I enjoyed my day in the garage gym today. It wasn’t the best of days or the worst of days but it was good to lift. My knee was bugging me a bit so I lowered my back squats weight to keep it from flaring up.
Even though my lifts, at least my squats and deadlifts were pretty heavy today they all felt fucking great. It was one of those days where it just felt really great to be in the garage doing my thing and moving weight in my war against gravity.
I was lazy yesterday and didn’t do shit in the home gym. Today I fixed that and did my strength plus Monday’s WOD.
I missed doing my strength yesterday because the washer drained on the floor and spent the day cleaning that up. Today I got to do my lifting and it was just what I needed.
Today was the day I wanted to push myself way out of my comfort zone to do the vault WOD. I knew I would be very unlikely to make the time goal and I was fine with that. My goal was to take advantage of the opportunity to work with movement’s I am just not comfortable with.
It involved a hell of a lot of dumbbell deadlifts. 144 to be exact and those are just not a deadlift variety that I find myself having a good time doing.
I woke up way too early today and I am feeling very tired and run down. I did get my lifting in for the day and it felt great.
I twisted my knee pretty good on ice yesterday but It felt better this morning. I went for it with the first Street Parking vault WOD today and felt good about it then did (slightly lighter) twenty rep squats and deadlift program today.
This morning both my neck and hip left out a missive crack. I wasn’t sure if that was going to adversely affect my lifting today or not because I did feel a slight weakness after both.
I started of the new year right this year. I decided to test my Crossfit total to see where my strength stands. I was pretty happy with the results.
Today my brain and body felt like they were just running in slow motion during the WOD. I did it at a slower pace than I might have on a good day but it was good to get a workout in.
I got my lifting in today. Good with the heavy back squats but nope on the bench press. Right after that I jumped into and endurance WOD that turned out to be about ten thousand meters on the rower.
I did my twenty rep squats today and they’re still feeling good even though the weight is getting up there.
Today was one of those days where my lifting went much better than I expected it to go. The WOD on the other hand was basically a clusterfuck of things that could go wrong.
It’s another Christmas day and it wasn’t going to work out that we could get together this year again so we will later. The day doesn’t matter it’s that we do it that matters. Near sunrise this morning we got out for a nice walk. We did about 3 miles around town and the weather held off until we were on our way home we got caught up in some light rain.
I did my lifts this morning and then did a longer endurance type of WOD. Both felt really good today and it was nice to be done with both by right about lunch time.
My lifting felt great today on this December solstice. Ironically enough I was finishing up my last set of squats right about the time of the solstice without even realizing it until after the fact.
Today I did my strength. A few hours later I did today’s WOD which turned out to be fucking brutal.
Today was a pretty good day for my lifts. It actually was much better than I expected to be going by how I felt this morning.
Today was a pretty good day for my lifts. It actually was much better than I expected to be going by how I felt this morning.
It was a day of some heavy weights in the garage gym for me today. Both my deadlifts and strict presses were on the heavy end. At least the squats weren’t. Also felt good to do an endurance WOD.
My strength for today went great. The WOD as I expected with the movements involved was just blah. I did it to get a WOD in but it’s not one I could see myself doing again.
I’m still doing my strength every other day but I just haven’t posted about it. Today it went really well again.
I think I could have made them but I aborted my very heavy front squats at 245 today after the fourth rep.
I Made my very heavy front squats today at 240 pounds. That was a PR for me.
Today I did my heavy front squats as part of my strength and I have to admit that they felt heavier than they should have.
I did my twenty rep squats today after breakfast and some yard work. That felt great. After that we went for a walk and grabbed a couple of geocaches in town that we’ve been letting go for far too long.
Today I did my heavy front squats as part of my strength and I have to admit that they felt heavier than they should have.
It seems I did all the movement things today. Three walks, my strength and then a WOD were all part of the day.
Lazy sort of day today but I still managed to do my twenty rep squats. After eating super we got out for a nice walk too.
We had a pretty busy day with running around and doing our grocery shopping. I squeezed in my strength during the afternoon and felt pretty good about it.
Today I got a lot of stuff done in the garage gym and felt good about it. By the end of the day I was just totally burned out mentally though. I just felt mentally like a zombie by the evening.
Anyone who knows me knows of my strong dislike of running. Being visually impaired really puts a damper on any joy I would get from it. This year for Halloween I decided to have a little fun with it.
Today was a very busy day in the garage gym and I guess you could say outside of it when we drug our stuff out in the sunny afternoon on the patio do do our bro shit.
It was a real mixed bag for my strength today. On one hand the front squats felt way off and I aborted but on the other hand heavier strict presses and power cleans felt great.
It was not the worst day or the best day in the garage gym today by any means. Some days will go like this though. It’s still better than not doing anything.
It doesn’t happen that often but I walked away from a WOD out of frustration due to my vision. I can count on my hands how many time that’s occurred but it has happened rarely.
Today my lifting session in the garage gym felt really great. It felt much different than the past several where I was feeling really run down.
I wasn’t feeling it at all today but did my strength and bro session with the bare minimum. There will be days like this where something is better than nothing.
Today I did my strength in the morning then a WOD that wasn’t great for me visually. Finally in the afternoon we did our bro session which I kept light today.
Today’s strength went a lot better for me than I expected it to. On Saturday I rolled my ankle while hiking and it was a bit angry at me yesterday. Today it felt fine so I attempted my strength and it went great.
My strength for today went pretty well. I managed to perform all of my lifts with no difficulties including my sets of front squats that were on the heavier side of things for me.
I ended up attempting and completing another 10k row today. It felt good to get something longer in.
Today I was busy in the garage. First I did my strength and a WOD. Later my girlfriend and I did our bro session and that felt good. Even found time to go for a walk.
Unlike last Friday when I was feeling really run down I felt great today. I did my normal strength for the day and then did the bench press and good mornings that I deferred on Friday. Everything felt great today.
Sometimes you find a product that costs more than others but it’s absolutely worth paying more. Our Concept 2 rower is a perfect example of one of those.
Today in the garage was another busy day. It started out with my strength around lunch time then we did our bro session when the girlfriend got home. I jumped right into a WOD after that.
Today was a busy day in the garage gym. I had another busy day in the garage today. It included my normal strength then a 10k row then later we did our bro session.
Today was a busy day in the garage gym. I started out bright and early with my normal strength. I then did two street parking WODs a couple of hours apart so I could do the 700th one with Molly.
Yesterday I did a WOD with farmer’s lunges so I used the 40 pounds dumbbells. Heavier than I normally do lunges and the other movement of the WOD was step ups. Needless to say, my legs are done. My squats and deadlifts felt heavier today but I did them.
This morning I easily worked through my strength for the day then did a longer endurance rowing type of WOD. Later on I attempted and aborted my twenty rep squats for this week.
Every once in a while I get the urge to do either a WOD or my lifting or maybe both with no music at all. There’s something about it that makes it feel even better. Today’s lifts were performed that way and they felt great.
It was really a surprising day for me today. I attempted my twenty rep back squats at 250 pounds the other day and aborted at one rep. Today after not sleeping super well due to alcohol I made the PR at the 250 pounds and they didn’t even feel that bad.
Having done my Crossfit Total a couple of days ago I took a couple of days off then reset my weights. It worked out perfect so that I was only lifting pretty light on days we wanted to get out geocaching.
Today was a nice day. Cooler and much less humid than it’s been in quite a while so I went for my Crossfit total. No PRs but it all felt good.
Today my strength felt surprisingly great with my mind being focused on the weather. Everything felt great.
It wasn’t nearly as hot or humid today so I knocked out my strength then later on my twenty rep squats for this week. Everything felt good especially my very heavy twenty rep squat PR.
I absolutely didn’t feel like doing a WOD today for a few reasons. First of all I am feeling tired still. I slept great last night but I don’t think my body’s caught up from the night before yet.
Another thing is the fact that my legs and knees are pissed from the awkward overhead lunges outside in the uneven back yard. Not necessarily sore but they are unhappy with me.
It’s not really been a big secret that other things have been going on for a bit that have been taking priority over the garage gym stuff. Life does that sometimes where less fun things become more important. It’s been brutally hot and humid plus the stress of the tree last week. Finally the tree guy got here but I moved our large hibiscus into the garage so that sort of took up my space.
I am just fleeing very tired today. I just can’t seem to mentally weak up at all. I don’t understand why though because I slept well last night and straight through the night. I am learning towards thinking part of my problem with not wanting to get up and lift is the fact that my hamstring is still feeling a little tight. Last night in the grocery store I lifted up my foot to scratch a mosquito bite and my hamstring just had a massive cramp in it.
Sometimes when you look at a WOD write up you just look at it and think it’s not going to be that bad. Sometimes that’s a correct assessment of the situation but other times it couldn’t be more wrong. Usually the ones that don’t look too bad are ones with movements that you are comfortable with cycling quickly. The thing is the faster you can go the more intensity you can have which is a real killer.
I’ve posted about it before but with the storm the other day I sort of lost my focus to be able to lift safely. I mean I’m sure I would have been fine and could rely on muscle memory to just go with the flow but why risk it? It’s much better for me if I miss a session or two for being extra cautions than it would be to allow a sloppy rep to cause me to injury myself then miss who knows how many sessions.
