More on my training regimen

Last time, I outlined the different workouts that are part of the Madcow program I've been on.  I'll talk a bit more about the setup, as well as the progression.  There are a number of set/rep schemes you can use for lifting, depending on your goals (or the goals of the program).  This program, for the most part, has you ramping up to a single set at the heaviest weight.  This is best for maximal strength, but not as good for bulk and endurance.  One of the changes I'm making for myself attempts to address this a  little bit, but first, I want to give the standard setup and progression.

To repeat from the previous post, there are 3 core lifts per day, the rest being assistance, or supplementary, work.  I'm going to start off talking about the core lifts.  The core lifts are the same on days A and C (Monday and Friday, if your schedule is Monday/Wednesday/Friday). 

Let's start with day A.  That scheme is simplest for the core exercises, simply 5 sets, and each set is 5 reps.  You calculate the weight starting from the heaviest set (let's say it's 100 pounds).  Each set leading up to the heaviest set should be about 12.5% lighter.  In other words, if the 5th set is 100, set 4 would be 87.5, set 3 would be 75, set 2 would be 62.5, and set 1 would be 50.  This does not have to be precise, but the ramp should be pretty close to linear.  The smaller the gaps, the more volume you'll do in terms of total pounds moved, but you run a higher risk of stalling.  Usually, you're not going to be able to lift 87.5 pounds or some weird number, so I just round it.  Some people drop to the next even 5 pound increment (assuming they have 2.5 pound plates).  Some people will actually microload, which as the name implies, means figuring out a way to get a very small increment of weight on the bar.  This is ideal.  It's also a pain, especially in a commercial gym, so I don't bother.

That's it for day A.  On day C (Friday for me), the first 4 sets are the same as day A, for each core exercise.  [I made a mistake on this last post, I said you only did 3 sets of 5, but you do 4 sets of 5.]  If you were successful on day A for the 5th set, then on day C, you increase the weight by 2.5% for the 5th set.  But, you only do 3 reps to compensate for that. To finish off each core exercise on day C, you actually do a 6th set for 8 reps, using the same weight you used for set 3.

If you successfully complete the heaviest set of 3 on day C, then the next time you lift (day A scheme), you bump up the weight for the 5th set.  It's interesting to note that you should always be able to lift 102.5% of a 5-rep weight for only 3 reps.  That is, if you can lift 200 pounds for 5 reps, it's theoretically easier to lift 205 pounds for 3 reps.  That does seem to be true in my experience, but it did surprise me.

So, that's how you move up the weights on day A and day C.  Day B (Wednesday) stands by itself.  First, for squats, the idea is that it's really a recovery day; you are not trying to push it.  So, your first 3 sets are the same as the first 3 sets on day A.  Essentially a couple pretty light warmups, then a little heavier warmup.  Then you do a 4th set with the same weight as the 3rd set.  You don't push yourself with squats at all on day B.

For the other two, if you complete all reps, you bump the weight by 2.5%.  And that takes care of the core lifts.  There's no real guidance given for the assistance lifts, other than they shouldn't get in the way.  The point of this program is to get your squat, bench, row, and deadlift increased.  The assistance stuff should assist in that, but it's not a big deal to the program if they don't increase.

I still haven't gotten around to the changes that I've made to the program for me, but this post is already tl;dr.

My training regimen

For the last several weeks, I've been following a slightly modified version of a training program commonly referred to as Madcow 5x5.  That program itself is a modification of a program created by a weightlifting coach (and competitor) named Bill Starr.  The focus of this program -- like all of Starr's programs that I'm aware of -- is strength, attained by doing a full body workout 3 times a week.  Starr's programs concentrate mainly on a few different compound free weight exercises.  A compound exercise is one that requires multiple joints and muscles, as opposed to isolation exercises.  Those, as the name implies, focus more on a single joint/muscle.

