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Gunner man:
My brother sent me this picture of a Marine Sergeant Major in Afghanistan rallying his troops before they went out and took on the Taliban in the Helmand River Valley. The NPR podcast and article are here. Needless to say, I go from 6-midnight everytime I see the picture, and will most likely look at it before I go and kill my body (not in the suicidal way, in the Corps way).



After a month of working out semi-hard and making great gains, I decided to take a week off to rest my muscles and get acclimated to my work schedule in hope of coming back stronger. I limited myself to only 100 push-ups when I woke up in the morning and when I went to bed at night. Unfortunately, I didn't factor in how tired I was all of last week and tried to go out today super hard and skip some routines. Bad idea. On the bright side, at least it allowed me to gauge where I am in my training and what amount of fatigue I can put on my upper body. Today's workout was strictly upper-body. There was no interval training, and no abdominal workout. The goal during the pull-up portion was 85 total pull-ups, with the push-up section being set at 104. My results are in green, what I was aiming for on each exercise is in red.

Always good form, chin over bar, locked out arms, and 15 second rest.
My results:
Warm-up/Stretching:
Pull-ups- 10 reps X 2 sets: slow using a 2/3 motion (2 seconds up, 3 seconds down.)
15 minutes of upper body stretching

Workout- Pull-ups
Regular: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1)
Reverse: 1-2-3-4-5-2-2-2-2-1 (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1)
Close grip: 1-2-3-4-2-2-3-2-1 (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1)
Behind-the-neck: 1-2-3-3-2-2-1-1-1 (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1)
Commando: 1-2-2-1 (1-2-2-1)

Workout- Triceps
Dips: 4 X 15 (4 X 15)

Workout- Push-ups
Regular: 2-4-6-8-10-8-6-4-2 (2-4-6-8-10-8-6-4-2)
Tricep: 2-4-6-4-2 (2-4-6-4-2)
Dive Bomber: 2-4-6-4-2 (2-4-6-4-2)
Wide: 2-4-6-4-2 (2-4-6-4-2)
Hands outboard: 2-4-6-4-2 (2-4-6-4-2)
Decline: 2-4-6-4-2 (2-4-6-4-2)

I stopped the workout right here because I was feeling a strain in my shoulder. Better safe than sorry and out of commission. My push-ups and dips were fine, I managed to meet my goal, however, the pull-ups need improvement. Instead of a 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 format, I think I need to move to a 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 format across the board.

Today, I trained...and I bombed.