First off a few of things to get out of the way upfront both
blog related and non-blog related…
Paul – thank you for reading my blog, I apologize for
implying that you couldn’t cook/bake – I promise I will taste test your cooking any time (please?)…
haha. I *knew* better when I
wrote that yesterday I do however find
it awesome that you’ll try new recipes – I mean when was the last time that you
made chocolate cupcakes (with no sugar, butter or flour) in the microwave? *That* was more my point. This WLC is (partly) fun!
Secondly, I forgot about just how exhausting I get the first
week of eating clean. I remember the
conversations with Pete about it last time and his reassurance that it will
pass – my body is just purging all the crap – but wow. Tired.
I a two hour nap on both Saturday and Sunday (though also pushed my body
hard both those days) and was in bed no later than 10pm since Sunday night –
with getting up at 6ish I am sleeping for 8 hours a night and most nights (last
night was an exception) I’m sleeping solidly straight through and yet,
so.very.tired. Can’t wait for this to
pass – though it’s a good indication that I load my body with more crap than I
realize when not entirely focused on what I eat so that’s a positive for me.
Thirdly (and lastly) – Perth drivers – what’s up?
Driving while on your cell phone is dangerous
enough but this morning on my commute to work I saw a woman putting on her
makeup at red lights (and sometimes even still as the light was green and
traffic was moving) and though I thought that was bad – I saw a dude who pulled
out a book at a red light – a real solid book that he was reading, while
driving (well stopped but still) – are we really that busy that we need to
drive and read now?
Oddly enough the
book was called ‘
1000 places to see before you die’ – I think that dude better
hurry up, dare I say he’s pushing his luck?
Alright on to bigger and better things. Namely the six-pack I’m going to have for
Christmas if Coach Match has any say in it.
Kirst coached us tonight and it was a nice change up. The warmup was the opposite of Coach Tim’s
structured mini-WOD the night before.
With Kirst we had fun gossiping/chatting while warming up which makes
counting quite difficult so we just sorta winged it and laughed about it and
chatted some more. It was a smaller
class too which allowed all this to happen and still be an effective warm-up.
Warm-up
(all numbers approximate)
100 single skips
10 lunges each leg (arms overhead)
10 sdhp (empty bar)
10 hang cleans
10 push press
Then to test our mobility – have a good laugh – she had us
keep our arms overhead (thumbs pointing back) and squatting to depth trying to
keep our arms locked out – quite difficult actually.
We then repeated this motion with our arms in
the same position but with our hands like we were gripping the bar.
Kelly Starrett had these same moves on
mobilitywod.com to test ‘
Is it your shoulders?’.
WOD
100 Sit-ups
40 SDHP (30kg)
100 DU’s
40 Push Press
50 Sit-ups
20 SDHP (30kg)
50 DU’s
20 Push Press
19:46(ish) Rx.5
I know I was under 20 minutes but couldn’t remember *exactly*
when all is said and done but that’s about the right mark give or take a few
seconds in either direction.
Going in we all knew this was going to be a long WOD – 30 minute
cut-off – and it was great as we haven’t done many long WODs lately it
seems. My abs were already quite sore
from the 100 sit-ups the night before so I knew the first chunk of work was
going to hurt. I had to remind myself
going in that it wasn’t a sprint and that
I’d have to pace myself if I wanted to survive.
I kept a steady pace all through the sit-ups, not stopping but also
nowhere near as fast as I was the night before.
Hard part done – or so I thought.
I had a plan going in this time (unlike the night before)
where I was going to break the 40 reps into 4 sets of 10 for each movement and
bang out the DU’s and Sit-ups pretty much in one go as best I could. This didn’t quite work out. I did the first 2 sets of SDHP as sets of 10
but could start to feel my arms fatiguing a bit so I did the final 20 as sets
of 5. I was surprised how hard they
started to feel so quickly. The DU’s
were pretty good – a few large chunks in the 30+ ranges which made them go
pretty quickly – I’d take a few deep breaths when I’d trip up and then get back
at it trying to find that relaxed, zen place I can go to with doing DU’s that
makes it easier to just keep going. It
was good.
