Workout Recap - Week of January 26, 2020

After a couple of lighter weeks to get other parts of my life under control, it was good to get back into the full swing of a five workout week. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like I suffered too much for that slacking. Since most performance is driven by a solid base to work from, I decided to put a soft focus on my lower body this week, hence the high amount of pistol squatting compared to normal.

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Monday

Type: Pass/Fail

One-arm Pull Up Negatives - 2 sets of 4, each side (pass)

Fingertip Push Ups - 2 sets of 18 (pass)

Pistol Squats, both hands behind me - 2 sets of 9, each side (pass)

Bonus: 2 sets of 3 two-way suicide jumps, 1 3-limb bridge cycle (each combination)

It may have just been one more pistol squat than I was doing previously for double sets, but adding on that ninth rep was no joke. I'll need to hold it there for a little longer before I can feel safe about pushing up to a full ten. Even so, it's only a matter of time before I get comfortable with that, and I'm not sure what the next step should be from there. I suppose doing pistol squats with my hands on my head (similar to bilateral prisoner squats) would be reasonable, although whether it'd actually be harder will need to be seen if/when I actually try them.

Tuesday

Type: As Fast As Possible

4 sets of:

5 Towel Pull Ups

3 One-arm Push Ups (each side)

5 Pistol Squats (each side)

Time = 12:15

Bonus: 8 pull ups

I had debated just doing my standard 5 pull up/10 push up/15 prisoner squat routine here, but I decided to see how it'd go if I pushed each movement to a more extreme level. It was hard, but at the same time, it felt good. I might consider swapping out the towel pull ups for either archer pull ups or uneven pull ups, but otherwise, I can definitely see myself doing this routine again.

Wednesday

Type: Pass/Fail

Close Handstand Push Ups - 2 sets of 12 (pass)

3-limb Bridges - 2 sets of 1, each combination (pass)

L-Hang - 2 sets of 25 breath isometric hold (pass)

Bonus: 8 bridge kips, 5 handstand push ups

Ah, finally moving from isometric three-limb bridges to actually doing the full motion. I'm not going to lie; it was shaky on the way up for each combination aside from no right leg, and going down was closer to a controlled fall than is ideal. However, I got through it, and I look forward to doing better with them next time.

Friday

Type: As Fast As Possible

3 sets of:

11/8/5 Pistol Squats (each side)

21/15/9 Diamond Push Ups

21/15/9 Mountain Climbers (each side)

Time = 9:30

Bonus: 3 one-armed push ups with feet together (each side)

Another beefy pile of pistol squats against a timer here, though with simpler movements to compliment them because my obliques were still a bit sore from Wednesday. It's always a bit hard to judge my performance when I'm doing a workout that I haven't done before, but I felt alright about how this one went. Not great, but better than just scraping by.

Saturday

Type: As Fast As Possible

7 sets of:

7 Pull Ups

7 Bridges

Time = 6:15

Bonus: 1 pull up, 1 bridge

This wasn't the best time I've ever put up for this challenge, but it was better than my most recent performance, which is always good to see. I could try making some excuses about what I was consuming earlier in the day, but ultimately, I have to own the results. And really, it was still good, considering it was within 10% of my personal best. That's within what I'd consider as a reasonable margin of deviation, so no excuses are needed.