Beautiful, sunny Newark, NJ

The start of another fabulous work day.

On a bright note, the hotel  has a fabulous breakfast buffet with plenty of bacon and eggs.

Getting some decent work done, just wish there was more time to focus on one thing.

Which would be extra awesome on or after a training day. Thank God for bands!

A break from the jamesnasium... in... NEW JERSEY

So yeah, little "break" from the normal routine via a little trip to beautiful, historical, crime free Newark, New Jersey. So far so good, I guess. As a guest of US Airways, my travel was decent, flights on time, etc. Can't complain. Even got to experience some of the fine culture of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Yup, when in a new place I like to really breathe in the culture, try new things, drink their coffee.

Yup.

Anyhoo, brought a couple of bands for some movements in the hotel room. Glad I did that because the "fitness room" in the Newark Airport Hilton fucking sucks. Wow.

On the plus side, the hotel restaurant makes a pretty good burger, good asparagus, and a mean White Russian.

Here for about a week, them back to my ladies on Friday. Already miss them, but I'll be home before too long. Little work, little travel, little sleep.

And no fucking squatting. Might have to try to make a mid-week foray into New Jersey to find a squat rack. Gonna have to keep em warm.

For the halibut...

A set from dynamic squats the other day. Think this was set five or six, 210 + EliteFTS light orange band per side. Working on trying to get comfortable in my Romaleos and speed into and out of the hole.

And in case you were wondering...

LEGO SPARTAN SAYS 'NO'!

Update and Unsane

Few weeks in to PT, sounds like only another week or so to go then on to straight up rehab. Think I have mentioned it before, but talking to the PT, he thinks the nerve impingement is taken care of but any nerve damage will take up to two years to heal. Let's hope that isn't the case, as nerves heal/repair at the rate of about a millimeter a day. Still have minor ache in the shoulder and sub-scapular area with just a little numbness in the forefinger and thumb of my left hand. 

If we use that as a gauge of a potential timeline, that will take... ummmmmmmm... about a billion years to heal up. 

I am not overly enthused about it BUT it is not forever. I will heal. I will continue and get deeper into rehab. 

That said, I talked briefly with my PL coach the other day and I think I am going to be coming off of at least team programming and concentrating a little more on rehabbing the bad arm instead of meet prep. Until I can get what I would even consider a token bench press number there is really no reason in training for a meet. Reps and 5/3/1 are looking pretty good right now. While this is a bit of a shitter, I do have a loose game plan and when I come out the other side of it, I should have the most jacked rotator cuffs in town. :P

AND here's some Unsane for that derriere

Otherwise it's largely been pretty quiet. Home is pretty good, wife is good, daughter started pre-k4 last week and we got a new air conditioning system.

That's my 50lb pit mix, Leeloo, in front of part of it. It's pricey, but pretty flipping awesome in the Memphis summer. And hey, what's another $100 some dollar note a month, amirite? >fart< 

Till next time.

Progress/update...

Just a quick update. After the dry needling and PT earlier, had my normally scheduled bench session after work. While my bench is still absolute dog shit, I did grind out a 135 and managed to get my kettlebell press on for six or seven reps of 16kg- couldn't even get a 30lb bell off my shoulder last week.

SO, while that is still shite, it is progress and I have a tiny glow of optimism in my wittle heart.

And there was much rejoicing.

"Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker..."

"... and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger..." ~Martin Sheen as Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now

So we are about a week into physical therapy for the shoulder and it sounds like things are progressing a bit. Therapy has largely consisted of some directional massage and pressure pointing, warm up on the arm bike (Cybex UBE), some band and light dumbbell movements, electro stim and heat, and today... trigger point dry needling. The dry needling was especially interesting as it is similar to acupuncture, but the practitioner twists the needle and "digs around" a bit to trigger and release muscle tension. Very intersting stuff.

We'll see how well it works after the soreness wears off.

That said, still not a lot of strength gain in the arm for pressing, but the PT thinks the impingement should be pretty much released. While he can't give me a great ETA to 100%, he thinks the pain should be pretty much gone within a week or so (largely gone now), strength gains are as they come.

Patience, work, recovery. Pressing forward to victory!