Dips & Pullups

Sleep:
11:40 - 8:05 - mostly good sleep - except when the cats got me up once in the middle of the night. But it was "Let one out, refill dry food bowl, outside cat heard that came tearing back in, back in bed 5 seconds, cat scratching to get outside again, let cat out again. Wheee.

AM Commentary: I really managed to bruise my neck and shoulders with last night's back squats. I do not want to do that again. More form work necessary. Maybe "Elbows to the ceiling" will help me keep them tight through the whole squat.

Warmup:
Mobility, 5 Min static Plank Holds, 40 unanchored situps, 30 v-ups, 20 hollow rocks, 10 KtE. Ow.

WOD:
Five rounds for max reps of:
Ring Dips
Pull-ups

3 minutes rest between each round.
*Subbed Parallette Dips, and several different pull-up subs

Results:
19/1 - Legitimate pullup
17/0 - tried and failed to get a real pull-up
17/14 - switched to jumping pull-ups - didn't like this sub
18/6 - tried kip attempts - focused more on rhythm than actually trying to make it up to the bar - didn't like this sub either.
14/4 - switched to strong kip attempts where I made an active attempt to pull myself up over the bar after each attempt - should have done these all along.

Cashout:
20 minutes of stretching

Comments:
The Parallette Dips were probably too easy of a sub. Should have put my feet up on a ball. I need to work on my stabilization skills on the rings so that I can actually do a sub on the rings when ring dips come up.

Food:
9:00 - 6 oz black coffee
1:05 cottage Cheese
1:50 - coffee w/ milk
3:30 - BBQ chicken w/ 1 little yam
4:00 - 1 multiv, 2 glucosamine, 4 omega-3
7:00 - 16oz milk
8:00 - unsatisfying Thai food.
11:00 - 2 zma

Just finish it.

Warmup: 5 squats, 10 jumping squats, 5 burpees, 10 KB swings.

WOD:
For Time:

100 Squats
25 Pull-Ups* (Men C2B)
75 Squats
25 KB Swing* 2P/1.5P
25 Pull-Ups (Men C2B)
50 Squats
50 Push-Ups
25 Pull-Ups (Men C2B)
25 Squats
75 Double-Unders*
25 Pull-Ups (Men C2B)

*subs:
pullups - some jumping - whichever box was available, some kip attempts.
KB swings = 1 pood.
DU = 4x single skips

Results:

Exercise	Time	Elapsed
100 Squats	4:50	4:50
25 Pullups	2:01	6:51
75 Squats	4:51	11:42
25 KB Swing	5:10	16:52
25 Pullups	2:14	19:06
50 Squats	3:59	23:05
50 Pushups	6:07	29:12
25 Pullups	7:53*
25 Squats		37:05
300 Skips	4:21	41:26
25 Pullups	5:10	46:36

*I forgot to hit my lap time until I was on skip #60 so 7:53 is the time for 25 pullups, 25 squats and 60 skips.

Comments:
This workout REALLY REALLY sucked. By the time I was done with the second set of squats, my knees were quivering so bad I had a hard time standing. It made the KB swings stupidly hard. It made jumping pullups near impossible. I alternated between kipping attempts and jumping pullups ... there's a funnk click or pop in my back when i do the kip attempts that makes me a little nervous. I actually looked forward to the pushups because it would give my legs a bit of a break. Everything was so so hard with the wobbly knees that I often didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I did a good bit of both.

I knew going in to the workout that it was going to be brutal. I usually get one intense day of PMS where my hormones rule my reason, and workouts on these days usually bring frustration and tears. Today was not an exception. I tried to do everything I could to mitigate - I made sure I ate sufficiently and regularly throughout the day, and I even managed to get a relatively decent amount of sleep (7h 40m). I was even very nearly on-time to class (only a few minutes late instead of 10). Frequently, historically, I've used the hormonal onslaught as an excuse to do 50%. Today, I was determined to soldier on, and get the damn thing done, regardless of whether the performance was a poor one. I did make a very conscious effort to keep my form as clean as possible, though I suspect it suffered some towards the end.

