halloween themed map that took us to exciting and spooky locations like Hell, Michigan, Deadwood, South Dakota, Salem, Massachusetts, and Tombstone, Arizona, the backdrop for the historic showdown at the OK Corral.  Most exciting of all to this guessr was Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, a part of the chain of barrier islands known as the Outer Banks (I spent most of my summers as a child in Duck, NC, just a few miles down the road from Kill Devil Hills).  This weird little town is now the sight for the Wright Brothers’ memorial to the first flight of a heavier-than-air flying machine.  While it is usually Kitty Hawk, NC that is mentioned as the sight of the first flight, it actually occurred in what today is Kill Devil Hills, which wouldn’t be founded until nearly 50 years after Orville and Wilbur successfully hit the skies.

Also of note:

We ranked in the top 5 for this map!