Spread Your Wings

...and by wings I mean your latissimus dorsi...just a little nerdiness for your morning <_<

Anywho. It's been a good week. My back/shoulders are wrecked, but feeling good. It's a sweet soreness. Today as I was absentmindedly stroking my muscles (no that doesn't make me a meathead), I could feel just how much muscle I've built in my back and shoulders. It's pretty astounding. My body is literally becoming a machine. I'mma be one hot chick once this fat goes away. But I'm digressing into my narcissistic self...

Been going to the gym all week. Today's my first day off because I'm working all day. I've been very good about my eating. I'd say I'm about 99% paleo - the other 1% coming from the mayonnaise that I occasionally put in my sandwich-y foods and the Pam I use to make over easy eggs. Other than that I've been a clean eating machine since Tuesday. I was awful over the weekend so it's been a relief. I even tried a new recipe! There's a well known motivational poster that says "Eat clean, train mean." I've revised that to say "Eat clean so you CAN train mean." I think it fits the situation better since training mean gets increasingly more difficult if you don't eat clean.

So onto the workouts!

Monday (Just Monkeying Around):

Skill:
Double-under challenge work
...then...
3 rounds
3-8 pull-ups
60s of handstand practice

MetCon:
12 min AMRAP of...
Run 200m
3 stone to shoulder (95#)
6 DB Snatch (50#, alternating)

Midline:
Turkish get-ups

Monday was kind of fun. I've been doing really well with the double unders. I got it so that I was getting consecutive sets of a double under with a couple singles in-between. Kind of makes you feel like a badass. The skill work was awesome. I noticed that I was getting my chin over the bar with relatively little effort on the green band, so I tried a couple strict pull-ups. I'm almost there! Got my eyes over the bar. So just for S's and G's, I tried a blue band and I got a pull up on my first try! Moving up in the world! With the handstands I worked on just getting on the wall and holding it for as long as possible. I have a lot more control now so getting myself on the wall isn't as much of a comedy act as it used to be. Just means my core is getting stronger.

The MetCon wasn't too bad. We hadn't run in awhile so I knew it was coming eventually. It still kills me, even when it's just 200m. I'll get there eventually though. I didn't go Rx'd for anything in that workout. I scaled the atlas stones down to 75 pounds, and the dumbbells 40 pounds. Maybe I was just being a wimp that day. Who knows. Got through three full rounds, plus the run in 12 minutes. Not too bad. I was about on track with the rest of the girls.

Monday I didn't do any crazy new foods. I wasn't very much in the mood for eating so I had brunch after I worked out (yep, I was bad and worked out on an empty stomach). Dinner was hot dogs and chips and ice cream.

Tuesday (Squat All the Things)

Skill:
Double under challenge

Strength:
1 x 20 front squat

MetCon:
5 min AMRAP
2 squat cleans (135#)
10 toes to bar
...2 min rest...
3 min AMRAP
2 squat cleans (115#)
5 toes to bar
...2 min rest...
1 min max effort squat cleans (95#)

Tuesday I sucked at double unders. I don't know what it was, but I just was not getting them. Didn't even get a single one. Pretty frustrating. Front squats went really well. I was at 88 pounds last week and felt pretty good so I decided to make the big jump this week to 103 pounds. It was hard, but I finished all 20 reps. I'll probably add on another 20 or 30 pounds before we start getting into 1 reps.

The MetCon was a LOT of fun. Remember that person back in January that said she hated squat cleans? Yeah, not anymore. Love squat cleans, love them. I'm hoping working on them will help a little with power cleans, but we'll see. I can tell my form is definitely getting a lot better and I'm starting to understand how everything kind of works together. Either way, the workout went really well. We had Chad pushing us on which made it even better. He told us that the point of this workout was to really push ourselves with the weight. Since we were only doing 2 reps at a time and the prescribed weights were decreasing as we moved through the workout, he wanted us focusing more on pushing our weight limits instead of trying to rip through everything as quickly as possible. He was telling us that a lot of people reached new PRs, and got low rep counts, but still worked their asses off. My previous 1 RM for squat cleans was 113 so I knew 135 was a teeny bit ambitious. I ended up going with 123 for the first set, 103 for the second, and 83 for the third. It was challenging, but not impossible. The first AMRAP I got 2 rounds + 5, the second AMRAP I got 2 rounds + 1, and I got 7 max efforts. For the weight I was using, I did really well.