When class ended I only had 10 pullups left, but there was a yoga class that gets very putout if we go over, so Max kicked us out. That really sent me over the edge, but I pulled myself together, got myself over to the pneumatic gravitron in the weight area, waited for the damn thing to pressurize, and did my last 10 reps. I was NOT going to accept a DNF after all the work I did.

Food:
9:00a 8oz coffee w 3/4 cup milk
11:30 1.25 c small curd cottage cheese w/ 2oz slivered almonds & 1tsp cinnamon
4:00 left over mongolian beef 1.25 cups?
4:30 1 oz spiced cashews
8:10 regular chile verde burrito & 12oz milk

Sleep:
12:27a-8:05am

Jump rope, KB swings & pullups

Warm up: ME, kb cleans & PP, KB Snatches.

WOD:
For Time:

3 Rounds

50 Double-Unders *subbed x4 skips
21 Kettlebell Swing, 2 Pood* subbed 1 Pood
30 Pull-Ups* subbed jumping pullups

Results:
26:38

Round	Rope	Swings	Pullups
1	3:16	1:35	2:28
2	2:50	2:14	3:21
3	3:33	2:59	4:20
Total	9:39	7:48	10:09

Comments:
This workout was hard. 30 pullups at a time (even of the jumping variety) was especially hard.

The good news (as you can see from the picture in Daniel's post) is that I am finally starting to get some good form going with the 1P KB swings. These are still hard, but more and more often, I am able to get the swings fully overhead. Max happened to capture one of the really great ones.

My jump rope form was not as strong as it was on Sunday. As soon as I tried to speed up the rate I'd fail. I had several sets of 5-15 skips especially in the last set - instead of being able to get most of the reps in a contiguous set. I did get 2 or 3 really good long sets, but mostly not.

I am trying to do my jumping pull-ups from a lower box, so that I have to use more arm strength to get up. These are definitely harder, and they definitely take longer, but another reason why the pullups took me a while is that I was sharing a box - though I think the rest was necessary.

I am resigned to this being a bad work-out week for me. It's "that time" of the month - which always messes with my energy levels, and what is much worse: my boss, who I was(am) very fond of, was unexpectedly laid off this week, and I'm not sure what the future of my company is going to be like. Just exactly the kind of stress you want to add into the holiday mix ... not.

5 x 5 (mostly)

Front Squat x 5
45-45-55-65-65-65-65(f)-65

Bench Press x 5
45-45-55-65(f)-65(PR)-65-65(f)-65(f)

Ow. 65# is heavy, and I will definitely not be moving past this weight in either exercise next week.

With the front squat, if I stayed really focused, I could get through all the reps, but if my attention wandered at all, that was it. I failed on the first rep of round 2 just because I stopped thinking about what I was doing, so I counted it as a false start. I failed on rep 3 or 4 of round 4 when I tried to power through feeling light headed instead of standing and breathing through it before I started the next rep. (Dumb).

Tom - one of the frequent weight-lifters we've become friendly with - gave me some good tips on my squat form - unfortunately, it was after I was done with all of my sets. ... I'm drawing a bit of a blank at the moment on what exactly they were though ... Crap! ... the main thing I remember is "use a wider stance". I had been using a stance that was just about shoulder width. He said that I wasn't keeping my back up and pitching forward as a result, causing me to do more work with my back than my legs, and having my legs further apart would help. I tried a couple reps, with an empty bar and it felt like it probably would work better - if I weren't already totally knackered. He also said that I wasn't staying tight all the way trough the movement - that - like with the bench press - everything should be tight all the way through the movement.

The Bench Press was ... HARD ... and it hurt my ass. I'll say that again. I hurt my ass doing bench press. LOL - WTF? Well - here's the thing - I had to clench everything to get that bar to go up, and my right hip/glute cramped. A bit.

The sets I failed I always failed on the 5th rep - i just couldn't QUITE eek out that last bit of effort. Many thanks to my excellent spotter (Daniel <3>:-p)

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.