Deloads are important. Duh.

I've been waking up for the past 3-4 days feeling completely exhausted, even though I've been sleeping 8 or more hours each night and I don't feel like I'm restless or not sleeping well. On Thursday I had to cut my workout short because I literally ran out of steam, on my third set of tricep pull-downs I got 6 out of a planned 12 reps and then my arms just . . . stopped working.

I woke up yesterday feeling legit sick so decided to cancel my weekend plans (which was a serious bummer, because they involved a lake + a boat + some absurdly amazing people) and really try to take it easy to get myself in decent shape to start work next week. This morning I didn't feel sick, but still totally exhausted, so I gave myself some time to wake up before heading to the gym (perhaps you are thinking if I were feeling so tired and ill I should have taken the day off, but I have learned from experience that skipping workouts makes me so anxious that unless I literally can't get out of bed I am better off just going to the gym to get done whatever I can.)

I made it through my warm-up and 7 sets of deadlifts working up to 231#x6, with all reps feeling clean and efficient. This is close to a rep PR as back in May I pulled 236#x5, but I am certain that today was with better form. I'm happy that I appear to have maintained/increased my strength on my conventional deadlift by pulling sumo all summer - kudos to my coach for helping me do that.

After finishing my deadlifts I had planned to do Anderson front squats again, but after the first set I knew I was done. I had NO desire to keep going and my body just ached. So, in what I hope was a smart move I packed up my stuff and came home. I am trying to get better about listening to what my body needs, and I think today it needs rest.

One reason I am fairly sure that rest is in order is that it was enroute to the gym that I remembered that this week should have been a deload week, but I changed it to a x5 week instead, with a x1 week planned for next week and then a deload the following week, essentially meaning that instead of the usual 3 weeks on/1 week off, I was asking my body to do 5 weeks on/1 week off. Not a terrible idea, except for the fact that I have tried this before and . . . it pretty much always ends up like this - with me over-tired and not able to get through all my planned work. Yeah, lesson learned yet again, I suppose. Maybe this time I will remember it?? The reason for the change-up was to better time my next deload week so it happens right before my October comp, but I will need to re-work my calendar and plans because I clearly need to deload now, not a week from now.

Pittsburgh Update and Bench Day

Highlights/notes from my Pittsburgh trip:

• Being asked twice if I was in college. Perhaps because there are fewer college students in Pittsburgh to compare people to, I look younger there. Regardless, I liked it.
• Squatting without my Olympic lifting shoes. I was able to get 180#7, with most reps to comp depth. I definitely missed the stability of my lifting shoes, but I think it's good practice to squat sometimes without them, both to challenge my hip mobility and because becoming too dependent on any lifting aid (shoes, wraps, etc) seems like a bad idea to me.
• I definitely prefer training in the morning than in the afternoon. Over the past couple weeks I have been trying to shift my training from 8 or 9am to 3 or 4pm to help get me adjusted to my new schedule once I start clinic. That was my plan in Pittsburgh as well, but I ran out of time on Tuesday to squat and so went Wednesday morning instead. It was my first morning workout in a while and I forgot how much I like starting the day that way. Lifting before clinic would mean waking up at 4:30am though, so I think I am just going to have to get used to afternoon/evening training.
• Talking about physical therapy and the strength and conditioning stuff I have learned with my family and friends in Pittsburgh rather than with fellow students/meatheads (two somewhat overlapping groups of people) in Boston makes me realize how much knowledge and information I have actually picked up over the past couple of years. This is a really helpful realization as I have definitely been anxious about starting my full-time year-long clinical rotation next week.

Training today (back at my beloved Central Square Y):

Warmup: landmine presses and band pull-aparts

Bench: 6 sets working up to 120#x2,2,1, supersetted with seated cable rows.

Accessory: 3 sets of band pull-ups and triceps work (supposed to be 5 but I literally just ran out of steam)

Finisher: Overhead waiter carries.

I increased my working 1 rep max for bench to 140# because I want to challenge myself on my weights, even though my actual 1RM is more like 130-135#. So instead of getting 115#x5 (which would have been my final programmed lift if I were still using 135# as my I rep max), I went for 120# and got a couple good doubles and a single in. I also used my lifting shoes today for benching, I liked the stability they provided and I think they help me get more leg drive, but they also somehow have me put more strain through my lumbar spine while benching, so I think I'll stick with my minimalist Inov-8s going forward.

Confidence

I know that one of my main issues in terms of getting peak performance on my main lifts in the gym, and especially in competition situations, is confidence in my abilities, or a lack thereof. For instance, I fully believe that I am capable of deadlifting 275# pounds physically, but yesterday the little whisps of doubt began to sneak in as I assessed how much weight was on the bar and that although I had gotten up 280# at my last comp, it was just barely and with terrible form. Basically instead of just believing that I could complete the pull and just attacking it I started coming up with reasons I might not be able to before I even tried. Recipe for failed lifts right there.

Today was bench day and I knew I should be trying for a 130#x1 max lift. Since hitting 135# with Chris in May, I have failed at 130# twice in my last two x1 week cycles. This is not exactly confidence boosting. Today I knew I wanted to get good work in, but I also wanted to help myself succeed, so rather than doing the prescribed work sets of 100#x5, 115#x3 and 130#x1 and potentially (probably?) failing at 130# yet again, after I hit 115#x3 I went to 120#x1 and then 125# for two more singles (the first of which was definitely NOT competition-legal, but the second probably would have passed with the judges.) All of this was without a spotter, which I think also helps my confidence and is good practice as well because there's no spotter at the competition. The psychological boost of only adding 5# at a time to the bar is incredibly helpful, and I think with this strategy going forward I should be able to hit 130-5# easily before October 12.