I woke up this morning to very heavy rain from the tropical moisture that Henri brought to the area. It’s not directly hitting us but it’s close enough to pump up the water into the atmosphere.
Later in the morning the rain slacked off to maybe drizzle or spitting. It didn’t matter to me to do a WOD though since that’s in the garage. I made a mistake by not turning on the air conditioner when I did it.
I am still feeling a little wound up from that thunderstorm the other day and not well rested. That was one hell of a storm. I’ve never seen stuff flying like that. Between that and the tropical humidity from Fred I am just feeling run down.
Yesterday we cleaned up the patio and back yard and organized all of the downed limbs so that they are out of the way and should be quick to chip when the tree guy gets here.
Last night we decided to put the air conditioner back in the bedroom window. It was very humid in the afternoon. While the temperature wasn’t bad I failed to take into account the tropical depression pumping the humidity up. It does look like we’ll be under a tornado watch for it. At least I slept good.
First lift of the day as it is on any typical day was front squats.
Finally it’s cooler so we were able to not have to sleep with the air conditioner in the bed room window last night. Just as I expected I slept much, much better than I have been. More natural noise or even just quiet helps me sleep better than the annoyingly repetitive and louder sounds of the air conditioner. Even loud katydids up the mountains growing up allowed me to be more relaxed and sleep better than the air does.
Yet another night with poor sleep. The air conditioner annoys me if I wake up in the middle of the night. I don’t know how or why it does but it just does.
First lift of the day for today as always was my front squats. three sets of five of the front squats at 210 pounds is what today’s agenda called for. They felt nice and light although I did not do anything extra with today’s high humidity and last night’s poor sleep.
I slept surprising good last night. The air conditioner tends to annoy me but not having it on would have been worse. Once again it’s another very humid night. We had thunderstorms again last evening with more very heavy rain, the heat and humidity will cause that. More humidity equals more water in the atmosphere to form rain. While the storms did cool it off a good bit they only help increase the humidity.
First things first I know crossfitters like to call their gym a “box” but that’s fucking stupid. It’s a gym. Calling it a “box” doesn’t make it any more special.
Crossfit is expensive. It costs more than a lot of people can think about affording. I understand why though. After all the owner of the gym has to invest in enough equipment for everyone to use it at once, unlike at traditional gym where they can get away with less.
I woke up this morning feeling good. As soon as I left he air conditioned bedroom I was just pouring sweat and have been that way since. I turned on the air conditioner in the garage and that certainly helps a lot but between the sun shining in, warm floor and movement I still sweat quite a bit. Thankfully it’s not too hot as of yet today but I suspect that will be changing.
I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night. We didn’t put in the air conditioner for one so it was maybe a bit warm. The other thing that messed up my sleep is I had a fucked up dream and have been awake since 3:00 AM. It wasn’t a bad dream or anything like that but just a fucked up one. It was so nonsensical that I’ve had a sort of a puzzled feeling in the back of my mind since then.
I was feeling lazy all morning but finally got up off my lazy ass and got my strength done.
I didn’t sleep well last night so I was tired before the busy day even started.
We had a busy day today outside of the house. We went to the girlfriend’s daughter’s house so of course I played with my grandson. He’s all boy and has so much energy. I had fun and was glad to see them. With her work schedule and my girlfriend’s it’s rare that it lines up.
Sometimes you know a day of lifting is going to be a bit on the tough side and today was certainly exactly like that for me. Their will be days like this at times. My legs still feel sort of dead after the very heavy front squats the other day and heavy kettle bell swings. My lats are pissed from the strict pull ups in a WOD yesterday so I knew today would be a challenge.
I did a WOD today. It wasn’t a difficult one on paper but it was a real struggle for me to just complete it.
It was physically painful to just keep moving. So much lactic acid that the thrusters, very light ones at that since they were a sub for wall balls made my legs be on fire like they couldn’t keep moving.
I completed the WOD well within the goal time.
Not every day goes like this unfortunately but today was one where my lifts all felt great. Even the tougher ones felt great form wise and mentally. Sure it was challenging but I didn’t feel like I was going to break in half by doing them. Maybe the breaking in half part is a little bit of an exaggeration but sometimes the weight does just feel crushing.
The front squats were by far the heaviest and toughest lifts of this morning.
Today I did my first WOD that included devil presses in it in some time. With my arm acting up I’ve been sort of avoiding too much of that sort of movement when I could to let it rest some.
I had signed up for some street parking challenge hoping t o maybe be able to encourage my girlfriend. I find challenges to be dumb myself but if it helps her it’s worth it.
The actually lifting today felt and went great. Even when I bitch about a day being tough I’m exaggerating for the most part. Today was not a day that went like that at all. Everything felt great. Even the lifts that I expected to be tougher really didn’t feel it at all.
The front squats at the beginning is where I expected it would be the toughest today. I’ve failed the 230 pounds in the past but today I did my three sets of five at the 230 with no issues at all.
I have no reason at all to feel this way today at all but It’s one of those days where I just feel like I have zero energy at all. My legs feel like dead weight and my brain just doesn’t want to think at all. I felt as if I slept well, maybe not quite enough but I slept straight through the night. Since I got up though I just have felt dead tired.
Today was definitely one of those days where my lifts were more difficult than they should have been. It’s almost like my muscles sort of lacked the energy to really want to work as well as they could. Even though it was a bit harder than it should have been I got through all my lifts with ease. It’s been fairly hot and humid again and I think that just has me feeling at least a little bit run down again as it always does.
Today I woke up feeling pretty good and It turned out to be a pretty good day too in general. Although it was humid it didn’t get that hot so I didn’t end up feeling overly burned out like I do when it’s too hot.
I began this great day in the home gym with my front squats at 215 pounds. They felt perfect today. Not too easy and not overly challenging and they looked like I kept great form with them.
Today I woke up feeling pretty good and It turned out to be a pretty good day too in general. Although it was humid it didn’t get that hot so I didn’t end up feeling overly burned out like I do when it’s too hot.
Later on the morning I did my twenty rep squats for this week. he twenty reps at 225 pounds really didn’t feel all that bad. They haven’t been feeling too bad in general though.
If I were to say that I’ve been poorly rested the past couple of days that would be a gross understatement. Thursday night I drank, maybe a little too late and too much just due to the sheer stupidity of the neighbor. I can’t even imagine how she managed to breed. That and I felt like unwinding a bit.
Friday I was feeling really pretty tired and rundown but still okay.
I drank last night. I didn’t get drunk but drank a decent amount and it was enough to make me sleep very poorly. I just don’t sleep that deep when I drink. Everything wakes me up. Last night it was several cars passing by waking me then the train that I normally sleep though.
It has me feeling extremely tired today. I could almost go so far as to say I am feeling exhausted.
My session for today in the garage gym felt pretty good. It really was feeling better than I expected with it being so humid and also the fact that the air is hazy/smokey from both the humidity and Canadian wildfire smoke. It’s had my throat and nose feeling a little irritated so I did turn on the air conditioner. I would swear that at times I even got the slight hint of the smell of pine burning.
I’ve been taking it somewhat easy with my lifts since I did my Crossfit total last week and then planned on and finally got around to getting a heavy single front squat and bench press yesterday.
The front squats were somewhat disappointing yesterday but then again my stomach was still feeling off. I tend to eat a banana for breakfast and yesterday the one I ate was past it’s prime. Normally it isn’t a problem but shortly after I ate this one I felt like I got punched in the stomach.
It was a nice day today and a surprise nice day at that so we just had to get out and go for a walk and grab a cache more. It wasn’t what I would call a nice day or anything like that but definitely a bit cooler and less humid than recent days. It was a tolerable day weather wise.
Our caching wasn’t one of the most successful days but any day we can get out is a good day.
For the past several years I’ve been doing challenges for my birthday when it comes up. Normally I’d do the burpee pull ups times my age since while the typical birthday burpees fro Crossfit suck I wanted to challenge myself. This year I decided to mix it up and do something completely different.
I kind of have been having the goal of age times body weight for my birthday squats for a while.
I have been feeling really run down from the heat. I can’t drink enough water yet I’m tired of drinking water. Thankfully today it is much cooler than the mid to upper nineties we’ve been having but it’s still warm and humid. Not terrible but a little uncomfortable would be how I’d best describe this morning.
Once the remnants of Elsa move past and the cold front completes it’s push through we should have a much better couple of days.
I slept better last night than the past couple of nights since there were only a few early fireworks last night. I’m not complaining about them like so many people do, I’m simply stating a fact. It’s also a fact that Most if not all of the fireworks I’ve been hearing aren’t legal as their not 150 feet from a building but the cops don’t bother to enforce it so it is what it is.
This weather today is as close to the perfect summer day as you can ever get. It’d warm but not really humid with a decent breeze. The morning was sunny but there are some cumulus clouds forming now. The temperature is only in the upper 70s!
It being the fourth of July I hope many people are outside enjoying it. Sadly the girlfriend is working so we’re not doing anything at all.
