Good thing I took it 'easy'

That light training session on Monday resulted in killer doms, esp in the quads. I took yoga this morning, may do something this evening too. My sick dog took up a lot of time Monday night thru today, but he seems back to his normal self. Barking up a storm! Coffee w a scoop of protein powder and liberal shot of half/half is my breakfast of choice. Enjoying that, then its time to work!

Back at it!

After a two-week enforced break due to being overly enthusiastic during my squat series, as well as getting an big open blister rope climbing, I'm back! New rule of lifting for me, take two days to recover before lifting no matter how awesome I feel. Its not worth it to need weeks to stand up straight again. With that said, I made myself chill today. Warm-up, hyperextensions 3 x 10, push-ups 3 x 10. Squats, 1 x 10 x 45, 1 x 5 x 65, 1 x 5 x 85, 3 x 5 x 95. Clean and press, 1 x 5 x 45, 2 x 3 x 55, 3 x 3 x 65. Overhead squats, 3 x 3 x 45. Doesn't look like much but I was sweating like crazy after that.

I did yoga this morning too, have been doing that and spinneng during my time on injured reserve. While watching a documentary about ballet dancers, "Ballerina" yesterday, it was gratifying to see one of the principal dancers come back after hurtung her foot, trying to dance on it again too soon (!) screwing it up even worse, and gradually getting back and surpassing her former skill. So, Tuesday and Weds to recover, I'll take at least one yoga class, Spin, and probably hang out with my niece. She's seven, so everything is a workout, esp since I hate to sit and watch media when we are spending time together.

Massage! My yoga instructor sent out an invitation to buy massages at a good price, and I went for it. Oh my god what a wonderful difference it made. I made a leap of faith and bought a pack of four, so I have three more to go that are pre-paid. Overhead work, here I come, I'll have him pummel my shoulders back into place every two weeks. It would be great to get some work done on my hip flexors too, but that is so close to private areas and I don't want anything to get weird. That was the only area after the first massage that felt neglected, but I understand. I'll see how they feel after a couple weeks of lifting and if my hips are bothering me I'll ask him about it. Also, that rope climbing was hard as hell. I can't wait to do it again next month! It's a once-a-month thing outside climbing ropes hanging from a huge tree. Fun!

Back to basics aka squats

My split was going well, deadlift 195 lbs, bench back to 95 for reps when life derailed my week. So I'm resetting with a squat cycle, going to dial back to 3 x 5 x 95 and work my way up to 3 x 5 x 150. I think two months for that barring any unforseen events, then I'll go back to the squat, bench, deadlift and accessory split aiming for 225 lb deadlift, 115 lb bench for the rest of the Summer. Two months pure squats strength, two months strength/ physique. I still update workouts on Fitocracy, link at the right.

No truck til tomorrow

So, no gym plans at all for today and tomorrow am. At least I now have plenty of time to work and no excuses!

Squats weren't bad yesterday

I have confidence to go for 130 lbs after 5 x 3 x 125, not pretty but okay, then 3 x 5 x 115. I have to remember to keep perfect from being the enemy of good. So, worked up to those, then Romanian deads, 1 x 8 x 85, was easy, 3 x 8 x 95, yikes those are killers. Today, my truck did not start, so no AM cardio or yoga for me, just stress. I'm waiting for the shop to open now to see if I can get it over there. My mechanic has banker's hours, but I like him because he is the Toyota Whisperer. Even after a simple oil change it seems like my truck has new life. Hopefully, it will be running by tonight so I can get a chest and shoulders workout in, if not I'll have to deal with push-ups and dust off the dumbbells in the closet. Not the end of the world. I took the unexpected time out this morning to complete one of those store surveys on the Walmart reciept and enter a $25,000 sweepstakes. Who knows, maybe this was actually the beginning of a lucky day?

On a less bright note, last night I planned to work from 9 to 12 after getting home from the gym. However, I was wiped out and barely made to to 8pm awake. I hope the energy I'm supposed to get from exercise kicks in soon as this is getting expensive as far as money not earned goes. Always a work in progress.

weight down, but lifts are too

2 pounds down after a day including a Philly cheese steak sandwich, on bread! and huge plank-like french fries. That makes 4 pounds down in the slowest weight-loss journey ever (I decdied to cut fat the day after Valentine's Day). I hope that means it is mostly fat, but my lifting has been sporadic this week. As in, I haven't lifted since last Thursday night. On Thursday I topped out at 3 x 5 x 115 squats, and could only bench 85 lbs. So much for dumbbell benching carrying over to straight bench-press. Ah well. Starting over starting today, I will be concentrating on squats, going for 3 x 3 x 125. As I carb-loaded yesterday, this should be a breeze.

