Bump in the Road

After a pretty successful squat session on Saturday morning, Chris (up from Providence to train at TPS - whoo hoo!) and I went to the shed at TPS to try out some strongman lifts. I learned that although I can deadlift 295#, I am unable to pick up a 100# atlas stone, and that even though I am able to pick up a 100# oversize strongman dumbbell, for my own future health I probably shouldn't. On one of my last attempts, I managed to get the dumbbell over my left shoulder (having only been able to get it up on the right side previously) and in the process knocked one of my ribs out of place. This has happened to me before so I knew the feeling (it's a sudden, achy 'pop' in your chest - feels awesome. Not.)

In the process of relocating it back into place, with some help from Chris, I managed to basically make the injury worse, so now even though my rib is back in place, I have a lot of stretched/strained/hopefully not torn intercostal muscles and ligaments. In short, my upper left chest fucking hurts. A lot.

The worst part is this means I really can't train until it starts healing, which should happen fairly quickly, but it's sort of a day-to-day thing. At the moment I am living on ibuprofen and I think I probably have to stay out of the gym until I can be pain-killer free.

I am in week 5 of the Cube program, and there's no planned deloads in the programming, so while it's not the worst thing in the world to take a week off (please god, let it not be more than a week), I am still pretty bummed and of course convinced that I am going to get weak and fat immediately. My game plan is to try to use this week to do some more active recovery than I usually do (long walks, etc) and also catch up on Boards studying. I don't want it to be a total loss, and with a little bit of diligence on my part, it doesn't need to be, but I am still feeling a bit blue about the whole thing. Being out of the gym makes me a little crazy, and I hate that feeling.

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Training Saturday (Rep Squat day on the Cube Program):
Warmup: foam rolling and meathead mobility
Squat Warmup: 45#x10, 10; 95#x5, 3; 115#x3; 145#x3
Comp Squat: 165#x8, 8; 170#x8
Front Squat: 95#x2; 115#x3, 3
Pause Squat: 125#x8, 8; 130#x8

Sumo Deadlifts: 135#x8; 185#x5, 5, 5; 195#x5
Box Jumps: 18' box (5x3)

Strongman Lifts

100th Post and a Reality Check

This is my 100th blog post! I am pretty excited about that, as when I started this I wasn't sure if it was something I would be interested/able to keep up with, or that I would find helpful at all in my training. I'm happy to say that I have really enjoyed having this space to come to to record successes and failures and struggles and generally vent about all the stuff that tumbles around in my head but I don't often have a venue to voice. So thank for reading all my ramblings, I hope to keep it up for another 100 posts!

That said, the first 10 or so of those 100 posts will be coming a bit slower than usual. In about 10 weeks I will be taking my PT Boards, the final hurdle to becoming an actual, real, licensed, able-to-practice-independently physical therapist. Preparing for Boards involves a shit-ton of studying, and between work and training I am running seriously short on time. My goal for the next 10 weeks is to post here once a week or so, but if it's quieter than usual the reason is that I am buried under a mountain of review material and probably completely freaking out about (re-)learning it all in time for the 5-hour, 250-question test marathon I'll be undertaking on January 29th.

I know that during the next 10 weeks, training will continue to be a welcome break from regular life and a much-needed source of stress relief. Today was an excellent example of that as I have been feeling a bit antsy and unsettled in my life for the past few days or so, and have been less than 100% adherent to my nutrition plan and just generally feeling off. Getting into the gym and deadlifting was, as always, a grounding experience. I've been ending each session recently with 5 minutes of yoga stretching, and really enjoying these 5 minutes as I generally just feel a tremendous sense of gratitude that I am able to train so intensely and that my body is willing to put up with it. I feel very fortunate, and I think that gratitude was helpful to me today to get me out of my funk.