The push presses were a killer. Definitely surprising for sure. I did 8 sets of 5. Didn’t even try to go for 10 as I knew it’d
burn me out and it’d be a hard place to come back from. I started push jerking right from the start knowing
I’d have to rely on my legs. I made it
through those and it was back to another round with half as many reps.
My tailbone was taking a beating during the ab mat sit-ups
even with a yoga mat under me. I (like
many others it seems) lost a bit of skin on my ass. Ouch! The
lifts on the second round were really tough.
Definitely had to use my legs to get it done and thankfully had used
them in the first round to save my arms a bit more. I did all the lifts in the second round in
sets of 5. The DU’s were pretty
good. I was really trying to get the 50
unbroken and managed to trip myself up at 46 – what a pain to get untangled
just for 4 more. No biggie though.
Kayla was long done as I was doing the push presses again
and she came over to urge me on. It was
funny afterwards (after we’d hassled Glen with lots of tough love to get
finished), I realized that Kayla had been surprisingly gentle on me when I was
near the end and I asked her about this because normally we are full of tough
love in both directions (depending on the day) and she said she could see the
pain in my face already and knew I was at that suffering point. Thanks Kayla.
I do love training with you even on the days you shout at me to pick up
the bar when I really don’t want to – it’s nice to have that push in whatever form
– some days just in picking weight to load on the bar – I push myself more to
try and keep up because you’re in the same class and I’m getting better because
of it!
I can now feel every single ab muscle individually. I asked Coach Match about it later, if it was
his plan to have us doing 100+ sit-ups two days in a row and he said it’s just
how it worked out but that he was giving the gift that everyone generally wants
for Christmas – a six-pack – and that he couldn’t just bestow it on us on the
day but rather had to get a head start.
Hello summer, we’ll be ready for you!
Today was my last WOD before Primal Pairs on Saturday with
my lovely partner Jane. I am pretty
excited, a little nervous but know full on that it’s going to be a great day of
fun and challenges. My body does need
these two days to recover and hopefully figure out how to survive effectively
on 8 hours of sleep.
Mobility
10 minutes spent on my legs, glutes and lats.
WLC Day 5
Another perfect day for eating. I enjoy my black coffee and tend to let it
linger all morning which slows my water consumption until later in the day so I
need to literally drink from both hands to stay better hydrated rather than
trying to catch up but it’s going well otherwise (other than the detoxing my
body is going through). I had Brenda’s
leftovers for lunch which was awesome – two meals out of one – and Angie’s
curry for dinner. So good.
I’ve also got a new little
lazy easy trick for my
morning smoothies – namely around the almond milk. I don’t mind making almond
milk in larger batches but since I only use it in my smoothies it tends to go
bad before I get through it all which is both a waste and annoying.
I don’t want to be making it every other day
either so… I now soak some almonds over night and in the morning I rinse them
out, toss them in the blender with three times as much water and blend while I’m
preparing the other goodies for my smoothie.
And since I’m
lazy efficient (perhaps lazy *
is* the
correct word here) I don’t even strain out the almond meal in the bottom I just
keep it in there.
I figure since I’m
already added LSA (instead of protein powder) it really makes no
difference.
I fill up the blender with a
banana (or a couple since I keep getting the mini ones from the market), some
(straw)berries, spinach (thanks Bonnie), chia seeds (which I mixed right in
with the LSA in the jar in my fridge), cinnamon and some UDO 369 and
blend.
It’s an awful green colour
(thanks to the spinach) but the chia seeds give it a good texture (not exactly
smooth but sort of) and it’s flavorful and while not as packed with protein as
when I was using the
180 Nutrition Protein powder it is pretty close with the
LSA and chia seeds (I add one more scoop of that then I did with the protein
powder and it’s about ¾ of the protein it had been).
It works for me and like most other recipes I
use I tend to go for easy over complex otherwise I’d probably never eat
anything.
