Mighty Wings

Sleep:
12:20 - 9:00 Slept VERY soundly. Apparently remembering fill the kitties' food bowl before heading to bed makes a difference - or maybe I was just that tired. Only got up once.

AM Commentary: Ow my shoulders! So sore. Guess that even though I tried my best to use my hips as much as possible for those KB swigs, 100 KB swings will take their toll (especially when combined with 50 burpees). Presses are going to be "fun" today. So is FIVE rounds of FGB ... *whimper* not sure about whether I am going to subject myself to that yet ...

Strength WOD
Warmup - ME, stripper stretch, hip openers, 20 air squats, 30 situps, dislocates.

DL 5x3
Warmup - 45# x 10
95-115-125
95# x 21 - finished consecutive set! Woo Hoo! - 100# next week

Press 5x3
Warmup - 30#x10
35-45-50(f x3 on rep 2,3,4)
30# X 21 - had to rack weight on rep 17 - finished last 4 unbroken

Comments:
The right music can make an unbelievably HUGE difference. When we got to the gym I was in kind of a foul mood, and I was NOT in the mood to pick heavy shit up. My shoulders were really achy, I was tired, worried about getting my homework done, blah blah blah.

I almost never work out with music. If I am going for a long run, I'll break out the iPod - but generally it just sits, neglected, in my bag. Today - out came the iPod. Daniel made some half-snarky/half-sincere comment about getting my groove on with the Top Gun soundtrack, and damn if when I hit the random play button, I didn't get Mighty Wings off the Top Gun soundtrack, and it made everything all right. Suddenly, I was happy and excited to be there. I got in a really good, thorough hip-centric warmup, and I killed those deadlifts dead! I was very excited to be able to knock out the full 21 rep set of DL @ 95# this week when I only made it to rep # 13 last week. Green Day:American Idiot is awesome lifting music.

The presses were a slightly different story. They were not the unmitigated success that the deadlifts were. But I think I learned a lot about how not to manage a set of 3 x 5. I think using 30# as my warmup set of 10 was too heavy for a warmup, and 45# was too heavy for my second set - it burned me out for my attempt(s) at 50#. For the next few weeks I will stick to 20 or 25# as the warmup weight set. It probably should have looked like 20# x 10, 30-40-50 (x5), 30#x21. Next week I will do something closer to this.

Despite my mismanagement I still ALMOST got 50x5. If my shoulders had not been so fried that holding the bar in a racked position tired me out as much or more than actively holding the weight I probably could have eked out that 5th rep. It was interesting that of the three attempts I made @ 50# on each set i got one MORE rep.

I am pretty sure that I will be able to get 21 x 30# next week too. (Tired shoulders, 3 attempts @ 50#, etc.)

Daniel said that my form on these is really great, which was nice to hear. It's a good confidence booster to have one or two activities where my form doesn't suck.

Fire Breathers WOD (yep, I did it):
Warmup: 20-ish air squats

WOD:
Fight Gone Bad - five rounds
In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We've used this in 3 and 5 round versions. The stations are:

1. Wall-ball: 14# ball, 10 ft target. (Reps)
2. Sumo deadlift high-pull: 55 pounds (Reps)
3. Box Jump: 18" box (Reps)
4. Push-press: 55 pounds (Reps)
5. Row: calories (Calories)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of "rotate," the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

Results:

Exercise	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total
Wall Ball	6	7	6	4	4	27
SDHP	9	11	12	12	12	56
Box Jump	0	0	0	0	0	0
Push Press	6	8	7	4	5	30
Row	12	13	13	13	13	64
TOTAL	33	39	38	33	34	177

Comments:
So - 177 100% RX. The reason I did not do any box jumps is because I cannot jump up to the regulation size box (or any box, for that matter), and since I could not do it RX I decided to just take the extra minute of rest, and see what kind of RX score I could get.

Wow. This was HARD. I thought FGB with 3 rounds was rough. It was crazy getting through 2 rounds and thinking I still had a whole FGB ahead of me. I don't know how the people who didn't get a whole extra minute of rest while not doing box jumps managed it.

Looking at my last FGB score where my box jumps were step ups, and my push presses were 45# instead of 55# ... if I take just the first three rounds of this time (110) and subtract the box jump score from last time (108) - I still did better this time. :-) Or at least I did better overall at the exercises I actually did. On a exercise by exercise comparison, my wall ball has gone completely to pot, my SDHP has improved substantially, I did not get as many Rx PP (but part of that may have had something to do with the workout of presses I had just completed), and my rowing was consistently a little bit better.

I like rowing - it's one other thing that I am pretty consistently good at.

With the exception of my dismal wall ball results I feel pretty good about this performance. It's really nice to be getting scores on workouts Rx - even if there are still portions of them that I can't do.

Food:
10:00 - 3 egg cheesy scramble, 2 pieces turkey bacon, 8 oz coffee w/ 2/3 cup whole milk
2:45 - 16 oz milk
4:00 - 5:30 - some amount of cheese and hummus - somewhere between 3-5 oz maybe? 2 crackers, 1 piece chocolate birthday cake
7:00 - approx 1/2 serving: daal, chicken Palak, chicken tikka Kabob, paneer tikka masala, 14 oz chai tea
7:45 - 1 multiv, 2 glucosamine, 4 omega-3, 3 wellness formula
12:10 - 2 zma