Training today:
Warm-up: landmine presses and band pull-aparts
Bench: 9 sets working up to 125#x1,1. Supersetted with cable rows
Accessory: band pull-ups and triceps work
Finisher: Single-arm overhead waiter carries around the boxing gym with 35# dumbbell

P.s. For those regular readers (thank you, by the way!) the blog may be a bit quiet over the next week as I'm traveling to Pittsburgh to visit the family. Though lifting at the neighborhood YMCA by my Mom's house is usually good for at least a couple decent gym stories. The last time I was there, a fellow lifter told me I reminded him of Annie Thorisdottor, which is pretty much as good as it gets as far as gym compliments go :)

Deadlifts for everyone!

This morning I met Chris to train at 7am. Considering I've fully adjusted to vacation sleeping-in and have been setting an alarm to get myself out of bed before 8:30 for the past week (trying to slowly ease myself back into 6am wake-ups once clinic starts), getting up at 5:55am in order to be ready to train at 7 would have been arduous if I hadn't been so happy to be training with Chris for the first time since June.

I think I have gotten better about being my own coach and working on form/technique on my own and being realistic about when I am sandbagging and when I am actually tired and need to back off. But no matter how good I get at coaching myself, I always love, and still prefer, training with Chris and getting really on-point and incredibly helpful coaching from him.

To make it even better, it was deadlift day! Chris + deadlifts = awesome.

In preparation for the October competition, I am switching my deadlift stance back to conventional as I am still able to pull significantly more weight that way. Today I worked up to 265#x1 and tried a couple attempts at 275#x1 but couldn't quite get them. I broke each one off the floor, but felt my back round and stopped each attempt after a couple inches. I want to pull heavy but I also want to pull clean and keep protecting my back. With cues from Chris to tuck my chin/pack my neck and stay tight through my shoulders/mid-back, I was happy with my form throughout and feel good about getting 265# cleanly. My last competition deadlift was 260# and that was with caving knees and a rounded back, so definitely much improved today.

We ended the workout with 4 sets of walking lunges to crab crawls, without rest. It was brutal and also brutally fun. It's impossible to push myself as hard on my own as when I'm training with other people, and Chris comes up with the most satisfyingly terrible finishers.

Somewhat randomly, but in keeping with the deadlift theme, I really liked this article from Girls Gone Strong on different deadlift forms and suggestion for which type is best for where you are in your training.

Deadlifts for everyone!!

________________

Training today:
Kettlebell warm-up
Deadlifts: 9 sets working up to 265#x1
Accessory: Anderson front squats - low weight and low depth - absolutely killer
Finisher: walking lunges and crab crawls

Pain in training

Today was my first time squatting with the barbell in a couple weeks, since August 5 to be precise, and on that day I was only able to squat 126#x5 to depth and 155#x5 for partials. My knee felt unstable and hurt quite a bit coming up from the bottom of each squat, and I probably shouldn't have been squatting at all, but I was still hoping that I hadn't really done any damage the week before. Happily, today I (pretty effortlessly, as far as squatting goes) worked my way up to 199# for three clean singles. My knee didn't hurt at all while I was squatting, and only twinged a little between sets and afterwards, which I take more as adjustment to being under load again rather than an indication of further injury. All in all it was a seriously great day at the gym. With the competition 8 weeks away, I want to be able to spend the next couple months cementing the improvements I've made in my form and adding a some weight to the bar.

Though the last month has been a helpful lesson in terms of managing minor injury and working around it rather than allowing it to derail all progress, I'm still not great at dealing with pain. Pain makes me anxious and starts my mind spinning in all sorts of crazy directions ("I'll never be able to squat again!", "I've torn my meniscus and need surgery!" "If I were a better powerlifter I'd be able to push through this!") none of them in any way helpful That said, I am working on being better about being able to tease out the kinds of pain I am feeling.

There is true red-light injury pain which means you have to stop what you're doing and go rehab the crap out of whatever you just effed up (which may mean resting it for a while to let it heal, I think this can be one of the hardest steps to take.) Then there's the more yellow-light irritation/warning pain, which is what I'd classify my knee pain over the last month or so as being, this pain generally means you need to fix your mechanics STAT or you're heading for red-light injury pain ASAP - I think I pushed the limits a bit on this, continuing to squat heavy without really cleaning up my mechanics, which is why I've had to take time off. To round this out I would say there's also green-light pain, which is the burning muscles and aching body that comes with heavy training and though it may feel like pain at first and be a little scary, it is actually just part of the process and ultimately necessary for progress. I know when I first started training I tended to back off at the first sign of intense discomfort (green light pain), and I think once I got over that I perhaps went a little to far in the other direction, being willing to work through yellow light pain rather than let it stop me and re-direct my work for the day (from loading up the bar with as much weight as possible to instead focusing on form and mechanics.)

Training today:
Squats: 8 sets working up to 199#x1,1,1
Accessory: Snatch grip pause deadlifts
Finisher: Kettlebells (I couldn't get through my complex today, I don't know if it was fatigue or something else, so went with straight swings with the 20kg bell for 40, 30, 15, 15 reps with about a 45 second rest between each set.)

