80kg Sandbag for 50 metres
Training for UKSA 2011
Lift Goals: Yet Another Update
Hi There.
I managed to miss my Squat and Deadlift goals and so took a week off to deload.
The progress I did make was OK though, from January 2011 to April 2011:
Squat: Started at 130kg – ended at 150kg
Bench: Started at 100kg – ended at 130kg
Deadlift: Started at 175lg – ended at 200kg
I’ve set some more long-term goals, the big 3 goals for January 2012 are:
Squat: 200kg
Bench: 150kg
Deadlift: 240kg
They may seem like huge jumps for 8 months, but there’s nothing wrong with aiming high, especially with “beginners gains!”.
On a more expensive note, I’ve had to yet again throw out (or hand down) my shirts and some trousers. Replacing 17″ neck shirts with 18″ slim fit shirts. I’ve seen some alright looking 19″ for sale, so I’m not worried about the future!
The shirts I’ve purchased are mostly from Charles Tyrwhitt - http://www.ctshirts.co.uk – 4 x 18″ Slim Fit shirts for £70, bargain. And 1 x 18″ slim fit from Austin Reed http://www.austinreed.co.uk/ – this one feels like better quality material, but is also much larger than the others, cost £22 which is also an acceptable price.
Hex Colour Clock: javascript version
Inspired by http://www.thecolourclock.co.uk/ – I decided to quickly make the CSS3 Javascript HTML5 OMG WTF BBQ version, it can be found here: http://d62.net/demos/js/hex_clock.html
View source on that page to view the full detail, basically, repeated calls to setTimeout are made to update the background colour of the body tag based on the current time padded to 2 figures (15:06:10 at the time of writing this) these are concatenated together to form the hex colour value of #150610
Header Navigation: Showing more with less
Not being a designer, I had to find a way to add more options to the header of a client’s internal case management system.
I found this and implemented it easily: http://www.jankoatwarpspeed.com/post/2009/01/19/Create-Vimeo-like-top-navigation.aspx
The example given requires no javascript. I’ve amended that with the excerpt below to improve the search functionality (using jQuery):
$('.searchType').click(function(){
$('.searchType').removeClass('activeSearch');
$(this).addClass('activeSearch');
$('#searchField').attr('search_type', $(this).attr('search_type'));
});
$('#searchField').bind('keypress', function(e) {
if(e.keyCode == 13) {
$('#searchClick').click();
}
});
$('#searchClick').click(function(){
$search_field = $('#searchField');
$val = $search_field.val();
$type = $search_field.attr('search_type');
if ($type == 'finance'){
document.location = '/invoiceSearch/q='+$val;
} else if ($type == 'fnol') {
document.location = '/fnolSearch/q='+$val;
} else {
document.location = '/claimSearch/q='+$val;
}
});
});
This highlights the search item selected, I replaced the checkboxes with labels with an attribute named ‘search_type’ which determines which search module is used later.
The search field also accepts the return key to submit it, to allow power-users to keep their hands on the keyboard!
Before:
After:
Lift Goals Q1 2011 – February Update
Shortly before the end of 2010 I set some goals for this year. My first goal deadline is April, My original aims were:
- Deadlift 200kg (from 175kg)
- Squat 160kg (from 130kg)
- Bench 120kg (from 100kg)
Because I hadn’t done enough of these lifts before, consistently, I underestimated how much I could improve through technique improvements alone.
I’ve increased these targets to the following:
- Deadlift 210kg
- Squat 160kg
- Bench 130kg
My current personal bests are:
- Deadlift 200kg
- Squat 135kg
- Bench 120kg
With 2 months to go, my squat progress is very poor compared to everything else, this will be my focus for February.
One thing about the 10kg increase in my bench is that it finally puts me at a > 1000lb total (1001 to be precise!.) That’s pretty weak for a 230lb guy, but hopefully I can continue increasing steadily to get to 1100 by april and 1250 by 2012. Maybe by then I will have the confidence to compete?
Liquid Chalk – Deadlift Grip
As someone that uses a gym with a chalk ban. The best tool in helping my grip strength so far has been Liquid Chalk.
Liquid chalk is intended for rock climbers to keep a secure grip, but has similar applications in weight lifting.
I purchased “pure grip chalk” from decathlon a few weeks ago to see how good it was and i’ve been impressed – it can also be bought online from Amazon at Beal Pure Grip Liguid Chalk
The label states “powder free”, this isn’t true, but it is a lot cleaner than using a block of chalk.
Having completely dry hands makes a massive difference in grip ability. I tried my PB deadlift without this and found it impossible to keep my grip. On the same day I used some liquid chalk and pulled it easily.
I’m not particularly recommending this chalk, since I haven’t used any other brands. I would encourage you to try any and see how it goes.
