My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport partially due to injuries in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. I have  degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, and herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs (all joints). I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical.  I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story. 

You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE. 

My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come. 

* Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.

Lifting

Monday. Shoulders.

Side raises and front raises with light dumbbells
* same as I always do. Multiple sets of 10 to 15 reps for a warm up until the shoulders start to feel good, then I move on. The next exercise was seated, side raises for 4 sets of 10 to 15 repetitions. All sets to failure using a very slow tempo.

Kettlebell swings.
I experimented a little bit with this exercise, and what I found was if I leaned back or put my butt back onto the prone bench and used that to lean back against, then instead of having the kettlebells in front of me for the swings, I actually let the kettlebells come behind me for the swing, so the kettlebells are going behind my back, but that's also under the bench, the way that prone bench is set up, so for you to visualize this ... and next time I'll try to remember to take a picture of it ... if you were leaning back against a glute ham raiser, if you were leaning back against a 0 to 90 bench and it wasn't going to move, you'd have that space behind you that's going to allow for the kettlebells to go back in there.

I actually was getting a greater range of motion, even though it is still a swing, which is a short range of motion to begin with, but it was giving me a greater stretch, which made a huge difference with these. I did two warm up sets with 15 pound kettlebells, and that was just to make sure that the bench wasn't going to slide or I wasn't going to fall over. Whenever I experiment with something like this, I want to make sure that everything's strong and stable. Do a couple warm up sets just to make sure I'm not going to fall on my ass. Then I went up to 4 sets of 20 to 25 repetitions, all sets to failure.

Rear delt machine,
*2 warm up sets of 10, then 4 sets of 20 to 25 to failure.

Kettlebell front raises.
I only used one kettlebell, grabbed the bell with both hands in a seated position, did a front raise up to about eye level, paused for a second and brought it back down, 4 work sets of 10 to 15 repetitions. Most of the repetitions were failing in the 10 to 12 range.

Rear delt raises using chains and a straight handle.
The straight handle is exactly as it sounds: Just a straight handle. There's not a double D handle. It's just like a stick that attaches to the chains. Lying on my side on a flat bench, rear delt raises, 4 sets with each arm of 8 to 10 repetitions each set to failure.

Seated machine press - neutral grip
On this movement, I just did the bottom end, the bottom 50%, so partials. One warm up set to figure out what the weight was going to be, and then three sets of 50 repetitions and that was it.

Life

Busted Sleep

A few other things to bring you up to speed on outside of just the training, just my life of being a mashed-up meat-head, is first the sleep apnea that I was diagnosed with, I was prescribed or given a CPAP machine and fortunately, I was lucky enough to get something that's brand new. It has a modem and Bluetooth, so it's sending all the information to my provider, the doctor, and the Bluetooth has a phone app, which lets me see all the information as well, so within the first couple of weeks I was 97% compliant, whatever the hell that means, but based upon the numbers that I'm seeing, I'm actually getting more sleep than I was getting before, which is a good thing.

How is it impacting my recovery? To be honest, I really can't tell. I can't tell you right now. I'm not going to come out of the gate and be one of these guys that says this thing has changed my life, because it hasn't. It's still fucking uncomfortable. I'm using a nose pillow, so it's taking a little getting used to that. I don't like listening or I don't like wearing the stupid thing, but I'm getting used to it. I will say at this point, after a couple of weeks, I don't want to sleep without it, so I will say that much. I'm not going to come out and say I love the thing and think it's a game changer and all the great things that you hear about it, but I will say that I'm not going to try to go to sleep without it.

Busted Teeth

A few days ago, or last week,  who knows? I never even know what day it is half the time. I noticed some issues with my teeth, which I probably have one of the most expensive mouths in the country from all the fucking dental work that I've had over the years. Anyhow, to make a long story short, this led to an emergency appointment to make sure that my teeth weren't going to fall out, and then once that was figured out, determining what the actual issues were.

I have re-broke two of the crowns that I've had that were crowned because of other crowns that I've broke that were crowned because of teeth that I broke, which all comes from years ago straining with max effort work, or straining through sets, and I do have a dental mouthpiece that I do use, but as we discussed today when I was in the office, we're going to have to make some adjustments to that because obviously it's not working like it should because I'm still breaking teeth. Then some issues with a couple of other teeth, which is basically going to put me in a dental chair later this week for about three hours, which I'm really, really, really fucking looking forward to.

Busted Hips

Next item on the agenda is if you've been following my log, you've seen that I've made a couple of notations in regards to my hip ... which would be my real hip, not the replaced hip ... flaring up and starting to become symptomatic. When I had my left hip replaced, the x-rays showed my right hip was pretty much just as bad, if not actually a little worse, but it was not symptomatic. Over the last few weeks, I started to feel the same feelings that I was before my left hip really got bad, so I had an appointment to see my orthopedist today to go over what I basically thought was going to be the schedule on when I was going to get my hip replaced, but after the x-rays and testing and range of motion testing, what we actually found is my range of motion has improved since a couple of years ago. The joint actually looks better ... which surprised the shit out of me ... then it did two years ago, and after some probing and pushing around, the issue was bursitis, so after a few cortisone injections, I'm out the door.

Everything's good and the hip is really good, so I was really surprised about that. I've been a big believer in this MAT therapy that I've been doing since before my other hip had to be replaced, so it's going on almost 2 1/2 years now, and I'm now a firm, solid 100% believer because we've kept the hip from having to be replaced, as well as the shoulder and actually seeing physical differences in regards to the space in the joint, which I'm not quite sure how that all came to be and happen. We'll have to speak with my physical therapist about that, but for me, it's definitely working and it's the right track to stay on.

As for the hip that was replaced. It has been close to 2 years and I was told it was one of the best hip replacements he has ever seen two years after replacement. No wear and tear, great range of motion and everything looks great.