Speed bump?

Well, it's turned into rather a larger bump than I first anticipated . . . 12 days in and my ribs are still pretty sore. I haven't been able to lift heavy since I messed them up at TPS, and after a couple attempts at training around the soreness and trying to get some work in without aggravating the injury, I ended up deciding to take a week of complete rest in advance of the powerlifting clinic I'm going to this Saturday. It's run by the Juggernaut team, specifically Brandon Lilly and Chad Smith and I've been looking forward to it for the past couple months. At this point I'mn just hoping I'll be able to squat and deadlift enough to 1) not feel completely embarassed about my numbers and 2) actually be able to take advantage of the coaching opportunity. I gave up on being able to bench by this Saturday, considering I can't even weight-bear through my left arm enough to foam roll properly, the chances of me benching are nil. (On a side note, I now know that my lackadaisical 5 minutes on the foam roller every session was working, being away from it for a couple weeks my IT bands are absurdly tight and making my knees even crankier than usual. So yeah, all that insistent chatter about the benefits of foam rolling is legit.)

The last 12 days have been hard. I don't feel like myself. I miss the gym tremendously, both the time spent there and the feeling of satisfaction, exhaustion and euphoria that comes afterwards. The 5 minutes of stretching and yoga and feeling grateful that I had been finishing my workouts with feels extra poignant now. I'm glad I started doing it, but wow am I going to be feeling 1,000x more gratitude once I'm back to heavy weights after this experience. At the same time, I am trying to remember to be grateful for all the things I can still do: walk, work, get through my day without assistance, etc. I know that in the grand scheme of things this injury and setback is minor and I am still wildly fortunate in terms of physical health. At the same time, it's still really shitty.

I think one of the hardest things has been not knowing how long this is going to last. I am hoping that I will be able to get back to regular, semi-heavy lifting next week, and that within another 3-4 weeks I'll be back to lifting pain-free and hopefully making progress again, but it's hard to predict, and even harder to tell at what point it's safe for me to go back to lifting heavy. On the one hand, I don't want to delay healing or turn this into a chronic issue, on the other hand I don't want to take a ton of time off and lose a lot of strength and fitness and have to rebuild all that. There's also plenty of anecdotal evidence that it's just fine to train through these types of minor injuries as long as the pain/discomfort isn't unbearable and isn't causing any compensatory negative movement patterns. I know that in all of this I am very far from being able to take a clear and objective perspective, but I'm trying.

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.

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

In withdrawal

I knew I was addicted to the gym, but at this point I'm truly beginning to understand the consequences of that addiction. I've only lifted once this week, on Wednesday, and that was light and short. I was planning on lifting again on Friday or at least running some HIIT hill intervals to get some endorphins flowing, but I woke up still absurdly sore on Friday morning from Wednesday's workout. I figured if I wanted to be really fresh and ready to start training full force again this coming week I should probably take it easy so I went for a long walk instead. It was incredibly unsatisfying.

At this point I would say my mood is legitimately depressed by the fact that I've been out of my lifting routine for almost two weeks (between pre-comp deload and post-comp recovery.) It sucks. I didn't train today because I was in 8 hours of PT board exam prep class and because I am planning on starting my new program tomorrow but I sort of wish I had just so I wouldn't be feeling so totally shitty right now. I am in a serious funk and I'm pretty sure the only cure is smashing some weights. Fortunately tomorrow is deadlift day and I'm checking out TPS for the first time, which as I understand it is basically a powerlifter's dream gym.

Until then, you can find me sulking in this corner.

You know what's real important? Warming up

I know this. I know this. I have a solid 5-10 minute warm-up built into every day that I lift. But sometimes I get lazy, and I move through that warm-up too slowly or too quickly and I'm not paying attention and don't really realize/care that even though I have done my "warm-up," I am not, in fact, warmed up. Which is what happened today. So when I went to do a set of split-jerks with just the bar, on the very first one my left shoulder popped all crazy like and twinged in a not so great way and all of a sudden I realized how very NOT warmed up my shoulders were.