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Training today:

Warmup: foam rolling and meathead mobility

Deadlift Warm-up: 135#x5, 5; 165#x5; 187#x5

Conventional Deadlift (explosive training): 199#x2repsx6sets

Deficit Deadlift: 182#x6repsx3 sets

Kettlebell Swings: 24kgx25,25,20,15,15 (I made the jump from the 20kg bell to the 24kg bell this week and am definitely feeling it)

1A) Walking Lunges 30#DB/eachx4setsx10reps

1B) Goodmornings 110#x4setsx10reps

2A) Wide-Grip Seated Rows 120#x8,8; 130#x8,8

2B) Farmer Carries 60#DB/eachx30secondsx3

Cooldown: 5 minutes yoga

Squat Success, Picture Updates and Face-First Into Bad Habits

So I ended up squatting on Friday evening this week instead of Saturday morning since I was at a conference at work from 7am-4pm on Saturday (yes, you can totally feel bad for me for having to go into work at 7am on Saturday, I gladly accept your pity.) I enjoy Friday evenings at TPS because the gym is packed and it makes me happy to be there instead of at happy hour where I religiously spent Friday evenings for years and/or sitting at home on my couch being exhausted, which is how I generally spend Friday evenings these days if not at the gym. I seem to have lost some of my squat mojo from last week when I was feeling very solid with my form and the weights were feeling light, as the weights actually were light this week (it was "explosive" squat day, when I'm supposed to focus on moving the bar quickly) but it felt like I was moving through mud. That said, I still considered adding on an extra set of safety bar squats because I felt like maybe I wasn't getting enough work in, however the 6x3 set of pause squats that finished up my main lift work for the day pretty much crushed me, so I'm glad I didn't get ahead of myself by loading up the safety bar squats. In other words, "STICK TO THE PROGRAM, RACHEL." In other not-breaking news, the glute ham raise is essentially hamstring hell and sort of makes me want to die every time I use it, but I just assume that means it is really, really, really working.

Squat Day on Friday:
Warmup: foam rolling and meathead mobility
Warm-up Squats (regular bar): 45#x5, 5, 5 (with a lot of time spent in the hole stretching my hips out); 95#x5; 115#x3; 135#x3
Competition Squats: 145#x2repsx6sets
Safety Bar Squats: 105#x5,5
Pause Squat: 135#x3repsx6 sets (I realized a couple weeks ago that I should be using a lower 1RM weight for my pause squats, as it doesn't REALLY make sense for me to be doing almost as heavy a weight and more reps for my pause squat as my comp squat, but I also think it's helpful for me to be working heavy pause squats so I'm keeping the weight as-is for now, even if it means I have to split sets - the program is written for 6repsx2-3sets, but I can only get 3 reps out at a time at this weight.)

Glute Ham Raise 5x12
Snatch Grip Deads off blocks 165#x8, 8, 8, 8
Shrugs giant contraptionx10, 12, 15 (because sometimes you just gotta work on your traps)
Semi-inverted rowsx7, 7, 7, 6

Cool down: Yoga Stretch (5 minutes)

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This morning was Body Day, and I mixed up my exercises a little bit, substituting in the split-stance tricep extension and 3-point dumbbell row, both suggestions from a nice little article from Eric Cressey's newsletter this week. I have been wanting to make some slight adjustments to my exercises for Body Day as I tend to get bored with the same accessory work week after week, and these tweaks were perfect for making it feel fresh. Also, the split-stance tricep extension is definitely friendlier to my irritable triceps tendons which are always a little cranky with direct triceps work. As part of my goal of assessing how I'm feeling about my body without measuring my progress on the scale I snapped a couple pictures as all in all I have been feeling pretty rockin' about how I'm looking both in and out of the gym. I like my booty (yay deadlifts) and am continuing to work on accepting my belly for what it is rather than hating on it pointlessly. 

Yay for purple tights! 

Working on loving every bit of me, even my valgus knees. 