As you go through different phases of weight training, both compound and isolation exercises have their place.  But for beginners, and probably for intermediates as well, programs should be dominated by compound exercises.  And whether you're a beginner or intermediate lifter has nothing to do with how long you've been lifting.  It has to do with how much you can lift, relative to your body weight.  Until you can bench press more than you weigh, and until you can do a good-technique squat with 150% of your body weight, you should consider yourself a beginner and focus on compound exercises.  If I remember, I'll go more into why in a future post.

So anyway, I'm in the midst of this slightly modified Madcow 5x5 program.  I'm adding onto it a little bit, mostly.  This, by the way, is expressly against the advice of the program's creator, Madcow.  He specifically says to not fuck with the program.  But, like me, probably a lot of people do.  The biggest thing that people do wrong is that they use the wrong techniques on the lifts.  That's probably closely followed by trying to do too much.  Doing too much volume can lead to overtraining.  Doing too many isolation exercises is unproductive at best, but can also get in the way of interfering with your progress on the core exercises.

The program is designed, like I said, to be run 3 days a week.  It's supposed to go:
Day 1 -workout A
Day 2 - off
Day 3 - workout B
Day 4 - off
Day 5 - workout C
Day 6 - off
Day 7 - off

Workout A consists of the following:
Squats:  5x5 (5 sets, 5 reps per set)
Bench Press:  5x5
Barbell Row:  5x5
Back Extensions:  3x8-12
Situps:  3 sets


Workout B:
Squats:  4x5
Military press OR Incline bench press:  4x5
Deadlift:  4x5
Situps:  3 sets


Workout C:
Squats:  3x5, 1x3, 1x8
Bench Press:  3x5, 1x3, 1x8
Barbell Row:  3x5, 1x3, 1x8
Dips:  3x8
Biceps:  3 sets
Triceps:  3 sets


For each workout, the first 3 exercises are the core exercises.  Those are the ones that are supposed to progress.  I'll talk about the progression next time. The other exercises after the first 3 are assistance exercises, designed to help the primary exercises progress.  That's important. It means, for one thing, it doesn't matter whether or not you're getting better in the assistance exercises.


In addition to progression, I'll talk about the changes I made to the program for myself, and why.  I might even embarrass myself and tell you how much I'm lifting with all these exercises.  They're not great, but the important thing is that I'm working hard and progressively lifting heavier.

What should i talk about?

The last couple nights, I've been thinking about getting re-organized.  Somewhat standard cycle for me where I cruise along with most items neatly tied up and things in control.  Then for whatever reason, stuff starts to pile up or get ignored.  Sometimes it's due to being extra busy, sometimes it's due to being extra lazy.  Recently, I've been busier than normal, and also spending a lot of time reading about strength training and nutrition.  Any specific questions or things you'd like me to write about, let me know.

I'll probably transition this blog into more of that, as I said in my last post, just because I no longer have anything interesting to say about poker.  OK, I probably rarely had that much interesting to say about poker before, but now, it would be all about bad beats and coolers, and that's no fun.  As you know, for quite a while now, my volume had been drastically reduced.  But for a few months, I was doing well results wise anyway, albeit at lower stakes than before.  The last few months have been pretty bad results wise, and I honestly haven't done a critical evaluation of my play to determine the ratio of bad luck to bad play.  I'm sure there is both.  I did go through a cursory review of my best sessions and worst sessions over the last few months.  For better or worse, my play in them is about the same.  But there are a ton of coolers (set over set, top 2 vs. set, JJ-KK vs. overpairs), beats, and lost flips in the losing sessions.  Fair enough.  But, there are very few times when I'm coolering other regs in my winning sessions, and even in my winning sessions, I'm not coming from behind or winning many flips.  Just avoiding having it happen to me.  Making pretty good value bets in both winning and losing sessions.  I do notice that I am bet/folding a lot more than I would expect.  I suspect I'm just running into hands, but as I haven't been watching videos or participating in any sort of forums and discussions, I guess it's possible that people are raising a lot thinner or bluff-raising more than they used to.

