Shartnado

Tonight was incline bench dumbell / hammer curl day. Started with the bench straight up and did a set of 5 with 79's. Then 2 sets with 88's, 5 and 6 reps, respectively. Then increased the incline of the bench by one notch and the seat one notch more upright and did 2 sets with 88's, 10 and 8, respectively. After that, I increased the incline by another notch and kept the seat at previous position. I did another 2 sets with 88's, 8 and 8 reps. There was also 7 sets of hammer curls one with the 79's and the rest with 88's. By the end those were looking pretty lame, considering what my forearms went through with the Trapbar last night. I also did 5 sets of narrow lat pull-downs to the front with resistance bands. Reduced version of ab work at the end. Most likely that was the last "real" workout for me this year although I will try to do my best keeping up with home workouts and some cardio. I will keep you posted on when I will fail to qualify as a cruiserweight, so far 204 and change has been the highest I've seen. Depending on what I will make for lunch/dinner for the rest of the week, it may not take that long.

Finally up to speed with ROH and also watched the episode with Athena vs Kiera Hogan street fight. I was upset that Josh Woods didn't qualify for Survival of the Fittest, but Fletcher getting in throws a monkeywrench into the gears of Dalton Castle being the obvious choice. I'm conflicted now. Glad to see Taya back and there's a match for Athena, once we see if Billie has what it takes!

Rampage was fun, and Bryan vs Garcia was fire, but I had to give it 3 tries before seeing it all the way through because of night shift and falling back to sleep on the couch. Abadon getting things to do was also nice. Good showing by Matt Sydal (and Daniels) as usual. Collision was a hell of a show! Eddie on the board! Claudio's tournament is not going great! Willow vs Mercedes was good, but I was distracted by trying to figure out Diamante's awesome pants! Then got even more distracted with Statlander's bad ass outfit. Kenny vs Ethan Page ended up being an excellent match. Big Bill trying to make sure the tag title match won't happen for awhile. Wardlow with the same hair as last time trying to throw us off the scent was a nice touch. Willie Mack was game but trying to hit one of your big moves only to end up in the position for your opponent's best move was bad strategy. Menard and Cool Hand getting a real entrance and a reaction to match their awesome theme was goosebumbs moment for me. The promo before the match and the short advancement of the Ruby-Cool Hand saga were a nice touch as well. I wonder if Anna Jay is slowly taking Toni's spot in what used to be The Outcasts? Too bad that 2.0 couldn't get the win, but I guess Penta & Kommander needed momentum for the upcoming trios match? Main event was so bad ass! Very hard hitting. Too bad that the picture in picture parts were cut out of this episode. It happens some times on DAZN, maybe it's just on Rampage and Collision. Bryan fell victim to his harsh schedule, Andrade and Brody now on top of the food-chain. A lot of interesting stuff all around.

Trapbar this evening. Also tried the 88lb one arm dumbell overhead press and was able to get 1,5 reps with the right arm but only two half reps with the left. Started with the deficit lifts, standing on two blocks. Warm up without gloves with 185 and 305, then 422. Then ran into trouble with 466 and had to put on gloves AND Versas to get it up from a smaller deficit. 500 off the smallest deficit and then it was off to the blocks. Didn't try anything from the floor level. 610 off 3/4 blocks, 689,5 off 4/5 blocks and 742 off the full blocks. Then even the shoes came off for 789,5 and during my time off I came up with a way to add another 11lbs on the bar, so I went for the record. 843,5 with a slightly questionable lock out, but I did get it up. Going back down I did 1x749, 3x654 and 7x559,5. Then shrugs with 464.5 and 370, then I was desperately out of time.

Need to watch the main event again, as I dozed off as usual since the couch is so comfy. Taurus' ring gear is so cool, and he looked to be in a fantastic shape. Mystesis jr kept showing crazy stuff. The ref work in many of the matches was such that it would have made my late grandfather totally lose his shit. He did not like bad officiating, at all! This was a very interesting look at AAA talent and it's sponsors, as the commercials for products and companies were constantly displayed on the screen. One of them seemed to be for motor oil, or something similar. Entertaining stuff and the tag matches gave it more Lucha flavor and also didn't burn any big singles matches on "free" tv. Vikingo vs Black Taurus one on one would be super!

Went for a 45-minute jog this morning. I felt like dying almost the entire time. Well, I need to keep it up with all this extra free time in my hands. The weather was definitely about as good as it is going to get during winter, so that wasn't really the issue here.

@Contentious C I assume that my Versa Gripps aren't extreme,, they are so old by now that extremes may be a newer design or material or whatever. I think mine are at least size M, so I can use gloves with wrist-wraps underneath the Versas. I think this has reduced their ability to dig into my wrists/skin. Yours being size S may render that option impossible or very impractical, but that's how I have been able to use them without too much issues. There is also the chance that the extreme versions are just somehow designed worse than the (most likely) regular ones.

