Weekly Feature: What I did

[cereta]

My sincerest apologies for falling down, here. I've had some minor but distracting health problems of late. As a side note, if anyone is interested in co-modding, please contact me.

And now: what did you do?

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I hope your health problems are improving. *sends good thoughts*

What I did: added 5kg to my squats, my deadlifts, my bench press, and my hang cleans (I'm learning hang cleans! This is very exciting!). And my overhead press is getting less wobbly.

[zennish]

Huzzah for hang cleans!

[rydra_wong]

I believe you have some share of the responsibility for inspiring me here. *g*

[zennish]

*flails happily*

[supermouse]

General muscle exercises, like pushing off from a wall. None impressive, but I've been incredibly ill this year.

Oh, and wrestling a 10 stone (140lb, 63.5kg) mattress after my bed broke. If that's not Lifting a Heavy Thing, I don't know what is. I didn't try and do eight reps with it, though...

[rydra_wong]

That is a Seriously Heavy Thing!

None impressive, but I've been incredibly ill this year.

If the exercises you're doing are hard for you, then they're as impressive as anything anyone else is doing.

Maybe more impressive -- IMHE, it's a lot tougher to get into exercising when you've got fewer physical spoons to spare.

[supermouse]

Assuming the distinction between the two isn't a myth, I have lots of fast-twitch muscles and very few slow twitch, so lots of immediate strength, but no stamina. At all. Exercises in crappy periods often turn out more to be about keeping me limber than building up strength - that and keeping my core muscles strong so I don't end up going all Picasso. Lifting Heavy Things reminds me that I can get stronger *as well* which is just an awesome thought - I can't run away from trouble, but perhaps I can throw a bus at it.

[yeloson]

Been mostly recovering from sick. Got in only a couple of regular workouts, but I've been able to up the reps in my squats significant - I think I've found solid form and it just becomes a lot easier.

[lyorn]

I had an appointment with the trainer at the gym earlier this month, and I was determined to get away from those boring machines and get into free weights, even if it meant going to the mixed gym instead to the women-only one.

I'm not really good at arguing with "experts". It took all my persistence to get a, hm, 33% success. The new program is still 2/3 machines, but mechanical ones, not electric, which is a little less boring for now, and I have some dumbbell exercises with it. Which told me the very first day that the machines let me get away with having my right arm do all the work for years.

I also found on the second day that the reason to go to the women's gym is not the men. It's the women. I got caught in a gaggle of giggling bimbos sipping on their sports drinks at the bar and flirting with the blond trainer and blocking the way to the stairs that lead to the weight room. I was half in a mood to simply lift them out of my way, bar stools and all, but took refuge to that old classic, a really annoyed face and strategic elbow use. They never come upstairs.

The good thing is, upstairs they have all the stuff I want to try out. I'm going to get a little more comfortable with the whole set-up, I think and then play around some on my own.

I went four times, and then, last week, I caught a cold and have been doing nothing but sniffing and coughing since. :-(

Capoeira class is brilliant. I can put in exactly my current level of strength and fitness and am happily exhausted after.

[laurashapiro]

Congratulations on moving to dumbbells! I love them, myself. Hope you feel better soon and are able to get back to what you learned.

[zennish]

1.5x bodyweight deadlift! Makes me feel better about myself when I still can't do the kipping pullup without pissing off my rotator cuffs.

And I held a free-standing handstand for approximately half a second. Terrifying.

[laurashapiro]

Holy crap, you're a deadlifting master! ::impressed::

[zennish]

Thank you! Now let's see if I can get a 2xBW DL in a few more months - that day we were doing deadlifts a dude in the gym got a 550 deadlift. INSANE.

[laurashapiro]

WOW.

[rydra_wong]

I know I've already squee-ed about the deadlift, but ROCK ON with the handstand!

[zennish]

Thank you! :D (It was sheer terror with strategic f-bomb strikes thrown in.)

[laurashapiro]

Hope you're feeling better.

I returned to my regular workout, more or less, but am still not lifting what I was before my shoulder went wonky. Today I increased squats to 30 lbs, which felt good to do.

MONDAY
step-ups 2x6* 35 lbs
rows 2x10 50 lbs
shoulder presses 2x9 24 lbs
bicep curls 2x8 12 lbs ea
plank 25 seconds
usual ab stuff

WEDNESDAY
Subway jam-up means 15-min workout. ): I spent it on the elliptical.

FRIDAY
squats 2x10 30 lbs
bench presses 2x10 30 lbs
pull-downs 2x6 75 lbs ::grumpyface::
plank 30 seconds
usual ab stuff

Aaaaand my shoulder still hurts. Feh.


*Normally I do more, but all the low benches were taken. I find I get very wobbly when I try to step up to the higher benches with my stubby little legs. (:

[sophiap]

I'm sorry to hear about your health problems. I hope things are improving for you.

As for workouts, I'm going to cycle through NRoL4W again before trying a different program. At some point, I'll do a full writeup of how things went on my first time through the entire program.

Anyhow, here's this week's program:

Monday and Saturday

2 sets of 12 squats at 65#
2 sets of 12 pushups at a 45 degree angle
2 sets of 12 seated rows at whatever "12.5" is on the cable station.
2 sets of 12 stepups w/ 25# dumbells and 4 risers (Monday) went to 5 risers and dropped to 20# on the second set (Saturday)
2 sets of 10 prone jackknifes. Fell off the Swiss ball three sets out of four. Saturday, ended the final set with a relatively smooth dismount. Measurable improvement! Yay!

Thursday

2 sets of 12 deadlifts at 95#
2 sets of 12 shoulder press w/ 2 9# dumbbells
2 sets of 12 lat pulldowns at 75#
2 sets of 12 lunges w/ 2 20# dumbbells
2 sets of 10 swiss ball crunches w/ 12# medicine ball held overhead. Fell off Swiss Ball once.

One nice thing about cycling through the same program I started 8 months ago is that I can go back to my old workout logs and see how I've improved, and where I've had the most rapid (or the slowest) strength gains. I can even see that I'm falling off the Swiss Ball a lot less than I used to.