I completed the Olympic lifting schedule. Sticking with my 5×5 routine of deadlifts, power cleans and squats. Since it was my first time back I stuck with the 95lb bar and checked my form. The goal is to get back up to 135 as soon as possible for everything and then work back to 200+ by the summer. A 200lb clean is nothing to sneeze at, but I really should be aiming for a 300lb deadlift and squat, the only problem is that I don’t have a squat rack so that’s an issue. That said, I often get asked by people WHY I work out like I do and as often as I do, and my answer is not necessarily what they expect. I suppose they want me to tell them about the health benefits and so on but really all I want long term is to be able to get through my life with the ability to take on any challenges I may face. For example, on Saturday I had to clear the snow and ice off my upper deck which is probably about 400sf. The ice was about 5 inches think in places and broke off in chunks weighing upwards of 60lbs each. I took particular enjoyment out of hurling these massive sheets of ice off the balcony down on to the lawn below and in total I probably shovelled and tossed 600lbs+ of ice off that deck. It took me about 45 minutes but I am happy to report that I was not sore the next day and regardless of the awkward size and shape of the blocks I was able to handle them with ease. That’s the reason I work out. So if I come up against a high demand incident I can blow through it rather than have a heart attack trying to do something I am not prepared for. Of course, being healthy and living a long life are important, but those are very ethereal goals and personally I like to have something more concrete to push against. Tony Horton calls it being durable and less prone to injury and at my age I tend to agree that being able to handle high demand situations is critical. It doesn’t matter if it’s self inflicted like my deck clearing or accidental like having to shovel yourself out of a ditch, either way I don’t want to be the guy who has a coronary in the snow.
Which brings me to Sunday where I picked T25 Total Body Circuit as my opponent and was forced to take back everything I had said last week about T25 being too easy. This was a tough workout. Now let me state that if I was in the kind of shape I was at this time last year then maybe this wouldn’t have been so hard and if I compare it to the bootcamps that I was running last year it’s a distant second. However, current state dictates that I report what it was I felt and I have to admit nausea came into it a little at the end. I was sweating like a thief and  at one point I actually had to rest during the burnout at the end. It was a little shameful and extremely motivating to know just how far away from my peak I am and to know that as painful as it was, it’s a step in the right direction. It was, however, a very enjoyable workout and one that I think I would like to repeat (actually it’s the only one so far that I think I would enjoy a second time). It’s now Monday and I have done 7 days straight, and since I am not anywhere near burnout yet I think I will continue until I require a day off through time constraints or simple rest requirement. I will try to hit a P90X3 workout tonight like I did the other day (likely CVX since I want to save the chinups).