The alcohol titration project is going well, more or less according to plan. Last night I had three beers (I'm chasing them with Perrier or Pellegrino so I can keep drinking fizzy stuff but also keep with the plan). Tonight it's two. Tomorrow one. Then BINGO, that magic breakthrough beautiful horrific gleaming screaming groaning moaning write home go tell it on the mountain moment. Then the plan is to hold that steady flow for the week nights into the great and tender beyond. Weekends a tempered free for all. This plan will require tweaks.
For strength training I've done whole body every other day this week. Yesterday I had access to the gym at work, which has a modest amount of equipment. Might as well use it if it's there. The challenge is the make it difficult if the weights are not that heavy. I'm already progressing to some fairly heavy stuff (for me). This time I decided to do three sets of push, three of pull, and three of squats. I put the bench press machine on the lowest incline (about 35-40 degrees and after warmup I was able to do the stack (170 lbs) for ten solid reps. Then I dropped the weight two notches and did around ten again, then did the same thing again for my third set. For pulling I chose bent over rows on the cable machine. It was hard to use a heavy weight because I kept wanting to be pulled forward, so I kept the weight fairly light (around 100 -120 lbs) and did three good sets of as many reps as I could get with exaggerated and slow form. Rep range was 16-12.
Squats are difficult in this gym. I tried squats on the cable machine but couldn't really get it to feel right. I probably could have used the two 50 lb dumbbells (as high as they go in this gym) and done dumbbell squats for reps but instead I decided to pre-exhaust with the leg extension and leg curl machine and then do goblet squats immediately after. This worked well, and I was only able to do the squats with a 40 lb dumbbell, but I'm aware of the concerns about leg extensions and the knees, so I probably won't do this any more.
On the off days like today, I can't seem to do a complete rest, so I have been doing some light HIT. Today I took a light barbell (55 lbs) and did six bent rows followed immediately by 6 dead lifts followed immediately by 6 overhead presses followed immediately by six squats. Short rest, then do the same thing for five reps of each and so on until you get down to one. Pretty good stuff and I didn't feel like I created any problems for tomorrow.
Speaking of which, I am home tomorrow, so I'll probably do standard barbell dead lifts for weight and then push ups and rows with the weight vest on.
I've definitely done this before, but I'm starting to get interested again in a one set scheme. One of the things I have to repeatedly remind myself is that a lot of the videos I watch for ideas are made by young people, or people who are at least significantly younger than me (which counts for 35 year olds). And so much of it may not apply.
I do know that the older we get the more important strength training becomes, and that it IS still possible to build muscle (at any age), and it is important to get more rest and avoid too much volume. Brevity and intensity are best.
So I think I'm heading towards a one set per exercise per day whole body as often as possible while still making gains thing.
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