531 1b - Press n' squat/pull - Jan 31

No timer today. No reall oomph either.

Squat
10x95/8x135/190x8/9/10 - maybe a set or two more in there, I forget.
14 mins.

531 Press
Rx: 3x3 @ 120/140/155 (115=65%)
Actual: 10x95/8x115/5or6 @ 135/4x155/Some other sets in there for good measure.
15 mins.

4x max reps (6-5) Pull up
7 mins.

7 - 1 hours - 2330/0630. 38 minutes total. PE: 8. 72 hours.

531 1b - Clean n' BW Chin - Jan 28

Stress. Over-scheduled. Sleepless, listless. That was this last week.

Back on the wagon.

531 Clean
Rx: 3x3 @ 130/150/170 - BBB @ 125 (65%)
Actual: 135x5/x5/x3/155x3/175x(miss)/5x135

Folded BW chins @ 8-6ish in between rounds, on a timer in .30 on 2.00 for 6 rounds.

7.5 hours - 2300/0630. 24 minutes total. PE: 7. 8 days.

531 1b - Front Squat n' HPress - Jan 20

Took the weekend off. Last night doing some network administration at the Shaws', with nothing doing at lunch time - too cold. Not that the temperature was too cold - I was too cold. Just couldn't get/stay warm. A sign of impending illness? IF not kickstarting my metabolism? Anyway, took yesterday off and tried to make up for that lost time here.

531 Front Squat
Rx: 3x3 @ 170/195/220
Actual: 8x65/5x165 (160=65%)/3x175/3x195/3x225/
2x5 @ 165
12 mins.

531 Bench
Rx: 3x3 @ 205/235/265
Actual: 5x225/5x245/5x265/
225x8/x6
9 mins.

8 hours - 2200/0600. 22 minutes total. PE: 7. 4 days. 223/14.

531 1a - Squat - Jan 16

Let's be realistic. 531 and IF simply aren't getting along. I'm short calories this week, and I'm going to pig a bit today to bounce back. Light headed during the squat sets today.

531 Squat
Rx: 3x5 @ 205/240/270
Actual: 8x135/5x185/5x225/5x245/3x275
11 mins.

BBB
2x5 @ 225 (190=60%)
3 mins.

Couplet
4x12 Jefferson squats w/ bar
1x15 standing calf @ 270 - 2x15+ A-frame @ 4
9 mins.

6.5 hours - 2330/0600. 24 minutes total. PE: 7. 24 hours.

531 1a - Pull - Jan 15

Should have done the weight today, but I was just replicating the Chins day last week - knowing that I wasn't going to be able to do today's as Rx'ed. Should have let the weight lead - how else to get stronger?

531 Pull
Rx: 3x5 @ 20/22.5/25
Actual: 5x3 @ 17.5 DB
8 mins.

Antagonists
3 rounds, HT timer
Max rep Pulls (5-4's)
Max rep bar Dip (9's)
9 mins.

7.5 hours - 1 - 2300/0630. 18 minutes total, PE: 5. 24 hours.

531 1a - Dead - Jan 14

531 Dead
Rx: (much, much too low) 3x5 @ 180/205/230
Actual: 5x5 @ 225/230/245/255/265
10 mins.

Cash out
4 rounds, HT timer
FtB x max reps
Neutral grip pulls x max reps
8 mins.

RTD: Off to do a web consult after work, and reminded why I gave up doing sites for people who are unhappy with their current site. My work will be next on the firing line with this guy. Couldn't sleep with the creative juices burning ulcers in my guts in the middle of the night, what with all the side work I've taken on just now.
In other news, I get to up my DL numbers. That's a plus.

8.5 hours - 2200/0630. 19 minutes total, PE: 7. 24 hours.

531 1a - OH Press - Jan 13

Too tired yesterday to get in - better sorry than sick, I'm saying. Couple days with little sleep Sunday and Monday. 

Today was supposed to be 1a Squat day, but no racks available. Wanted to do some anyway, so

Buy in
Step ups (20") and step backs
10/10 @ 45#/5's @ 65#///
11 mins.

OH press
Rx: 3x5 @ 115/130/145
Actual: 5x115/5x135/5x145
6 mins.

BBB
2x8 @ 105 (60%)
3 mins.

8.5 hours - 2200/0630. 20 minutes total, PE: 7. 72 hours.

Week average:
P236g/C107/F133 : 37/17/47% - I'll take it. Best week in a long while.