In the end it was not a huge deal, I switched to push presses instead of split jerks after a couple more unsuccessful-feeling sets of split jerks and kept the weight pretty light, as even after I actually did get myself thoroughly warmed up my left shoulder still felt a little unstable and I didn't feel like I was moving the bar with any sort of decent coordination. Especially since the overhead press/split jerk is not a competition lift there's just no reason to push it right now. And I was able to get all of my accessory bench work in even if I felt blech the whole time.

All in all, not the most successful day at the gym, but I went and got it done, so that is good. I only have two more weeks of real training before deload week before the comp, so I want/need to pick up my intensity to decent level over the next few training sessions. I will definitely be drinking some black coffee pre-workout, and I'm pretty sure that'll help.

Pushing Through

When I got to the Y today I was so tired I wanted to take a nap on my foam roller rather than warm-up with it. I didn't sleep great last night, and was up before 6 to get to the hospital by 7:30am. I was starting to worry that maybe training after work isn't going to work out, or maybe I need to add pre-workout supplements back into my routine or at least black coffee pre-workout, or maybe my diet is taking too much of a toll and I'm not going to be able to sustain training over the next four weeks before the competition. In other words, the worry-wheels were spinning, which is always a pointless and not-helpful activity.

It is generally my rule that no matter how I feel I must get my main lift work in, and if, after that, I genuinely, really, truly feel like taking the rest of the day off would be better for me than finishing my planned work, then I do that. I think I have stopped after my main lift exactly twice in almost two years, it's a pretty good system, and it worked out peachy today. By the time I got to my 5th and 6th sets of the split jerk I was feeling absurdly hyped up and ready to attack the weights like crazy. I ended up getting 109#x3 for my heaviest split jerk set, and either added weight on to all my accessory lifts or at least improved my tempo from last week. All in all it was a killer workout, and all the better I think for having started so crappy.

And now? Now I'm back to being beat-down tired, but in a happy, post-workout-carb-snacking sort of way. Happy Monday, y'all. It's good to be alive.

Dragging through deadlifts

Training today was essentially the exact opposite of my glorious, energy-filled, bursting with enthusiasm workout this past Saturday. I was dragging when I got to the gym and I was dragging when I left. I did get in all my required work though, and I think it's days like today that are the most important to push through in terms of developing mental toughness and strengthening my commitment to my training and my body. It probably helped that it was deadlift day, and shirking on deadlift day is basically against my religion.

Also, the more I learn about willpower and the neuroscience behind it, the more important it seems to engrain and practice habits that I value, as our brains get better at doing the things we do most often. I'm currently read The Willpower Instinct and have also read and enjoyed Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Both books back up the idea that pushing through and committing to finishing something like a tough workout trains your brain to push through other hard tasks in life as well. I figure if I can get even close to as much carryover effect from this as I have from meditation improving my focus, calm, and outlook in life, I will be doing really well.

Potential reasons I was dragging ass today:
1) It's literally 90+ degrees outside. I do not like the heat. The Y is not air conditioned. (Well, the cardio room is, but the weight room not so much.)
2) I'm dieting and it's working, the pounds are coming off (yay!) but this also means my body is at least somewhat in a catabolic state, which can definitely affect strength.
3) It was a non-stop day at the hospital today, and I am not yet used to those.
4) My iPod was dead, so no music to help key me up and keep me going (this was rough.)

In other totally unrelated news, I have found my new most-favorite refreshing beverage combination: 50% lemonade Vitamin Water and 50% cranberry lime Poland seltzer. It's delicious, for real.

_________________

Training today:
Warmup: kettlebells - swings and goblet squats with 20kg bell
Deadlift: 6 sets working up to 231#x6 (the same number of reps I hit at this weight when I was well-rested and on vacation, so I am considering it a win.)
Anderson front squats

It may not seem like a lot, but it took everything I had.

