Labor Day 2014 on Sanibel Island, Florida.
So I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks after getting back from a glorious vacation to Sanibel Island, Florida. The weather there was sunny and in the 90s all week and then once we got back to Chicago the temps here took a nosedive into the 30s, 40s, and 50s for a few days. Couple that with a stressful return to catching up on all the work that piled up during the vacation and adding to it some weekend wedding DJ gigs and poor nights of sleep along with the sudden urge to go lift something heavy in my home gym and well, you know, it all adds up to a toxic brew of sickness.
My cold wasn’t bad and just some sneezing that ushered it in and sinus issues to usher it out, but since I’m not training for anything other than vanity at the moment I figured I’d drop the workouts. I usually never take more than a few days off at a time but as of today it had been a full two weeks since I lifted and I’ve worked on getting extra sleep every night.
When I got back from Florida I’d decided to do the Vodka & Pickles routine Pavel Tsatsouline wrote about on the StrongFirst site. I’ve been wanting to bump up my deadlift to four wheels (405#) since hitting a 385# PR back in the spring so no time like the present.
Kettlebells and Deadlifts Go Together Like Vodka and Pickles
I’d started on this two weeks ago but it was one of the things that added to my getting sick since I didn’t eat enough that week to make up for the added volume of training fatigue the first two workouts introduced. So today I started back with workout one as written below.
5:45 PM
Vodka & Pickles Workout
Warmup
10 Swings – 32 kg
5 Goblet Squats – 32kg
Repeated 3x
Workout A
Deadlifts – see below
Pullups – one after each Deadlift rep for total of 15
Bench – 145 x 5, 3, 2
Swings – 2Hand – 10 x 10 – 32kg (:15 on / 1:15 rest)
Turkish Getup – 5L & 5R – 24 kg
Deadlift cycle – 360 Max
Workout 1: 65% x 1/15 (reps/sets)
235#
:30 rest between sets
1:00 total workout time and I was a sweaty mess. Polished off 16oz of eye of round, 16oz whole-milk kefir, some sauerkraut and Talenti Sea Salt Caramel Gelato and I was feeling pretty good.