Bottom line is that poker seems like a chore, and the last several months, I've basically been playing just enough to maintain Iron Man status on Full Tilt.  I think this month, I'm just going to let it lapse.  I'm not winning enough (nor do I expect I should be) to make it worthwhile if poker is just a chore.  At this point, it may be better to just let it go, and then when the urge to play again crops up, play.  Or maybe get the urge to dive back into the real work behind poker.  That will have to come with some time being available to do the hard work off the tables, though.

My fitness journey, on the other hand, is still going well.  I'm closing in on 50 pounds of weight lost this year, I think a lot of it from fat loss.  I've made some pretty sizable strength gains over the last 6 or so months, meaning that I'm hopefully preserving whatever muscle I had.  In the last couple days, I changed up my weightlifting program to a somewhat popular strength-oriented one.  It's known as Madcow, but it's really an adaptation of  a program created by Bill Starr, who if you're into strength training you probably know about.  I'll cover the details of the program as well as some tweaks I made to it for myself in an upcoming post.

Really, the bigger success that I've had has been with my diet.  There's actually room for improvement there, too, but just like I did with poker, I'm balancing my diet with the wants/needs of my family life.  I'm pretty dedicated with my diet, but I will still have a desert with the family after dinner, eat pretty calorie dense meals (but smaller portions) with them, etc.  I'm hanging, virtually, with some guys that are incredibly disciplined, and I'm learning a lot from them and what they do.  If you want to see your abs and/or you want to bulk up and show some muscle, you can't get there just by hitting the gym. 

Leave me some comments about any particular fitness/nutrition topic you're curious about or you think would make a decent post.  Baz left some other good blogs (professionals) in comments from my last post, too.

Oh hai

Didn't realize it's been so long, but not surprising because I'm barely playing poker these days.  As in that last post a few months ago, just enough to keep Iron Man alive at Full Tilt, which basically keeps me from getting totally rusty.  I haven't been studying at all, but I intend to at least spend a few hours a week doing so for a little while.  Probably  more along the lines of participating in some forums (private and public) than doing detailed hand reviews from my own sessions, or watching vids.  Reviewing your own hands and watching videos are both great exercises, but I think that they require a more substantial time commitment to get the most out of them.  Whereas going through HH discussions other people post gives you a quick smattering of topics.  Granted, little effort put in results in little benefit out, but that's all I'm willing to make time for these days.  I want to get back to the point where I really enjoy poker, and quite honestly even without putting a ton of time into the game, it still sometimes feels like a bit of a chore.  I'm willing to do the chore just because I've already put a lot of work in, but that doesn't mean I'll do so indefinitely.

I've been about a breakeven player over the last few months, or I guess I should say just a rakeback grinder ;).  That's a step up from where I was at the tail end of being really serious about it, though, so that's good.  I have no idea whether I'm running poorly or not from an EV standpoint, and I kind of like that.  I am running pretty poorly in terms of being put in cooler spots, plus lots of times getting in good to great situations and losing.  But I may be making up for more of that than I realize.  One area I'm running poorly in is getting paid big when I do hit big hands in various situations, but that could be due to me playing too transparently as well.

Other than that, life continues to be good.  Think I mentioned somewhere that I was going on a get back in shape jag, and I've had great results.  About 40 pounds lighter than the beginning of the year, but at the same time training hard, putting up new PRs in the gym and in general exercising a lot more. The PRs are starting from a pretty low bar, but it's still nice to make progress.  I may start blogging more about my nutrition and weightlifting research and progress, although I also keep another journal dedicated to that stuff.  Not sure.  If there's any interest (if there's anyone still following), let me know, and that will give me the excuse to blog about that stuff.

Most of the time I spent playing and studying poker has now transferred over to time spent weight training and reviewing proper form and programming.  A lot more to it than I realized before.  And even more than poker, your decisions affect your results.  Talk about having to be accountable!  Wish I'd discovered some of this stuff ages ago, but never too late to improve, no matter what the endeavor.

Hope this post finds everyone well and crushing.

Does anyone win now?

All you guys seem to be in downswings to varying degrees.  I'm down a ton for the last several months and feel like no lead is safe.  I am (and it sounds like a lot of you are too) the guy on the table who supports the poor players who make bad decisions and get paid off (only to predictably dump their profits to someone else on the table). 