 I also took a picture of my traps, because I like them and because I remember when I first started training with Chris asking a couple friends to tell me "if I ever started losing my neck" by getting too bulky, whereas now I pretty much just want bigger traps and bigger lats, bulky neck and back be damned :) Ah how things change.

Yes, I am totally flexing my traps in this picture, and yes, I wish they were larger.

Unfortunately after a pretty good workout and feeling pretty good about these pictures, I promptly fell face-first into a pile of cookies after getting home. This is classic behavior for me, and something I am pretty embarrassed to admit to, that essentially any time I am feeling really good and on track and like I am close to my goals I generally immediately try to eat myself several steps backwards. It is a dumb and reflexive bad habit that I have yet to figure out how to break. That said, I am determined to salvage the rest of today and not spend it mindlessly eating crap with the lame justification that I already messed up so why not keep going (this is also a classic habit of mine.) I have a lot of studying and work to get done today and I need to focus on that, which I'm hoping will keep me out of the kitchen and the cookies. 

Body Day Training Today:
Warm-up: Foam rolling, elevated pushups, band pull-aparts and band pull-downs
1A) Single-arm DB Bench Press (4x10)
1B) Lat Pulldown (4x10)
2A) 3-Point DB Row (4x10)
2B) Split-Stance Tricep Extension (4x12)

Prowler Pushing: Sled+90#x200', Sled+180#x7x100' (9:36 total) = got in an extra 100' of pushing today, still under 10 minutes - whoo hoo!
Kettlebell Swings 16kgx40, 30, 30
Plank: 1:20 

Cooldown: Yoga stretching (4:20)

Bench Day, not much to say

Rep Bench Day:
Warm-up: foam rolling, band pull-aparts, band pulldowns and elevated pushups
Bench Warm-up: 45#x12, 12; 65x5; 85#x3
Competition-style Bench: 95#x8; 100#x7,6
Close-Grip Bench: 100#x2,2
Pause-Bench (pause 1" above chest): 90#x8, 7, 6

Tricep Pushdown: 60# (4x12)
Wide-grip Seated Rows: 120# (4x8)

DB Shoulder Press: 25# (4x8)

Ouch

It was heavy deadlift day and though going in I felt like the weight/rep scheme seemed a little easy, it definitely felt heavy by the end. Heavy enough apparently to distract me to the point that I dropped a 20kg plate directly on my foot while unloading the bar. OUCH. It effing hurt. I guess I'm lucky though that it wasn't an iron plate as I feel like that would have been more likely to do serious damage. As it is I think I escaped with a little bruising and swelling but nothing broken. I did skip my farmer's walks though since I figured loading up my foot with an extra 120# and carrying it around probably wouldn't help me much.

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Training today:
Warmup: Foam rolling and Meathead Mobility
Warm-up Deads: 133#x5,5; 165#x5; 199#x3; 221#x3
Competition Deadlift: 241#x2repsx3sets
2" Deficit Deadlift: 226#x5, 4 (I don't know at what point or why I thought pulling 226# from a deficit wasn't heavy enough - sometimes I amaze myself.)
Kettlebell Swings: 20kgx25, 25, 20, 15, 15, 10

Walking Lunge 25#DBsx10repsx4sets
Goodmornings 105#x10repsx4sets

Wide-grip Seated Pulley Rows (in place of stupid band pullups): 70#x10, 90#x9, 100#x8, 110#x10 (need to up the weight next time around)

Yesterday was "body day" at TPS. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and yet again I felt incredibly lucky to be training there, with like-minded people, and surrounded by rather spectacular views of Boston.

The view from my gym. 

I do a fair amount of conditioning on body day, and always some Prowler pushing. Sled pushing or dragging or tire flipping or any of that sort of stuff is great because it's fairly self-limiting. On days when I have less energy (like last week when it took me 9:43 to do my Prowler work) and my body is more tired and stressed out from the week's training, I just don't push as fast or finish as quickly, but when I'm feeling good and fresh and ready to kick ass (like this week when I did the same amount of work in 9:03), I can get more work done without having to change anything about my programming. Plus it's just really, really satisfying.

