Toronto Screenwriting Conference & WGC Awards…

I’m heading there this weekend to TSC 2011.  Then, Monday night, I’m going to the Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards.  Lots going on here, lots left to do.  I feel behind.  Will I ever get caught up?  Taking my work on the road with me.  Going to Kingston tomorrow night to visit with a friend then heading to Toronto on Friday.  Looking forward to the train ride.  Been a long time since I’ve done that.

Got some good workouts in this week too.  Getting stronger and faster.  My trainer set out a new routine for me for the month of April.  I bought a scale (something I thought I would never do) since I only check in once a month now.  It will keep me accountable.  Also going to work on a meal plan too.

As I said, lots going on here.

Four off the floor! (at 115lbs)

I’ve been working up the Sumo deadlifts.  Cracked 115lbs off the floor 4 times on Wednesday.  Yay for me!  A little tight in my lower back after, but it felt good today.  More reps at a lower weight will build up some capacity so I can keep progressing…

On another note, I setup my TRX System the other night.  I don’t have a ceiling anchor, so I’m using a MacGyvered door mount (a 5″ pipe and a hand sewn strap), and so far I’ve been doing between 40 and 60 assisted squats, working my way up to doing a pistol squat, and some recline rows.  I’m also doing pushups at home now.  Working my way up to 10 sets of 10.  They’re coming along.

Chinups too.  I can hold at the top now.  My own body weight.  Lowering and raising are other issues, but working on that too….

Tools I’m picking up: Gymboss and a good quality skip rope.  Slowly building my arsenal….:).

 

 

 

 

115lbs for a new PR for the sumo deadlift…

…on Saturday, and then I stalled.  My brain shut me down.  It’s happened before.  It will happen again.  It’s like my back became unhinged and I shutdown.  It’s a protection mechanism, I know, and it’s a warning sign.  Still I managed to get the bar up once with 115lbs.  That’s a 20lb improvement over where I was just two weeks ago.  I can’t be too sad about that. Work my way back up again slowly.  I lost my focus.  It’s in the legs and when I try to lift with my arms, it all goes to hell.  Learning….all the time.

As for the rest of the PT session on Saturday, my legs and arms are in moderate amounts of discomfort today.  I know I did something, like the 100 squats and the hold and hang for the chinups.  Those are coming along.

On a side note, I went to see The Social Network last night with a friend.  At the root of it, the way it’s written, it’s a love story – boy meets girl, boy makes a mistake and loses girl, boy is upset and rebels, boy tries to get girl back (in the meantime, making a shitload of money).  I find it amazing that the most socially inept and brilliant person, could understand the human condition so well, that he designed something that would fuel the needs of so many to be the “rockstar” among their group of friends.  I find socially awkward people, who also happen to be gifted or slightly evil, very fascinating.  All of the “success” books would tell you that you need to be charismatic to be successful, or at least be good at influencing people to follow you.  In some cases, you need to be the total opposite.  You need to be so self involved and so confident in your own direction that it takes precedence above all else.  There’s another school that says you need to be observing and open to new ideas all the time.  I think that is almost more important these days than being charismatic.  You never know where the next great thing will spring up.

I’m reading: Crafty TV Writing.  What a great book.  Learning so much about TV writing.

EXCITED!

I know, I know…haven’t been here in a while.  I promise to more diligent….but there’s alot of stuff going on here.

As for my weightlifting, on Wednesday I sumo-deadlifted 110lbs.  If anyone remembers, I was inching my way back up to 100lbs.  The most I had done until then is 90-95lbs.  I felt good, doing 1 REP Max testing, so I just kept going.  I likely could have pushed 115lbs, but now I have something to go for next week.  I hope this strength wasn’t a fluke.  I happened before where I was able to do all these assisted chinups one week, and then….only half the next week.  Arrrggghhh…frustrating, but I hope this time it lasts.  I feel stronger.

If anyone is reading this, and going through their own journey…keep up the work.  It only gets better.

Skipping

Today, we worked solely on techniques that I can use in my training.  It was a physically exhausting kind of day, but good all the way around (despite the fact that I’m sore as all get out…)

I did about 45 minutes of skipping, on and off.  When I was a kid, that was all easy.  Now, not so much. Skipping is a challenge though.  We practiced normal skipping, alternating feet, split feet, cross-over and the double-under.  The last two were much more involved, if you can imagine.  We didn’t stop til I got them a few times, to at least prove that I could do it.  It’s easier to do when you think less.  Less brain involvement, more involuntary movement.

After that, we worked on kettlebell swing techniques.  Strapped up with a band to the rack, we did a bunch of balance exercises, where you have to kick your hips out while retracting your knees so your legs are straight.  Then we strapped me up, one band to the rack around my hips, another band around the back of my knee held by my trainer.  I felt like I couldn’t move.  Then, did kettlebell swings.  All kinds of kettlebell swings.  Then some swings with the band attached to the bell and secured by my feet on the floor.  All in all, it was a helluva workout.

