<p>July was mostly a good month for me. A small medical mishap, but otherwise a good month.</p>
<h2 id="a-quick-trip-to-urgent-care">A Quick Trip to Urgent Care</h2>
<p>My attempts to break new PRs for deadlift and squats ended up getting delayed thanks to a mishap with a garden hose. I had to replace the end of a hose since it got damaged and unfortunately sliced my finger open on the metal ring holding the new hose end. I ended up needing stitches so lifting was basically out of the question. I definitely did not want to bust the stitches open by twisting the skin or anything else that might happen when you&#39;re lifting hundreds of pounds of weight. I ended up condensing two weeks of lifts into one at the end of the month in an attempt to hit my goals before starting my marathon training. I was able to set a new squats PR at 365 lbs., but ended up failing in my quest to deadlift 400 lbs. I&#39;m disappointed, but will try to hit 400 in the next one to two weeks before lightening my lifts for when the marathon training really ramps up. I don&#39;t really want to be going super heavy and setting new PRs while I&#39;m trying to also put in 30 miles of running in a week. My plan is to lift two days a week, but with less volume than I&#39;ve been doing for the year. Keep my strength up, but focus on running.</p>
<h2 id="hockey-tournament">Hockey Tournament</h2>
<p>In mid-July, my ice rink hosted their yearly tournament. I formed a team last year and played and it was fun. This year though, I just joined a pre-formed team so I didn&#39;t have to worry about gathering enough players which took a bunch of stress away from the event. Our team went 0-3-1, but we played competitively despite never having played together before. For anyone who hasn&#39;t played hockey before, it can be challenging sometimes to play with a new team since different players have different tendencies. Learning those tendencies and quirks can make teams and players more effective. Not knowing those same tendencies can make things a little more difficult. At the end of the day though, it was fun. Met some new people, played with people I&#39;ve played both with and against previously, and got plenty of exercise.</p>
<h2 id="journaling">Journaling</h2>
<p>Over the last couple of months, I&#39;ve been trying to keep a daily journal of what I&#39;ve done, read, and anything else that might come to mind. I&#39;m just not sure what kind of format I want to use. I&#39;ve been making a new markdown file every day, but I&#39;m also considering just using my Moleskin notebook and a pen. To make matters more complicated, I&#39;ve also considered using my iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. I&#39;m still not sure what format will end up winning out, but I find it relaxing and interesting keeping track of my days. With how crazy things often are and how the days seem to blur together, it&#39;s nice to have a little log to write down my activities and thoughts.</p>
<h2 id="monthly-roundup">Monthly Roundup</h2>
<p><strong>🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Running:</strong> Only ran a little under 13 miles this month. The 90-100 degree days did not make running all that appealing. Marathon training starts in August, so might be some early-morning runs in my future.</li>
<li><strong>Biking:</strong> Nope</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Hit a new PR on squats - 365 lbs.</li>
<li>Failed a 400 lbs. deadlift</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>📚 Reading:</strong></p>
<p>Finished 3 books this month.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Katie Mack - The End of Everything</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Albert Bourla - Moonshot: Inside Pfizer&#39;s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>✍🏻 Writing</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Continued with my <a href="/posts/2022/07/08/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="/posts/2022/07/15/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/07/22/reading-list">posts</a> every <a href="/posts/2022/07/29/reading-list">Friday</a>.</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="/posts/2022/07/31/updating-my-likes-page-with-feedbin">connecting to Feedbin to populate my likes page</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>🎮 Gaming</strong></p>
<p>Been playing WoW a bunch. Trying to get ready for Wrath of the Lich King in September.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">WoW: Burning Crusade Classic</a></li>
</ul>