Tomorrow am cardio is treadmill intervals and rowing, then at night bench press and shoulders, upper body stuff. Thursday easy am cardio, elliptical and walking, or a spin class if I get there at a time one is starting then deadlifts at night. Friday am cardio, treadmill intervals and rowing. Saturday, easy cardio, yoga, squats.

Fasted AM cardio

So far so good, the cats woke me up early enough that I made it to 6am Spin class, which is extra good because my feet were feeling beat up last night from yesterday's treadmill intervals and deadlifts. I had planned to row and use the elliptical but this was better, good music at least. Also, I can see a difference in the body! Granted, it is the top half of me- of course! But, losing fat from the top down is a lot more interesting when there is visible muscle structure underneath a lesser layer of fat. I deadlifted last night, and realized I skipped 180lbs completelyin the previous progression, so did that as my top weight, and I bet I can do that for decent doubles next time. Tonight is a bench press and accessory night, but its been since Monday that I squatted, so I'll start with back squats and then do the pressing. My messed-up hand responded well to incline bench press last time so I may stick with that for now.

Experimenting with new things

First off, fasted morning cardio. Lots of people with great bodies swear by it, I'm not concentrating on gaining max strength right now while watching my nutrition so what the heck. Two days down so far and it hasn't killed me, just made my legs a bit stiff after squats and what-not lifting last night. Will I keep it up for a month to see what comes of it? Stay tuned. Next up, finding some food replacements. I commented on my cheese addiction in the last blog post. Sometimes, I'm in a hurry and want to make something quick like beans or soup, but beans are plain and soup doesn't satiate me for long without adding something to it, and my go-to until now has been yummy cheese.

Dietary fat isn't something I'm worried about right now. After tracking I see that its the carbs to fat ratio that is off and total calories are important too. So, instead of cheese in soup I made a couple of eggs, whites white but yolks runny and breakable into the soup. That was heavenly. Success! Next stop, beans. At the store I picked up brown mustard and dill relish with the intention of adding that to my tuna instead of evil evil (and expensive) mayonnaise. Since it was morning and I was feeling carby, I added a good dallop of the mustard to my beans and heated it up. Also good, and flavorful enough that I didn't miss the cheese. Oh yeah. That got me brave enough to substitute evil but beloved mayo out for mustard and relish in the lunch tuna- and I liked that too!

Wouldn't it be nice to just change some fatty habits in an enjoyable way to improve my lifestyle, kind of like going from a sedentary person to a gym rat was. Feeling positive right now.

When you need a friend

After whining about tracking my food and not being able to eat everything in sight covered with cheese and washed down with wine, I realized that I needed a friend. This may not come through on this blog, but I can be very charming in person, compelling even. So, real-life friends and family are more likely to be led astray down the path of debauchery with me than I am to be positively influenced by someone in person. Thank-God for the Internet!

Who is more disciplined than all-natural figure competitors? No fucking body, that's who. My lifestyle change is a gorged vacation compared to the strict lifestyle of women who sculpt their bodies to perfection as a career. After a quick Google search, Kari of Figure Girl World entered mine. It is the end of my fourth week tracking calories, macros and all that stuff and just as I was becoming dejected at no change in my weight and minimal change in measurements, her blog sucked me in.

This woman goes through 20 weeks of intense diet and exercise on a regular basis, keto (which is basically no carbs at all), never drinks alcohol, gets up at 3am sometimes to do fasted cardio and has 2 dogs and 2 cats to deal with. Seriously, one of my cats is awkwardly trying to get comfortable on my lap right now. Don't get me started on the dog.

I went all the way back to the beginning of the blog and it is like a novel, ups, downs, carb-craving, workout fatigue and inspirational pictures. Kari pushed me through this tough week. I cannot recommend this blog enough if you are out there, like me, feeling self-pity that you cannot indulge yourself recklessly (like most of us Americans) and also have the same level of health and fitness desired. Now I have to go, the dog is yipping ;-)

Sunday at the gym

Possibly! One thing I dislike about Sundays are the shortened gym hours. I understand them, as a former retail employee having to work weekends sucks. As a person who likes to train on a consistent schedule, hours between 1 and 6pm are about as inconvenient as you can get. In other words, I never really know until then if I can go becuase there is so much time for something else to pop up.

Good news! I got out of bed on my own and have been walking around, albeit grumpily, all morning in no pain, just a little stiffness. The cold seems to be on its last legs too. Maybe having the strength drained out of me turned out to be a positive thing in that regard, as I simply had to collapse in bed rather than fight it and continue on normal weekend activities.

It is a shame I couldn't make it to the ball as I had a fabulous outfit that really shows off my lower half and height but it is an annual event and there will be other art-y charity things to do. The funeral was nice, C's stepmom was a lovely lady who worked hard and was having enough health issues towards the end that resting will be a relief. We went out to dinner afterward, and amid the table ordering new-Americana food was me ordering a huge rare burger. It was expensive enough for me to trust the meat, big and yummy. When we got home I just sank into bed, after tracking it online of course.