Coconut Oil Deodorant

I sweat. A lot. Like really, really, really A LOT. Both at the gym, where it's totally fine, and in real life, where it can get more awkward. One of the reasons I tend to favor black/dark-colored shirts is that I never really know when my armpits are going to decide it's a good time to go totally batshit crazy and start sweating buckets. This can happen if it's too warm or too cold, if I'm in an embarrassing situation or just sitting around doing nothing. I was diagnosed by a dermatologist once with "hyperhydrosis" but since the treatments for that involve, on the mildest end, painting acid on your skin (for real!) to the more extreme - actually cutting nerves to decrease sympathetic nervous system response (seriously!) - I have opted to just deal with it.

Probably because of my diagnosable ability to produce such impressive amounts of sweat, I have never had much success with deodorant/antiperspirants. I've tried pretty much every brand out there, even the "clinical strength" ones that you're supposed to put on at night and then let seep into your skin and not wash off in the morning (creepy.) My most recent attempt at keeping myself sweat-free led me to Ban brand, which features something like 20% aluminum chloride instead of the usual 12-14%. Aluminum chloride is also the stuff that some say gives you breast cancer/clogs up your lymph nodes/is generally just bad for you/etc. While I'm not taking a stand one way or another on whether antiperspirant/aluminum chloride will kill you/make your armpits cancer-laden time-bombs/etc, it has always sort of bugged me that I was spreading chemicals all over my skin especially because they weren't actually working for me.

A while back I stumbled on a "recipe" for coconut oil deodorant, and being a recent covert to the "coconut/coconut oil is the best thing since sliced bread and even better because bread has gluten and gluten is probably giving you cancer" camp, I figured it was worth a try. Having used it exclusively for the last five months or so, I am happy to report that this stuff WORKS. It keeps me smelling fresh and actually seems to help me sweat less. Don't get me wrong, my armpits are still completely capable of drenching a pastel-colored t-shirt in literally 1-2 minutes of furious sweating, but I have noticed that since I started using the coconut oil deodorant I seem to be sweating less, plus I'm not dumping a bunch of crappy chemicals into my body, which is always a win. I also really like that I can put this on right before I train - it always felt weird in the past to be putting on antiperspirant when I'm going to the gym for the purpose of sweating a lot, but I also never wanted to skip it because I think it's rude to be obnoxiously smelly in a closed environment like the gym. (I have tried just using deodorant in these situations, Old Spice being my favorite, but I think it's also somewhat off-putting to be forced to inhale sweaty pine smells from the lady in the squat rack next to you. I don't want to be that lady.)

This is not my photo, but this is about what my deodorant looks like, depending on how warm it is.

Without further, ado, here's the "recipe" as I have been making it:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup baking soda
• /4 cup corn starch (you can also use arrowroot powder or any other starch here if you think that corn is the devil)
• 2-4 TB coconut oil

Recipe:

• In a medium size bowl (you want room to get in there and really work the coconut oil in), mix the baking soda and corn starch together until well blended.
• Blend in the coconut oil until you have a consistency that is to your liking. I usually use my (clean) hands for this as I think it's easier. I recommend starting with 2 TB and working up from there. The consistency will also change based on how hot it is, as coconut oil melts at about 75 degrees F.

Notes:

• I make my deodorant more on the creamy/liquidy side and store it in a little tub and put it on with my fingers like a lotion. It also works to make it more solid and put it into an old deodorant stick container thing and put it on that way (you can even store it in the fridge to make sure it stays solid), but you have to be more cautious about the coconut oil melting on you and I also think this is way too much work.
• Based on several other recipes I have seen online, you can add essential oils to make it smell like whatever you want, or something like tea tree oil to increase the anti-stank properties of the product even more.
• Why does this stuff work? The baking soda absorbs odors, the corn starch absorbs wetness and the coconut oil has natural anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties that help keep the smelly away.
• I have noticed a tendency for this to show up on black tanktops if I put it on and then the shirt right away, but it also comes off pretty easily (unlike the white streaks you get from traditional deodorant), so it hasn't really been an issue for me.

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" - Voltaire

My nutrition coach wrote an article recently about not letting small slips in behavior mess up your overall direction/plan. She's writing specifically about adherence to nutrition plans, but I think it's relevant for any sort of behavior or behavior change that one is trying to make. It really is so easy and so tempting to let one small error turn into an excuse to let the whole day/week go and just start over tomorrow. I think this is so tempting for me in the food arena because it allows me to indulge all the snacking/sweets eating that I want with at least a shred of (admittedly pathetic) justification (since I already screwed up, what's the point of trying any more.) This is truly counterproductive, as Jen points out, as my body doesn't follow this logic and a couple hundred extra calories in a small slip-up is going to have a way different effect than a few thousand extra calories in a day-long-snackathon.

I have been struggling a little bit over the last week to be as faithful to my nutrition plan as I was for the first 5 weeks. I think this is because I am on my last break between school and clinic and so don't have a regular schedule, which I know helps keep me on track, and I also have the "on vacation" mindset, which would be fine if I actually were on vacation for just a couple days and deciding to treat myself to some good food experiences, but it really doesn't work out so well when vacation is several weeks long and the eating is not unique food-while-traveling experiences but instead just over-eating after Whole Foods shopping trips (so guilty on that one.)