July Check-In

<p>I can&#39;t believe the first half of 2022 is already over. Another month has come and gone and I&#39;m not sure what I have to show for it.</p>
<h2 id="recovering-from-covid">Recovering from COVID</h2>
<p>At the end of May, I ended up getting COVID as I mentioned. Thanks to the vaccine and booster, it wasn&#39;t too bad, but I&#39;ve struggled to get back into the swing of fitness. I was in a nice groove, but now I feel a little &quot;off&quot;. Not physically, just mentally. Between work &amp; hockey, I feel like I haven&#39;t had the time to get my normal lifting sessions in. I didn&#39;t run as much as I would&#39;ve hoped as I&#39;m still getting my lung capacity back. I&#39;m not rushing into anything as I start training for the marathon next month. Figure ease myself back into it.</p>
<p>The other downside of COVID throwing me for a loop is that I&#39;m also figuring this will probably be my best chance to hit my deadlift goal and my goal of hitting the 1,000 lbs. club. I&#39;m hoping to go for 365 on squats and 400 on deadlifts. That, combined with my 235 on bench press will give me 1,000 lbs. on the nose. Maybe I&#39;ll be able to try to work up bench press to 250 like I wanted in December, but I&#39;m not holding my breath. I already hit my squats goal of 350, so if I can hit 400 on deadlifts, and 1,000 between bench press, squats &amp; deadlifts this year, I&#39;ll be quite happy.</p>
<h2 id="the-re-design">The Re-Design</h2>
<p>At the beginning of the month, I released a redesign of the blog. I ended up changing the color and slightly tweaked the layouts. I decided I wanted the home page to have a little more pop. I like the way it turned out. I ended up cleaning up some of the code I used to display what <a href="https://kpwags.com/current">I&#39;m currently up to</a>, the <a href="https://kpwags.com/bookshelf">bookshelf</a> and <a href="https://kpwags.com/movies">movies</a> pages as well. Still got a little bit to clean up here and there, but I like it so far.</p>
<p>I&#39;m hoping to introduce a few tweaks to make posting a little smoother and easier over the next month.</p>
<h2 id="new-york-city">New York City</h2>
<p>I ended up going to New York City mid-month for my birthday. The weather was nice and it wasn&#39;t too hot. Not too much to report, though I was able to go to the Morgan Library and Museum and that was incredible. So many old and classic books, including two Gutenberg Bibles on display.</p>
<h2 id="brand-new-desktop">Brand New Desktop</h2>
<p>After going back and forth for the last few months, I finally ended up deciding to build a brand new PC. I kept my graphics card from my old one as well as the SSD, but got a new CPU, RAM &amp; case. I ended up going with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU and bumped my RAM up to 32 GB. Took the plunge and went with Windows 11 as well. No complaints so far. Figure I should be good with PC gaming for a while. I can upgrade the graphics card later down the line.</p>
<h2 id="monthly-roundup">Monthly Roundup</h2>
<p><strong>🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Running:</strong> Only ran a little over 17 miles this month. COVID recovery and the heat limited me a bit.</li>
<li><strong>Biking:</strong> Nope</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:</strong> Not much to report, getting back into the swing of it for my last cycle prior to the marathon.</p>
<p><strong>📚 Reading:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/born-a-crime-stories-from-a-south-african-childhood/9780399588198" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Trevor Noah - Born a Crime</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a> - Continued reading this.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>✍🏻 Writing</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Started up <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/06/03/reading-list">my</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/06/10/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/06/24/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/07/01/reading-list">posts</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/07/01/mocking-react-router-and-useparams">mocking useParams when using React Router</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>🎮 Gaming</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/WitchQueen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Destiny 2</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/star-wars-battlefront-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Star Wars Battlefront II</a></li>
<li><a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">WoW: Burning Crusade Classic</a></li>
</ul>


