Deth

Last night was one where I got a great night’s sleep. I slept straight through the night without waking up, not even to piss. I didn’t lay awake long before falling asleep, either. It would be a lie if I didn’t admit that I wish that would happen on a more regular basis.

I woke up feeling extremely fresh and was eager to get out in the garage and squat! I heard the barrel guys out there at 5:30 am and was tempted to want to go into the home gym then. Of course, I didn’t, but I did head out as early as I thought was acceptable this morning.

The first thing that I became very aware of when got under the empty bars that it felt more like a bar with two plates on it. So this was going to be one of those days when everything feels heavy I assumed.

As I worked my way up in the weights, it was obvious that it was a super heavy day, but I continued working my way up. Finally, I got the three-plus AMRAP set. That final set was thankfully a moderate two hundred and fifty-five pounds, but it felt more like three hundred pounds. I even triple-checked the plates before unloading them. Although it felt much heavier than it should have on my back, it felt doable, and I got a conservative five reps in at that weight.

As frustrating as these days may feel when I’m working my way up through the sets, they feel a little extra rewarding when I finish. When everything feels great, it’s more fun, but when it feels heavy, it’s more of a mental challenge to push myself. That’s why these tougher days always feel more satisfying.

I grabbed the mail and relaxed a bit while I looked for a WOD to do. I wanted to do a more grip-intensive one today to toughen up my hand some. For the workout, I settled on one for later this week that’s 35 dumbbell deadlifts at a time. I went with the 35-pound weight out of convenience. The heaver dumbbells are behind the rower, and at the time I did the WOD the sun was shining brightly into the window right there.

The weight that I chose was plenty for the high reps on the deadlifts. I’m not really that comfortable with them as they are. My feet turn out, so I tend to clip my toes. That’s not something that feels great. My feet have improved, but it has been my natural way since I was a toddler. One thing that’s been helping me with the dumbbell deadlifts is treating them more like a stiff leg deadlift.

The other thing in the WOD was double unders. I used my fake jump rope for them. The hands have short weighted ropes on them, and they give me a much closer stimulus to double unders than hop-overs ever did or will. If our ceiling were taller, I would have just done the singles instead, but the rope tends to clip the light chains, which is too distracting for me. I know that’d be a better workout for me than the stupid hop-overs.

It was a great workout for me, and my hand felt great afterward to add to the positives of it. It really got my heart rate up and got me doing the movements that I’m not super comfortable with. Next time I perform this workout, I will definitely have to use heavier dumbbells. I added it to my favorites list, so it’s easy to find.

Music for the squats was Megadeth