I set the goals listed below a few weeks ago and have been meaning to share them on the blog. I think they're all realistic, minus the bodyweight chin-up, which these days I am kind of believing is the impossible dream, but the other three I think I can absolutely do. I am actually taking a break from the scale for the next few weeks because I have been feeling really good about how I look, and regardless of how I'm weighing in, I won't be changing my nutrition plan for at least 2-3 weeks as my body is still settling down from the small amount of dieting I did pre-comp. So my plan is basically to stick to my nutrition plan, enjoy feeling good in my body, and then really re-assess how I feel before I step on the scale again. I think it's possible I may actually like myself just fine at or just above 200#. I still would like to maintain more in the 190s to make weigh-ins easier, but the mental practice of assessing how I actually feel without letting the scale dictate how I should feel is a good one, I think.

Goals (Set October 25, 2013)
1. Bodyweight 194-198# by December 31.
2. Maintain 194-198# all of 2014.
3. Compete in March RPS meet in 198# class with 215# squat, 135# bench, 315# dead (665# total).
4. Bodyweight chin-up by 32nd birthday (April 2014).

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Training yesterday:

1A) Single-arm Floor Press (4x10)
1B) Lat Pulldown (4x10)
2A) Single-arm DB Row (4x10)
2B) Standing Tricep Extension (4x10)

Prowler Pushing: Sled+90#x200', Sled+180#x6x100' (9:43 total)
Kettlebell Swings 16kgx25, 25, 25, 25
Plank: 1 minute

Playing catch-up but feeling good

Holy blog neglection, Batman! This week has been a whirlwind. I think because I have been stressing about my upcoming inservice presentation at work (which I just spent the last 6 hours putting together, whoo hoo wild Saturday nights!)

I'm happy to report that I feel like I am finally adjusting to the Cube workouts with their longer sets and higher reps, though I am about to start a new "wave", which means all my weights go up for my main lift, so I should be back to feeling completely crushed by each session this coming week. Ah well.

I squatted this morning at TPS and felt really good, even though I hadn't gotten a ton of sleep the night before. I don't want to jinx it, but I feel like using the safety bar is really helping me get my hips down and back, and I may have finally found the right spot on my shoulders to rest the bar combined with the right breathing/trunk stiffness to not have a relatively light weight feel like it's crushing me (which is how pretty much all my squats have felt for the past 6 months or so.) And relatively very little knee pain so yeah, all good stuff, I think. I am also psyched because I am planning on going to this Juggernaut clinic in December and I think it will be awesome. I just need to bite the bullet and sign up and not care if I'm the only woman there or if I can't stop checking out Brandon Lilly long enough to actually listen to his coaching cues.

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Explosive Bench Day (Wednesday):
Warm-up: foam rolling, band pull-aparts, band pulldowns and elevated pushups
Bench Warm-up: 45#x10, 65x5
Competition-style Bench: 80#x3,3; 85#x3,3; 90#x3,3,3,3 (I ended up adding weight to the bar because I could still move 90# explosively for three reps, and Lilly says if it feels light - add weight!)
Close-Grip Bench: 85#x5repsx2sets
Pause-Bench (pause 1" above chest): 70#x8repsx2sets

Tricep Pushdown: 60# (4x12)
Eccentric Chin-ups: 2, 2, 1
DB Shoulder Press: 25#x8, 8; Incline Press: 25#x8, 8 (trying to change the stress on my shoulders, my left one was not feeling so hot with the shoulder presses)
Bicep Curls 15#x10, 20#x10, 10, 10 (because why not?)