June Check-In

<p>May was an eventful month. I didn&#39;t do much because I was exposed to COVID…and then got COVID later in the month. Needless to say, the month could have gone better, but it could have been far worse.</p>
<h2 id="covid">COVID</h2>
<p>Getting the COVID part over with…early in the month, my wife and I ended up getting exposed to COVID. We opted to play it safe and isolated ourselves up in the house for 3-4 days to make sure we didn&#39;t have it or spread it to others. We never got it…then later in the month happened. I got it, presumably from hockey, and while I holed myself up in the basement trying to protect my wife from it, failed at that too. While certainly not pleasant, both of us are fine now and thankfully only had to deal with mild symptoms. Being vaccinated and boosted certainly helped keep us out of the hospital and alive.</p>
<h2 id="data--office-clean-up">Data &amp; Office Clean-Up</h2>
<p>Earlier in the month I decided to delve back into Linux by putting the latest version of Fedora on my desktop to dual boot. I was hoping to extend its life a little bit, but even with Fedora, it is seemingly a little on the sluggish side. I&#39;ll have to play around with it a little bit to see if I can figure out what&#39;s going on. It was beneficial though because it allowed me to pull the data off my old server&#39;s hard drives. I used to run a file server on an old desktop computer. Sadly it died and all my data was just sitting around on the hard drives. I recently bought a Synology NAS and spent the better part of a weekend pulling data off the old drives and put them onto my NAS. I have to do some organization, but at least the data is now accessible.</p>
<h2 id="fitness-news">Fitness News</h2>
<p>I also finally made the decision to run the 2022 Philadelphia Marathon. I&#39;ve been going back and forth on it, and finally decided to run it in an attempt to run a sub-5 hour marathon. I&#39;ll have to trim 15 minutes from my 2015 time, but I think it&#39;s doable. Official training starts in August, but I&#39;m gonna try to slowly up the distance prior.</p>
<p>I also ended up hitting new PRs on both deadlifts and squats. Managed 385 lbs. on deadlifts, and hit my 350 lbs. goal on squats. Yay me! I ended up stalling on bench press so hopefully I can get that going again in June. Want to try to hit my goals by the time marathon training kicks in.</p>
<h2 id="stage-fright">Stage Fright</h2>
<p>I volunteered to give a presentation on unit testing to my company&#39;s development department. I was nervous as all get-out, but managed to do it. Probably could&#39;ve done a little better, but it didn&#39;t go bad.</p>
<h2 id="monthly-roundup">Monthly Roundup</h2>
<p><strong>🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Running:</strong> Only ran a little over 23 miles this month.</li>
<li><strong>Biking:</strong> Nope</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:</strong> Ended up setting new PRs on both deadlifts (385 lbs.) &amp; squats (350 lbs.)</p>
<p><strong>📚 Reading:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-passion-economy-the-new-rules-for-thriving-in-the-twenty-first-century/9780804172776" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Passion Economy</a> - Finished this one. It was not what I was expecting, but some interesting stories about making it in today&#39;s economy.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a> - Continued reading this.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>✍🏻 Writing</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Started up my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/13/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/20/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/27/reading-list">posts</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/12/taking-control-of-your-content">taking control of your content</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/29/better-sql-update-stored-procedures">better SQL update stored procedures</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>🎮 Gaming</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/WitchQueen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Destiny 2</a> - Getting back into it</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/super-mario-odyssey-switch/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Super Mario Odyssey</a> - Picked up a new Nintendo Switch and this.</li>
</ul>


May Check-In

<p>This afternoon I attempted squatting 350 lbs. and I&#39;m happy to say I was able to do 2 reps!</p>
<p><PostVideo
    src="posts/2022-05-21-reached-my-goal-for-squats/350squats.mp4"
/></p>
<p>Might have set too low of a goal, but since I&#39;m planning on running a marathon in November, it&#39;s nice to be done a little sooner since I&#39;ll be busy running quite a bit starting in August.</p>


