Workout Recap - Week of July 19, 2020

Good news: to follow-up on my previous post, I started writing up a general guide to stuff about Diablo 2 that isn't clear just from playing the game. I'm planning to follow it up with a series of posts on the highs, lows, and caveats for each class, and depending on how that goes, I might even do more specialized posts like talking just about specific builds or hidden game mechanics. Stay tuned!

Bad news: I was still dealing with overcoming some lacking motivation earlier in the week, so I did only four workouts for this week. I hope to finish July strong with a full five, and then I'll see where I go from there.

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Monday

Type: To Form Failure

Horizontal sets with 30 second rest intervals:

Tight One-leg Forearm Planks - 10 sec, 10 sec, 10 sec Half Pull Ups - 11, 6, 4

Half Push Ups - 20, 16, 11

Reverse Flies - 30, 25, 23

Pike Push Ups - 25, 15, 11

Bonus: 3 sets of 3 slow pull ups

Doing tight planks on one leg still feels weird. I should give it a try on one arm to see if that feels any better. Otherwise, everything is more or less maintaining in place or improving marginally, which is more or less what I want to see.

Thursday

Type: To Form Failure

Horizontal sets with 30 second rest intervals:

Pistol Squats - 7, 5, 4 (each side)

Isometric Bridges - 30 sec, 30 sec, 30 sec

Long Reverse Lunges - 11, 8, 6 (each side)

Hamstring Curls - 5, 4, 4

Star Planks - 20 sec, 20 sec, 20 sec (each side)

Bonus: none

Decent gains across the board. I wish the differences were more stark, but I'll take what I can get. If nothing else, those bridges, lunges, and hamstring curls really feel like they're helping to correct my neutral hip tilt.

Friday

Type: To Form Failure

Horizontal sets with 30 second rest intervals:

Tight One-arm Forearm Planks - 10 sec, 10 sec, 10 sec Half Pull Ups - 12, 6, 5

Half Push Ups - 20, 20, 9

Reverse Flies - 30, 30, 22

Pike Push Ups - 25, 15, 11

Bonus: 3 sets of 2 slow pull ups

These planks didn't feel particularly less weird, but I felt more confident about getting engagement from my back muscles, so I'll take that as a good sign. The leap forward with the half-push up numbers was heartening; a bit more improvement on that, and I might be ready to tackle full push ups before the month's end.

Saturday

Type: To Form Failure

Horizontal sets with 30 second rest intervals:

Pistol Squats - 6, 4, 4 (each side)

Isometric Bridges - 30 sec, 30 sec, 30 sec

Long Reverse Lunges - 12, 10, 10 (each side)

Hamstring Curls - 6, 4, 4

Star Planks - 20 sec, 20 sec, 20 sec (each side)

Bonus: none

Pistol squats and hamstring curls continue to be by far the most challenging elements of the lower body routines, and I think the lingering effects from both Thursday's workout and taking a long walk in the morning caused some drop in those numbers. However, that's ultimately an excuse; the results are what they are, and I have to evaluate myself accordingly. In that view, there were still nice gains with the lunges that I feel offset the regression with the pistol squats. Thus, I think my performance was about on par with Thursday, which isn't great (I'd rather see improvement), but it's palatable in the short term.