Acknowledging my mistakes helps me not make them going forward, so I'm hoping that for the rest of "vacation" (another two weeks), I will be able to enjoy my relaxed schedule and extra-fun activities (I've already seen two concerts, one ball game and spent time with a bunch of different friends in the past 4 days, so off to a good start), without using that extra time and freedom to justify trashing my nutrition plan. The RPS meet is only 8 weeks away and I still have pounds to shed if I want to come in comfortably in the 198 class. Every decision I make, big or small, will take me closer to or push further from making that weight class easily. The cumulative effect of all these small decisions really is significant, and I need to remember that.

_______________

Training today was interesting. I ate my off-plan meal for the week in the morning at Veggie Galaxy - amazing gluten-free pancakes with berries and coconut whipped cream and tempeh-veggie-potato hash - all absurdly delicious. After the requisite carb-crash nap and a couple hours to digest, I went to train around 2pm. I'm trying to shift to later training times to get ready for the start of clinic, so 2pm is a good start. All the crazy carb ingestion made me feel sluggish as hell, but although I wanted to quit for most of my workout, I noticed that I was actually able to push through and get out quite a bit of work done. Lesson for the day: carbs make my brain lazy but my body into a pretty unstoppable, if somewhat slow-moving, force. Ah well, can't have it all, I suppose.

Training today:
Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys
Split Jerk: 6 sets working up to 110#x1,1.  Supersetted with single-leg inverted rows (which I swear get harder, not easier, every week.)
Accessory: speed bench and single-arm rows, single-arm floor press and midback work.
Finisher: 1000m row (knee felt funky, but not painful, so progress there!)


Random P.s. Though less renowned than Voltaire, the author/business coach Jim Collins has the quote "Good is the enemy of great," which I think is also true on some levels, but more applicable to life/business aspirations (and maybe training?) than nutrition plans.

Progress, if you know where to look.

I finished a training log book today. This only happens about once a year (and has only happened to me once before), so it's pretty exciting. I like flipping back through the books to remind myself of the different programs I've been on through the past year, as well as to check out my progress through the course of the book.

The book on the top is my first training log and the first page is my first ever training session with Chris on November 23, 2011 (yes, the day before Thanksgiving!) That first day I was doing pretty much every exercise with just the bar, and I distinctly remember the agony of holding a 20 second side-plank (with breaks.) I do think it's appropriate though that the first exercise Chris has me do was a deadlift. Feels very full-circle.

By the end of the first book (September 21, 2012) I was box-squatting 220#x1, deadlifting 230#x1 and benching 115#x1 on a modified Westside program. I was also about 2 and half months out from my first powerlifting competition in December 2012. Significant, undeniable progress had been made :)

Comparing the end of the first book/beginning of the second with the end of the second book is where the looking for progress part gets a bit tricky. As of today, my most recent in-gym max lifts are a 236#x1 deadlift, 115#x4,2 bench and a 197#x1 squat back on July 23rd, the last time I squatted heavy at all. In some ways, my deadlift and squat numbers are discouraging, in that I have not added significant weight to my lifts, but looking past the numbers, I know that my deadlift form is cleaner and better for my back, and that my 1 rep max will creep back up with time. I also know that that 220# box squat in September 2012 wasn't even close to breaking parallel for competition, so though I have been struggling to get myself squatting below parallel consistently, I am making progress and I know this number will come back up as well. Somewhere in the middle of the second book I have in-gym lifts of 265#x1,1 deadlift, a 235#x1 competition-depth squat and a 135#x1 bench press. These max numbers exist in me somewhere, I just need to get better at accessing the power and strength that allows me to achieve them on a regular basis.

Looking back is also a really good reminder that this is a long process. I am definitively coming to the end of the two-year period where strength gains come easy, and though I may have been frustrated with the slowness of my progress in the past, it is likely only going to get slower. Patience and persistence are key, and practicing those two attitudes is probably as important as continuing to dial in my form and technique.

Training today:
Warmup: kettlebells (with some pain-free squats with a 12kg bell!)
Deadlift: 9 sets working up to 231#x1, supersetted with core stability work
Accessory work: Smith machine split squats (also pain-free as long as I kept myself focused on activating my glutes and keeping my hips engaged.)
Finisher: 6 burpees --> 6 med ball slams, EMOMx5. (Uphill treadmill sprints will be making a reappearance as soon as I feel like my knee is totally clear and happy again.)

Life/training changes

Yesterday was my last ever day of PT school. The last two years+two months have gone by expectedly and absurdly quickly (while also feeling terribly long at times, mostly during finals.)  I am incredibly excited to be starting my full-time year-long internship at the Brigham on September 3rd, but in the mean time I am enjoying my last summer as a student. While there's been a lot to get done for school this summer, my actual class schedule has been beyond lovely, allowing me to get up on my own each morning, usually between 6:30-7:30, have a relaxed hour checking email and drinking coffee before heading to the gym to train for as long as I want (usually 1.5-2 hours or so) and then back home for a shower, breakfast, etc before needing to be at school, usually around noon or 1pm. It has been amazing.

Starting in September I'll be at the hospital from at least 8-4:30, but probably earlier and later than that, especially in the beginning. This means training after work, which is always more challenging, and I'll have to get better about paring my training time down to more like 75 minutes (which is what it probably should be anyways, most experts agree after 75-90 minutes you're basically wasting your time in terms of strength/muscle gains as well as fat loss.)