Lift Goals Q1 2011
It’s increasingly less un-stereotypical now, but as an IT worker who sits at a computer all day, i’m working toward amassing a completely useless amount of strength, via powerlifting/weightlifting.
Shortly before the end of 2010 I set some goals for this year. My first goal deadline is April, I’m aiming to:
- Deadlift 200kg
- Squat 160kg
- Bench 120kg
My current achievements are:
- Deadlift 175kg
- Squat 130kg
- Bench 100kg
I’m going to do this by using increasing lower rep sets as each workout goes and more importantly, listening to my body when hitting the gym. If i don’t feel that a body part is ready to be worked again, I won’t go, or will do something else.
For example; Bench Day:
- Warmup @ 50kg x 8
- 1 Set @ 70kg x 6
- 1 Set @ 90kg x 4
- 1 Set @ 100kg x 2
This kind of routine seems to work for me for Squats and Deadlifts, it remains to be seen if I can increase my Bench in the same way. All i know is that my chest hurts for days after.
Update:
I hit my first target: Deadlifts, on the 20th, easily got 200kg x 2 but couldn’t get 205 off the ground (by then it would’ve been my 6th set though) – 3 months early! I’m increasing my target to 210kg to make it 2xbodyweight
Managed 3x110kg Bench Yesterday, couldn’t do 120kg but didnt try 115. Increasing target to 130kg since I’m close already. Squats in a few days so if I have a spotter that might get smashed too!
Converting Sage Data to MySQL
Recently I came across a post by Rick Vause demonstrating a simple method for syncing your financial data from sage up onto your webserver. The advantages of this are plenty, most frequently this is required to show live stock and financial data on a web application.
I say simple, because the concept really is obvious once you read the code.
His post is here: sagetomysql
The process is easy to understand:
- Setup a DSN to the sage data, using the sage tool.
- Write a PHP script to connect to the DSN using PHP’s ODBC
- Add a MySQL connection to your PHP script.
- Tell ODBC which table you want to copy across
- Loop through the field names and field types with PHP’s odbc_field_name and odbc_field_type
- Allow the PHP script to create the duplicate table in your MySQL database.
- Copy the data across using php, updating records if this is not the first run
This script works fine for a single table, but it can be improved using odbc_tables().
We can eliminate the process of specifying the sage table name, and get all of the data online in one go. odbc_tables allows us to loop through every table in the Sage data source and pull them through into our initial database.
I’ve made the required modifications to Rick’s script and uploaded it here:
http://d62.net/demos/php/sage_to_mysql.phps
It’s currently untested, but I will be using it in some projects soon, so any required updates will be made then.
It’s worth noting that due to PHP’s large database support, it’s possible to convert it to any of the supported databases just by changing some of the function names used and confirming the CREATE TABLE syntax in those.
With some small modifications to use PEAR::SpreadSheet_Excel_Writer it could even just dump all of the data to an excel file – not very practical, but cool to know it can be done.
Yii: CActiveForm JUI – Slider Input (CJuiSliderInput)
After the topic yesterday about using a jQuery UI date picker in Yii forms, i’ll demonstrate a similar method of obtaining a slider form input for the same scenario:
In my example i’m setting the value of employee_holiday_entitlement by dragging a slider.
<div>
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model, 'employee_holiday_entitlement'); ?>
<?php
$this->widget('zii.widgets.jui.CJuiSliderInput', array(
'name' => CHtml::activeName($model, 'employee_holiday_entitlement'),
'value' => $model->attributes['employee_holiday_entitlement'],
// additional javascript options for the slider plugin
'options' => array(
'min' => 0,
'max' => 50,
'change' => 'js:function(){
$("#employee_holiday_entitlement_value").html($(this).slider("value"));
}'
),
));
?>
<span id="employee_holiday_entitlement_value"><?php echo $model->attributes['employee_holiday_entitlement']; ?></span>
<?php echo $form->error($model, 'employee_holiday_entitlement'); ?>
</div>
This will add a slider with an upper limit of 50, the “change” option is specified with a javascript callback to update the span below the slider with the current value. This gives the user an indication of the number they’ve chosen.
Yii: CActiveForm JUI – JQuery UI Inputs (CJuiDatePicker)
I found it pretty difficult to find a reference for how to integrate a jQuery UI date picker in with my CActiveForm view and model.
This is what I found to work correctly for datepicker, for the model field “dob_date”.
<div>
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model, 'dob_date'); ?>
<?php
$this->widget('zii.widgets.jui.CJuiDatePicker', array(
'name' => CHtml::activeName($model, 'dob_date'),
'value' => $model->attributes['dob_date'],
));
?>
<?php echo $form->error($model, 'dob_date'); ?>
</div>
You might need to wrap a function around $model->attributes['dob_date'] to output it as dd/mm/YYYY from a timestamp if that’s the type of field the model attribute represents
