Brigitte STRONG

I started lifting again on August 4th, 2017; I posted an update on August 3rd, 2018; it seems like time for a second update. I'll use weights from the August 4th workout.

As with last time, this includes the delta that happened when they replaced all the machines; some of them had different gearing and I ended up going down in weights on four. I've posted a column for "adjusted start weight," which takes the original weight down by the delta. I'm not sure that's really the most accurate way to do it, but it's what I've got.

Let's look at the numbers, shall we? All weights are in pounds.

	start	machine delta	adjusted start	2018	current
Chest press	50	-15	35	90	120
Fly	50	-20	30	120	145
Wide grip pulldown	50	0	50	110	150
Row	50 combined	0	50 combined 25 per hand	60 per hand	120 per hand
Overhead Press	30	0	30	60	80
Arm Curl	40	0	40	95	110
Tricep Press	55	0	55	120	165
Leg Press	85	0	85	245	285
Leg Extension	25	0	25	105	150
Leg Curl	65	0	65	115	150
Hip Abductor	100	-50	50	180/260	225/260
Hip Adductor	95	-50	45	180	225
Ab Crunch	50	0	50	140	+75 new machine
Lower Back Extension	70	0	70	240	260 (maxxed)
added later
Shoulder shrug    per hand    (2017/9/20)	25	0	25	65	75 (maxxed)
Straight bar pulldown    (2017/9/20)	30	0	30	120	145
Calf Extension    (2017/12/17)	100	0	100	160	210

I think the thing I'm most pleased with is finally having 1/7th tonne on leg press. It's nice to have larger fractions of a tonne in your weights. And I've maxxed out another machine, which is nice too. Vertical things (overhead press, particularly) continue to be the most difficult part of the workout, other than simple heat dissipation, which is always a weakness I have. (I've found that just swallowing ice whole really helps.)

I've gone back and separated out the "row" exercise numbers to the per-hand basis of the actual workout. This is a little jinky because it started out as an exercise where I used both hands at once, then I switched to alternating hands. Combining the two weights wasn't really legitimate, so I've gone with the per-hand number, since that's how I usually do it.

Also, the ab crunch number is kind of discontinous because, again, a change in machines, but not in the previously-mentioned way. I topped out the old machine at 165, then discovered that one of the new machines worked all four abdominal pairs more directly, and moved to it. It uses some fraction of your own body weight (at least half) and additional weights you select, which is where the +75 comes from. I also found out that the bottom pair of abs had been taking the entire previous year and a half off, and had been doing fuck all, so on the new machine my lowest set is all "WHAT FUCKERY IS THIS?!" and my upper six are all "...are we... doing something?" So I've had to spend a lot of time evening that out.

Since I've been maxxed out on both shoulder shrug and lower back extension for a while, I've been slowly upping the number of reps. Started 15/15, now at 20/20.

And that's all I've got to say, I think. So, yeah! I've got a seventh, I've got a couple of eighths, I've got a ninth, and hopefully by next year I'll have collected more small fractions. Wish me luck!