I cannot think of a title for this post. Which may indicate that it is pretty boring.

Waking up this morning the very last thing I wanted to do was go to the gym. I was TIRED. This is how I often feel at the beginning of a deload week and after checking my schedule and confirming that yes, I really did absolutely have to train today in order to get in all my sessions this week without doing three days in a row, I went ahead and got myself to the gym.

I am glad I realized I needed to deload this week rather than next, and actually enjoyed my workout once I had started it (also how I usually feel on deload week.) Because all the weights are lighter I don't really need to rest between sets so I can finish faster and work up more of a sweat than I usually do when I need more rest to recover from heavier weights.

I had planned to row 1250m to finish my training this morning but the only rower at the Charlestown Y was occupied, and this made me 0% sad because I pretty much detest rowing. I decided instead to do kettlebell swings and was happy to note that while my glutes were still sore from deadlifting on Saturday, my back was not, which means that I'm stressing the right muscles and my deadlift form really is as on-point as I have been thinking.

Training today:
Split-jerk: 6 sets working up to 85#x5. Supersetted with inverted rows and pull-ups on the machine (occasionally fun to do even if the translation to real pull-ups is pretty poor.)
Accessory work: 8 sets of speed bench and single-arm rows; 4 sets of dumbbell shoulder presses and rear lateral flys.
Finisher: 40# kettlebell swings, EMOMx20reps

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.)

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!)

On strength

This trainer/weight-lifter/writer, Alexander Cortes, over at elitefts.com, has written several articles that really speak to me as a woman powerlifter. He writes frequently and passionately about how important it is for women to train for strength, not to achieve an absurd (and likely unachievable) ideal of what female beauty is supposed to be. It's the "train because you love your body, not because you hate it," idea with a heavy-weight-training emphasis, so obviously I am a fan.

My favorite piece of his is this one "Women - Be More Not Less."

His most recent article was also good, my favorite part is excerpted below, you can read the whole thing here. 

And everyone starts at the same place—with an unloaded bar. You decide how much you’ll add to it.

Beyond the physical benefits, strength becomes entirely mental. How far, how hard, and how long you progress is a personal process that makes anyone, man or woman, a tougher and more complete human being. You can’t be mentally strong and physically weak just as you can’t be mentally weak and physically strong. At a certain point, these two qualities will intersect and intertwine with each other. They will become the same path and the same process. Absolutely none of this is dependent on whether you have a Y or double X chromosome. That doesn’t matter. It’s never mattered, and it never will matter.

Physical strength is born in the mind and achieved through the body. Man or woman, we all have the means to possess it. We all have the means to build it, and we all can come to know it. Strength is a human right, so claim it.

__________________

Strict Press Set. Mostly here to show off my color-coordinated self.

Positives about training today:
1) I hit my 1 rep max with a split jerk of 104#x2 and followed it up with another single.
2) I sported a coordinated red headband/tank top/BRIGHT red shoes outfit. This always makes me feel good.
3) I added 5# to my last four sets of speed bench so the complete set ended up being 105#x3x4 and 110#x3x4. And I squeezed out a 4th rep on my last set, which felt great. Considering that my competition max on bench is 105# I am taking this as excellent progress.
4) New post-workout snack - Glutino's strawberry toaster pastry. (terrible brand name, delicious product) It. Was. Delicious.

This trap shot is for Eric.

Negatives:
1) My knee valgus on my heavy split jerks is horrendous. I have been hitting my glutes and glut med hard for a while, but my mechanics under heavy load are still pretty embarrassing in terms of how much my knees fall in and how spazzy I look. Yet another sign I suppose that Olympic lifting is not in my future.
2) I effed up my left knee. I think during my not-so-great squat session on Tuesday. It hurts coming up from a body weight squat and with any sort of loaded movement not in a completely straight plane. It hurt enough to keep me off the erg for my finisher today (which, admittedly, was sort of ok with me.) It feels a lot like what happened to my right knee last fall, and that sucked and lasted for weeks and weeks, so I am hoping maybe this is different/will go away faster. Time will tell, until then I have to be a little smarter about my mechanics. Boo.

