9/30/13

Approaching aerobic normalcy

I wasn't a runner when I started this whole training thing and I'm admittedly still not. I'm the opposite. I probably still look less like a gazelle when I run and more like a bear. However, my aerobic base has been increased to the point of blatantly obvious over the last couple months. I'm not only noticing a higher threshold in training but also just walking around doing day to day activities. Good stuff.

AM

400m @85%

Rest 2min

x8

1:38,1:33,1:32,1:34,1:39,1:39,1:40,1:34

So I dipped down a little bit on the laps but again, it was suppose to be 85% not all out. Even if I did go a little harder on the last one. That crazy thing is that a month ago, less volume than this and at a lower intensity would have kept me from walking for a week afterwards because of my calf and leg DOMS. The day after, I feel almost nothing from the run (Though I feel other things which we will get to)

PM

20 Squat Snatches @185 for time

4:00

I did this 8/6 @ 190 and it took me 9:16. I'd say we could call that a little bit of an improvement. I'll leave it at that.

15 Squat Cleans @185 for time rest 4min

x3

1:18,1:35,2:38

I bit the dust on the third round. Hit a wall pretty hard, not gonna lie. Round 1 I went 8/7, then the 2nd I went 8/4/3, then the third it was 5/3/2/11111.

100 OH Walking Lunges for time 95#

7:58

Ouch. Thats really all I have to say. I did sets of 12 then two sets of 8 to finish. I think thats right.

Pain Report: I need a thumb in my butt pretty bad right now. You know.... digging into the glutes. Get out of the gutter. Little calf soreness, little shoulder nag but over all not bad. My upper Thoracic has been bothering me for a while now. It comes and goes and I can't figure out if its my erectors or my actual spine. Bothers me in the morning mostly. I had My Chiro look at it and he said it's prob muscles not a disc. We will keep an eye on it.

Sleep Report: Things are good, still getting to bed by 10:30 and sticking with the ZMA and MELA. I had coffee at 1:30 today which is past my time rule but it was a stressful off day so I treated myself.....by adding another stressor...ha.

Mentally today I've been a roller coaster. Seems to be ending on a 7 or so. I'm about to head into work and see my garage family hit it hard. That should help.

9/28/13

Am I suppose to suck this bad?

Today started off good. 133UB Double unders during my warm up. Huge PR even from when I was ok at them back in the day. But it ended pretty crappy.

2 Weighted CTB Strict Pullups rest 2min between rounds

x5

40(vest),45(belt),45b,45b,45b

These were about right. The belt made it a bit harder as that ROM was more since there wasn't a vest sticking 3 inches out of my chest.

8 Bent Over DB Rows x 3/arm rest 1min between arms

The biggest DB's we had were 55lb. These were pretty easy. Need bigger DB's I guess?

Also, I did these standing instead of on a bench. I found out later that wasn't correct :/

3Rounds of

for time

20 CTB pull-ups

10 Muscle ups

20 T2B

Rest 5min.

3:10,6:41,8:27

The 2nd and 3rd round are almost too embarrassing to post. Was I suppose to suck at these this much? I know I did alot of pulling but I missed my first MU on the second rounds. FTW. Not cool. I basically did all singles for the other rounds. ridiculous amounts of rest. I actually just sat down the third round because I kept failing. No Idea what happened. I felt great going in today, the volume shouldn't have been too much. I slept great. Had food in me, a little caffeine but not much. My CTB were unbroken, then 10/10 then 5/5/5/5. My first and last round T2B were unbroken. The middle round went 12/8. I feel defeated on this one. 

Pain report: Pretty much no pain anywhere. Shoulders are a little naggy but not bad. But I think I ruptured my pride today. 

Mentally I'm bummed about the performance. Can't figure out why that one had me at failure so easily. I'm about a 6.5 from that. I'm going to forget it and try to raise up to at least a 7.5 by tonight.

Sleep Report: I slept alot last night. Went to bed about 11 and woke up around 8:30. I was a little drowsy but I think that's good considering I've been waking up super early and not being able to go back to sleep. I could be wrong but it feels like more of a proper cycle.

9/25/13

Back to Shoulders

So I had a nagging pain a couple days ago and it went away, I'm not saying its back but my shoulders are definitely rocked. I did all this with Ice-Steve from CF North Atlanta today. Good times.