From One Outsider to Another

Dear Church, Here’s Why People Are Really Leaving You
By John Pavlovitz

Being on the other side of the Exodus sucks, don’t it?
I see the panic on your face, Church.
I know the internal terror as you see the statistics and hear the stories and scan the exit polls.
I see you desperately scrambling to do damage control for the fence-sitters, and manufacture passion from the shrinking faithful, and I want to help you.
You may think you know why people are leaving you, but I’m not sure you do.
You think it’s because “the culture” is so lost, so perverse, so beyond help that they are all walking away.
You believe that they’ve turned a deaf ear to the voice of God; chasing money, and sex, and material things.
You think that the gays and the Muslims and the Atheists and the pop stars have so screwed up the morality of the world that everyone is abandoning faith in droves.
But those aren’t the reasons people are leaving you.
They aren’t the problem, Church.
You are the problem.
Let me elaborate in five ways …

1. Your Sunday productions have worn thin.
The stage, and the lights, and the bands, and the video screens, have all just become white noise to those really seeking to encounter God. They’re ear and eye candy for an hour, but they have so little relevance in people’s daily lives that more and more of them are taking a pass.
Yeah, the songs are cool and the show is great, but ultimately Sunday morning isn’t really making a difference on Tuesday afternoon or Thursday evening, when people are wrestling with the awkward, messy, painful stuff in the trenches of life; the places where rock shows don’t help.
We can be entertained anywhere. Until you can give us something more than a Christian-themed performance piece—something that allows us space and breath and conversation and relationship—many of us are going to sleep in and stay away.

2. You speak in a foreign tongue.
Church, you talk and talk and talk, but you do so using a dead language. You’re holding onto dusty words that have no resonance in people’s ears, not realizing that just saying those words louder isn’t the answer. All the religious buzzwords that used to work 20 years ago no longer do.
This spiritualized insider-language may give you some comfort in an outside world that is changing, but that stuff’s just lazy religious shorthand, and it keeps regular people at a distance. They need you to speak in a language that they can understand. There’s a message there worth sharing, but it’s hard to hear above your verbal pyrotechnics.
People don’t need to be dazzled with big, churchy words and about eschatological frameworks and theological systems. Talk to them plainly about love, and joy, and forgiveness, and death, and peace, and God, and they’ll be all ears. Keep up the church-speak, and you’ll be talking to an empty room soon.

3. Your vision can’t see past your building.
The coffee bar, the cushy couches, the high-tech lights, the funky Children’s wing and the uber-cool Teen Center are all top-notch … and costly. In fact, most of your time, money and energy seems to be about luring people to where you are instead of reaching people where they already are.
Rather than simply stepping out into the neighborhoods around you and partnering with the amazing things already happening, and the beautiful stuff God is already doing, you seem content to franchise out your particular brand of Jesus-stuff, and wait for the sinful world to beat down your door.
Your greatest mission field is just a few miles, (or a few feet) off your campus and you don’t even realize it. You wanna reach the people you’re missing?
Leave the building.

4. You choose lousy battles.
We know you like to fight, Church. That’s obvious.
When you want to, you can go to war with the best of them. The problem is, your battles are too darn small. Fast food protests, hobby store outrage and duck-calling Reality TV show campaigns may manufacture some urgency and Twitter activity on the inside for the already-convinced, but they’re paper tigers to people out here with bloody boots on the ground.
Every day we see a world suffocated by poverty, and racism, and violence, and bigotry, and hunger; and in the face of that stuff, you get awfully, frighteningly quiet. We wish you were as courageous in those fights, because then we’d feel like coming alongside you; then we’d feel like going to war with you.
Church, we need you to stop being warmongers with the trivial and pacifists in the face of the terrible.

5. Your love doesn’t look like love.
Love seems to be a pretty big deal to you, but we’re not getting that when the rubber meets the road. In fact, more and more, your brand of love seems incredibly selective and decidedly narrow; filtering out all the spiritual riff-raff, which sadly includes far too many of us.
It feels like a big bait-and-switch sucker-deal; advertising a “Come as You Are” party, but letting us know once we’re in the door that we can’t really come as we are. We see a Jesus in the Bible who hung out with lowlifes and prostitutes and outcasts, and loved them right there, but that doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea.

Church, can you love us if we don’t check all the doctrinal boxes and don’t have our theology all figured out? It doesn’t seem so.

Can you love us if we cuss and drink and get tattoos, and God forbid, vote Democrat? We’re doubtful.

Can you love us if we’re not sure how we define love, and marriage, and Heaven, and Hell? It sure doesn’t feel that way.

From what we know about Jesus, we think he looks like love. The unfortunate thing is, you don’t look much like him.

That’s part of the reason people are leaving you, Church.

These words may get you really, really angry, and you may want to jump in a knee-jerk move to defend yourself or attack these positions line-by-line, but we hope that you won’t.