Positives: 4 vs. Negatives: 2 = WIN.

Keeping perspective

Keeping perspective is a constant struggle for me. Part of it is the desire to always be improving, which is one of the things I love about weight training and power lifting. Up until a point that most people don't achieve (because it's almost impossible without dedicating yourself exclusively to training 24-7), it is always possible to lift more weight if you put in enough work. That constant possibility of progress is like a prize just slightly out of reach, something to always keep striving for. Although this same thought process makes it difficult at times for me to be happy with my own progress, because it's never quite enough to satisfy me, I think in general it's a fine and healthy attitude to have regarding weight in the gym, as constantly striving to lift more is part of the point.

This constant striving gets trickier though when applied to scale weight. For one, it's not desirable or practical to always be trying for a lower scale weight. Although this was my standard measure of progress for many years (and appropriately so for a long time), at this point it's not terribly helpful and mostly serves as a way to make me feel worse about myself. I realized recently that I will probably never reach my old goal weight of 175#. I don't even remember where I got that number from, but it's always been in my head as my "perfect weight." Perfect for what, I'm not sure. I know at this point it would be far from perfect for my ability to lift heavy and train hard, as to achieve and maintain that body weight I would either have to drop muscle mass or get to such a low body fat percentage that I wouldn't be able to eat enough to have enough energy to lift heavy.

A lot of this reflection was prompted by looking at progress pictures from earlier this year, about a month before my comp, when I was at 190# and still feeling pretty good (though certainly dieting hard.) I remember at the time not being that impressed, all I could see was my saggy belly and floppy arms. Looking at them now, I can see that I looked good. Yes, I have some extra floppy skin from a decade+ of being obese, but I was also lean and looked strong and fit. I remember clearly thinking that I was still fat and being discouraged by that as 190# seemed pretty good to me scale-weight-wise. I know now that it is pretty good, and I wish I had felt better about myself and my progress at the time as perhaps it would have prevented some of my post-comp binge eating (which was, in part, due to the fact that I "didn't even look that good so what was the point." So. Dumb.)

I have been really down on myself recently for gaining so much weight post-comp. I am sitting around 208# these days. I haven't hit this high a scale weight since January 2012, and that sucks. What I need to keep reminding myself is though, that 1) there's a lot more muscle in that 208# now than there was in January 2012, 2) 208# is still an incredible achievement coming from 300#, and 3) I will get back to my "happy weight" of 195# or thereabouts in due time. I say it was "easy" to put so much weight back on post-comp, but in reality, I did a lot of seriously crappy eating and serious self-hating for that crappy eating over those few months. There wasn't much "easy" about it.

___________


Training today was a good reminder of the importance of perspective. My heaviest lift of the day was supposed to be a 221# squat for 1 or more reps, but on the set before which should have been 197# for 3 I failed on the 2nd rep. I re-racked the weight and failed again. This. Was. Frustrating. Laying on the gym floor post-fail I considered crying but then figured my time and energy would be better spent getting whatever strength training I had left out of my legs (my stupid, stupid legs which would not squat for me!!) I texted Chris to ask his advice and he recommended singles at a slightly lighter weight, which I was able to do at 177# for 5 reps.

Getting back to the apartment today and checking out my newly created progress calendar-tracker-thing which sits above my desk and where I record my max lifts each week, it was comforting to see that two weeks ago I hit 195# for 5 and last week I got 197# for 3. I know I am not suddenly dramatically weaker than last week, but am probably instead feeling the cumulative effects of a long weekend without a lot of sleep, three weeks of a pretty intense new training program and honestly probably still adjusting to my new nutrition plan (though I think this is probably affecting me the least of the three.)

