Tuesday, November 17, 2015

grumble grumble

HEY!  Two days in a row, been a long time since that's happened.  I can tell you this, I'm beyond ready to be back in a normal class.  This self imposed working out in a vacuum... sucks... and might be part of the reason I strained something in my shoulder.  Really, I should have warmed up with the class in progress, THEN gotten into my other stretches.  Probably would have mitigated this.  It's hard to remember it's been a month plus since I've really, truly gotten after it. 

Today was supposed to be 30 minutes of METCON.  I got 20 in before kaputski.  First set was 10 minutes of 7 ring rows, 7 strict press at 75lbs, and 40 battle ropes swings.  I noticed my shoulder... or really my whole left arm not being in it on the very first strict press set.  Made the ropes and everything else difficult after that.  10 minutes of hell... shoulder, left arm seeming to get weaker after every round.  Ended up 5+3.  Not great.

Next up was supposed to be 7 ring pushups, 14 calorie row, 21 KB swings.  The class was using the rowers, so I did some plate pull thingys that I made up on the spot.  Probably complete @ss, but I tried.  The ring pushups didn't feel right, I need to get with Brian on those again.  The KB swings, were AMAZINGLY difficult to string together today.  I'm going to blame it on the shoulder... because I don't know what else could cause it to suck so badly.  Put down the pood too many times.  Ended up with 4 rounds even in 10 minutes.  Need to pick up it up.  

After that, I was dragging the rope back to the box, and putting some things up, when I made the call to stop.  I left the box, got halfway through the parking lot, then had to come right back, forgot my phone.  In that short time, my shoulder tightened up tremendously.  Going to be a long day. 

Monday, November 16, 2015

Objects at rest...

Man alive.  Getting out of bed was a chore today.  Didn't hear the alarm for the longest time, and then, after I turned it off, I had a moment of pause.  I'm comfy, it's raining out, I haven't been to the gym in almost two weeks... whats one more day?  Back to sleep it was. 

Kidding. 

Struggled to get out though.  It was a long pause in bed with the do I star or do I go... But I went.  Of course, as you'd expect, I'm glad I did. 

Did the same workout I started the last time I went in, and it's probably the post right below this.  Used similar weights (lightened up the bent over rows).  Everything else was the same.  The bench press was easier than last time, so thats muscle.  :)  I also think I improved my quickest row time a little... and without cheating with extra full pulls. 

Punked out on the airdyne.  Used the BS excuse that I had to get to work... which I do, but not so quickly that I have to stop mid airdyne and bounce.  Next weeks airdyne is actually 12 minutes in a row.  I'm looking forward to that, much so over 3 5 minutes sessions.  I'm weird about that stuff. 

Short post, need to dive into work today.  More to come, making changes, stuff to get myself on the correct, sustainable path. 

Monday, November 9, 2015

Stuggling to stay positive, to stay motivated

So last week was supposed to be my ticket back to solid workouts and getting this fitness train back on track....   well, it started out well, we can say that.  Breakdown of the last week:

Monday, I started coming down with something that night, didn't feel well at all. 

Tuesday, missed with illness, not a big deal, we'll get back on Thursday!

Wednesday, got labs drawn, hopped on a scale.... I've built so much muscle to replace the fat, that I haven't lost any weight in months... while my clothes are fitting looser than ever, I'm not dropping on the scale, very discouraging, especially when I wanted to loose a cool 100 this year.  Amazingly, this wasn't the only setback of the day.  I'm also still sick, oh, and I pulled my calf.  No pop this time, but definitely a "slow the eff down" moment.  I was walking.  WALKING, and it pulled.  Disheartening to say the least.  Can't even walk now... so upsetting. 

Thursday and Friday we're more of the same, sickness, rehab. 

Saturday, I spent most of the day asleep, in a NyQuil induced coma. 

Sunday, more rest. 

Monday morning, I feel better, but I didn't get up to go to the box,  Aiming to start that back up Tuesday, or Thursday.  Rehab seems to be going better, I'm trying to do more and more of it this time.  Tired of being out of class.  Thankful to Brian for putting together stuff to do in the mean time, but I'd like to get back to quality bar work.  I'd even take snatching right now...   le sigh

Monday, November 2, 2015

Royal Pains



Alright, lots of things to catch up on.  First, big ups to the Royals for winning their first World Series in quite a while.  I haven’t followed baseball at all since the strike (yes THAT strike from like 20 years ago), but I've been a Royals fan my whole life, so it's good to see them get some well-deserved shine.

Which leads me to the a typical “man, I'm tired”.  Up late to watch them win the series, then got up early to get on this new training plan.  Why a new training plan?  Let me tell you a story.... or continue the narrative of the last story.  Past 4 weeks, been recovering from shearing the muscles in my calf.  Coming along really well.  Last Wednesday, went and saw my guy Dennis Dolan, and he did something different.  Put my ankle up on a foam roller (I'm lying face down on the floor).  I don't know exactly what he did, but it felt like he was using his heel, or something like that, and providing pressure from left to right (as opposed to up and down) across the muscle fibers.  He said it was breaking up some of the things the north/south doesn't get. 