Reached my Goal for Squats

<p>Earlier this year, I posted about how I was tweaking my workout to a <a href="/2021/01/28/tweaking-my-lifting-routine.html">6 day program</a>. That routine worked well for me, but then hockey started back up and I wasn&#39;t able to keep up. A new routine was in order, and I chose to build one based on <a href="https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/101077382-boring-but-big">Jim Wendler&#39;s 5/3/1 BBB (Boring But Big)</a> program.</p>
<p>I&#39;ve been running it for a couple months and I&#39;m seeing some decent progress. I&#39;m approaching my pre-pandemic weights on bench, squats &amp; deadlifts. I&#39;ve also set a new PR on overhead press at 155 lbs. (I&#39;m not entirely sure if this is 1:1 as I was doing standing overhead press, but now I have to do seated overhead press at home since my basement ceiling isn&#39;t tall enough). That said, I never hit 155 standing so I&#39;ll take it.</p>
<p>It&#39;s definitely similar to how I was running my 6 day program, but it forces me to move up a little faster than I was in the past, which is good. It focuses on the 4 main lifts (overhead press, deadlift, bench press, &amp; squats) and runs on 4 week cycles. It again uses my 1 rep max (1RM) to calculate my training max (TM) (90% of my 1RM) which then calculates the weights I lift.</p>
<p>For each of the main lifts, the sets are set up like.</p>
<p><strong>Week 1:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>5 reps at 65% of my TM</li>
<li>5 reps at 75% of my TM</li>
<li>5+ reps at 85% of my TM</li>
<li>5 sets of 10 reps at 50% of my TM</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Week 2:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>3 reps at 70% of my TM</li>
<li>3 reps at 80% of my TM</li>
<li>3+ reps at 90% of my TM</li>
<li>5 sets of 10 reps at 55% of my TM</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Week 3:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>5 reps at 75% of my TM</li>
<li>3 reps at 85% of my TM</li>
<li>1+ reps at 95% of my TM</li>
<li>5 set of 10 reps at 60% of my TM</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Week 4:</strong></p>
<p>Deload. I basically just do the lifts at 50-60% intensity to give my muscles a break.</p>
<p>I then up my 1RM for deadlifts &amp; squats by 10 lbs., and the 1RM for overhead press and bench press by 5 lbs., rinse, and repeat.</p>
<p>The one thing I&#39;ve been noticing on with squats and bench press is I feel like my brain is holding me back. There seems to be some kind of psychological component to it. Unlike the gym, I don&#39;t have access to a spotter so there&#39;s part of me that gets a little scared about the weights I&#39;m lifting. I do have safety bars that will protect me for both lifts, but I always managed to lift heavier when I know someone is there to help if I start to go the wrong direction. Failure is a part of lifting and I have no shame in saying I&#39;ve failed lifts on a multitude of occasions, but it&#39;s still scary when you have 200+ lbs. on your back or over your chest.</p>
<p>But even with the psychogical aspect of the heavy weights, one of the reasons I like the program is how it has me moving up in weights. The progress is slow, but it&#39;s steady. I&#39;m obviously not setting PRs every week, or even every other week, but I see and feel progress while limiting the &quot;scare&quot; factor.</p>
<p>Anyway, here&#39;s the routine I&#39;m running.</p>
<h3 id="day-1---overhead-press">Day 1 - Overhead Press</h3>
<ol>
<li>Overhead Press</li>
<li>Upright Row - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Skullcrushers - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Front Raise - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Dumbbell Face Pulls - 3 sets of 15</li>
<li>EZ Bar Curls - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Pull Ups - As many as I can do</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="day-2---deadlift">Day 2 - Deadlift</h3>
<ol>
<li>Deadlifts</li>
<li>Front Squat - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Standing Barbell Calf Raises - 3 sets of 12-15</li>
<li>Russian Twists</li>
<li>Ab Wheel</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="day-3---bench-press">Day 3 - Bench Press</h3>
<ol>
<li>Bench Press</li>
<li>Bent Over Barbell Row - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Incline Bench Press - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Hammer Curls - 3 sets of 12</li>
<li>Single-Arm Dumbell Tricep Extensions - 3 sets of 12</li>
<li>Dumbbell Face Pulls - 3 sets of 15</li>
<li>Chin Ups - As many as I can do</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="day-4---squat">Day 4 - Squat</h3>
<ol>
<li>Squats</li>
<li>Romanian Deadlifts - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Standing Barbell Calf Raises - 3 sets of 12-15</li>
<li>Dumbbell Side Bends - 3 sets of 15</li>
<li>Ab Wheel</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>What&#39;s your routine, any lifts you swear by?</p>


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