Until then though, I am savoring these last couple weeks, and the luxury of having so much time to myself.
________________

Training today:
Warmup: landmine press and band pull-aparts
Bench: 8 sets working up to 115#x3 on my own and 120#x6-7 with a seriously overly generous spot from a guy at the gym (one of the hazards of asking for a spot from a stranger is that the interpretation of what that means is wildly different from person to person. Ah well, still got some good work in.) 2xfail sets at 95#x8,9
Accessory: band chin-ups and triceps work

Not-squatting leg day

Because I am being SMART about letting my knee heal, even though it is hard to do I am not squatting this week. Today would have been squat day but instead I made it a second deadlift/rehab-y day. I ended up working up to 221#x5 conventional deadlift after a bunch of snatch-grip-pause-deads, so all in all was a success. I haven't tried a conventional stance deadlift in a couple months and while it felt a little strange, my back stayed straight(ish) and my knees didn't collapse in so all the sumo-style work I have been putting in is having nice carryover effects too. Yay effective training!

My knee felt good throughout, which was a positive sign, and the kettlebell finisher at the end with a 16kg bell left me sufficiently exhausted/wanting to throw up to make me feel like I'd put in a good day's work :)

The only negative on the day is that it is probably the last time I'll train with Eric for a while since he's moving to the 'burbs to be closer to his clinic placement. This is a major bummer and I will miss him a lot.

Training today:
Snatch grip pause deads (5x5, max at 177#x5.) Conventional dead 221#x5.
Accessory: single-leg bridges and static lunges (all unweighted)
Finisher: Kettlebell complex with 16kg bell. Successfully completed 8,6,4,2 rep sets without vomiting.

All hail compression gear!

Shout out to my compression gear, I swear it really does work. Yesterday evening I went to bed thoroughly exhausted from a super fun weekend, and also thoroughly sore, perhaps because my training sessions were spread out over multiple days last week I ended up working harder? Regardless of the cause, pretty much all my muscles were aching, so last night I slept in my 2XU recovery compression tights and TWO 2XU recovery compression shirts (a women's L active/recovery shirt under a men's M recovery shirt - I find that the women's gives me nice pressure through my waist/low-back and torso and the men's has great compression on my arms and between the two they make my shoulders feel incredibly supported and compressed - it's a strange feeling at first but I love it.) I woke up this morning feeling actually capable of considering hoisting 104# above my head, which is what I did. 6 times in a row in fact, which was 3 more reps than called for this week. Whoo hoo! I think at least part of the reason I was able to do this is I changed my set-up from a strict-press set-up to a rack position (which is how you're supposed to set up for jerks) where you rest the bar on your anterior deltoid/shoulder with your elbows pointed forward and wrists extended so the bar rests more in your fingers close to your palm rather than in the center of your hand like with a strict-press set-up. It feels a little less stable but it's also more flexible and fluid and so encourages more explosive power and is easier to get underneath the bar to finish the jerk. Ross suggested I try it last week and I used it for all my sets this week, to pretty great effect. Form/technique wins again.

All in all it was a stupendously great morning at the gym, due to the success of my main lift and:
1) Listening to Kanye/Jay-Z's album "Watch the Throne." I love and it it makes me feel like a badass. Which I realize is absurd, but whatever, it works.
2) My back overall, and my lats specifically, is/are getting satisfyingly large. My friend Cary took a very sweet picture of me yesterday at polo and when I first saw it I was momentarily saddened at what appeared to be BACK FAT (my eternal nemesis, for real I carry a lot of my extra weight in my back, it sucks), but then I realized that I was actually looking at my lats, which are just sort of looking awesomely large these days. This makes me happy. And hopefully also means that a for-real bodyweight chin-up is creeping every closer.
3) I bumped up to using a 40# dumbbell for my single-arm floor presses. I do 4x10 for these, and the 40# DB is legit LARGE, so this also added to my general feeling of bad-ass-ery.
4) Tried out a new finisher that my nutrition coach posted on her Instagram feed (it does occasionally serve a purpose other than procrastination.) It was a single-arm overhead dumbbell waiter carry around the gym, it works on core and shoulder stability and also gets your heart-rate up and was fun to try a new exercise out. Wins all around.

Training Today:
Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys
Split Jerk: 6 sets working up to 104#x6
Accessory: Speed bench and single-arm rows; floor presses and upper-back work
Finisher: Single-arm overhead dumbbell waiter carry.

P.s. Random bonus: The logo on the 2XU gear makes me feel like I'm a member of the X-Men. This is obviously totally sweet.

Deadlift Day!

As I get more comfortable with my new stance, my enthusiasm for deadlift day has returned. There really is just such a wonderfully simple you-have-it-or-you-don't nature to the deadlift, and it just makes me feel good. Today after I finished my 8 sets of deads, working up to 221#x2/1 and 3 more quick singles, I had a brief moment of clarity about how freaking awesome it is that I can throw around 200+ pounds relatively easily. I spend so much time reading meet reports and training logs and PRs for powerlifters who are years ahead of me and/or men who weigh 300# that I forget that even though my total numbers might be small compared to pro lifters out there, for me they are huge. If you had told me 20 months ago that I would be able to deadlift as much as I can today, I would have thought you were crazy (well, first I would have needed clarification on what a deadlift was, exactly, and THEN I would have thought you were crazy.)

Training today:
Warmup: kettlebells
Deadlift: 8 sets working up to 221#x2/1, 1, 1, 1. Supersetted with core stability work,
Accessory: Single leg RDLs and more KB swings (still trying to avoid squatting, my knee has been feeling better but I want to give it a bit more time.)

Forays Into The Dark Side: Gluten Free Morning Glory Muffins

For my (FINAL!!!) presentation at school I wanted to make something for my group members to snack on while they listened to me talk for 45 minutes. I also wanted to make something that I could actually eat, which meant it needed to be gluten and dairy-free and reasonably healthy so I could fit it into my nutrition plan somewhere.

