Shift The Focus

     It was a good night of deadlifts. Let's get right into it!

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DEADS:

133lb x12

177lb x10

(221lb x5) 3x

KELSO SHRUG:

67lb x10

Kelso / Upright:

77lb x10 / x15

97lb x10 / x10

PENDLAY ROWS:

Overhand / Underhand:

67lb x10 / x10

77lb x8 / x8

87lb x6 / x6

ISOLATERAL ROWS:

Wide, Single/Single/Double:

30lb x12 / x12 / x10

35lb x10 / x10 / x8

40lb x8 / x8 / x6

ISOLATERAL Z TWIST:

5lb x10

(10lb x10) 2x

ASSISTED PULLUPS:

Wide Grip:

80lb x10

80lb x8

80lb x6

••••••••••

     I think tonight went well. I'll talk about the accessories first. I wanted to do something different tonight because I was getting bored, that's why I threw in the Kelso shrugs and Pendlay rows. I'm not sure that I did either one correctly, but they felt good lol. I also thought I'd try some Z twists on the isolateral machine and I really liked them there! Doing them on the other row machine with the straight bar is OK, but the attachment itself weighs so much that it makes them much harder for me to do correctly. On the isolateral machine, you just have the D handles. It allowed me to lighten the weight and really focus on doing them right. I'm getting better on pullups....slowly. Now let's move onto the deads. 

     I dropped the weight back from last week and got 3 solid sets of 5. I had Frank take a video of me so I could see my form. I wanted to make sure that it was OK as I'm getting into the heavier (for me) weights. It actually looked pretty decent. Decent, aside from the fact that I look like a got-damn beached whale. I cannot believe how terrible I look. That's all I could see in the video was the size of myself, and I hate it. I was going to post the video, but I'm not at the point where I can do that because I'm embarrassed by the way I look. So here's where I deal with this "split brain" issue that I have. My Emotional Brain is so focused on appearance and being self-conscious of my extra weight, that it's not letting my Logical Brain be proud of the fact that I'm lifting more than I ever have with proper form.

     I see people who are bigger than me and they don't seem to care. And I'm not trying to be rude or anything here. I'm saying, I see people who are twice as big as me wearing shorts and tank tops and "lettin' it all hang out" and I'm over here in long pants and t-shirts, sweating my ass off and being mortified because you can see the outline of my thick gut. I'm disgusted with myself when I look in the mirror and see the curve of my spare tire because I chose to wear a large t-shirt instead of the bulky, baggy extra large shirt. I'm zero percent comfortable in my own skin and it sucks. I need to drop some pounds and at this point, it's a massive uphill battle that's wearing me down. 

     Maybe I'll end up sharing that video. Maybe it'll just get deleted. At least the the Chat GPT version of me has a smaller stomach.