At this moment still working hard to keep that all-important perspective. And I'm definitely looking forward to drop-in meditation class tonight.

x1 week

It's my x1 week this week on the 5-3-1 plan, meaning I am trying to hit my heaviest weights this cycle for single reps or more. I love x1 week because it can show how much progress I have made over the past month, but it can also be a bit of a heartbreaker.

This morning was bench day, and I went in feeling good. My form felt on, I think I have developed a solid pre-lift routine and am able to stick to it easily and it helps set me up with a tight back and decent amount of leg drive. 100#x5 went up pretty easily, 115#x3 required a little more effort, but I still felt good. Eric showed up in time to spot me on 115# and 130#, which was good because 130# wouldn't budge off my chest. My butt came off the bench and I still couldn't get it moving, so Eric had to help me pretty much the whole way up. I followed that fail up with a very slow eccentric to at least get myself adjusted to the weight, and that actually went better as I was able to control it the whole way down, even the last few inches before it hit my chest. Still, I am bummed to not be able to record 130#x1 in my book.

Training:
Warm-up: Landmine press and band pull-aparts
Main lift: Bench and cable rows
Accessory: Band chin-ups and triceps work.

Patience and Belief (two things I need more of, in spades)

This morning at the gym was . . . important. It was squat day, and I was feeling good. Confident and well-fueled and positive about some tweaks I have made to my stance and generally feeling ready to hit my heaviest lift for the day, which was supposed to be 207#x3. During my warmups and first few sets, I felt good under the bar, which I haven't for a while, and felt very much in a groove, all the way up to 197#x3, where I struggled a little on my 3rd rep, but they were all well below competition depth and I was able to push through my sticking point (which has shifted from the bottom of the hole to a few inches out of it.) All in all it was shaping up to be a kickass day.

Then . . . I'm not sure what happened, but I know it has to do with thinking too much. All of a sudden my brain was in overdrive and I was thinking about everything except what I needed to be, that being to get low and drive my knees out on the way up. I was distracted by the other people in the room (even though they'd been there the whole time), my music didn't seem to fit so perfectly any more, my pre-lift routine rhythm felt forced and false. I don't know, but I couldn't get my head on straight and failed at 207#. It sucked. I haven't failed at a weight that light since mid-May, and I have felt like I've made some pretty solid progress in the last couple months, having dialed down my weights as I adjust to Olympic lifting shoes and hitting comp depth every rep. I unracked the weights, got the bar back up, and tried again. And failed again. That sucked more.

Serious reality check time: I've had this article by Paul Carter in the back of my mind since reading it yesterday, and I know it applies to my training today. (To summarize, it is about relying on patience and belief in training to allow yourself to continue to make progress over long, loooooooong, periods of time. It is also about not being an entitled brat in the training room.) I get frustrated so easily when a weight that I think I "should" get doesn't come up. This "should" is the issue as I often feel that I deserve the weights to go the way I want. That is a problem. Thinking that I deserve a weight to go up just because I've been following my program and putting time in at the gym is bullshit. I am privileged to be able to train hard and enjoy it, and I don't deserve anything. The training is its own reward, and being able to come back every week and try again is enough.

Progress is earned and it is earned slower than I want it to be. I need to dial down the entitlement and dial back in just loving moving the weight, even if it doesn't always move the way I want it to. I also need to cut the "getting down on myself" crap, because it is really just another way to express my own disbelief that I am not getting what I deserve.

Training today:
Squat: 6 sets working up to 197#x3 and 207#x2 fails. Supersetted with core stability work.
Accessory: Snatch grip deads and single leg work.
Finisher: Jump rope.