Finally a day that’s not really that hot for my lifts after this past week. While I knew the weather forecast it was still sort of surprising to me mentally after struggling with the high heat and humidity over the past couple of sessions.
This morning the temperature and dew point were around 70. Certainly not hot but very humid. I debated on turning the air conditioner. I decided not to and tolerate the humidity for today.
Another one of the major advantages of workout out at home for me is the fact that I can wear what ever I want. Sure I could in a gym but there are still reasons not to.
Today It’s hotter than Hell. It was about 90 outside when I went out into the garage gym to do my lifts. I turned on the air conditioner a little while before I went out and even though it didn’t cool it off that much it took the edge off of the heat and reduced the humidity a bit.
I think our low last night was only 74 according to our cheap ass thermometer.
Thankfully yesterday as the day went on my foot felt better and better and the swelling went down on the outside of my ankle. I strongly considered doing my strength then on the day it was scheduled but decided the smart thing to do would be to hold off until at least today in case it would act up again. The only conclusion that makes sense to me that I can come up with is that I bruised the outside point on the bone.
Friday evening I was walking down the stairs and stepped wrong. Just like that I rolled my ankle. Who does that? I hope I’m not the only dumb ass. Saturday morning it didn’t feel so great at all.
I could put weight on it and it was unpleasant at first but once I got moving it was fine. We went to the grocery store and to get flowers and for two mile walks and it was fine other than feeling a little angry but that makes me know that it’s at least nothing major.
Last night was a very cool night for this time in June. The low got down near 50. It’s not the weather you can really complain about. It’s typically warm or hot and humid in late June here in Pennsylvania. Here at lunchtime it’s about 70 degrees with bright sunshine. It’s a little warmer than yesterday was but it’s not raining today.
The front squats today were an on the heavier side of things 225 pounds for five sets of three.
Last night it was warm enough that we should have probably put the air in the window and had it on. The fan made it tolerable but the distant thunderstorms up in Lebanon and Dauphin county really only seemed to push the humidity up a bit. This morning it was very humid and warm. I would have no doubt slept better if the air was on last night.
I waited a bit for the temperature to get further away from the dew point and turned the air on the garage.
Yesterday we went geocaching. Not for the longer hike that we’d originally planned but to a nearby park. It was a good time. Lots of butterflies out there and lots of sunshine.
After that we went over to Joy’s for supper and some drinks. I had a shot of whiskey before we went actually then 3 of their slushies. At home I had a rum and coke and then finished the other half of Molly’s that she didn’t want.
I had an awesome night’s sleep last night. It was a fairly dry day yesterday and night last night with no humidity whatsoever and the temperature got into the fifties last night. I have not slept that good in a very long time. Even my Garmin watch recognized that I slept great and gave me a sleep score of 95. That’s the highest I have ever seen for me.
I drank my coffee and ate some oatmeal this morning now that we’ve picked up the banana nut oatmeal that I like.
I slept great last night. Right before I went to bed we had a quick but very heavy shower move through. That knocked the temperature way down into either the low or mid 60s by the way it felt. I don’t remember what it got down too but it was great weather for sleeping with the windows open and fan on!
It was also a fairly cool morning so I didn’t need to event think about turning on the air conditioner.
I woke up this morning ready to go. Eventually I got off my lazy ass and went out into the garage to do my lifts. It took longer than it should have but I had a brief period where my stomach felt ever so slightly off.
Beginning with my light front squats for three sets of five I got off to a positive start. These felt great today. Not heavy and tough like they did the other day.
Last night I slept okay. We should have probably taken out the air conditioner before bed but we didn’t think of it until bed time so it stayed in. It got cooler last night so the fresh air from outside would have made me sleep much better than I did. I woke up pretty early and drank my coffee and all that good stuff but I was feeling pretty lazy today.
I slept decent last night but not nearly enough. I woke up at 4 in the morning or so and had to piss. I was tired and really wanted to go back to sleep. I tried, I really tried but I kept thinking about the coffee I smelled and how good it would taste. Eventually I decided to just embraced the thing that is known as coffee and got up so I could drink some.
I didn’t sleep real well or enough last night but we had Joy’s so that was expected. Alcohol tend to mess up my sleep at least a little bit. At least it was pretty nice and cool this morning. It was foretasted to be a hot one today.
I started out with the front squats. This was a heavy weight for me at the 225 pounds for my three sets of five.
I was feeling decent this morning. I felt like I slept decently, maybe not quite enough though but I am rested at least. It’s not by any means hot yet but it’s in the sixties with the humidity near 100 percent. It’s still enough to make it uncomfortable but not detrimental yet. Seeing it will be in the nineties next week we’ll have to air conditioner installed by then. It’s sitting in the middle room ready to go into the window.
I was feeling pretty good today and pretty anxious to get into my lifts. It was a big day for heavy deadlifts for me. I had a decent night’s sleep too so that was a nice bonus. The temperature was just about right for sleeping.
I started this day’s lifts off right with some nice moderate 215 pound front squats. These felt great and I easily made it through the three sets of five of them with no problems at all.
I woke up this morning feeling much more energetic than I did yesterday for sure. The cloudy, raw, rainy day yesterday just robbed me of any fucks I really had to give about working out but days like that are bound to happen. I did force myself to do Monday’s vault WOD yesterday and did okay at it. Not great but acceptable to me considering I thought it wasn’t one that I’d do well at.
Today It’s humid and hot. My lifts for today were on the heavy side except for the front squats but they went really well. It was really very surprising how the heat didn’t make my lifts more difficult. We have to install the air conditioner into the window soon. I can deal with a day or two at a time but not day after day of heat and humidity.
First things first today I had front squats for three sets of five at only 200 pounds.
The forecast this morning was for the sky to remain cloudy all day today but shortly after lunch it cleared up. Not just breaks in the clouds but the sky fully cleared up and remained that way at least until after sunset save a few small clouds.
After I watched Molly do her lifting and she recovered a few minutes we did today’s WOD outside on the patio. It’s too nice to pass up on an opportunity to do this and it was just the sort of WOD that will work outside.
I strongly considered attempting my strength yesterday but I was feeling pretty run down still. It was also the hottest day of the year with some humidity creeping into the mix. Not brutal but uncomfortable for sure. I hardly slept Friday night and didn’t sleep long enough Saturday night to feel “caught up.”
This morning I feel good. Maybe still a little tired and a bit run down but I certainly felt good enough to get back into the garage.
I had another awesome night’s sleep last night with the cooler air coming in the windows. It’s not that humid yet. The humidity crept up this morning but it’s not what I would call miserable yet. I do believe I will be putting the air conditioner in the garage window tomorrow so it’s at least readily available when needed.
My squats were heavy for me for my five by three. Actually now that I think about it it was technically a five rep PR attempt.
I actually slept great last night. Having the window open helped a lot and the temperature was just right. I don’t believe I woke up at all and actually slept eight hours for the first time in I don’t know how long. It’s been six hours or so every night for the longest time.
I waited until a little later than I have been to do my lift today. I knew it was going to be a nice day so I took some time in the sun on the patio first this morning.
I actually slept pretty good last night and i didn’t get woken up by an asshole on a motorcycle so I felt good this morning. I got to my pick things up and put them down session pretty early this morning and even though it was on the heavy side it felt great. It was a stark contrast from feeling slow and weak with my WOD yesterday.
I began my morning with some front squats.
I wasn’t necessarily ready to be awake this morning but I got got woken up regardless by SLAM SLAM! SLAM! SLAM at around 5. I decided to just get up. Too things I don’t understand at all about the neighbors. Number one is why do they constantly let the door slam. Is it too much effort to control the door shutting, especially early in the morning or are they just that dumb?
This morning when I woke up, too early I might add, my stomach felt really off. I didn’t feel sick but it felt like I ate something that just wasn’t quite right. I was hoping it would feel better if I took a shit but that didn’t happen. I would assume at this point it’s basically swallowing too much mucus from my nose being stuffy. The pollen is pretty bad here right now.
Today was one of those fun days in the home gym where all of my lifts are on the heavier side. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them close to failure but they’re heavy enough to require full focus for sure.
First I had to do my front squats at 210 pounds. It’s certainly on the heavier side for me but they were manageable. I would even go so far as to say they felt great for being on the heavier side.
While I didn’t really do a ton of things in the garage I can’t really complain about it too much. I’m feeling tired and got to my lifting way later in the day than I’m used to because we were running around all morning. My legs are feeling like absolutely dead weight today after yesterday’s double WOD day which included weighted lunges and weighted step ups. I didn’t even know how I would get through my strength but I did.
Today the weather has been much more tolerable for me. It’s much cooler than it has been and the humidity is gone. I felt good when I woke up and got my lifting session out of the way fairly early since I knew I was hoping to double up oln WODs today.
I started out as I normally do with the front squats at 20 pounds. They felt great today. I thought they might bother my hands a bit since they were sort of sore in the backs of my hands in those million little joints but it felt fine.
It used to happen when we went to the Crossfit gym from time to time and it happens here at home once in a while too. If I wasn’t sure about the count in the gym I would just had them put work or some snarky comment about how I am unable to count at times. It usually happens when the WOD just doesn’t seem to flow to me.
