Pulls and presses

Ah today's training went rather well.

Started off with Hand and Thigh lifts, starting out at 315 and quickly working up to 405 for 5-7 singles, then bumping it up to 435 for another 6 singles. Oddly demanding exercise, I'm only lifting the bar a few inches, yet its so extremely heavy that my hands get wrenched every time I do it. Considering I am still nursing an injured ring finger, I can't push myself as far on this exercise as I would like to, but even so, I am just focusing on getting more reps off at the low 400s and just holding on to the bar long enough to force my hands to get tougher. I need this strength to start crossing over into actual dead lifting, and just spending more time holding onto 400+ pounds, the better.

After this I did some isometric deadlifts by setting the bar between two sets of pins and lifting it up against the top pin and just pulling with good intensity for anywhere between 10-40 seconds at a time. After a few holds I would lower the pins so as to change the exact angle I'm pulling from. Over all, I was surprised just how tiring this was, as it was really rough on my legs and back. I feel I need to look into these isometrics a bit more thoroughly.

Then I went off and did Dumbbell Clean and Presses with a pair of dumbbells. I was able to work up to 65 pounders for three sets of four, and that felt pretty damn hard. While I can put up 85 pounds in the single arm press, the pair of 65s felt like a lot of hard work, especially having to clean them with each rep. If I can get to pressing a pair of 75s or higher, I'll be happy.

I took a break after this as I was distrated by the hunger I felt. So I gorged myself senseless, took a prolonged walk, and then returned to the gym.

There I did some sandbag work, I lightened the bag to about 120 lbs. of sand, and did Turkish Get ups with it, for two sets of three on each side. This proved to be bloody murder on my entire body, but I am curious to see what will happen if I stick with it. It was a harsh, brutal affair, and I feel that continued practice of it will give me some sort of mutant strength in my torso. One can hope at least.

Also to my surprise I found out today that I have apparently gained 5 pounds. Of those 5 pounds, I'm not sure how much of it is muscle, as admittedly I have been eating like a pig the past week or so, but even so, it is encouraging to see the scale go up at long last. Will do plenty of conditioning work soon to make sure that its all steel hard muscle and nothing else.