As a baker, I have always believed that 1) "butter makes it better" and 2) gluten-free baking is a pain and pretty much never worth it. That being said, as the realization that for the foreseeable future I'll be eating entirely gluten-free and mostly dairy-free, I figured this was a good opportunity to buy the weird ingredients and take a crack at real GF-baking. (I have done a fair amount of incidental GF-baking in the past when the substitution of non-wheat flours doesn't affect the final product too much, but I'd classify all of that under the healthy-baking-for-post-workout-snack category more than "real" baking that I share with other people.)

I have always loved the Morning Glory muffins from Whole Foods and when I stumbled across a GF recipe, I figured it was a good place to start. With a solid base of carrots, zucchini, apple, raisins, toasted coconut and toasted walnuts, there are so many delicious things going on with these muffins. The "weird" ingredients in this recipe are quinoa flour, tapioca starch, potato starch and xantham gum. Whole Foods had xantham gum but none of the other ingredients, but Harvest Co-op came through with quinoa flour (available in bulk so I only had to buy 1 cup), arrowroot starch (in place of tapioca starch), and potato starch. I had to buy whole containers of both starches and the xantham gum, so I guess there's more GF-baking in my future (any Cambridge or Boston friends who want to try any of these ingredients out but don't want to buy whole bags of them - hit me up!)

The batter came together fine, though was definitely STICKY, and a bit strange in texture. However, through the magic of baking (it really does feel like sorcery sometimes), the muffins themselves came out delicious! Light and fluffy and moist. Everyone in my group (even the other student who is a regular baker) were surprised to hear they were GF, so I'll take that as a good sign.

Link to recipe on Whole Foods' website.

Whole Foods' lovely picture of these muffins, though I have to say (and will credit the quality of the recipe for this, not my mad skillz, that my muffins looked pretty much the same):

Bench day success

This week has felt absurdly empty of training. I keep wondering if I have accidentally skipped a session or forgotten to schedule a training day, but really it's just because I started my week on Saturday with Ross instead of Monday, so the 4 training days I get in each week are spread over 7-8 days this week instead of 5-6. This is probably for the best since I am still struggling to figure out how exactly to get my left knee to stop being a bastard and start healing and let me get back to squatting already! (So far consensus is that I should probably not squat for at least a week or two and lay off anything else that hurts. So I am going to try this even though I hate, hate, hate skipping training days. Maybe I'll just double deadlift next week or something . . .)

But back to this morning, which was bench day. I started a new 5-3-1 cycle this week and rather than upping my max bench weight I kept it at 135# since I struggled pretty much every workout last cycle. During my 5 week last time around I got 115#x2, 2 and that was with a spotter. Today I got 115#x4,2 without a spotter and with each lift except for one with a clean, competition-length pause at the bottom. Definitely an improvement and very encouraging since my competition max is currently at 105#. I think as with all the lifts, as I dial in my form and get consistent with applying it each and every lift, I am beginning to see the positive benefits in my bench. Consistency truly is the mother of progress.

Training today:
Warmup: landmine presses and band pull-aparts
Bench: 7 sets working up to 115#x4,2 and two rep-out sets at 95# (9, 8 reps) all supersetted with cable rows
Accessory: band pull-ups and triceps work (I switched to the small band this week and was only able to get one actual neutral grip chin-up, but did the rest of my sets as looooooong eccentrics, so still got good work in.)

Supplements

The first time a box looking like the one below showed up on my doorstep, probably in January 2012 or so, I was almost embarrassed. At the time it seemed so totally crazy that I was now purchasing things from a website called bodybuilding.com. And the box was just so BOLD and ASSERTIVE about where it had come from. Suffice to say these days I have no shame, only excitement when these boxes arrive. They are filled with delicious protein powders and BCAAs and creatine and other fun things, all the powdery accessories to training that are not necessary, but can certainly be helpful. Sadly, they are no longer filled with pre-workout supplements, as my nutrition coach told me to cut those out as part of our effort to assess whether my cortisol levels were a bit high (caffeine/stimulants spike your cortisol levels, so if mine were elevated already, adding more stims to the mix probably wasn't helping.)

I came across this article from JTS Strength today that outlines the "big 3" supplements for athletes (creatine monohydrate, fish oil and protein powder) and I think the author makes some good points. There probably isn't anyone strength training with decent intensity who wouldn't benefit from these three supplements (and frankly everyone would probably benefit from fish oil, regardless of whether you're training or not.) It was another good reminder that as much as I liked my pre-workout stimulants, they really were more flash-bang than substance and are entirely not necessary for continued progress in the gym.

Walnut Toffee Banana Bread

I baked this up the other day because I have been in a baking mood, and on my re-feed day (once a week) I get to eat lots and lots of carbs from pretty much whatever source I want, as long as the fat content is low. I worked from this recipe, which I found searching for gluten-free banana bread, but I swapped out egg whites for most of the eggs and applesauce for the butter to make the bread low-fat. I also used 1/4 honey and 1/4 cup maple syrup, because I like my sweet things SWEET and I upped the cinnamon and vanilla, because generally in quick breads I find I like more of both. I also put in an extra 1/2 cup mashed banana, because more banana = more better in my opinion.