To be fair/honest, I am putting nowhere near as much effort into analyzing my game, reviewing my sessions, posting hands, watching vids, etc. as I used to.  Or what is needed.  So, I definitely don't feel I should be killing the games or anything.  But I've still managed to put myself in some great situations, to no avail.  Situations where I'm getting the money in against guys who routinely hit their outs, even when it looks like I'm coolering their made hands (or maybe their treating their underpairs as a draws?).

And I can tell from the reading that I've been doing that I'm not alone.  Granted, for a number of reasons, we don't spend as much time writing about the good luck we have, and it's not as cathartic to chat about our suckouts as to lament about theirs.  So, I don't think the sky is falling or the sites are rigged. But man, I wish it would turn around for us already.  Based on the play I see, the games are plenty good enough to beat.  Maybe not crush, but through 400NL there are still a good number of weak players.  And now that I've dropped down and have started to play some 100NL, I'm reminded how much worse the regs are there than at 400NL overall.

Bottom line, I'm not enjoying poker all that much these days.  That means I'm not as eager to work at it, and with a lot of other things clamoring for my attention, it means I don't work at it too much.  Which means I don't play as well.  Which means my results are relatively worse.  Which means I don't enjoy it as much.  And you can see where the cycle goes.  That said, I continue to play minimal volume, so that I don't go completely out of touch.  And I still do a minimal amount of work off the table, so that it doesn't disappear completely.  I've gotten over hating the game while running bad.  I just don't love it.  But I think that I will again at some point.  So for now, I'm playing at a stake and in a mode where I can kind of tread water until I'm ready to proceed with more enthusiasm and effort.  And that'll have to do for the time being.

Holy crap has it been that long

Wow, I knew it's been a while since I updated here, but I didn't think that almost two months had gotten by.  Well, this is the busiest time of the year for me...work usually has something going on the first half of the year, got a little league team to coach (more time spent on coaching baseball than coaching soccer and basketball combined!), kids birthdays are in the spring, and we usually go away over their school's spring break.

So, been doing all of that.  Vacation was to Palm Desert again this year, staying with the in-laws.  My sister-in-law and her whole family was down there (3 nieces, 1 of whom has a husband and a newborn baby, another 1 whose boyfriend came with her), so it was a packed house.  One of the ways I'm lucky is that I really like my wife's family, so other than the family gatherings getting in the way of something important like golf or poker (lol), they're fun.  Played 4 rounds of golf that week, only shot well one of them.  Golf is as temperamental as poker.  Went from mid 80's to mid 70's to low 90's in 3 days.  Low 90's twice, actually.  FML.

Actually, my golf game has pretty much sucked for about a year. Not playing, not practicing, not producing.  Sounds like another pastime I know.  With my little league team, I'm very encouraging to the kids when they make a mistake or strike out, as long as they're paying attention and trying.  The message all of us coaches give them is that if they're trying their best, it should all be good, win or lose. It's not like they're getting paid.  Wish I could follow my own damn advice on the golf course!  I still do a crap job letting myself enjoy playing when I don't play as well as I would like, and there's no reason for it.

That's it for right now.  Have to come back later to poker (meh) and some other stuff (good).  I'll try to do that within the next couple months.

Thanks for the comments...

...on my last post.  I think that I will probably at least start messing around some with other games at small stakes.  Had been thinking about doing that anyway after reviewing some videos, maybe going through a series or something.  But, maybe even before that, I'll just jump in.  Gotta figure I can learn a little on the fly, and if I get crushed, well, like you said, it's not like it's going to hurt my roll a ton.

Things in baseball yesterday went about as bad as my poker has been going.  My son's team was one run away from having the game called by mercy rule (10 run deficit).  We've got a bye during the week and another game on next Saturday, so we will be having 4 or 5 practices in between, I believe.  But really, it will come down to 2 things.  Stop swinging at terrible pitches and throw more strikes.