If I train today at the gym it will be bench press day, have I mentioned how much I like this split? Being able to focus on one big lift per session with accessory of whatever Oly lifts go with it is a lot more fun and less stressful than doing all three per session. I'm not giving up at all, I'm evolving and always strive to do more than was done in the previous session, even if its on accessory stuff. I like being able to actually see pec movement in my upper body. One the other hand I could decide to hang out with my neice today, to work or to tackle the looming pile of laundry in the garage. If so, then the plan is 6am yoga, lift, spin class for Monday.

Low back complaining from squats again

In the two and a half years I have been trying to get stronger and squatting, my lower back has had issues when the weight gets between 125-135 lbs. I reset back down, work my way back up, and it happens again. I went to squat camp, adjusted form- back to the SS form which does lean me over more, and its happening again. I think it may be time for me to learn how to squat high-bar. The purpose of the low-bar squat is to get stronger by using more weight, as this isn't happening, in fact it keeps causing problems and making me go down in wieght, I need to rethink this. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For now my dreams of the strong squat are going to remain dreams, and I'll switch to front squats as the focus on squat day.

It totally sucks to admit defeat, but not being able to lift because one exercise keeps hurting me is even worse. I hope the back will be okay and I'll be able to move around tomorrow. Frankly, I'm having a moment of self-pity here. It has been a shitty week.

Squats and snatches

That didn't go too badly. My squats are back to 125 lbs, which is where they were before the squat camp reset. I do feel my knees want to slide forward in order to get depth, and plan to get a video soon to see what is going on there. As overhead squats seem to demand a power snatch, I've been working on those. Getting under the bar is a little scary but I'll get there. Trained on coffee, cream and protein powder and was a burping fool for a while, but I had to get it done as I have a funeral to go to today and couldn't take my time. I am worn-out right now, and hungry. Where is my wife to feed me and clean the kitchen?

Feeling better

After being sick and etc all week, feeling okay today is such a relief, I was, all systems go! 6am yoga was kind of weird, it actually felt easy but also like i wasn't really present in the movements at the same time. Plow position was just the thing to release the lower back. My body sent me back to bed in the afternoon for some more rest and a bizarre daja-vu dream. Tomorrow is squat day, I'm looking for 3 x 5 x 125 low-bar back squats and 70lb overhead squats. So, lifting and yoga, its probably too soon to add cardio to that in one long session. Reveiwing calories for the week and it hasn't been that bad and my average protein intake has been over 100 grams a day, so cool. It is only 530 pm so I have time to do some damage, but I really want this squat day to go well. I need to work all weenend too to make up for not bringing in income this week. There is a fun-sounding ball on Saturday night I've been invited to, but will pass. I'm too shaky for a night out just yet. Right now my priorities need to be fitness and financial over socializing.

Update

I am 45, going to be 46 in a couple of months, and my body is driving me crazy! Granted, I'm still getting used to tracking my food intake. Funny how such a minor change has me internally pouting and stamping my feet. I don't wanna! But, I know that the last time fat effectively peeled off of me was due to keeping track of what goes in my mouth. So there have been internal arguments without even getting to the part where I restrict calories yet! The main goal at the moment is to get enough protein grams and keep alcohol intake low enough that it doesn't look like a whole food-group on the pie chart of my foods.

Just in time for this, my female parts have decided to become completely unpredictable, climbing the walls with sexual desire one week, then a sudden deluge period for one- or two! fucking weeks, sometimes both happening at once. Cramps, bloating, headaches, you name it. This also tends to be when I catch sloppy colds too. See why I haven't been posting? Who wants to read a litany of complaints.

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Coping. I went online to make sure that expelling the Red Sea wasn't killing me, yes I am aware i could have gone to a doctor, waited all day in an uncomfortable office after filling out my life's story, then waited more while naked except for a paper gown on an even more uncomfortable examining table, but since I feel okay considering I decided to go online instead. Found out that it's called 'flooding' and it happens.

So I've been chowing down on fresh fruit and veggies, usually I make spinach juice in a blender and gulp it down for ease. I'm also making a point to eat more red meat for iron. When I feel too much like shit to do everything, yoga, cardio, lift weights, I choose lifting weights as my priority, yoga or just rest for rest days. This week has been a double-whammy week, cold and period. I've done squat day on Tuesday, bench-press and other upper-body lifts on Wednesday, and am going in to deadlift today. The hopeful goal is doubles at 185 lbs. Had rounded back pulls on this last time, so if it feels rounded on singles, singles it will be.

As far as the body recomp has gone, I don't have really high hopes for this week on the scale, however the upper-body day seems to be making a difference. My chest and shoulders look more defined, kind of more muscular yet slimmer at the same time. So that is good.

