Thursday, September 11, 2008 by Rebecca

5x5 sort of .. ugh

Maybe Thursdays are just a bad day to be working out, and maybe I should just steer clear of the gym altogether when it's "that time of the month" - though yesterday was fine, good even. Of course I also remembered to eat lunch yesterday ... :-| Actually - i should say managed - remembering really isn't the issue. I've got those stupid outlook reminders popping up all the time. I snooze them.

I hate being so stressed out. It's a real chicken and egg situation - when i get stressed I don't eat, when i don't eat, i get moody, when i get moody, i get stressed - maybe it's just more of a vicious circle. Add the monthly hormonal deluge that kicks the whole ugly cycle into high gear, and it's a bit of a wonder that I function at all.

The original plan was to try to make it to GWPC in time for their photoshoot, and to do our 5x5's there. But Daniel was delayed by traffic, and he didn't pick me up until 5:55. So we decided to check out BIW. I maintained that if it was crowded like last week we should still go to GWPC. It didn't appear to be, but just as we were heading out to our car to get our stuff, one of the people who only works out in the weight area came in, and i was afraid maybe we'd missed our window.

Turns out I was half right. We warmed up in the squat rack area and had it mostly to ourselves, but there were two oly bars on the rack by the mirror, and just as I was moving the second bar onto the second rack for daniel - that *)#$)@*&% guy slides into the rack by the mirror and starts doing back squats!!! I was so angry. (I wasn't in a great mood to start with). I should have said something, but i was really taken aback by the way he just scooted in there without even a 'hi' or 'do you mind' or ... anything.

Since Daniel is so much taller than me, there is no way we can share a squat rack set up. I need the bar set nearly a foot lower. So since there was no way we could alternate, i decided to go try to work on other stuff while he did his squats. I knew that if i stayed in the squat area I'd just get progressively more pissed off, and take it out on Daniel by sniping at him about his form - which wouldn't be a good thing for either one of us.

So - off to the gravitron i went. I did some pull ups on the downstairs gravitron - set to 70. But the pad was hurting my shins, so I went upstairs and did some more pull-ups on the compressed air one - where you can stand - i beleive it was set to 8. I tried a couple dips, but realized that f i had any hope of doing any bench presses that I'd be shooting myself in the foot, so eventually i just hopped on one of the bikes overlooking the squat area so I could tell when Daniel was done so I could have my turn. Cool fact- those bikes have little built in fans to keep you cool!

When Daniel was done I went down to take my turn. My intention was to only work on form with just the empty bar. Good thing too, since the empty bar was about all I could manage. My first set was terrible. I kept corkscrewing to the left - settling all my weight on my left leg, thereby misaligning my hips and shoulders. And the way I was holding the bar was really hurting my right arm. I nearly decided to just call it a day, but Daniel very sweetly and supportively urged me to try another set. So I did. and it was better. I did 5 sets, really focusing on trying to keep my weight equally on both legs, and they were better by the end - though rep 4 & 5 of each set was pretty much always a struggle(though i did not fail any reps). So:

5x5
45-45-45-45-45

As for the bench press: I got in 1 set of 45 that was a lot harder than it should have been - my shoulders are very tired from yesterday's workout - and daniel got in a set of 45 and a set of 95 which was also a lot harder than it should have been - one of his shoulders is bugging him - so we decided to call it a night.

Since I wasn't going to do bench press I did 9.5 dips of the air compressor gravitron @ 9 - and i finally understand how that darn thing works! Amd I did about 10 minutes of streching while Daniel showered.

And now I am going to go to bed. Early. Hopefully whatever Dark cloud that has been following me around will have dissipated in the morning.

1 comment:

Ev said...

I had to giggle at the "Since Daniel is so much taller than me, we can't share the same rack set." True! That and you have to split the difference between craning and tippy-toeing for a little PDA kiss at the streetlight. Good for you for being so diligent with the lifting. I know sometimes it just doesn't seem like any fun.

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