Metcon day

I rowed a 5k today in 20:45. I've done better, and I could have done worse. My legs are pretty sore after Saturday's workout, especially my calves. It was a good workout all in all.

Strength Day Thoughts

First-the workout:

Squat 3x5 Working sets
Weighted Overhead Squat 1x5
Bench press 3x5 Working sets
Chins-Kipping 4 sets to failure
Dips: 3 sets of 10, 1st with no weight, second with an extra 20lbs, third an extra 25lbs

I worked hard today. Good workout!

One of the things I love about Crossfit style workouts and exercises is that they expose your weaknesses. Not strong enough? Too little flexibility or mobility? Muscle imbalances? Not as metabolically fit as you'd like? All will be exposed.

I have wasted countless hours in gyms over the years working on exercises that have limited value to my overall strength, cardiovascular capacity, health and well being. I used to be really impressed with my ability to curl a barbell or do some nice heavy "(quarter or half) squats" or leg presses. Today, I don't worry about bicep or tricep work. They get more than enough work from the compound movements I perform. Normal gym routines and equipment give you what I like to call gym strength. Take the leg press for example. I've seen people do leg presses with fairly high weight in the gym. Load up a third of that weight on a barbell and stick them underneath it, and they would literally be crushed. What's the point? You create muscle imbalances and ignore all of the core structural muscles....and no...you're not going to take care of that balancing a tray on a bosu ball.

Take overhead squats as an example. I struggle with them. I sit at a desk all day long. I need more flexibility in my posterior chain. Sitting like that doesn't help my posture either. When you work the overheads, all of this is immediately apparent. Understanding your weaknesses is the first step to making them strengths. Thank you, Crossfit, for showing the way.

Tabata This

Tabata Intervals ( 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) for the following exercises:

Overhead Squat (with PVC Pipe)
Turkish getups with 35lb kettle bell
Sit-ups
Jumping pull-ups on rings
High knees running in place

Use a one minute rotation break between exercises.

I did not count reps, but probably should have. This probably wasn’t the best choice of exercises for a Tabata, but it was a good workout anyway.

Strength day

I figured that I'd be hurting after this one today. A night of drinking and too little sleep all week should have taken it's toll on me. To my surprise, I feel 100% better now that I've done my workout than I did before it. Go figure.

Squat 3x5 Working sets
Bench press 3x5 Working sets
Pullups (Strict form) 3 sets to failure
Overhead Press 3x5 Working sets
Dips: 3 sets with 30lbs of extra weight
1 set of 10 reverse pullups

Cardio day-running

I did a twenty minute HIIT run today, and walked for a couple minutes before and after. I had to pause for a breather once. Running is getting a bit better, but I'm nowhere near pacing close to my 5k PR. Oh well. I'll keep my sorry ass at it.

Strength day today

Strength Day today.

Warmup, then

Front Squats: 3x5 warmup sets, 3x5 working sets
Deadlifts: 2x5 warmup sets, 1x5 working set
Power Cleans: 5x3 working sets

And you can see proof of it being deadlift day in the picture!

It's time for action, dontcha think?

My weight this morning was 220 lbs. My last weigh in was 216.8. From that it seems like I'm going backwards. I do think that my 216.8 was not my peak weight, and I can visually see that the love handles appear to be a bit smaller than they were, so I'm not that upset about it.

All that being said, it it past time for me to get my food house in order. I need to plan my meals and start cooking and bringing food with me. Take out and ordering in is screwing me up on so many levels. Hopefully the scale today will be my wake up call.