Then, I did another 305 rotations with alternating feet skipping in about 5 minutes – last week I managed 500 regular rotations in about 4:30 minutes (best yet!).  I’m sure there was some more stuff in there, but I can’t remember.  I know we tried to do chinups, but my legs were so burnt, my hamstrings shot, I couldn’t even get my leg down.  It was kinda sad.

That was after a powerful week of working out, whereby I did lots of upper body stuff on Monday, tons of Sumo deadlifts on Wednesday, and 100 pushups, 30 modified tire-lifts, about 15 minutes of weighted lunges.

What a week….not to mention everything else that went on this week.  No wonder I was so burnt out last night.

Friday afternoon Brad Special…get it while it’s hot…. :)

Yeah, so – where do I begin.  25 minutes outside, blazing sun….I was teamed up with another victim to pull that blessed tired across the parking lot.  Twice.  Fun times.  Then tire flips (where my partner did most of the work….still not so great at those), then some dips, some pushups, some leg raises, two lengths of Farmer’s Walks (with TWO kettlebells)…am I forgetting anything?  Probably.  And that was just the outside part.

I have to say, that I do enjoy it though…despite the griping…it’s fun to challenge yourself.

Inside – 25 minutes – the goal was to do 100 each of: overhead presses and bicep curls with a weight that you could reasonably lift 15 times.  Then grip strength drill for 5 minutes.  Then 100 Hindu squats (I told Brad he was evil).  You’d think I’d be getting good at these by now….for goodness sakes….I managed 50 each of the press and bicep curls with 15lb weights, a whopping 40 seconds of grip strength (2×20 seconds each) and 60 Hindu squats.

I honestly felt ready to puke nearing the end.

At one point, one of the other victims said “Who signed me up for this?”  I giggled.

On another note, I sent out a short script today to a competition!  Will hear back by August 25th-27th if it’s selected to go to the next round.

Solid work counts too.

I put in some solid work tonight.  Nothing spectacular – just some work.  Forgot my book so I had to write everything on post it notes (which reminds me that I have to convert them over…).  My shoulders and lats hurt like I don’t even know what today when I was doing dips.  I was thinking that it must have been the reverse grip pushup from an elevation that I was doing on Saturday (forcing my arms to stay in and I guess engaging my back more?).  All I know is that I have never been this sore, and really that is the only new thing that was pushed on Saturday.

Oh, and apparently I have elbow dimples.  What are those, you ask?  When I lifted the the barbell to do a bicep curl, there appear to be little divets where the crease of my elbow is.  Funny, eh?  Apparently my very observant trainer said he has never seen them on anyone before.  Glad to know.  I pride myself on being somewhat unique.

Playing catch up

Seems like a short and a long time, all at the same time.  Let me catch you up:

July 21st – gym night.

July 23rd – shoulder surgery stitches removed

July 24th – strength training (where things were not as easy as i would have thought); pig roast, 2 friends birthdays

July 25th – power lifting

Just now, I am only starting to play catch up on the stuff I should have gotten done last week/end.  And more homework from the prof today during the class.  Blast!

My shoulder recovery is coming along, which means it’s healing, and it’s totally manageable.  I’ve been lucky.  No pain.

Other than that, I realize that I need to setup a more structured routine for my life.  Not enough sleep and I’m bagged.

160 lbs of rubber…

I dragged a tire back and forth across the pavement tonight.  That’s my own body weight.  Dragging it forward was interesting.  You have to lean into it and trust your body to not let you down.  I guess what I’m learning through this process, that even though my body let me down all those years ago, I can still do things with it I didn’t think possible.  Dragging it backwards put alot of the emphasis on the quads (which I also have to hit for my Hindu squats later…).  That is killer, but you know you’re working.

Flipping the tire, I know I will be able to do once I get a bit stronger in my back and am able to lift with my legs without engaging my arms.  I was about 1/3 of the way there tonight.

Did I mention this was after chinups and pushups?  Yes it was.

Then I did my regular Strength class.  Managed to get in a few things.  Upped the weight on the Sumo deadlift by another 10lbs to 85lbs.  Did a few.  Will probably work on multiple sets of 75lbs to start.  And then hit 85lbs again.  Was nice to know that I could do a few though.

Now onto my Power lifting homework.  1000 Hindu squats and 300 pushups over the next week and a half.

My heart…

It is hard for the face to conceal the thoughts of the heart — Unknown

My heart – so I found out on Saturday morning, gets a bit jumpy at the outset of exercise.  I picked up a heart rate monitor yesterday and wore it in class last night.  It worked like a charm to tell me that my active heart rate is pretty high.  I’m going to run some more tests over the next few weeks and see what the results are.  All to say, that during a 20 minute bout of exercise (mostly upper body), my max rate was 179 and my working rate was somewhere around 160.

Ah, my poor little heart beats pretty fast to keep up with the demands I make of it.  I wonder if this translates over into any other area of my life.