I was like, wait who? But then I realized it's Nick Wayne's Mom. Just glad that he could still go through the matches. Considering his thing is mostly stiff shots, boots, knees and things of that nature, reduced to brawling doesn't actually change his matches ALL that much. At least it won't take away his best stuff.

Yeah, that happens sometimes. Better luck on the rewatch, after some decent sleep.

Man, that was good! It seemed like RUSH wasn't wrestling with the urgency that it takes to beat Mox and it ended up biting him in the ass. Ok, so Adam Page is now a suspect, but that was very red herringy shit that made MJF look more guilty than Page, here. Roddy WAS using the wheelchair as a crutch, I knew it! Also, I kept yelling to myself RENEEE! before he actually said it and still almost spat my coffee out when he did! Swerve vs Briscoe was a hell of a match by the end, and it definitely looks like the real league finals with Mox and Swerve next week. A draw there would give White a shot at winning, with his win over Lethal tonight. Fans were having a blast with the Jay chants during their match. Shit like that couldn't happen in WWE, but that's not actually the fans' fault. Great introduction for Timeless Toni and a really good showing by Skye Blue, except for the Code Blue, once again. It has looked more like a twisting sunset flip recently, with a decided lack of "bomb" impact on it. I wonder if May will take on Riho in her in-ring debut? Yeah, the tag match didn't happen, but this made MJF look guilty as shit, but there's no way Roddy can be right about this, right? Also, Roddy vs Hangman next week is so random that it can't be random at all. The main event ended up being really good. The spear on spear spot was terrific. I expected Nick Wayne's Mom to choose her son, no matter the cost, so yeah, that made sense, even though she probably felt sick doing it. Bryan having 3 matches in 7 days is just begging for a disaster at this point, but it weaves an interesting story, no doubt!

It was something like "all I have to do is pick my nose from this certain spot and it will start to bleed," Also, from what Lawler tells, Vince wasn't aware of this skill at the time and was concerned once he noticed it, thinking that Jerry is that afraid of heights and started calming him down on commentary. If that is true or not, I don't know, but they did show a clip of the commentary where Vince was standing up at the desk and saying "You're going to be alright" to Jerry.

Goddammit, Zakk!

Yes it was. He had some prior injury from early career that enabled him to do that on cue. He said on commentary that if he gets that high he gets a nosebleed and proceeded to do his trick to prove that point!

Went for a brisk walk for about 45 minutes in the early afternoon and did a brief 30-minute home workout with push-up handles, resistance bands and kettlebells. I should probably do something similar tomorrow as well.

Phew!

That's quite the move, right there!

Yeah, I was thinking that if Loco had to do ALL that to try and win a match and still fail, how the hell is he ever going to win a match?

This is my shocked face: OK, now what?

If Garcia drags it out to a draw with Brody, Kingston still has a small chance. It might require Andrade and Bryan going to a draw as well, but that's definitely within the realm of possibility, right?

It's so sad to see someone work so hard to finally make it and then, in a moment of hubris, put it all on the line and end up falling face first into a big pile of shit from to word go! He can still turn this around, but it's getting down to the wire and his success now depends on other people failing worse than he has. I don't envy him.

I would imagine tagliatelle would also reqiure some unusual methods in order to work. I might be persuaded to pay to see someone try, though!

This is also something you need to be wary of when making spaghetti when you are way too tired to be cooking and continuously nodding off.

The Ronda/Marina vs Athena/Billie was awesome, with nice continuation the following week with Billie vs Marina. The MIT graduation ceremony afterwards being the thing that made Billie snap was good and it was a nice nod to Billie's own graduation, except totally opposite. I was very happy for Lexi though, she totally deserved it after having Athena's back during the Eddie Kingston-promo! Well, now it's Billie's time to show if she learned anything studying under Athena's learning tree, or was this just an extended lesson in bullying? There was some other good matches within those two episodes, was happy to see Butcher and The Blade show up. Komander vs Gringo Loco was pretty insane and one would think Dalton Castle would be the obvious choice for the next TV champion. Need to watch Andretti vs Cage again, because I dozed off. The idea of that match intrigues me, at least.

Another attempt at gym today. Pretty much more of the same as yesterday, only lighter. There was no way I was going to do Trapbar today, so I just wanted to get something in. Started with lat pull-downs with resistance bands and more bicep curls with dumbells on an incline bench. 6 sets overall, with 31's, 35's, 39,5's, 44's, 48,5's and 35's. After each set I did a set of incline dumbell bench with a pronounced full range of motion, stopping at the bottom on each rep. Then I did a set of shrugs with each weight. More light side and rear delt work, reverse shrugs and semi decent ab work, and I think that was about it for today. I hope to get a couple of home workouts in before the weekend. I have only two more work days (nights) this year, so home workouts are going to be pretty much all I have for rest of December.

I had this exact notion, too!