20 Unbroken pushpress 105lb. rest 30 sec

10 Muscleups for time rest 4min

x5

1:41,1:56,2:46,2:38,3:16

These are the elapsed times with the rest and push presses. Man, I didn't anticipate the P.Presses having that much of an affect on my MU's. I had a freak miss on my second MU in the first round(I tried the push off method for the dip to make the lock out more obvious and it messed me up a bit). After that I went 7/3,6/3/1,5/3/1/1,5/1/1/1/1/1 I failed a total of about 5 throughout the entire session. I still feel myself pushing past where I know I would have a couple weeks ago, so improvement.

+

3 Supinated(underhanded) Strict weighted pullups 40lb. Rest 20sec

15 CTB Pullups rest 4min

x4

45,46,45,45

These were all consistent and unbroken butterflies. Felt good. Probably should have gone heavier on the weighted underhands.

+

20min at 65% on Airdyne

257 cal / 6.1miles

This was nice. The whole session I stayed around 1000cal/hr with no issue. 

Pain report: Shoulder is a little iffy but not scary. Mid back is a little sore from yesterday and my quads are still sore from...well everything. Those Quads are getting better though. 

Sleep report: I slept for alot longer than I thought last night. Lights out around 10:30 and Though I was up in bed for a while, when I asked Elise what time it was(thinking it was 6am) she said 8.....Damn. I need to start checking my phone when I actually wake up so I have a more accurate reading on my actual sleep.

Today, I'm a good 8.5-9 mentally.

Some footage my PMS (pain management specialist) got of my last round of CTB's

9/24/13

Changing it up

I messaged Max the other day and said"My quads are wrecked and my shoulder has a nagging pain" He gave me an altered session for today with no shoulders...and MORE quads. Ouch.

AM

7x2 Squat Cleans @245lb. 

rest 3min. between sets

This was too light under normal circumstances, but I literally could barely stand up the second one of each set. Leg's were beyond wreck.

10 Unbroken HangSquat Cleans

Row 90 sec @ 85%

Rest 2min

x5

Done. This wasn't as bad as I thought. I kept thinking 50 hang squat cleans FML (F&*# My Legs) But I got through it just fine. I'm guess the LA was flushed out after the heavy cleans.....but then I got done and nope it's still there.

PM

10min AMRAP

10 Powercleans 135

20 Situps

10 Boxjumps

6+15 situps

I'm not going to lie, I felt like a monster during that workout. I did everything unbroken and only rested about 5sec between the BJ and cleans. The box jumps were fast and the cleans weren't even tough to go unbroken TnG until the last two rounds. It felt good to feel like I kicked a WODs butt. I also felt pretty good afterwards. 

Pain Report: This is probably obvious but my quads are rocked. Haven't been this sore in a while, but I like it. No worries. My left shoulder was acting up yesterday(which is why we adjusted the program) and it seems fine today. No catches during my everyday movement which is what it was doing yesterday.

Sleep report: I got pretty good sleep last night. Connor keeps waking in the middle of the night so there isn't much I can do about that but I was able to get a total of about 9 from down to rise. I really think the ZMA and melatonin are helping.

Mentally I am a 9 today. (8 if you consider me being worried about people looking at me funny for not really being able to walk like a normal human)

I went to get sweat bands and this is the only color they had left. Looks like I'm ready for breast cancer awareness. 

9/22/13

Wait, what did I do this morning?

You know your training is serious when:

A. You train so much on a given day that you forget what all you've done.

B. You don't even think about what you did the day before anymore.

C. People ask you what you have to do today and you sigh because you know it's going to take a while to tell them (Seriously, I'm just gonna start saying "Beating the $h1t out of myself")

D. All of the above.

AM

400m Run @85%

rest 2min

x6

1:38,1:34,1:36,1:37,1:40,1:36

So I'm pretty sure that these times would have been my 100% two months ago. Super happy with how I felt this morning. I don't know what happened on the 5th round, I guess I just didn't have my cadence right.

PM

1 Squat Snatch @210lb. EMOM 12min

Done. I had two SNAFUs on round 6 and 11 (lost in front) but picked it back up and made it in time for the minute.

6 FrontSquats @225lb. EMOM 8min

This sucked alot. It sucked more knowing that I had alot more quads afterwards. I did the first 6 sets without setting the bar down. The last two were 3/3. My elbows were just getting too low to chance it.

For Time

30 Squat Snatch

90 Wallballs

10:43

The only way I describe this after the Heavy snatches and Frontsquats is UNFAIR. My legs were literally still shaking from the squats when I hit start on the clock for this one. I went way too slow on the snatches but hey, like I said, it was a mental battle just to start this one. I literally just had to say FV(K it let's get it over. I started at doubles every 15sec for the first min. and switched to singles every 15 sec. after that. I should have and probably could have stayed at doubles for at least the second minute. If this comes up again that will be my plan. WB's were 7 sets of 10 with exactly 10sec rest then one last set of 20. This was about right and out of my comfort zone. 