P.s. Apologies and much gratitude to my absurdly patient trainer/coach/endless-question-answerer, Chris, who has repeatedly told me the lessons of patience and belief, in so many words, and also patiently reminded me that I am but a newbie-babe-in-the-woods-beginner at all this (and so shouldn't get so down on myself) and has also never been the slightest bit snarky or annoyed at my absurd entitlement in the gym.

The biggest PR I haven't achieved yet

Actually has nothing to do with powerlifting, it's the blessedly simple and infuriatingly impossible body weight pull-up (though I'll settle for a chin-up to start.) It's a goal I've wanted since I started training with Chris 20 months ago and though I've made some significant progress towards it, it's still definitely in the long-term goal category (more then 3 months out.)

I can pull more of my own weight than I used to be able to, but I'm still using a pretty industrial-size band to help with my neutral grip chin-ups, and only repping out 2-4 at a time. I know my pterodactyl-arms don't help my leverages and that pull-ups can be challenging for women in general, but these explanations do not do much to quell my simmering resentment at my own inability to just pull my own body up to a bar. It seems so simple, yet so far it has not been. The struggle continues.

Training today:
Warm-up: Landmine presses and band pull-aparts.
Bench: 6 sets of bench working up to 120#x4. 2 sets of low-weights to failure (65#x22 and 75#x15, I need to up my low-weights just a bit as 22 reps feels like cardio and also is probably setting me up for an overuse injury in my rotator cuff.) All super-setted with seated pulley rows.
Accessory: Triceps work and band pull-ups.

Hmmph.

I try really hard not to make excuses for myself while I am lifting. If a weight is not going up, rather than start spinning my mental wheels on all the reasons why that might be (I'm tired or sore, my form is off, I slept badly or ate something different, the rack sucks, I forgot my iPod, etc) I try to focus on the task at hand and getting it done. Try being the operative word there. I am a fairly compulsive over-thinker in all areas of life, and I have yet to get this under control in the weight room. I know my tendency to over-analyze everything is generally ultimately unproductive, so I've been trying to be better about it. It's hard.

On the other hand, I do think it's important to pay attention to factors like stress, work load, nutrition, surroundings, and of course lifting form, to see how these things can be tweaked and changed to help me make the lifts I need/want to make. I think one important factor in this evaluation is to make sure that these reasons for not making a lift become areas for improvement, rather than excuses for performance.

I think I need to start meditating again, as during the brief period where I was sitting for 5-15 minutes a day, I did notice an increased ability to shut out the excuse/explanation part of my brain when I needed to JUST LIFT.

The source of all this reflection is the fact that I squatted today, maxed at 195#x5, but I'm pretty certain only the first 3 reps were to competition depth (no video to confirm, but Keith agreed with me.) After the 3rd rep I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to get down to depth again, but I really wanted to get my five reps in. This is problematic on two fronts: 1) As soon as I thought that I couldn't get to depth again, that pretty much guarantees I can't - the brain is powerful! and 2) about a month ago I knocked 30# off my max working weight for my squat in order to ensure that I hit competition depth on every. single. rep. So I had no business cheating myself on those last two.

I'm also annoyed, because a month ago, at the beginning of my last 5-3-1 cycle, I hit 192#x8, all to comp depth. So 195#x5 shouldn't have been a problem. RRRrrrrrrgh.

Okay, I'm spinning in circles here. Enough.

Training today:
Squat: 6 sets working up to 195#x5,1
Accessory: single leg work, snatch grip deads and kettlebell complex

Bench Day Bummer

Today was bench day, which traditionally has been not-my-favorite, because for about 9 months (from September of last year through this May) my 1-rep max was stuck at 115#. It did not budge. FOR NINE MONTHS. I was a little frustrated.

Happily, I did finally bust through that plateau and hit 135# for a clean, relatively easy rep in May. It was wildly satisfying and definitely one of my biggest accomplishments in the gym to date, mostly because I worked so long and so hard without any measurable progress. Lesson learned, yet again.