We hope that you’ll just sit in stillness with these words for a while, because whether you believe they’re right or wrong, they’re real to us, and that’s the whole point.

We’re the ones walking away.

We want to matter to you.

We want you to hear us before you debate us.

Show us that your love and your God are real.

Church, give us a reason to stay.

It’s not you, it’s me.

That’s what you seem to be saying, Church.

I tried to share my heart with you; the heart of me and thousands and thousands of people like me who are walking away, to let you know of the damage you’re doing and the painful legacy you’re leaving, and apparently,  you’re not the problem.

(Which, of course, is still a problem).

I’ve relayed my frustration with your insider, religious rhetoric, and you responded by cut-and-pasting random Scripture soundbytes about the “Bride of Christ” and the “blood of the Lamb,” insisting that the real issue is simply my “biblical ignorance,” and suggesting that I just need to repent and get a good Concordance (whatever that is).

I let you know how judged and ridiculed I feel when I’m with you, how much like a hopeless, failing outsider I feel on the periphery of your often inward, judgmental communities, and you proceeded to tell me how “lost” I am, how hopelessly “in love with my sin” I must be to leave you, reminding me that I never really belonged with you anyway.

In the face of every complaint and every grievance, you’ve made it clear that the real issue is that I’m either sinful, heretical, immoral, foolish, unenlightened, selfish, consumerist or ignorant.

Heck, many days I’m not even sure I disagree with you.

Maybe you’re right, Church.

Maybe I am the problem.

Maybe it is me, but me is all I’m capable of being right now, and that’s where I was really hoping you would meet me.

It’s here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned me-ness that I’ve been waiting for you to step in with this whole supposedly relentless, audacious “love of Jesus” thing I hear so much about, and make it real.

Church, I know how much you despise the word Tolerance, but right now, I really need you to tolerate me; to tolerate those of us who, for all sorts of reasons you may feel aren’t justified, are struggling to stay.

We’re so weary of feeling like nothing more than a religious agenda; an argument to win, a point to make, a cause to defend, a soul to save.
We want to be more than a notch on your Salvation belt; another number to pad your Twitter posts and end-of-year stat sheets.
We need to be more than altar call props, who are applauded and high-fived down the aisle, and then forgotten once the song ends.
We’ve been praying for you to stop evangelizing us, and preaching at us, and fighting us, and judging us, and sin-diagnosing us, long enough to simply hear us …
… even if we are the problem.
Even if we are the woman in adultery, or the doubting follower, or the rebellious prodigal, or the demon-riddled young man, we can’t be anything else right now in this moment; and in this moment, we need a Church big enough, and tough enough, and loving enough; not just for us as we might one day be then, but for us as we are, now.
We still believe that God is big enough, and tough enough, and loving enough, even if you won’t be, and that’s why even if we do walk away, it doesn’t mean we’re walking away from faith; it’s just that faith right now seems more reachable elsewhere.
I know you’ll argue that you’re doing all these things and saying all these things because you love and care for us, but from the shoes we’re standing in, you need to know that it feels less like love and care, and more like space and silence:
If someone is frustrated, telling them that they’re wrong to be frustrated is, well, pretty freakin’ frustrating.
It only breeds distance.
If someone shares that their heart is hurting, they don’t want to hear that they’re not right to be hurt.
It’s a conversation-stopper.
If someone tells you they are starving for compassion, and relationship, and authenticity, the last thing they need is to be corrected for that hunger.
It’s a kick in the rear on the way out the door.
So yes, Church, even if you’re right, even if we’re totally wrong—even if we’re all petty, and self-centered, and hypocritical, and critical, and (I’ll say it), “sinful”—we’re still the ones searching for a place where we can be known and belong; a place where it feels like God lives, and you’re the ones who can show it to us.
Even if the problem is me, it’s me who you’re supposed to be reaching, Church.
So, for the love of God; reach already.

Wow, feel that last long section dripping with hurt. I know it's a pastor writing, projecting an outsider's persona, but I wonder. I'm not going into defensive mode. I agree with all five points, and have thought and felt the same about all five.

...here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned me-ness that I’ve been waiting for you to step in with this whole supposedly relentless, audacious “love of Jesus” thing I hear so much about, and make it real.

Five good points, that even fringe christians can sink their teeth into. More noteworthy, a page and a half of a thrown-down challenge: Love me, accept me, fill the hole in my soul in a way that I would never expect anyone in the normal world to do so, because I know God is real, and I expect more reality from those who say God is real in their lives.

Anyway, five good points of criticism, and then an accusing finger pointed at the institutional church for not being *more.* I get it. Broken people, incapable of love, can't love, and so, lashing out because they're not being loved.
 