LOL, that's what I get

Been playing so infrequently, that I tried to squeeze in a quick session waiting for my son to finish his homework.  After 282 hands where I ran at -69 PTBB/100, I guess it's time to stop.  Nothing spewy, but did have some bad luck.  I felt totally not in control of any table, which may be because I haven't been playing, or maybe was just running into all kinds of stuff.

Other than little poker (and I had been doing fine up until this session), life is good.  No time, though, seems permanent right now.  Probably will be until little league is over.  Work has more going on too these days, which is good, I guess.  And I've been excellent about getting to the gym (again, to the detriment of poker playing).

I may just go on an extended break, I'm not sure.  I think that with so little time to focus on study, my game is in no shape for my regular stakes.  Even if I went down to stakes I could get away with not studying, I would hate to not be playing my best.

Does anyone even still read this thing?

Rainout

On my annual ski/board trip with my dad...we've been doing this for a long time.  He moved across the country several years ago, and we don't see each other too much, so I've been enjoying them even more.  I don't get up to the snow much besides this trip, either.  Wife doesn't care for riding, kids are so far not clamoring for it.  Given the expense and not wanting to hear them whine about how cold it is or how far they have to carry their crap from the parking lot, I'm not pushing it. 

Today, it's a mix of snow and rain in town, probably wet snow up on the hill, but the cams are showing pretty white-out conditions, so we bagged it.  My dad really does not like to ski in low visibility...he's legally blind in one eye, so when the shadows disappear, he's got extremely little depth perception.  So, we're chilling in the motel a bit.  And I'm OK with it, even though I was hoping to get in 5 days of riding.  First time back on the snowboard in 5 or 6 years, too (went back to skiing for a bit).

The interwebz keep going down here, so I'm not sure if I'll attempt any hands this week.  Not that I've been playing much anyway.  What little I have played has been OK.  I was playing Rush poker for a bit, but I got kind of bored with it.  Too bad, as it would have suited my schedule a lot easier.  I ran/played in it fine (or, compared to recent results, spectacular, actually).  But, it started to feel really formulaic.

Other than that, life is good.  Coaching up the ying-yang, as basketball and baseball overlap.  Basketball ends next week, though.  My New Year's resolutions of eat better/work out more have been going pretty well.  Been sacrificing poker study time for gym time during the work day.  I believe in February, Mon - Fri (gym is at work), I only missed one or two days.  Plus, my workouts have gotten longer and harder. 

Obv will stunt my growth poker-wise, but I have got, got, got to get back in shape...not only for myself, but as a role model for my kids.  My wife and I are toughening up their diets and putting limits on their TV and computer/Wii time.  However, I'd like them to not see an overweight dad who's shoving (a lot) of garbage into his piehole while telling them they can't.  And, I've remembered that my ability to pay attention and overall outlook on not just poker, but all activities is better when I feel like I'm on the right path fitness-wise.

Rush

Have played a bit of Rush on FT.  If I had more time, I would probably pass, at least while I could still find some decent tables.  Which is funny, because I think that one of the things I do relatively poorly is adjust...both to player types overall and to table history.  I also don't find that I take great notes.  I think those things go together.  So, theoretically, Rush should be right up my alley.  But I want to get better at those weaknesses in my game, and playing Rush makes it harder to do (although I am trying to get some basic notes down on players).

I'll probably continue playing some, though, because my time is severely limited.  Sometimes I'll only have 30-45 minutes to play.  There's not much point to even boot up some conventional tables and search for a good few seats.  But with Rush, I can get in some hands.  I've mostly been playing 100 NL, and it seems pretty easy, but I'm not playing regular 100 NL to draw any conclusions.  I started off pretty brutally in terms of BBs at 50 and 100 (until I realized you could join the same game more than once).  Dollar-wise was no big deal.  Then things swung up, and I think that I ran and played better.  I coolered and got coolered, but I found that whoever was ahead when the money went in tended to stay ahead....super nice for me for a change.