This morning’s WOD was one of those cases for me where I either lost track of rounds or remembered it wrong.
Today is certainly a bit warmer than I would prefer and more humid than I would like but it’s what should be expected as we’re transitioning from spring into summer. Just a few days ago we turned off the heater’s pilot light in the garage and now I feel like it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities to turn on the air conditioner if it were in the window.
I am not complaining and not really disappointed in how my lifting went today. Their will be days like this. Sadly they will likely become more common as I get older. Mid 40s isn’t exactly young! I feel its every day that I wish I would have started to lift seriously at a much younger age but I didn’t have the means then. It is what it is though and better late than never!
Today I will admit I am not really feeling it. I think it’s a combination of the past couple of days' heat and definitely the humidity yesterday has me feeling at least a little run down. I slept last night but not well at all. I just really couldn’t feel at all cooled off. I also had and still have a lot of shit in my throat.
I really just never was able to cool off after yesterday’s second WOD, this week’s sun’s out guns out in the afternoon.
Today wasn’t a bad day in the home gym at all. Really though, is there even such a thing as a bad day when you get to lift in your own home gym?
Today started out right when I woke up to a glowing pink sky out the open window from the sunrise. The entire sky was glowing. The coffee tasted better than normal too so that made for a great day.
Saturday I felt like shit and continued feeling progressively worse as the day went on. From what I read that’s a sign of a strong immune reaction so I can’t be too pissed off about it. I did still squeeze my lifts in during Saturday morning and some nice walks so there’s that. Yesterday I felt much better and continued improving as the day went on. Last night I slept well with no waking up between a fever and being hot and the chills from being cold so I was pretty well rested too.
Yesterday morning I had my first vaccine shot which wasn’t bad at all. I didn’t sleep all that well last night and am feeling pretty run down. I don’t know if it’s the vaccine or just not sleeping well or something else. My shoulder is a little achy where the shot was too so that makes me think maybe it’s a bit of a reaction. I already had the virus so my immune system should recognize it from what I read so that explains quit a bit.
Even though I was pretty sure it’s unnecessary for me to have the COVID vaccine I got it since that’s what the CDC’s guidelines recommend. I’ll take science over people just making shit up as they go to fit their personal wants. The shot was quick and easy and the whole setup was well run. Sadly there weren’t many others there receiving it but that should be expected in this anti vaxers area.
For the past few sessions of my strength work I really haven’t been feeling it. I don’t know why but I just plain have not felt like doing it all. Of course I forced myself to do it anyways and felt a bit better about it as I got moving but it hasn’t really been the enjoyable “me” time that it usually is. Today it felt great and I looked forward to it and got into that zone even as I was warming up with the empty barbell.
I had another good night’s sleep last night and I’m feeling pretty good today. No tightness at all remains in my side that was a bit angry with me last week. Feeling better is definitely a huge relief for me and I feel I can get aggressive with the weight again.
First up were my front squats at 195 pounds for three sets of five. They weren’t heavy at all but they really did feel great today.
What do you know? I slept good and I’m still feeling pretty good. I woke up too early and couldn’t go to sleep but that wasn’t for lack of trying. I was just laying there wide awake for a good 45 minutes after taking my levothyroxine. I kept smelling the coffee and it smelled good so finally I just got up and drank my coffee. I decided t o attack my strength pretty early this morning.
We had a good bit of running around to do this morning. We had to return some stuff to a couple of stores then do our normal grocery shopping so we did that stuff as early as we could.
I did a rough WOD and did a LOT of stuff yesterday so I was debating whether I wanted to do a WOD at all but in the end I decided to give tomorrow’s sandbag WOD a shot.
Fairly early this morning I diced to get off my ass and work on my strength for today. If I were to be one hundred percent honest I really wasn’t feeling it at all today, not even a little. The reason that I have been having so much success is that I am doing my stuff even when I don’t feel like it unless I have a truly valid reason.
I have taken a couple of days off from my heavy lifting after I had a little bit of a spasm in my side doing front squats on Sunday. Even then I felt I could have finished but I racked the bar, unloaded it and walked away figuring I just needed a bit of a break. After all I am in my mid 40s and sometimes rest is good. Thankfully even Monday I felt better and did some pause back squats with just the empty bar to see how I felt.
Last night we had Pizza for supper. You gotta live once in a while! Pepperoni pizza from Two cousins and this time it was nearly perfect. Their pizza is almost always really good but not always great. We also enjoyed glass if wine with it while watching the vault announcement.
The WOD it self looked like a lot of fun. Basically it was Kalsu but with deadlifts instead of burpees. I went with the dumbbell version today but I am hoping to perform all three.
Today was a busy day for us. Grocery store pretty early in the morning this morning which was thankfully pretty empty. Even though there weren’t many people in there the few that were managed to just be in the way. The other thing is between the ten thousand displays in every isle and the workers just sitting the big carts full of stuff around half the isles are partially blocked. We just wanted to get in and out.
This morning I woke up early, around five or so and felt very well rested which I wasn’t expecting today since we drank alcohol last night and I woke up hot in the middle of the night. We finally opened the window and let some fresh air in. The lights are annoying. They shine from across the rail road tracks where the ground is a little higher causing them to be shining directly into our bedroom windows.
I knew today was bound to be a tough day for me with my lifts this morning. It’s getting warmer out and to me it’s been feeling hot as my body is still in winter mode. Last night I woke up around twelve-thirty or one AM and laid there awake for an hour or two. It was too hot be be under the covers and not quite warm enough to not be under them.
Today I decided to do last Saturday’s WOD but with the RX 40 pound dumbbell for the snatches. I knew I could use that weight for them and have in the past but just have been slacking a bit with pushing myself in that way. Recently I’ve been trying to push the intensity with speed more so than by using more challenging weights.
I’d fallen into the trap of sticking with “comfortable” weights last fall and am deciding now that at least where possible and if I am feeling it to maybe push the weight a bit more even if my speed drops a bit.
At least every once in a while I have a day where my lifts all feel extra powerful. Today was one of those days for sure. I mean I didn’t really have anything all that heavy to lift but still it just felt great with me moving well and very powerful movements.
Front squats were first today and for these squats I did three sets of five at 210 pounds. It’s not heavy for me by any means but being rusty on the front squats they felt more challenging that they should at this weight.
It’s another funday Sunday which is around the time of the week that I attempt my twenty rep back squats. It’s not always on Sunday. it’s either Saturday, Sunday or Monday that I try my twenty rep squats depending on how I am feeling.
Yesterday I did give my twenty rep squats a half hearted attempt but aborted quickly. Maybe five reps in they just weren’t' feeling quite right. It turns out after looking at the video afterwards I just was way off center on the bar for them so it was throwing me off.
I woke up early today and felt pretty good and it was a good thing because I had a lot I wanted to get done in the garage. My first order of business on today’s fitness agenda was my normal strength. That felt pretty good too.
First thing today was my three sets of five front squats. The weight I had to lift with these squats was 205 pounds. It’s not heavy but my body’s not quite used to the bar being near my throat like it is for these front squats.
It’s not really a secret that I really, really enjoy sandbag workouts. They’re just fun to me. It’s almost something primal or something where I have always liked picking things up and throwing them around.
It was a bit over a week ago when we were doing a sandbag WOD out on the patio, thankfully, when I noticed a lot of dust escaping. There’s usually a little as the gravel gets pulverized into sand but this was a lot.
There was a hint dropped about next week’s vault WOD that it was a repeat one from last year so I looked through the old WODs.
I came across one that even if it’s not the right one I wanted to do it again as a retest. Hell I didn’t care if I could even log it, it was just one that I though would be a good one with which I could measure my any improvements I’ve made.
I had a really great day today lifting in the garage. I didn’t think I would since I woke up at 3:00 am from a dream that just pissed me off. I’m still pissed off about it even though it’s not real. The other thing is I’m feeling pretty run down from the WODs the past couple of days.
Fairly early this morning I did my normal strength for the day.
I woke up and knew today would probably be the best day weather wise of the week to take my barbell outside and complete the running version of this week’s vault WOD. It’s essentially Isabel then run 800 meters then Grace. I did the row version of this last night at too light of a weight but it made sense to try a lighter one and complete the WOD rather than get bogged down by weight.
I didn’t have a lot of time this morning to get my strength done before the grand kids were coming. We had to baby sit them for a while today but it was fun. It was very warm and humid this morning then just pretty hot and dry later in the afternoon.
I started out today with the front squats. These were light for me at 185 pounds but they felt fast and explosive.
My foot is still a bit achy from the running WOD the other day. I had gotten a stone or something in it and kept running and power snatching anyways.
The other factor is I can guarantee I haven’t eaten enough the past few days to cover what I have been doing in the garage. I’ve been eating like a pig but that’s not been enough. My appetite has been just purely ravenous but my stomach is filling up to fast.
It’s a new week so it’s time for the twenty rep back squats. I’m doing it Sunday this week because with these being so heavy now I don’t want to mix it with another squat day.