One of the reasons I was originally drawn to this particular recipe is that it used cacao nibs, which seem to be everywhere these days online. Unfortunately they are not everywhere in real life, and Whole Foods didn't have them (or I couldn't find them, it was post-training shopping so I was trying to get in and out ASAP before fatigue-food-buying set in.) I substituted 1/4 cup toffee bits that I had sitting around and 1/4 cup chopped walnuts because I figured they would go well with the toffee bits. I was correct. I am sure you could also make this without any add-ins, or use chocolate chips and either way would be lovely.

Dry Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup toffee bits
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Wet Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 6 egg whites (1/2 cup + 1 TB if you're pouring them from a carton)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1.5 cup mashed banana

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9x5 inch loaf pan by lining with parchment paper, coconut oil spray or a little bit of melted butter. Just something to keep the bread from sticking.
• Combine all dry ingredients together in a bowl, whisk or mix with a fork until most of the (big) clumps are gone.
• Combine all wet ingredients in a separate bowl, stir thoroughly to combine.
• Stir dry ingredients into wet or vice versa. Stir thoroughly until combined.
• Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 45-65 minutes. Bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with just a few crumbs/when it looks done/when it stops looking "wet" in the middle.
• Cool in pan on rack for 10-20 minutes until the bread has "set" a bit more, then remove from pan and finish cooling on rack. 

Notes:

• Because of all the substitutions I made, most of which increased the liquid content of the batter, my batter was very, very wet (see picture below), and so it took 65 minutes to bake. If you stick closer to the original recipe, your bake time will likely be closer to 45 minutes. Base it on your personal preference and go with your gut on when it's finished baking. I like my sweet quick breads on the very moist, under-done side.

• As demonstrated, this recipe is quite forgiving in terms of substitutions, so similar to the chocolate zucchini bread recipe I posted awhile ago, I am sure you can tweak this extensively to meet your nutritional or palate needs and it will turn out just fine.
• The bread will slice much better if you leave it alone until it is all the way cooled. If, like me, you find this completely impossible, it is also really delicious warm out of the oven, and because mine was so moist and a bit under-done it was almost like a bread pudding - YUM.

Training partners

My last two training sessions have been pretty excellent, mostly thanks to my superlative training partners. Ross and Alexis were in town from New York over the weekend and Ross got up early to train with me on Saturday morning. It was overhead press day, and I was starting my next week's training a couple days early, mostly to take advantage of the opportunity to train with Ross, which is always a good time. My deload week went well so I was feeling good and ready to get back to some heavier weights.

Ross does a lot of Crossfit so is vastly more experienced with all the Olympic lifts than I am. It was great to be able to have him coach me through my split jerk sets, both to get some confirmation that my form looks decent, and to have someone there to encourage me to be more aggressive and explosive. I miss having a coach, and I think my training numbers/recent frustrations reflect that somewhat, as I respond really well to being told what to do in the weight room, and miss having the affirmation and corrections that Chris provided. (I know I wrote recently that I am trying to be better about being my own coach, and that is an ongoing and important process, but I still miss Chris and his coaching a lot.)

Another reason I love training with Ross is that his boundless enthusiasm for what I can do pretty much erases any doubts in my head. Rather than worry about my heaviest set of the day (99# split jerk), and whether I would be able to get the prescribed 5 reps, I asked Ross to push me as much as possible and pretty easily worked up to 99#x8, a 3-rep improvement over the last time I split-jerked 99#.

Saturday training:
Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys
Split Jerk: 6 sets working up to 99#x8, supersetted with inverted rows
Accessory: Speed bench and single-arm rows
Finisher: Every minute on the minute: 6 burpees and 6 medicine ball slams (I threw this in instead of rowing because I love doing hard finishers with other people as it always pushes me to work harder and push to the end. Also, Ross sweats even more than I do with burpees, and that is always amazing to see.)

_________________

This morning Eric met me at the Y for squat day. Eric is my most frequent training partner and I am going to miss him like crazy when he leaves Cambridge later this month. It was great to have him there this morning as he has been trying to help me figure out what I did to my left knee and how best to treat it, as it continues to bother me with squats and at random times throughout the day. The treatment plan we came up with last week was to avoid painful activities and take ibuprofen for a few days to try to calm down any inflammation and let my body heal (working hypothesis: I irritated the articular cartilage in my knee with my shitty squat form a few weeks back and it hasn't really had the opportunity to heal since then because I just keep pushing it.)

I already had plans to drop my squat weights significantly because I have been struggling so much with depth and missing reps. It's definitely a blow to the ego to go from a working 1-rep-max of 245# to 225# and then to 205#, but I think it's the right call and will pay off in the long run. My heaviest lift today was supposed to be 175#x5+, but by the time I got to 126#x5, my L knee had already started to ache (and I had taken ibuprofen before heading to the gym) and had also cracked pretty loudly in the middle of my 111#x5 pause squat set, so with some consultation and encouragement from Eric that it was the right decision I completed a set of 155#x5 partial squats and stopped there.

It's really difficult for me to not complete a prescribed training session because I feel like I am cheating myself of potential progress, and I hate that feeling. In this case, having some external confirmation that it's the right call to take it easy for now allowed me to do so without beating myself up about it. I still have my eye on the October competition, but am also trying to be smart about staying healthy overall and also recognizing that pushing through pain now will get me nowhere if I still can't squat clean and heavy in October. I am hoping that if I take it easy on my knee for a couple more weeks I can get it to heal up so I can start squatting to depth again without pain. Only time will tell . . .