Pain report: My hip isn't acting up like it was yesterday so we will see how it feels tomorrow morning. MY.QUADS.ARE.DEAD. I don't see how it would be possible for them not to be sore for a couple days after this. Looking forward to finding out. Also looking forward to an off day tomorrow.

Sleep report: Sleep seems to continue to improve. I stayed up until almost midnight last night and ended up coherent around 8am. I think I will try to stick to 10:30 on weekdays and midnight at the latest on the weekends for another stretch and see how I progress. I can always get to bed earlier on the weekend if I start to see regression in my recovery time.

My awesome wife snuck some pics of me during the last WOD this afternoon.

9/21/13

I need the new iPhone.

No really, it's important for training. The slow motion @ 120 FPS is a must for proper form. I promise that's the only reason.

Weighted strict CTB Pullups 5 sets of 3 @20lb.

I should have gone heavier on these. I've never done them so had no clue. Will do more next time.

Barbell rows 3 sets of 5 205lb.

Again, probably a little light. I've done this exercise at 275lb for a double but that was 20lb. ago and when I was only lifting. They were no problem. Rob actually got a really cool slow mo video of it with his new phone. 

For time:

20 Muscleups

40 GHD

60 CTB pullups

9:40

I was over all happy with this. I did 10 Muscleups UB then 5, then 2 and the rest quick singles. Time there was around 2:30 so pretty big improvement. The GHD's were all UB I slowed down a bit at 30 bit never stopped. Haven't done those in a while, may feel them tomorrow. IDK. The CTB was where it slowed down. I did about 11 butterfly, then went to 5's 3's and I actually ended with really fast singles. I felt like dropping and getting right back up was a better decision time wise then sitting around between sets just to do 4-5 at a time. Today was pull pull pull pull pull so I'm guessing this was kind of expected. I definitely found my wall on them.

My right hip is really acting up most likely from the running but everything else is pretty good. My right lower back is a bit tight. We will see how tomorrow goes with all the snatches and squatting.

Mentally today I'm almost at a 9.

Sleep last night was good. I went to bed a little late (12) but I slept in til about 8 so the time was still there and I think my ZMA and Melatonin (at 2mg now) is working well. Waking up less and still not graugy (sp) in the morning.

Barbell Rows in SlowMo


SlowMo muscleups

Really thankful for this video. A lot of my muscle-ups aren't full lock out. It's no extra effort on my part, but I need to make them cleaner. Can't afford a no rep there.

9/19/13

Today was an Unbroken day.

That's always a good thing in my mind. I was able to complete each portion of the training and all sets without breaking them into smaller sets. 

5 Pushjerks @205 rest 30sec

6 Muscleups rest 30sec

15 HSPU rest 30sec

12 CTB pullups rest 30sec

30 Calories on Airdyne rest 4min

x5

4:22(2:22 without rest)

4:26

4:20

4:47

4:41

Since I did everything unbroken, the only time limiter was the Airdyne. That royally sucked at the end. The time drop offs were mostly that. All my CTB were butterfly today which I was not expecting. I almost missed the last rep of the last set of muscle ups at the turnover but recovered and locked it out.

Run 15min @ Z1 (65%)

This was actually kind of nice. It was beautiful outside today. I didn't think about our neighborhood being hilly, so the run out was all down hill and the run back was all up hill. That got a little rough but I turned around at 6:30 instead of 7:30 and ended up timing almost perfectly. My wonderful wife Elise did this with me. Unfortunately, being 5'2" my 65% was probably more around her 95%. 

Pain report. Today it was very lactic during the workout but no pain afterwards and the ADDuctor pain from the squat cleans has just about completely disappeared. I really feel like my recovery is going through the roof compared to normal. Good stuff. 

Today, mentally I'm at a 9. Good talk with coach today, and almost all positive things going on.

****NEW SECTION****

Sleep/Drugs/etc.

As I've mentioned I've been reducing my controllable stressors recently, mainly sleep. I got some ZMA(Zinc Magnesium Aspartate) and Melatonin to help with my sleep adjustments. Day one and I already stayed asleep longer than the night before. I am at an extremely low dosage on the melatonin(1mg) because as some of you may know, it can make you feel hung over the next morning if over dosed. So far so good. We will see how this progresses as I adjust to my new sleep schedule.