Today I was set to do 230 pounds for the twenty rep back squats. I knew it would be a challenging weight but I wasn’t quite prepared for how it went. The warm up sets actually felt pretty good.
After Molly got home we decided to do this week’s sandbag WOD outside on the patio. It was ground to overhead and push ups ladder. Simple enough and fit the bill for the sort of WOD that I wanted for today.
Unfortunately I noticed a decent amount of dust. More than I have been noticing recently and then felt the loose stuff inside. In the middle of the WOD I unzipped the outer bag quick to take a peak in and confirmed what I thought was happening.
Yesterday I really burned myself out with the three WODs I did and then to top things off between eating a heavy supper and a damned stray cat outside crying I didn’t sleep nearly enough. Note I’m not complaining about supper but we ate it late because Harvey’s was slower than they normally are but it was great.
I started out with the front squats at 210 for three sets of five today.
I signed up for the Crossfit open this year but I am not officially logging my WODs. I didn’t realize beforehand that a video was required to log it and I don’t want to go through the trouble of doing that. I thought I remembered in the past that a video might be requested to qualify but I’ll personally not do very well so I wasn’t concerned with it. Oh well, I can still do the WODs and the personal test as I was going to do and that’s just what I did this morning.
I wasn’t really feeling like doing my lifts this morning but I did eventually wind up doing them. My quads have been twitching quite a bit and stomach was feeling off on top of that. I think the stomach thing is just leftover from not really eating enough yesterday. About ten AM is when I decided it was time to just get off my ass and get shit done.
I had to start with three sets of five front squats today at two hundred pounds even.
Days like this will happen and I’ve accepted it but my lifting was a lot tougher than it should have been today. I successfully completed them but they were both mentally and physically draining.
First of all I started off with the front squats at three sets of five at 195 pounds. Last Friday I had failed the 220 pounds. I don’t thing that was so much a physical fail as it was mental one.
I’ve said it before and will say it again but I truly know that we are very fortunate to have our garage available to us for a home gym. We’re lucky that we’d started adding equipment for the past several years and have nearly everything we could want. It’s certainly not perfect though but I am thankful we do have what we have.
I signed up for the Crossfit open knowing that I would do shitty and all but signed up as a way to push myself out of my comfort zone.
I really didn’t have high hopes today for my lifting. Dumb ass me did two running WODs yesterday both of which I sprinted because for the first time in my life the 200 meter sprint didn’t kill me. I also had my stomach feeling off for a while this morning. I don’t know why but it felt better a couple of hours later so I decided to go ahead and do my strength and see how it felt.
Let me start off by mentioning that although today’s lifting in the garage bit was a little disappointing it wasn’t terrible. I felt great this morning and was ready to go as soon as I woke up. I drank some coffee first because coffee is the most important thing to do.
For the squats I am continuing with the change up to front squats and I think I will keep that up for a couple of cycles at least.
I had no idea what to expect from my twenty rep squats this week. They’re feeling easier each week yet it’s getting heavier for me. I know failure is imminent but have no idea when or how far I’ll be able to push it. On paper if I go by my mas I’m guessing with the next week or two I’ll top out but it certainly didn’t feel that way after today.
My lifting today felt great and it was a really nice surprise that it did! It was my second night of not really enough sleep for what ever reason. My body decided it was time to wake up way too early again. I think I had trouble sleeping too, because I was too wound up last night from doing the Vault WOD which was very mental for me with 100 reps hopping over a 24 inch high PVC pipe which I really couldn’t see that well.
Today was a fun and interesting day for me in the garage. It went better than I expected given we had Joy’s last night hence unhealthy food and a couple of drinks to make for poor sleep and recovery.
The first thing I did was the WOD. It had a new movement combination to me in it that looked interesting and fun. It also had something I really suck at, hop overs.
I wasn’t feeling my strength at all today. I mean I slept really well last night and feel really well rested today. My body and in particular my legs today just feel a lot like dead weight. Even just walking they want to nope the shit out today but I thought I can at least attempt my lifts today. If it felt really bad and I failed everything I just repeat this day but as it turns out I don’t have to do that.
First thing in the morning I did a challenging WOD for me today. It had rowing and 30 reps of dumbbell squats with one dumbbell on your shoulder. Then 30 box jumps which I chose for safety to do step ups then thirty more squats with the dumbbell on the other side. The step ups for me today were slow. I’m not sure why but I just had no rhythm or ability to push with these today.
I didn’t sleep enough last night yet somehow I’m still feeling pretty good today. There’s no telling how much lack of sleep will effect me. I’ve always been fine on little or no sleep until the past year or two. Today though I felt fine so I decided to get on with my strength and WOD while that lasted.
To start things off I mixed things up a little bit with my lifting for today and will do it for a month or two or maybe longer if it feels good.
Not that I had any lifts to do today that were really all that heavy but thankfully they all felt much better today than the last few sessions. Even the lighter warm up sets recently have felt tougher but that wasn’t the case at all today.
The squats were nice and light at 195 pounds after failing last time at 265 pounds. Of course I limited the rest between sets. I thought that even though it was light for me it would have been tougher after yesterday’s twenty rep back squats at 215 and the WOD with the cleans.
I decided that I would do my twenty rep squats for this week. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go because my legs have no energy today. I bailed on the sandbag WOD for tomorrow this morning because while I was doing it fine I knew it was going to be a long one and form would probably break.
I thought what the Hell I can at least see how the twenty rep squats felt and I am pretty glad I did.
To start things off I didn’t sleep all that well last night at all. I slept good when I slept but I kept waking up throughout the night. I wasn’t feeling rested this morning and we had to run to the grocery store before I even did my lifts to beat the crowd.
The squats were very heavy for me for sets of five at 265 pounds and I failed as i expected today.
I don’t really make it a secret that I am not a fan of running but I know it’s good for me to at least do some of it. Today I intended to row a 10k but that wasn’t happening with my hands being a bit bitched up from all of the grippy stuff yesterday. I still managed about 3500k but blisters on my hand wouldn’t be beneficial to me so I stopped there for the day.
Today was a great day for my lifts in the garage gym. I also managed to complete three WODs today. It’s been a little while since I even doubled up on them. I haven’t done the double WOD thing since I had COVID unless I’m forgetting a time. It’s a fairly mild day today and I was feeling great so managed to do more than I expected.
As far as my lifting was concerned today I started with my back squats.
Today was a great day for my lifts in the garage gym. The heavy snow started dumping just before I was about to head out there to do my lifts. It’s a “garage” but we have a nice sliding glass door rather than a garage door and a fairly big window on the one side so it’s nice to be able to see outside between sets. It was nice to watch the heavy snow and the squirrel poking around in the snow right outside the door looking for something to eat.
I decided that I would do my twenty rep squats for this week fairly early this morning. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go today with my lat being somewhat angry but I was able to maintain good for and if anything moving stretched me out a bit.
I can truly say I managed to get through the twenty reps with no issue at all. I would even go so far as to say it actually felt light today, even the working set at 210 pounds felt light which is the opposite of yesterday when just the bar for warm ups felt heavy.
I woke up pretty early today and ate a banana for breakfast like I pretty much always do. I drank some coffee. I woke up pretty quickly today so I got out in the garage and did my lifting about 7:30 AM or at least that’s about the time I started it. I did this because we were going out later plus to free up the garage gym for Molly.
Today was one of those days that was pretty surprising to me. To continue the past few sessions I really wasn’t feeling it today. After grabbing the mail and clearing the snow off the sidewalk this morning I decided to just do it.
Today was definitely a day where the warm up sets felt heavy as fuck. I mean if felt heavy but certainly doable and not too difficult to get through my back squats for three sets of five at 245 pounds.
I really don’t know what’s gotten into me recently but I’ve been feeling pretty tired and rundown. If I was having brain fog I would almost be willing to venture to guess that my thyroid hormone levels are a bit off but nothing’s changed so I don’t think it’s that. It’s only been a week or so to so it’s not long term yet.
Starting off with the back squats as I normally do and they felt decently good today.
Another of those days where I really didn’t feel like lifting. My legs are just feeling a lot like lead weights today. Likely caused by rowing the ten thousand meters yesterday and not being used to it. The cloudy, dreary day wasn’t helping matters all that much either I have to admit. Finally around 10:00 AM I got up the gumption to just do it. I knew the weights are getting heavier today.
We had to go the grocery store and that sort of fun shit this morning so by 9:00 AM I was one hundred percent peopled out. After our running around this morning and then devouring my sandwich I got from the country store.
I digested that for a bit and then embarked upon my twenty rep squats. I did them on a separate day from my normal strength this week since they’re getting heavier now.
I have not been posting as much because I got the new XBOX for Christmas and I’ve been pretty much enjoying the games. It was finally available to be ordered for me.
I have still been lifting and dong WODs and such. I just haven’t been on the computer as much so I haven’t been having the time on here to write.
Today’s strength went really well I have to say.
Today was a busy day for sure. It started out with getting the grocery store out of the way since it’s going to snow. We wanted to beat the madhouse. After that we came home and I took a cup of coffee out into the garage and proceeded to work on my strength workout for today.