Training today:
Pause squats: 3 sets working up to 126#x5, partial squats: 155#x5, walk-out w/ mini-squats: 221#x5.
Accessory work: good mornings and a kettlebell complex (with the 16kg bell for the first time!)

Less exercise for better results (and also why that exercise probably shouldn't be steady-state cardio.)

One of my nutrition coach's major suggested changes for me was cutting down on the amount of exercise I was doing in order to make it easier to meet my goals of fat loss while maintaining/increasing strength for powerlifting. I cut out all my running (1 3+ mile run each week and treadmill sprints 1-2x/week) and about half of my metabolic conditioning work that ends my lifting each day.

This article from The Metabolic Effect website does a nice job explaining why too much exercise or exercise that lasts for too long can be detrimental to losing weight and/or re-comping your body (i.e. losing body fat while maintaining muscle mass.)

I also really like this piece from Rachel Cosgrove on how her body responded to training for an Ironman. She does a nice job going into the whole "fat-burning zone" myth perpetuated by women's magazines and elliptical machines with heart rate monitors the world over.

I think it's important to keep your goals and what you want out of exercise in mind when you're trying to figure out what to do. If you love to run every day, and can do so comfortably, then you should run every day! But if you're forcing yourself to work out every day or to do long sessions of steady-state cardio because it seems like if some exercise is good then more-more-more must be better, I think it is helpful to keep this stuff in mind. And then of course it all comes back to the fact that you can't out-train a bad diet, meaning that if you want to lose weight/fat, the major changes have to come in what you eat, not in how you work out. Sadness all around on that one, as if it were possible to eat cheesecake every night and work it all off the next day at the gym I. Would. Totally. Do. That.

_______________

Training:
Warmup: Kettlebells - one arm swings and rack squats
Deloaded Dead: 8 sets working up to 177#x3, felt clean and easy. Supersetted with core work.
Accessory: Smith machine single-leg squats. These deserve a post of their own at some point.
Finisher: 1 1/10 mile uphill treadmill sprint. My L knee still feels wonky and felt pretty unsteady with the sprinting so decided to cut it (potentially sandbagging here, but also erring on the side of caution vis a vis my knee.)

I'm talking about body image again. (Over-sharing alert? Up to you.)

I read this article, "Why Love Your Body Campaigns Aren't Working" by Isabel Foxen Duke earlier this week and everything in it rang true to me. (I really encourage you to check it out, it's not long and the rest of what I'm saying here will make a lot more sense if you read it first.) In trying to come up with something more to say about it, something to add to the conversation or a new perspective or piece of wisdom, I'm struggling to do so. I think because I am still so very much in thrall to the idea that my life will "begin" when my body looks the way I think it should. I get a tremendous amount of pleasure as well as physical and psychological gratification from heavy weight training and it has been incredibly empowering to become strong and achieve things in the gym I never thought possible. I respect myself and my body more than I ever have, and I feel incredibly grateful for getting as far as I have in my journey.  I don't want what I'm going to say next to take away from any of that, but I also think it's probably important to say it.

The truth is, that the end of the day I have yet to root out and rid myself of the sad shame-ball at the center of my self worth that compels me ever forward in pursuit of a fitter, leaner body. On some days I think that I want this body because it exemplifies my (relatively newly embraced) ideals of fitness and health and I want to be able to show evidence of my hard work at the gym in more than just my competition numbers. But on a lot of days, the truth is that my desire for leanness is motivated by a fear that I am not worthy of "the guy, the job, or the cute clothes in the window" until I have shaped my body to meet my standards of leanness and fitness and hotness. (I say "my standards" here, and while I recognize they are cultural standards and not actually mine at all, they have been so deeply ingrained in me that they really are mine now, whether I like it or not.)

I don't think I am alone in this feeling. Whether women pursue the body they think they "should" have through diet or exercise or simply through self-flagellation while staring at magazine photos and enviously sizing up other women on the street, I think a lot of us are caught in the idea that something is waiting for us if we can just . . . get . . . more . . . perfect.

Molly Gailbraith pointed out in a recent series of blog posts on getting extremely lean (and while she's talking about fitness competition lean, which is extremely, extremely lean, I think the concept applies to any form of dieting/exercise with the goal to re-shape your body), that while so many people think that getting lean is the road to many things (self-fulfillment, happiness, respect, self-esteem), it is actually just the road to getting lean. That's it. All that happens when you get lean/lose 10#/drop a clothing size is that you are now more lean/weigh 10# less/need to buy new pants. A very simple statement but also profoundly necessary to be stated.

I don't have a neat way to wrap this up. I suppose I should strive to "focus on performance more and the scale less!" or "What my body can do and not what it can look like!" Etc, etc. But sometimes the striving to change my thinking is as exhausting as the striving to get leaner/hotter/better/more perfect, etc. I don't have any answers for that one either.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Addendum: I want to recognize that a lot of this probably applies to men as well, but not being one, I can't speak to that experience. And I do think that historically this pressure to equate the shape of one's body with one's self-worth/worth in society has been applied much more to women, though in the last 10-15 years by all accounts, men are feeling it too and it's effing up their self-worth just as much.

________________

Training today:
Warmup: rotator cuff work - landmine presses and band pull-aparts (with all the direct and indirect rotator cuff strengthening I have been doing for almost two years, starting in physical therapy in August 2011, it amazes me how jacked up my rotator cuff continues to be.)
Bench deload: six sets working up to 95#x5, superset with cable rows
Accessory: triceps work and band pull-ups
Finisher: heavy rope slams