Smuggs Journal a road to recovery

[SMUGGLERR]

Hello All...

I find this Journal section to be a fantastic way of keeping track of progress and getting much needed feedback, I strongly encourage anyone reading these to participate 

Those of you reading this might wonder about the title of my journal, recently I had surgery on a triple abdominal hernia that injury prior to and naturally after the surgery left me unable to lift pretty well much anything. My surgery was successful and after about a month of recovery I hit the gym with a heavy heart and alot of trepidation.  Strange moving such light weight initially, something that I have never really experienced. I know alot of the seasoned vets have some injury experience and please feel free to chime in. It took nearly 3 weeks to get any endurance back and get my body to make that mind muscle connection like it always seemed to do with no thought about it.

After 2 months I am naturally getting back up to speed...I'll start with todays lifts.


Wednesday January 24th 2007

5'7 220 lbs

Back

I have been purposely not recklessly doing exercises that impact that abdominal wall, started much lighter but am now starting some progression into heavier weight. I feel this is a very important role in my recovery .

Deadlifts-The most core exercise for your back you can possibly do IMHO and one of my favs

135x15 warmup getting a good stretch on the hamstrings and lower back
225x10
315x8
405x6
485x3


Felt very good after that work out, added a prescription based drug called inderal to my daily regiment to drop my blood pressure and resting and working heart rate during these maximum poundage days. VERY happy with the results...


Standing Lat pulldowns , knees to the bench not locked under anything, great stretch and very impactive to my lats.

160x15
180x12
220x8
Stackx4 cheating this quite a bit towards the end



Low Row, Tried several bars..anyone recommend or have a fav?    Ended up with a wider bar and felt pretty damn good.

No fucking around with warmups...Lets get this done with

200x10
250x8
280x4
Stack+25x2


Abdominals

Now this is where I have no endurance and have been very hesitant against doing anything heavy  such as rope crunches, weighted leg lifts etc...

So been sticking to the basics for now

Crunches, leg raises, etc.... 10 sets 20reps to failure.


Overall a pretty good day...Noticed a distinct difference in my heavier lifts with the inderal, nowhere near as winded and my peak heart rate under distress was 40 beats a sec under what it has been. 

[HARDCORE]

Very impressive brother! I am glad that your recover is coming along nicely, wish we could get together more and drive like we used to. I am on Chest/Biceps on Sunday if your up to it!

[SMUGGLERR]

Up for it anytime my brother, especially on the heavy days.


Friday 1-26-2007

Chest

Flat bench

185x12 wu
245x10
315x5
355x1 

Miss you here HARDCORE , no spotter had to lift these bitches off by my self...sob

Then ended flat with a burnout drop set  315x275x225x225


Incline Dumbell Press

Limited a bit here with what the gym has for weights during remodel

100x12
110x10
115x8
115x8

115 is obviously the max in dumbells they have currently, but was happy with the reps especially after going heavy on bench


Hammer decline press..

4 wheels , 4 sets ...12-10 reps nice burn


Cable crossovers

Whatever weight felt good and gave me full range keeping constant tension on the pecs and getting a good stretch
4 sets


Abdominals

Ball, Crunches, leg lifts, med ball , etc....



And that's a rap....

One side note ..I wore a tight t-shirt under my sweater, think that helped if anything mentally with my explosion.  (Smugg ponders a powerlifting suit ;P )

Still 220 expecting to see some growth starting in the next couple weeks as I ease into some supplementation.

Smugg

[p.s.]

ANd the Smugg rears his ugly head, so why the long breaks between posts?

[SMUGGLERR]

Ah..well I bookmarked this section and have been lurking abit, what is posted is from this week as date states.  Trying to be more active that's for sure , hopefully hear some fb from the masses on this journal , I am very open to suggestions. As is now been working a heavy and light mix shifting between the weeks and have seen some pretty decent growth considering I was pretty well laid up for 4 months+.

My needle finger is itching like a motherF@#@$  let me tell ya, but I want to plateau a bit and get my pre labs done first, a very important thing that I think alot of us miss, took me a few years to get HARDCORE to even get his shit checked out... 



Smugg

[p.s.]

At this point just getting your butt in the gym and training is all that really matters. The type of training set up for now is not as important as being consistant with the workouts.

[BEEF]

Where have you gone SMUGGLERR?!?

[Jack Tragic]

For real...WTF? Did you have a heart attack...wife won't let you go on-line bunky...? N E WAAAAAAAY...your recovery training looks too damn good!! By that I mean you should be moving much slower towards the 'END GAME" which is of course a full 100% recovery...