I started out with some moderate weight back squats. For the squats today I had to perform three sets of five at 215 pounds.
Today was one of those rare but truly awesome days in t he garage gym. I can’t deny that any day in the garage gym is a good day, even if things go shitty but today was one of the ones were everything was just clicking well and I was feeling really good about everything today. I thought I’d be more tired after watching the Flyers game last night but I woke up feeling like I slept really well and had plenty of rest.
I really didn’t know what to expect today with my lifting. I have been tired and burned out a bit between the stuff we did last week and the snow storm we’re currently having. It’s no secret that I get excited and lose sleep every time it snows. It didn’t help much getting woken up last night by not 1 but three snow blowers, none of which belong to someone that even has a drive way.
One of the greatest things about having a home gym is the flexibility in time and space that you have. Unfortunately the space in our home gym yesterday was being used as a setup with a table and stuff to wrap Christmas gifts. We did that yesterday since we’re over COVID now and it was great to see the kids and even better knowing that at least per the science I would not be contagious or risk spreading it without knowing it.
I did my Crossfit total the other day and while I didn’t make any PRs doing it I was happy with how I did. I rested from lifting yesterday so I decided and slept well last night so i decided to get right back into it it today rather than waiting a day or two like I’d originally planned. I did lower all of the weight’s back down which in today’s case the only thing I had to lower was the strict press.
We had a bunch of running around to do today and other things to get done around here so I rushed through my strength bright and early this morning. It worked out well though since I wanted to do a heavy bench single.
Starting out today I did a very easy three sets of five back squats at 195 pounds. It worked out well that I needed very little rest between sets and took very little.
It’s been close to a year if not longer than that since I actually walked away from a WOD and yesterday I had to do just that. The WOD was four rounds of a bunch of barbell work (deadlifts, hang power cleans and jerks) ,row 500 then do the barbell stuff again. I had chosen to do the RX weight and it really should’ve have been a problem for me as I used to use much heavier weight for this sort of thing in the past.
I went for my Crossfit Total today. It’s a bit later than I wanted to do it but I wanted to allow my body time to recover from COVID a month or so ago.
I did this week’s vault WOD today for street parking. It was one I certainly wasn’t looking forward to because it had wall walks programmed in it. Those are one of those things I really wasn’t able to come close to doing back at the gym. Not even when we had a gymnastics coach there trying to help us with some of the more gymnastics type of stuff.
Today I decided I would give them another try since I noticed a space inside the house with a wall that would be open enough to work if I just pulled a couple of nails we had in it for hanging stuff in the past.
My stomach has been feeling slightly off all day long today. Actually it’s been feeling off a bit since I ate supper last night but tolerable. I don’t know if I ate something that was a bit off or maybe it’s just one of those things that happens sometimes. Naturally now that I am done lifting it’s feeling better.
I just decided it would be a good idea to lower my squat weights for today before and not pushing towards failure.
As the title says today’s lifting in the home gym was absolutely brutal for me. Once again I woke up extra early and have been tired. My brain says it’s time to get up then once I am fully awake it says nahh fuck you, you need more sleep. To add to that all my lifts today were heavy.
Starting as always with the back squats which were set to be 260 pounds for today.
I woke up feeling much better today than the past few days. I got more sleep for one. I actually slept until about 6:00 AM! I had fucked up dreams but that’s another story. It’s weird for me to be able to sleep a bit later once I have been getting up early. I’ve always been a morning person and was my dad’s alarm clock growing up. If he had to wake up at 4 for work I woke up and woke him up.
Last night I didn’t sleep all that well and not nearly long enough again. Between drunkenly doing a WOD last night having me wound up and watching the Flyers game I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I don’t think I even fell asleep until around midnight.
The other thing is for some unknown reason to me basically since I had COVID I have been just waking up around 4:00 to 4:15 AM.
It’s Friday so we did our normal thing and got our takeout from Joy’s Tavern. We’ve been enjoying their takeout food and drinks since spring. The food is always good and their sauce for the onion rings is just amazing!
Today I got a burger for a change. I’ve been getting cheese steaks but I wanted something different today so I ended up with the burger. It has peppers and stuff on it and it’s really tasty.
Today at least for my lifting was almost a complete polar opposite of the lifts two days ago. I was in the right zone or frame of mind to deal with the heavier lifts I had to do today and remain very focused.
The squats were a pretty heavy 250 pounds today and certainly much heavier than I’ve gone since COVID. I had already accepted the possibility that it may be a fail day especially after my knee was giving me a hard time the other day.
There’s more than one way to make a WOD more challenging. Lately I’ve been going for intensity but staying pretty much within my comfort zone for the WODs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach either.
Today’s WOD was one with movements that are just always going to be at least somewhat slower for me due to my poor vision for one and the tight space we have to work with in our garage gym.
Minutes before I was going to go do my lifts for the day I received a pretty tough phone call. I won’t go into details about that call or anything but once I got over it I decided to put or at least attempt to put that negative energy into lifting. I figured if worse came to worse and I wasn’t feeling it I could just push today’s lifts back to tomorrow or Thursday if necessary.
I’ve been feeling a little fatigued lately. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not sleeping well or enough or maybe my thyroid levels are a bit off since COVID. That’s sort of what it feels like but my stomach had gotten a bit wacky during that.
Either way I got done with what I needed to do today and that was all I could really ask for. It wasn’t bad but it was far from the worst day I’ve had in the garage gym.
I woke up a little before five this morning so I just got out of bed and drank my coffee and ate a banana like I eat every morning. It actually works out great for today since we have do some things this morning being awake extra early allowed me to do my lifting at a little after seven AM rather than later like I normally do.
Starting out this morning I had to do my squats 235 pounds.
I really felt like I had a great day in the garage this morning performing my lifts. There really is no such thing as a bad day lifting when it’s successful though and today was that way. I just felt well rested and in a good state of mind for a change so I could really focus on my task at hand. That was to pick heavy shit up and put it back down.
Last night was the last Eagles game of the season and given that I apparently have self hate I watched it. Last place bitches! I did fall asleep on the couch for a bit during the last quarter but still I didn’t sleep enough last night so I am feeling a bit sluggish. Hopefully they do more during the off season to fix their problems than they’ve done this year which is equivalent to putting a band-aid on a femoral artery that’s bleeding out.
Today has gone a bit like too many days since I had coronavirus but I wasn’t really feeling like doing a WOD or much of anything at all. Today is just one of those dark and rainy mid winter days. Started out with freezing rain this morning and now it’s just rain with the temperature in the low 30s. How great it would be to have a nice fireplace on days like this to relax in front of it and read my kindle or something.
I wasn’t really sure if I was even going to do my lifting today. My trap isn’t too happy with me from sleeping weirdly this morning. I was on my stomach but my head was fully twisted and when I woke up my neck wasn’t happy at all. It’s loosened up a bit as the day went on so I decided I would give my lifting a try. Worst case scenario I could stop and redo it later but that wasn’t necessary.
A great sunrise for the start of 2021This is a picture of a great sunrise on New Years Day.
Not that it really makes a difference given dates and calendars are a made up thing that only matters to humans but we’re beginning a new year. This particular year started with a great sunrise and I happened to notice it in time to be able to catch at least a reasonable picture of it with my phone.
It’s kind of cool how it worked out that my last programmed strength session worked out to fall on December 31st. Realistically doing strength every other day it had a fifty percent chance of occurring but I like that I didn’t have to finagle the days to make it work out. I guess it starting on January first would have been cool too but I like that I was able to end this cluster fuck of a year on a good note.
I decided a few months ago I wanted to row a half marathon for new years again. It’s not really something I want to do often or anything. Maybe once or possibly twice a year. Endurance is really not my main goal. It’s not even that important to me at all other than doing some for some balance.
When I first decided I was going to row another half marathon this year I was pretty sure I would have at least a slight PR on my time from last year.
I woke up this morning feeling a bit tired. We were up a bit later than we usually are again last night watching another movie. I just happened to remember that before COVID we’d talked about going to the theater to see Glass. I don’t really remember the reasoning but for some reason we ended up not going to the movies to see it last winter. We found a way to stream it last night and it really turned out to be an excellent movie.
This week’s sandbag WOD was not really one that I was looking forward to in any way, shape or form. What it really comes down to is I thought it was a dumb one with dumb movements but I ended up deciding to give it a try.
It was surprisingly not that bad for me considering two out of the 3 movements in it were movements I really have as close to zero interest in doing as possible.
I finally feel like I am ready to really push it again with my lifting after having had COVID a couple weeks ago. Granted I had a mild case it still left me feeling pretty shitty and run down. I started working out again about a week ago and have been feeling surprisingly decent with it but still feeling a bit run down.
Today, well really the past few days, that hasn’t been the case.
It’s Christmas day now and due to my COVID we’re not supposed to be going anywhere. We weren’t comfortable with it to begin with but my test sort of took that right out of our hands. I never wanted to be a part of the risk others are taking with their poor choices.
The other thing that it took away was our max out day that was to be today. I want to recover a bit more before going heavy.