Back from the gym, pretty weak. One deadlift at 185, could barely get it up, 3 singles at 175, 3 x 3 x 155, 2 x 5 x 135 and out.

Still lifting, have gone to a split

I am journaling privately as now I have been tracking food, times eaten, moods and effects. I still track most of my workouts on Fitocracy, which is linked to here on the sidebar, and am still working on my back squat position and strength. My traininf is now Day 1; a back day, deadlifts and accessory lifts, Day 2: chest, bench press and dumbbell presses, and Day 3:leg day, low-bar back squats, front squats and overhead squats.Day 4 off. Doing this as well as tracking calories, foods, macros until June when I will assess how this has gone and make changes if desired. I'll pop back in here now and then when I feel like saying something publicly.

I didn't give up

Well, for a week or so i did, being demoralized from needing to completely rework my squat form and having to start over. I've been at it, yesterday 3 x 5 x 105, knees out and sitting back, and I noticed that it is rough on my lower back now. I bet that is why I modified the form in the first place without even realizing it. I'll use that squat weight again next time and see how it goes. Dumbbell bench 3 x 6 x 30, next regular bench 3 x 3 x 97.5- yes I will break out the mini-plates. Trying to see if linear progression will work again. Deadlifted 1 x 5 x 150, broke form towards the end, thinking sets of 3 will be better here too. I've been taking yoga all along, it helps with sanity.

Squat camp, or, No wonder I have Quads of Doom

I hoped that at squat camp the instructor would tweak my form and I would squat 135lbs with ease. Hahahahaha! Instead, I was BY FAR the weakest one there, managing to lift less than a young woman literally half my size. My form was tweaked all right, so much that I have to go back to 95 lb squats and do them the exact opposite way I've been squatting for two years now. When my knees slide forward it forces my quads to lift the weight, when hamstrings are supposed to handle most of it. On the bright side, I did get a lot of attention, being the most in need of help. It was worth it.

The bad part was attempting to lift in a freezing cold warehouse after being told to wear stretchy shorts and a cotton T-shirt. My skin turned into white flakes, it was gross! In hindsight I would have brought warmer clothes, being from Fl i'm so used to being overly warm while training that being uncomfortably cool didn't occur to me. Also, I made the bad decision to basically dehydrate myself on the drive up, which meant I had to play catch-up the day of the camp just to be normal again and was rather light-headed. Next road trip, I'm drinking more water then usual and just pulling into every rest stop necessary. And bringing warm clothes!

Yoga tomorrow morning, squats 3 x 5 x 95.

Yikes! Back twinge

That is what I felt shortly after waking up, so new plan for the week. No lifting. I'm taking the week off leading up to squat camp because I'd rather be a little weak than injured. I suppose last month there was almost a week off when the gym had short holiday hours, and hope this doesn't drive me insane. Yoga and cardio will have to do, maybe I'll revisit some Spin classes or take some boot-camp stuff. That might make me want to lift real weights though. And do I want to be out of practice when I get there, or is it better to start kind of fresh? I'm completely confused.

Modified Westside

A Fitocracy member linked to an interesting article about lifting and running, and the author, a super-built guy who also runs Ironmans, recomended using Westside programming. My lifts are so low that 55% for the dynamic effort days would be embarassing- sorry but I'm vain, so I already broke the rules. The first workout! I started with dynamic deadlift day, which is supposed to be 8 x 3 x 55% of your 1 rep max. Thinking my 1 rep max was 185 I did the math and came up with under 102 lbs. So I loaded it up with 135 and did the 8 x 3. I did not do any accessory work.

Tomorrow, Monday will be bench and squat day maxing up to singles. This is a normal heavy bench and squat day for me anyway, and will be the last heavy squat day for me before squat camp this weekend. On Saturday I took two yoga classes, the regular long one and the kids class right afterward. It was fun, definitely not relaxing but how relaxed do you need to be on a Saturday morning? I'm looking forward to taking it with my niece.

yoga, squats and bench press

This morning I slept-walked thru 6am yoga but it was still worth going. Trying to explain how much better regular yoga makes me feel is difficult, basically it makes me comfortable in my body. Lifting, on the other hand, instill confidence and swagger which I love. Tonight I went in a squatted, topping out at 3 x 3 x 130 when my lower back started to feel it. Next heavy squat day going for 3 x 5 x 130, and I may try it with one of the loaner belts at the gym then too. My sister was working out too, and going through the circuit of machines, so when it was time to bench I went over there and dragged her off of that silly shit to bench with me. She did well, topping out at 3 x 5 x 60. My benched topped out at 3 x 3 x 95, 3 x 5 x 85. Tomorrow is Saturday morning yoga, the long class, Sunday deadlift day.