Maybe it is me, but me is all I’m capable of being right now, and that’s where I was really hoping you would meet me.

I'm challenged to model the discipline and excellence of a Disciple-maker. You can't lead where you won't go, and you can't teach what you don't know. I need to be more real, more raw, more of an open-hearted and open-handed lover, and living the Better that everyone in the church and in the world expects from a follower of Jesus. Not just better in knowledge and truth, but better in an open acceptance that knows the cold prickly nature of the lost and still reaches, reaches, reaches out to meet everyone where they are.
And, I'm called to Maturity. The baby cries to be loved. Feed me, care for me, clean me, be here for me when I need you and get out of my face when I don't want you. The adult is willing to do all that for the baby, even though the adult is tired, and hungry and needing love and care just as much as the baby - but the adult can shoulder the burden, overlook his own desires and hurts, and give.

One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard:
that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.
Psalm 62: 11 & 12

531 1a - Chins - Jan 9

Buy in
4x8 FtB
4 mins.

531 Chins
Rx: (We're going to have to ratchet this down) 3x5 @ +20/22.5/25 (60%=17.5)
Actual: 5x17.5#/4x - 3x3 @ 17.5#
10 mins.
Didn't get my reps. Recalibrate.

BBB
4x max reps neutral grip pulls (6-4)
6/7/5 Bar dip @ +10#
11 mins.

RTD: Another really good day for hitting my macros, looks like this week has a chance to meet the skinny on carbs. One day at 200g means that the other 6 in the week have to be 80g or less to meet the average. Might need to revise my expectations, or set up a cycling rotation of days for need/feed/IF to match each work cycle. Never mind might, I just said it.

8.5 hours - 2200/0630. 27 minutes total, PE: 6. 18 hours. 224/14.
P280g/C76/F136 : 27/10/63%, 2687 total cal, 2409 net - win

531 1a - Cleans - Jan 8

Clean/Power clean
3x5 @ 115 (60%)
Rx: 3x5 @ 125/145/160
Actual: 3x5 @ 135/155/165
13 mins.

Was squat cleaning on the warm up sets, but then asked myself, "why?" So power cleaned because I could. 165x5 was all in the hip pop, I could use a little more pull under the bar when it gets heavier.

Squat cleans
3x5 @ 135
7 mins.

Cash out
RDLs @ 135#
8/9/10, 1 min RI
5 mins.

RTD: Second day in the Midway oilfields, sitting in a too-small truck cab next to Brad and his productive cough. The saving grace was perfect 65 degree weather. Glad to slip in this session at the end of the day, after yesterday's off day.

8.5 hours - 2200/0630. 26 minutes total, PE: 8. 48 hours. A couple good wins on the macros this week, let's see if we can't have a weekly average that is a win for once.

531 1a - Close Grip Bench - Jan 6

Buy in
4x5 Neutral grip deadhangs
4 mins.

Close Grip Bench
Rx: 3x5 @ 190/220/250
Actual: 5x205/5x225/6x255
7 mins.

As one might expect, the thing I want to excel at least shows the most promise.

BBB sets, HT timer
7x10 Ring Row
Bench 8/6/5 @ 225
9 mins.

9 hours - 2130/0630. 21 minutes total, PE: 7. 24 hours.

531 1a - Front Squat - Jan 5

Buy in
4x7ish FtB
5 mins.

3x5 Front Squat, as Rx'ed on 2:00
8x145//5x160/5x185/5x205/8x145
11 mins.

Cash out
3 rounds, no timer
Standing calf x12 @ 270/285/300
Hamstring curl x8/10/10 @ 95
5 mins.

Spent the evening in the car on the phone waiting to pick up H at Kathleen's. A little dejected after finding out that something that I hoped might work out wasn't going to pay enough to consider. Spent a good hour at the laptop, guitar in hand, working up proper chord combinations to match mp3's on the song list.

8.5 hours -1 - 2200/0630. 27 minutes total, PE: 7. 72 hours. 226/14.

Week average:
P161g/C222/F125 : 24/33/42% - Still just tracking now. 

531 1a - Pull up - Jan 2

Weighted pull ups with the BW as the added weight.

Strict Deadhangs, HT timer
4x6-5
5 mins.

Antagonists, 4 rounds, same timer
Kips x7ish
Ring dips x7ish
10 mins.

OH press @ 135#
x5/5/3
4 mins.

Took down the Christmas lights, show's over. Too cold to do much else besides get under an electric blanket on the couch and snorgle.

8 hours + 1 - 2230/0630. 20 minutes total, PE: 7. 2 days. 228/14.