For breakfast Tuesday I had a 4 egg omelette with cut up zucchini and turkey hot dogs and an orange on the side. Had a protein shake after my workout. Lunch was open-faced turkey burgers with apple buns. To save a little money I got Trader Joe's frozen turkey burgers, which ended up being delicious. Cooked them up in my cast iron pan with a little ground pepper. I layered them on top of a slice of apple, with a little mayonnaise spinach and a slice of tomato. Perfect lunch. All the food groups and very filling. Dinner I went out to Red Robin. I can honestly say for once I put in the effort to try and eat as clean as possible. I looked up the menu beforehand and looked at their gluten free options. They offer the option of wrapping their burgers in lettuce instead of a bun and they have a lot of substitutions for the steak fries. So for dinner I had a bruschetta chicken sandwich wrapped in lettuce with sweet potatoes on the side. I think I did pretty well for myself! Granted, I grabbed a couple onion rings and a fruity beverage, but I was happy that I found a way to eat clean at a restaurant.

Wednesday (Burpee Death)

Skill:
Double under challenge
...then..
3 rounds
6-10 dips
8-12 GHD hip extensions

MetCon:
2-4-6-8-10-12-14-16
Kettlebell Swings
Burpees

Wednesday was Day 2 of super sucking at double unders. Still don't know what it is. The dips went really well. I did them on the rings with an assistance band. I can finally get full range of motion, which is exciting. I tried them on the stable bars, but those feel 10x harder than using the rings. Don't ask me how that makes any kind of sense.

The MetCon was brutal. Fuck burpees. There were 72 of them total. I was using the 35 pound kettlebell so the kettlebell swings weren't too bad. I got to the set of 14 and I wasn't able to do them unbroken anymore so I split the 14 and 16 in their respective halfs. The burpees I did really well until I got to the set of 12. I was going unbroken up until that point, which to be fair, in my world is unheard of. I got to the set of 12 and had to break it up into smaller sets. The 14 and 16 sets I barely got through. Up until that point I was going strong though, so I can't complain. 72 burpees in one workout is a lot, so to get to about the halfway point before things started going wrong isn't bad at all.

Wednesdays food was a breakfast of 2 over easy eggs, sweet potato hash and an apple with sunflower butter. Lunch was another batch of open-face turkey burgers. Dinner I made zoodles!! I finally got myself a julienne peeler and I've been waiting to try it out. I used 3 medium/large zucchini to make the noodles. I peeled the zucchini a bit beforehand because I didn't want to end up with skin noodles. While I did that, I cooked up some italian sausage. Once the sausage was done, I added vodka sauce, garlic powder, pepper and some salt and let the sausage soak that up a bit. I added in the noodles and some parmesan cheese and let the noodles cook for a few minutes. Done! And it was delicious! I feel like I can make so many recipes now! Honestly they would probably make some good "mac" and cheese. Thank God it's summer and I have easy access to zucchini.

Thursday (Because Your Shoulders Aren't Sore Enough!)
Strength:
X-WOD Style
5x5 Pendlay Rows
Standing Box Jumps (high!) 2-1-2-1-2

MetCon:
5 rounds
10 pullups
20 wall balls

I was defeated by a jump rope for the third day in a row. Was not a happy camper. X-WOD is a style where you mix a strength exercise with an explosive one. Pendlay rows are essentially a bent over row with a barbell. I got up to 83 pounds on that. Not too shabby. The women were supposed to be jumping 30". I said nay nay and grabbed the 24" box. Challenging enough for me, thank you very much. I'm still psyching myself out. I don't do well with that whole getting my body off the ground thing.

The MetCon was fairly awful. My shoulders and back were incredibly sore. I got through the first 3 rounds very strongly. I stuck to the green band pullups simply because of the high volume, and this time was my first time doing a WOD with the 14 pound medball. The last two rounds were completely brutal. My shoulders were done. If they could have up and left my body I'm fairly sure they would have. But I finished in about 14 minutes. Could have pushed through a little better, but it's done.

Food yesterday was a breakfast of 4 scrambled eggs with turkey hot dogs and an orange. Snack was a protein shake. Lunch was chicken salad with a cut up apple and walnuts over a spinach salad with tomato and olives. Delicious. Dinner was shepherd's pie. Pretty simple day yesterday. Probably ate less than I should have, but it wasn't too bad.

Now that I'm on track with how much I need to eat, I need to start cutting down on the fruit. I've been averaging two servings a day when it should be 1. I haven't been limiting myself since I've just been trying to get back to clean eating on top of making sure I'm eating enough, but now it's time to start cutting it down. I'm glad I finally figured out how much I should be eating though. I'm still using the app as a guideline and for the most part everyday I'm under my allotted amount so theoretically the pounds should start coming off again. Very excited for that. Got a lotta muscle that's waiting to make an appearance :D

I suppose I should get back to work. Have a fun day everyone!