Today being Christmas even Street Parking had programmed a twelve days of Christmas WOD. I originally wasn’t going to do it butt I knew Molly wanted to do it so I did the WOD with her.
It was one of the longest WODs I’ve done really for multiple reasons. We did the dumbbell version of the WOD given it took up the least amount of space enabling us to workout together which is always fun!
While I woke up feeling a little tired this morning from going to bed a little bit later and waking up a little bit earlier all in all I felt pretty good this morning. I felt like I had a lot of energy so I thought it would be a good day to stretch out my working out time.
First up were the still light back squats and 195 pounds. I felt great doing them and needed very little rest between sets.
Today’s WOD didn’t look that interesting for me to do today. I want to do it eventually but just didn’t want to do that one on this day so I looked at other options.
To start out the day I did a power WOD from a couple weeks ago that I have been wanting to do. At first I was waiting for my lifting belt to arrive because I wanted to try it out with the presses then I got sick so opted to put it on hold.
Continuing on my journey of recovering from the coronavirus I did my lifts today. I wasn’t sure how it would go considering the WOD I performed yesterday felt a lot tougher than it should have.
I felt good today so I decided to do my lifts. I had thought that I might end allowing myself an extra day of rest between sessions for the time being but I woke up feeling refreshed, more so than I thought I might so I decided to continue getting into the swing of things.
I felt pretty good after my lifting yesterday and my first WOD back the day before so I decided to give the other week’s sandbag WOD a go today. It was shorter than the day’s programmed WOD and I thought it would be more manageable.
The WOD was straight forward. It was Sandbag hang clean and presses and then thrusters and finally power clean and toss it over the bench. Five rounds of these movements.
I haven’t lifted since last Tuesday I think? The days have been a blur and i have to admit I still feel a bit shell shocked by all of this. I can’t think of any ways we could have realistically been any more cautious. It is what it is at this point though so the only way to go forward is heal and move on.
I’ve been really nervous to attempt my lifts even though I have been feeling better for several days.
I haven’t had a fever since like Monday and the muscle aches are gone so I decided that today would be a good day to attempt a WOD. Hell it’s not like I am on a tight schedule to do anything if I burn out and have to sleep the rest of the day.
The WOD was an AMRAP of 10 Sandbag push presses, 15 supine toe touches with the sandbag and 30 hop overs.
Last Wednesday I upped the intensity on a WOD and felt a bit wiped out over it but I didn’t think anything of it.
By Thursday afternoon I had a fever. Living in an area where half the population thinks it’s just a hoax or only the flu it was inevitable but still I, well we, took every precaution we could feasibly take. We have not gone out to eat and have only brought take out home.
I woke up early today feeling really off. My head is very stuffy along with a headache and have been sitting here this morning hoping that I’m not getting sick. It would be just my luck to get COVID by some fluke while we’ve been taking all the precautions we can. I’ve also been tired but the house down the street’s fireplace smoke kept me awake later last night. I did mange sleep good once I got to sleep though.
I finally got back up to my previous 20 rep max for back squats today although I must admit last time around I felt like there should have been more in the tank.
Today they didn’t really even feel all that challenging unlike last time in the early spring when the set was pretty tough. I took my time and worked through the reps keeping them strong and consistent and ended up feeling pretty great after I was done although a bit winded.
I wasn’t really sure how my lifts would end up going today. Shoulders are pretty cooked from heavy weighted pull ups on Friday and also the two shoulder intensive WODS I performed yesterday involving devil presses and pull ups + rowing. In the end all my lifts felt pretty good but my numbers tended to be slightly off.
Starting with the back squats, I was supposed to do three sets of five at 230 pounds.
Thankfully today’s lifts weren’t really all that heavy but I was feeling a bit rundown from the start from yesterday’s challenging WOD. That WOD was more similar to something that might have been programmed in our old gym as opposed to street parking’s which are generally lighter. It was simple but nasty. 15 rounds of 5 deadlifts and 3 cleans. They were full cleans, i hate the term “squat” cleans. I chose to do 145 pounds and actually felt really good.
I wasn’t really surprised or disappointed about how my lifting session went this morning. I wasn’t thrilled with it either but it went about as I could reasonably expect knowing my strengths and weaknesses. Keeping realistic exceptions while of course hoping for more but not dwelling on it is key for me.
The first thing as always was back squats, I nice moderate 220 pounds for three sets of five. These felt really amazing today.
I was definitely pleasantly surprised today. My strength for the day felt fucking great. All of my lifts were explosive and I needed very little rest between sets.
The squats were a moderately weighted 215 pounds. No problem for me to back squat this weight these days and I did just that today. The reps were all very fast and explosive and looked great, at least the sets I recorded did.
I was feeling pretty good today so I decided to get this week’s 20 rep back squats out of the way a day early. I was to do 195 pounds for twenty reps today which is getting up there for me or at least mentally it’s getting up there in weight. I actually felt great with it today and got through them fairly easily. Last time around at this weight it was getting tough last spring but that’s not the case right now.
I didn’t know how well today would go after drinking a bit last night and a stressful couple of days. I felt well rested but that doesn’t always tell the story. Things got stressful thanksgiving when we had a leak. Nothing major or anything and thankfully it was caught early so I turned off the water then back on to fill the bathtub so we had water to flush the shitter.
I am thankful for having our home gym with basically anything we might need that we’ve built up over the years. Our gym is open when ever we want it to be open. Take today for example, being a holiday, our old Crossfit gym was always closed on Thanksgiving except for the one time one of the coaches held a partner WOD in the morning. Today was a day that I had lifting to do.
I did my three sets of five squats at at 200 pounds today. Continuing with the idea I had from the last one I wore my lifting shoes this time to get maybe a slightly different stimulus. I was honestly pleasantly surprised how this went since my lower lat was pretty angry during the warm up sets. Naturally It wasn’t angry from lifting wrong or anything. I got out of bed wrong this morning.
Today was a decent day in the garage gym for my lifting this morning so far at least. I did some things slightly differently than I have been doing and also broke a long standing plateau.
Starting out with the back squats I decided to do them slightly differently than I have been doing. I thought this time around since I reset the weight I’d give it a go wearing my romaleos lifting shoes for a change.
To set up the way today went with the lifting I got woken up once again last night just as I fell asleep so I laid there awake another hour or two. To top things off I woke up at 3:30 AM thinking it was 5:30 so I got up and have been awake since. I didn’t have nearly enough sleep last night and our weekly date night which included a couple of Joy’s slushies didn’t help me rest that much either.
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. I felt refreshed even and that doesn’t really happen to often. The past few weeks especially there have been little noises that kept waking me up through out the night just at the worst time to make me feel like shit and un rested. This made me feel even better since I knew I had a relatively tough day of strength to look forward to this morning.
There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to when heavy lifts feel tough as hell to get through or the other times they feel pretty great. If I had to take a one hundred percent honest guess as to why it’s been so tough recent I would say I am just plain not eating enough calories.
Thankfully today was a heavy day that considering the weights I was pushing and how it felt last time I was up there really ended up feeling great.
Today was for sure one of those days where I just didn’t feel like it. Not nearly enough sleep last night for one since we decided to stay up and was the second It movie. We were going to go see it in the theater last year but stuff kept coming up to stop us from going. The movie was longer than I expected and it was later than I realized by the time we started it.
Continuing the theme of the week I am feeling pretty tired and lazy today. The fact that yesterday was a rainy day and now today is rainy also but not as heavy of a rain as yesterday makes matters worse. It’d not one of those washout days today. It’s really just raining enough to keep everything wet. These kind of fall days just make you not feel like really doing anything but lay around all day.
I woke up early this morning. Too early really, the neighbors slamming their door woke me up. I don’t understand why they need to go in and out of the door 10 times to smoke a cigarette or why the constantly let the door slam shut. Well I guess I do know why really. They’re minimal effort type of people.
After drinking my coffee and eating some oatmeal for breakfast I started to think about getting my strength work done early today.
I’ve been wanting to, when it’s appropriate work out of my comfort zone with dumbbell WODS. The Rx weight is typically 40 pounds which I have the strength for but I am just not super comfortable with performing many movements with that weight at this point. The dumbbells are a fairly new tool and stimulus for me.
Last Saturday we did a partner version of a WOD which I chose to use the 40 pound Rx weight for.
I woke up early this morning, feeling pretty tired. Not feeling all that rested. I didn’t sleep enough last night and having drank alcohol didn’t really improve the restfulness of my sleep. I did what I needed to do and did my starting strength for the day. There was success where I expected and failure where I more less anticipated
The squats were a success but they really should have been at only 235 pounds.
I woke up early today feeling really tired after I went to bed late last night. I really didn’t sleep that much or that well last night. I was pretty wound up from watching the election for one and I did too tough and longer WODS in the evening and the Sandbag WOD of the week earlier yesterday.
The first thing I had for today was my three sets of five squats.
I feel like I had a fairly successful day today in the home gym after running myself down yesterday rowing a 10k and then doing a bunch of shoulder stuff with Molly.
The squats weren’t bad to do today at lest at a nice 220 pounds. They felt really good and looked really good so I am happy about that. Knee is a bit achy but no big deal.