**I decided after this workout to stop doing pull-up variations for a while. I find them sickeningly frustrating because I don't seem to make any progress and it just makes me feel incredibly weak and mad at myself, so I'm going to be working on increase my lat and overall back strength in other ways and try to attack the pull-up goal in the future.
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Heavy Squat Day (today):
Warmup: foam rolling and meathead mobility
Warm-up Squats (regular bar): 45#x5, 5, 5 (with a lot of time spent in the hole stretching my hips out); 95#x5; 115#x3; 135#x3
Competition Squats: 165#x2, 2, 2, 2, 2
Safety Bar Squats: 115#x3, 3
Pause Squat: 135#x3, 3, 3, 3

Glute Ham Raise x 10, 10, 6, 10, 10
Snatch Grip Deads 135#x8; 145#x8. 8. 8
Farmer Carries (giant contraption+50# added weight) x 200' x 4
Semi-inverted rowsx8,7,7,6,5

Deadlift PR, of a sort

Recently a friend of mine bet me I couldn't deadlift 135#x20 reps. I was pretty sure I could, and since today was rep deadlift day on the Cube program, I decided to find out. I'm happy to report that I can actually deadlift 135#x21, and all with spot-on form, which makes me think I could probably have gotten quite a few more, but since it was a "warm-up" set and I didn't want to totally trash my planned programming, I stopped at 21 (21 because I wanted to make sure I had hit 20 in case I counted wrong - it happens.) After finishing up my deadlift and kettlebell sets I ended up cutting out most of my accessory work because I've been fighting a cold for the last couple days and I'm winning, but I didn't want to push my luck by going balls-out in my workout today. I think it was the right call.

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Training:
Warm-up - foam rolling and Meathead Mobility (I don't do it all, but I run through most of the stretches and exercises and I definitely think it's an improvement over what I was doing before - aka not really warming up :)
Warm-up Deadlift: 135#x5, 165#x3
Conventional Deadlift: 135#x21, 199#x8, 8
Deficit Deadlift: 182#x10, 10
Kettlebell Swings: 20kgx25, 25, 20, 15, 15

Farmer Walks: 60# DBs x 30 sec x 4
Band Chin-ups x 3

Sunday Funday

Short list of things I love about TPS:

1) The people are super friendly, I've already met two other women who powerlift and train there, and overall every interaction I've had has been pleasant. I am willing to admit this may have a teensy bit to do with the fact that I am overflowing with enthusiasm, joy and goodwill for humanity pretty much every second I'm in the building since I'm still so thrilled to be training there.

2) There is a lot less creepy leering going on. The dudes are there to train, not stare at women. This is very nice.

3) The views of Boston are beautiful, and I think the amount of natural light really makes a difference in how I feel during and after training.

More to come on this list, I am certain :)

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Training today:

1A) Single-arm Floor Press (4x10)

1B) Lat Pulldown (4x10)

2A) Single-arm DB Row (4x10)

2B) Standing Tricep Extension (4x10)

Prowler Pushing: Sled+90#x200', Sled+180#x6x100' (9:43 total)

Kettlebell Swings 16kgx25, 25, 25, 25

Plank: 1 minute

Letting myself off the hook (in a good way)

I took a long recovery walk today, over an hour in total with a break in the middle to sit in the park and meditate. It was after this break, walking back home that I had a bit of a breakthrough. I've had a sort of rough week in terms of adherence to my nutrition plan. My refeed day last Saturday included two additional desserts not accounted for in my macros, then watching the World Series win on Wednesday I ended up eating a few fun-size candy bars and handfuls of caramel corn and then to really make sure I felt super terrible about my behavior for the week, on Thursday I ate candy at work. This breaks the iron-clad rule I have for myself that I just absolutely do not under any circumstance eat the extra food available at work. There is free candy, cake, cookies, pastries, donuts and/or ice-cream available at the hospital LITERALLY EVERY DAY. When I started working I was in pre-comp mode so turning it all down was pretty easy, and at that point I decided that going forward, even after the comp, it would just be my rule to not ever eat the junk food at work. So breaking that rule sort of sucked, especially as I am prone to the slippery-slope of bad habits.