2014 Year in Review. And It Begins for 2015.

Some few big days in a year where the status quo kinda won the overall title.

Some of what was noteworthy is what didn't happen this year. Didn't do the Lighthouse Century, or Blues Fest, Village Fest, Volkslauf, or Brian Setzer. Did make the Christian Youth Film Fest, played guitar at Ft. Tejon, got over to Carpinteria for a quick trip, Catalina in July (thanks to Nena footing the bill) and a few Disneyland trips on the annual passes, most notably one in December with the Bennetts for JJ's 2nd.
Spring saw a big day for me when TeeDub invited me to his mostly-family-only 50th birthday get-together. In fact, I was the only non-family member there. That resonated with me in an important way. I really felt that I had a friend that day. It was a cold winter and early spring for me; a lonely stretch. With so many people in his life, and he'd pick me as the one friend to choose? Yeah.
Spent Tuesday nights at Todd's too all summer with energetic and delightful collegians with the School of Discipleship. Really a highlight for my year. Such a great group, with interaction that doesn't really happen with adults in small groups. Great to be a part, to teach a little, and simply feel inspired by others who are mining deep into the Lord's mountain.
Had a great few days with CC at the Forks of the Kern, where we faced down the echoes of a sasquatch. We tried for a Half Dome lottery slot, but got rejected.
My 50th was filthy. Just the kind of day, and event, I needed. Not the level of nitpicking perfectionistic detail that I'd have brought to the planning a couple of decades ago, and that says something good, I think. Still, all the needful things were there: challenge, sweat, the right people, and minutes packed from bed-to-bed hustling from one event to the other.
Haley and I did the Brewery Art Walk in October. What a great day that was.
In December, I received an email from myself using Futureme.org. A year ago, I wrote:

Are you alive now? Because there are a lot of days, a lot of moments, when I think it's not really worth it. God's far away right now, and silent, and church is the same. I'm a misfit. A stranger in my own life. I wonder why I was created.

I need to be around to feed, clothe, provide shelter for my wife and children. I know that Konrad wants and needs me. If that's my only role that's a reason to keep taking one step forward at a time. ... How to earn their respect ... I just want to insulate myself from rejection.

...I have delusions of wanting to create some kind of supergym - just how different than any existing gym is a function of reality and economics vs. creativity and personal preference.

I want to do something significant before I clock out. I want to be involved with some like-minded people. I want to be in community with some Christians who aren't fucking hypocrites or Americanized to the point of worldliness ... if they'd have me, since I'm such a chameleon myself.

I'm mostly retreated into the iron game right now. It's the only thing I think I'm doing that consumes my creativity and challenges me.

I want something more. I hope you've found it. If not, I don't have any advice for you.

That last part was answered with School of Discipleship over the summer. There's still something out there for me in the Christian community, but it's not going to be in merely attending somewhere in the Americanized consumer-small c-christianity model. Still a lot of question marks in my life. Think I would have solved all the riddles by now.

2015? An arbitrary marker, this first of a new year calendar line-crossing. Still, here we are, re-viewing everything with an eye to intentionality.

A sound mind led by a sound spirit in a sound body. Be all three.

I'm claiming this as my slogan for the year. I'll keep my spirit sound by worshipping and digging deeper on the guitar this year, working through a chapter a day/formulating a message a week, and daily prayer time/wasted time.

I'm setting my mind to focus on intentional relationship building with those few, to intentional creation (ie, One Way Entry plans, secondary level plans / mobile app flowchart / Presenter song sets / Backyard gym completion), and filling in some gaps in my learning

Sound body: I'm not breaking down the year based on exercises. I'm basically going to make sure I make a sweeping focus on these three: 531/CFFB, Bag Work/Agility work, Stretching and Floor work. Which is to say, maximal strength/movement/flexibility.

Wasn't ready to leave CFFB, since I was enjoying it and challenged by it, but it's time to change things up for a cycle after 14 weeks. I hope to steep myself in CFFB this year - but need to cycle off for a period. 
Back to 531. Numbers have been pared way down since the last Spring percentages. MaXmas didn't get finished (sick, tired) and the numbers weren't encouraging, and, I'm simply being realistic about my expectations regarding the poundages. If everything goes better than anticipated and I'm moving weight, I'll adjust after a month. But we're doing two months through the 8-day split.

 Assessment:
I got bigger doing CFFB - these measurements aren't fresh outta the cycle (after two weeks of MaXmas and sickness/off), but they still speak volumes about gaining unexpected size with more weight/lower reps. Oh, and creatine. 
I would have sworn that an HT cycle would have done this - when it didn't, and hasn't.