In my regular session on Friday night, though, it was LOL Fridays.  I had one fun stretch within 5 minutes where 3 hands didn't hold...once on the flop and twice on the turn.  Their draws were decent, so no big deal I guess.  But in that same time, I couldn't pull ahead with massive draws...one I had an open-ended straight flush draw and 2 overs to a middle PP that I think he turned into a bluff, but he was pretty bad, so maybe he just way overplayed.  It's kind of like being in a game with a bad ref...fine if your calls are going to suck, but could you at least make them the same way against both guys?  Meh.

I think that I'm still playing OK, but have not shipped off enough hands the last couple weeks for review from folks.  I've just been extra busy shepherding a few things at work.  That dovetails to a question from the comments recently (thanks, by the way, always nice to see a comment once in a while :) ).  The question was about how the balance between wife/family and poker has evolved.  Well, thanks to the last few month's poor results, the money certainly hasn't been more meaningful!  But even as it got to be more meaningful, that is when the results were good, nothing much has changed.  It's still not enough for her to frown upon the time away from her and the family that poker could take.  I still play the odd session at "prime" time, but for the most part, it's when no one's around/awake but me.  I think if I pushed it, I could put more time into it at home, but it would be at the expense of something I value even more, so I don't.

Happy New Year :)

Little late on this, obviously.  Had a slow couple weeks over the holidays, but came back to work facing a sh*tstorm of short term deadlines. Not sure how much you know (and anyway you care less) about software development, but there are some very different phases you go through in the life of building particular features.  The beginning part is all about figuring out what it's supposed to do and how it should look.  Then you get into a bunch of other crap.  Well, I'm at the beginning of a couple big projects, and being the lead, not only do I have to come up with and then communicate my own thoughts, but I also have to bring in a bunch of other people.  And a bunch of other leads are doing the same thing with their projects, so sometimes it's a real PITA to get everyone's feedback early.  But I've learned the hard way that if you don't get it early, you're going to get it later, and cause yourself a bunch more headaches.

So, I'm in the midst of some crazy meeting-after-meeting-after-meeting crap.  Actually, it's my favorite part of the whole software development process, so it's pretty interesting.  But it never seems to go smooth enough.  Not only that, but I got asked to head up a task force to make sure that a lot of different teams are doing things the right way in terms of all this early definition.  So, not only am I doing my own stuff, I'm guiding other teams in theirs.  It's a good thing being recognized/asked to lead all this, but it does make for more work.

Oh, yeah, kids' basketball seasons kicked off last Saturday.  Coaching both of their teams, so write off a lot of evenings.  Well, not write off, because again I enjoy it, and my kids both still think it's cool I'm their coach.  But between work and basketball, not much time for anything else.

That said, in the spirit of taking stock of oneself at the beginning of the year, I'm making some resolutions both directly and indirectly related to poker.  Indirectly:

• Get more sleep.  Yeah, this will even further reduce my hand volume...it's already next to nothing.  But, I'd been waking up too tired, and I think it was affecting my whole life, not just poker.  Especially struggling with some run-bad, I need as much help as I can get on the mental/emotional front.
• Get myself in shape.  Over the last couple years especially, I've completely failed with good food discipline.  Too many sweets and too much of everything in general.  Exercise has been better than that, but not consistent enough, and probably not intense enough.  I'm making a concerted effort to improve both areas.  Again, I think those things will help with a more stable and better attitude at the tables.

Honestly, because they affect so much more than just poker, those are the things I'm really trying to get right.  However, as far as poker habits go, I plan to add the following:

• More training video review.  I really slacked off here the last couple months.  From Oct - Dec, I think I watched 2 or 3 vids intensely (notes, pause before action/explanation, etc.), and another couple casually.  I don't think I'm at the point where I need to go overboard, but if nothing else, it's a different way to focus your thinking.

I will still review most sessions (unrealistic to say I'll do all, even though I'd like to do that), and dig out some trouble hands for review.  I still plan to continue periodic coaching lessons, even though I'm pretty light on hand volume.  And really excited about recently connecting with Ian and reconnecting with Mark for some regular review.  Both have been awesome about accommodating my wacky schedule, so thanks very much to both of you for that.