Since that awesome day, I have been feeling solid about my bench form, and though I haven't gotten 135# again (not because I haven't tried), overall I've felt good. Which was why today, when I was supposed to max out at 115# for 5+ reps (I'm following 5-3-1 for all my main lifts) and I could only get 2 on my own with an assist for a 3rd, I was not thrilled. But I'm trying to live out my new-ish gym motto "Don't Be Such A Spaz," so even after trying for a second set with the same result and even though I am coming off my deload week and should feel fresh as a daisy, I figured it's just not my day and moved on. I adjusted my foot position for my pause bench sets, pulling my heels farther back so I could drive in without pushing my butt off the bench, and this definitely felt better. Form, form, form.

Training:

Warmup: rotator cuff and lat work

Bench:

• 7 sets working up to 115#x2,2
• Pause bench 100# for 3x3

Accessory: More back and tricep work (serious weak spots both)

Finisher: Burpees --> Pullups (jump up to bar and eccentric lower for my non-pullup-capable self)x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5

Burpees are RAW. They give me that throw-uppy, burning, want-to-die feeling like nothing else. But they're also extremely effective and I definitely get an outsize sense of satisfaction after doing them. And on days like today when my benching is off, it feels good to throw myself into something hard and sort of terrible to end the day. Good times.

Deadlift Day!

Until a few weeks ago, deadlift day was without a doubt my favorite day of the week. Like many powerlifters, I love the unequivocal nature of the deadlift. Either you can pick it up or you can't. Period. It's also the lift where I have been able to move the most weight, and the one I've always felt the most comfortable with in competition.

However, as my weights got heavier and heavier, my form was definitely suffering. I've always lifted conventional because the first time I tried sumo (probably 6-8 months ago) I felt like there was a vice grip around my hip joints and I couldn't really even get down to the bar. A few weeks ago, I assume after having watched one too many videos of me lifting anything over 240# with an increasingly rounded low back, Chris told me we were going to change my stance to something closer to sumo, but not quite all the way there.  Realizing that in the future I may want a functional spine for things other than crushing mad weight, I figured he was making the right call.

Positives about the new stance: It forces good form, there's almost no way for me to round my back out. Whereas with conventional, if my legs gave out my back would just kick in (this is BAD.) In this new stance, because of the way I have to approach the bar and the inherent stiffness in my spine and hips in this position, either my legs do the work or the bar doesn't move.

Negatives: For the past 2 weeks I haven't been able to get anything over 199# off the ground. THIS SUCKED. This also pointed out that my glutes are still pathetically under-active and weaker than they should be if I think I can throw around 280# (which I almost got in my last comp.)

Pre-stance change-up, I was raring to go and eager to hit 300# before the end of the summer, but now it feels like a major accomplishment to get 214# off the floor. Which I did. Today. And I am HELLA PSYCHED about it. If you had told me a month ago that I would be thrilled with 214# for two singles I would have laughed in your face. But that's what I got today, and it felt good. For the first time in this new stance my medial knees didn't hurt at all, I was able to self-correct on form throughout my lifting, and I feel like I'm on my way back up.  It feels good.

I also want to give credit to this breathing/bracing technique that I read about earlier this week on Girls Gone Strong (#5 under 'Barbell Box Squat'.) I have read a ton about bracing your core with breath and keeping your ribs down, but it never really made sense until now. I used it today with my deadlifts and front squats and I think it really helped maintain stiffness, as well as providing a nice pre-lift routine.

Training today:

Warmup: Kettlebells

Deadlift: 6 sets, working up to 214#x1,1

Accessory: Front squats, suitcase carries and jump rope (I actually jumped rope! I did it! Whoo hoo!)

I should spend the rest of the day doing school work, but I think it is entirely more probably that I will go see Man of Steel and This Is The End, with a totally amazeballs cheat meal of icecream and pizza in the middle. Yeah, that sounds about right.