I emailed my nutrition coach on Thursday evening to try to get some help and perspective, and she definitely provided it. (Jen also recently wrote a great article about the temptations of the holidays and how we so often screw our future selves, it's a pretty entertaining read.) Essentially she confirmed that my behavior falls under the category of self-sabotage, which happens for multiple reasons. For one, we tend to think we have more wiggle room once we're close to our goals when what we actually need to do is stay the course until we REACH our goals; for another, there's often some self-doubt as to whether you actually deserve to achieve a goal and once it gets close that self-doubt can become a tricky little bugger of self-defeating behavior.

I tell you all of this to explain my own mind-set this afternoon. I was feeling a bit down because I weighed in at 204# this morning, up from 202.6# last Saturday, and heading in the wrong direction to meet my goal of being in the 194-198# range by the end of the year. I took Jen's comment to heart that "a couple of small dietary indiscretions didn't do any harm, however if they are repeated, they absolutely will," and was simultaneously beating myself up a bit for messing up and also resolving to do better, when it occurred to me that yes, I do weigh 204# but I was also walking around Cambridge in size 12 skinny jeans, a feat I never thought I would accomplish (the size 12 or the skinny jeans.) It's just too bad that competition classes aren't based on what size jeans one wears . . .

I tend to have a very black-and-white perspective on my own behavior, either it's fantastic or it's total shit, and so being able to realize that: yes, I made a few crappy decisions this week about food and I need to rein it in over the next two holiday months if I want to hit my goals but at the same time I am doing really well in the grand scheme of my life and my overall habits and patterns, was a pretty nice thing. I can cut myself some slack while also not excusing my behavior or allowing it to continue. This really is a revelation for me, and one I would like to remember.

Rep Squats

Well, Rep Squat Day definitely made up for the perceived easiness of Heavy Bench Day yesterday. I wasn't able to get through all the prescribed sets as I had to break up my pause squats into 4 sets of 5 instead of 2 sets of 10. Pause squats are killer, especially after already having squatted a whole mess of work sets. I'm definitely still adjusting to the higher reps with this program, and also really trying to make sure my form doesn't break down at any point. I feel like I have zero concept anymore of where parallel is when I squat. I am so paranoid about being no-repped multiple times at competitions that I think I drop too low and lose a lot of force and tightness in the hole, but at the same time I figure if I want to make sure I get clean lifts in competition I should probably just learn to squat ass-to-grass and add weight as I'm able.

My left knee held up decently well, it still bothers me randomly but I was able to get through all my planned work tonight so I'm happy with that.

And, as I assumed it would be, Friday evening training at TPS was awesome.

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Training today:
Warm-up Squats (regular bar): 45#x10, 5, 5; 95#x5; 115#x5; 135#x4
Competition Squats: 145#x10, 9, 8
Safety Bar Squats: 105#x8, 8
Pause Squat: 135#x6,5,5,5

Glute Ham Raise x 10, 10, 9, 10, 10
Snatch Grip Deads 135#x8, off blocks 165#x8, 8, 8
Farmer Carries (giant contraption+50# added weight) x 200' x 3


Band Chinupsx4 (supposed to do 5 sets of AMRAP each set, but at this point my grip was fried and I settled for one set.)

Seriously?

It's the existence of stuff like this in the world that makes me realize I am fighting a losing battle against the universe's attempt to force me into super morbid obesity. I mean, COME ON. DO NOT TURN THE ALREADY TOO TEMPTING LEFTOVER CANDY INTO SOMETHING EVEN MORE DELICIOUS AND IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP EATING.

For the record, I haven't actually tasted this, but based on the ingredients and the fact that it comes out of Momofuku Milk Bar, I am fairly certain my salty-sugary-combo-loving head would pop off if I did.

I'm gonna go smash some weights now and try not to think about chocolate.