It hurt. 

Quite a bit actually.  I think a few times he tried to get me to squirm or cry out a little...  don't know that for sure, I just suspect it.  Either way, it didn't happen.  It got bad enough that I bit my hand rather than cry out.  #prideissues  By the time he was done, he said he was very impressed that I didn't cry out or complain loudly.  When I got up, there were sweat marks where my forearms had been... so I sweated the pain out...  pretty sure that’s a natural response to pain.  Even if it’s not, it might give you an idea how it felt. 

The end result though, I was finally able to squat squat.  Like not just down with a lean to the rights, but down evenly (mostly)... first time in a month.  AWESOME!!  I had some new mobility stuff to work on in the coming week or so, then I was going to clear myself for active duty.  Finally!  #cantwait  Fast forward to the next day, about midday.  Was going down the stairs at work, at close to a normal pace (faster than I'd been going the past month), and about 3/4 of the way down the second set of stairs, I fell a pop. 

No. 

Please God no!

Fuck!

Started tightening up instantly.  I had somewhere to be, so I just hobbled along...  but man...  When I got back to my desk, folks on my team we're like are you alright?  Just shook my head.  Took everything in my not to start tearing up.  Gave them the brief rundown and got some condolences and sympathy.  I tell you what, I've finally had that experience that feeling where you're so frustrated/angry you start to cry.  I’d always been able to empathize with people that did it, but now I can actually sympathize a little.  I didn't cry mind you, I'm a man (I just puffed out my chest while sitting here… for the visual), but man I wanted too. 

Thankfully, this “pop” felt like a much smaller one than the first time, and sitting here a few days later, it's definitely not as bad as the initial.  Still, I'm back to the easy stuff, working my way back to traditional WODs. 

Alright, so, as you can tell by the dates of my last posts, I haven't been posting much, and thats because I haven't been Wodding much.  I could still walk, but I was trying to take it easy, work my way back into the box.   Didn’t feel like typing it all out with no new updates.  This time, that won’t be the case… it can’t be, I’m losing too much ground on my goals.  Thus, yesterday I spent time with Brian yesterday, had to hire him to make me some tailored workouts for me over the next 4-6 weeks.  Today was day one, which started much too early for me... but I still went and got it done.

Did some banded stretching, pvc passthru's, static holds, things like that, then 5 rounds of a medium weight bent over rows.  95# seems to be a bit heavy for doing that in sets of 10... I had struggles... so that might lighten, depending on what coach says.  After that, some good ol' fashioned bench press.  It was another 5 rounds of sets of 10, with ascending weight.  205 was my last PR, but I wasn't pushing it up 10 times in a row... I made what I thought was a sensible decision of 95.  95 was kinda rough... but I pushed on, adding 10lbs each time.  The last set at 125 had me stopping at 5, 7, and 9th reps.  Stopping being just holding the bar up...  Almost to the point of needing a spotter. 

After all that, it was some rowing and air dyne.  The rowing was 6-250m rows with 2 minutes rest, and then 3 sets of 5 minutes for max calories on the air dyne.  The rowing sucked... not because it was rowing, but because it was short rowing.  I'm going to partial (think 25%) depth, before starting the pull.  Trying to minimized the calf impact.  All times were sub 1 minute, so I guess that's good, considering how much I lose from a full pull.  The air dyne was wicked.  Had to push from mid foot instead of the balls of my feet (again, trying to minimize the calf impact).  Legs wanted to die.  Interesting thing there was I improved each time... pushing myself harder each time.  71, 75, and 79 I believe (have to check).  Need to get that up to 100 calories in 5 minutes... I've got goals, and more importantly, someone to beat (looking at you Herm). 

I stated to walk out of the box as soon as I was done, but I felt a lot of… I don’t know if pressure is the right word, but I felt a lot of something in my quads… a swollen feeling, so instead of just sitting down, I went and grabbed a roller.  I didn’t stick around for long, did a few passes on just my quads, I was in a hurry, but the little bit I did was better than the nothing I Was going to do.  Need to get into the habit of rolling everything. 

So, thats me catching up to now.  I’m sore in the arms and shoulders while sitting here… I expect tomorrow to be some rope work (big rope fixed to an “anchor” type stuff).  We’ll see. 

Still doing the Keto//OS.  I’ve got my annual labs for work on Wednesday, so we’ll see what impact it’s had on those, as well as get a new baseline weight to go off of.  The mental benefits are amazing on this stuff, and for that reason alone I’m going to continue to use it.  No cobwebs, no mid-day drowsiness, amazing focus.  I haven’t had to take the 1-2 5hour energies I was drinking DAILY to make it through.  Another benefit I’ve gotten has been the reduction of inflammation.  Spectacular.  This whole calf injury, I probably should have been on 6-800mg of ibuprofen every few hours.  I haven’t needed any.  It’s pretty awesome stuff.  That’s my testimonial, that’s how it’s helped me.  You owe it to yourself to check it out.  http://4ebr54.pruvitnow.com/  #pruvit

With that, I’m getting back to work, lunch break is over.  Catch you guys and gals later, thanks for sticking with me!