The big positive today was definitely the shoulder press though.
I decided to row ten thousand meters on the Concept 2 rower today. It was the endurance WOD. The WOD actually called for a max effort 10k row which I didn’t really do the max effort since rowing has been one of those things bothering my hamstring a bit.
I did row at a nice moderate pace though with no sign of it tightening up like it has been doing at around two thousand meters.
About a month ago I bought men’s leggings out of curiosity and as a joke. Turns out I really like them and find them to be the most comfortable thing for working out. They’re a bit warmer than shorts and don’t get in the way like sweat pants do so it’s a win win situation with the cooler garage now.
They just feel good. They’re comfortable like I am not wearing anything at all which is nice.
Today was the day if any that I knew that I was sure it was smart to just automatically reset my weight for the back squats. I was supposed to do three sets of five at 260 pounds. I am pretty sure that I would have made it but it would be challenging but my knees have been supper achy and lots of twitches throughout my leg muscles the past week.
Today was one of those really challenging days. My body didn’t want to support any weight. I didn’t feel any connection to it and I am tired. I know these days are the days that can make me better though, so I fought through the weakness the best I could
The squats were a nice heavy 255 pounds. Even the warm up set at 135 felt crushing though so I knew it was gonna be tough.
I don’t have any clue as to why but for the past week or two my strength stuff has been really tough. It’s been a struggle to get through the stuff. My knees have been feeling run down a bit from hitting WODS often with weighted step ups. The work with dumbbell versions of WODS have been mentally running me down a bit since those are mostly new or movements or ones I haven’t done in years.
Something I’ve wanted to do for a little while now is start using the heavier sandbag for WODS again. I did well with the rep one I had until the fillers kept opening and making a mess. it had gotten to the point where I had to reload them after every WOD. I had gotten a new Brute Force one for my birthday and we’d never had any problems with the smaller one of theirs that we’d had for a year or so.
The first order of business this morning was for me to go ahead and do tomorrow’s WOD. I knew the entirety of it would be one big cluster for me with all the goblet step ups.
The steps ups you were to hold one dumbbell at your chest and I knew that was going to be challenging to me. It puts it right in the space where I can glance down and see that my foot is solidly on the box.
Some times those days occur where you really just don’t feel like doing jack shit. Today was one of those days but I forced myself to stop being lazy and do my strength and felt better after that. Later on A knocked out today’s WOD with pretty good results.
The squats were a bit slower than normal today and the 240 pounds felt extremely heavy. I managed to eek out my sets plus the extra two to make it five sets of five that that weight.
Today it clicked that it was only the second time now that I have done weighted step ups with dumbbells in my hands. They were programmed often enough in the old gym but I always did unweighted ones because the lighting was bad and I just wasn’t comfortable visually with them.
Here at home while the lighting still isn’t ideal I have been trying to do those things that I haven’t done before.
Today was strength day so I had to get that in early this morning in case the likely need to partake in adult beverages while watching the Eagles fuck up should occur.
The day started with squats as always. They were a nice, fun, moderately weighted 235 pounds. my knee and ankle on my left foot feel wonky today so I wasn’t sure how that would go. I tripped over something near the door out to the garage door and flew out it last night landed on my feet but awkwardly.
I Woke up tired today with somewhat achy knees and hips this morning. It’s my own fault for doubling up on WODS yesterday that both involved many deadlifts and hang cleans and burpees over the bar.
I didn’t kill myself on the WODS really as it’s been a while since I used a barbell for the WOD but I did push it a bit, especially for the second WOD I did.
I had no idea today how the strength would go having done a WOD last night with 50 deadlifts at 175 and 50 strict presses at 75. I should have gone heavier for both movements in that WOD in hindsight but I wanted to make every 30 seconds of reps and had no idea where I should be.
My legs were tired today but I still managed to knock out the back squats at 215 pounds.
Although I have been doing my strength work for the past week there has been some reluctance in me wondering if I should do it or rest or back off a bit. Today’s the first day since starting back up I haven’t felt any hesitation at all.
I am thankful to have that feeling back. While I love doing the WODS the strength is what gives me inner peace with myself.
With fall arriving it is and will stay cooler for a while now. I assume the spring heat prematurely killed my front squats after I’d failed the back squats in the spring. That was before we decided to put our old air conditioner into the garage window. While when I did the twenty rep squats before it didn’t really help with strength it certainly improved my endurance for squat movements and just leg movements in general.
My strength for today was all light but it’s the program and I reset all my weights after maxing recently.
The squats were 3 sets of five at 200. Being that they were light, they felt and and looked really good so I decided to through in two extra sets to make it 5x5. The extra work while it’s lighter seems to be really helpful for me. Maybe next year I’ll look into a maybe more intense program.
A heavy single front squat is one of the things the things I’ve been meaning to try out. My original intention was to do it the same week I did the Crossfit totals but due to my quad I thought it would be best not to push it.
Today was the day to do the front squats among other things since it’s rainy outside and we’re not doing anything else. I was optimistic that I could get up near 260ish.
My strength for today was all light stuff for now but it really did end up feeling great. I really felt like I was moving well and cleanly. Don’t be confused by that because if I am not moving well I would call it a day and try again next time. Thankfully that’s a rare issue.
The squats felt great and I feel like I have improved my form with them even more.
Even though my leg felt much better last week I was still having the occasional tightness. Essentially even right after my quad popped I had full mobility, just a lot of discomfort but that slowly improved.
Last week I only managed one or two WODS and we did our Crossfit total. I didn’t want to risk fucking up my leg so we could go out hiking / geocaching but that didn’t really happen as Molly was mad that the sun was dimmed.
The other thing about today that was a first but will definitely not be a last is I figured out a solution to the garage being a bit cooler. Sweatpants just don’t cut it. They’re too thick, too lose and just get in the way and distract me so much that they did more harm than good. I’ve noticed guys in videos wearing leggings lifting and such and a few people at the old gym did at times.
My quad is feeling pretty good today so I went for my Crossfit total. I just wanted to get an idea of where I currently am strength wise.
My quad has been progressively feeling better since Monday’s popping incident. Friday’s 95 pound back squats seem to actually help if anything. I had planned on doing more at a heavier weight yesterday but my brain got side tracked so I ended up not doing that.
The squats them self felt really good with a nice stretch as the weight slowly increased. I worked up to 225 pounds for 5x3 and for the most part it felt great other than a sloppy rep or two.
Today my quad is feeling even better than it has been feeling so I decided to give some light barbell back squats a go. I did only 95 pounds today and I have to say it felt really, really good. Maybe I wasn’t hitting rock bottom like I typically do but that was not my intention today.
My goal was to test it out and see how it felt and looked.
The other day mid squat I had a popping sensation deep in my leg and some soreness and weakness after that. Of course I had immediately stopped.
Thinking back now it was more of the feeling you get when your knee pops or some other joint. Almost all the time that leaves it feeling better but Once in a blue moon it feels worse. Almost like it needed to crack more but it’s unable to.
Yesterday’s Strength did not go well. It felt good and the squats were only 205 pounds. They felt light and good but I felt like I was maybe compensating a bit for rolling my ankle yesterday doing sandbag hop overs. The 2nd rep of the second working set it happened. I felt a pop deep in my quad on the opposite side from the rolled ankle. It’s towards the outside
It was a nice change of pace from the past couple of weeks to say the least. Having failed bench press the last bench session and back squats last session too they were both lighter weights. I feel like it might be the best of timing too since we’re doing Crossfit totals and other maxes in a week or two to get current baselines.
The squats I did were at only 195 pounds today.
Sometimes even a failure is a success. Let me preface this whole post with the fact that I didn’t really have too high of a hopes for today given that my piriformis has been somewhat angry. That started a week or two ago when my foot slipped out from under me doing lunges. It’s getting better with stretching and movement seems to help it more than doing nothing.
I figured I could at least try today’s planned strength and sort of feel it out on the warm up sets.
I have known since I was fairly young that you shouldn’t turn a fridge on after it’s been laying down since my parents bought from someone at my grandfather’s work that was moving. We took the old one we had in the kitchen down in the basement and put the new in the kitchen after they took it off the truck. It ran but never got cold. We learned from someone after that that you shouldn’t lay it down.
Today I am feeling really good and accomplished about my strength session. It has been a long time coming to make it to this mile stone with a few false starts on the way here. There were several mental blocks that helped prevent me from reaching this long time goal but I finally got it.
it all started out with the big positive not for today’s strength work. I was set to do my old Crossfit Trinium one rep max weight for three sets of five.
First things first as far as lifting today I wasn’t really feeling like it. It’s hot and humid, I was hungry and didn’t really sleep enough last night thanks to alcohol from Joy’s with supper.
Naturally feeling this way today was set to be an at least somewhat heavy day for my squats and bench press. I had accepted the fact that I may fail one or both of these lifts today and was fine with it.
Sometimes improvements are small little hidden details and other times they’re so blatantly obvious like today’s WOD. The WOD called for 4 3 minute AMRAPS of six pull ups and six hang cleans with the sandbag.
Today It felt pretty good other than my hand wanting to rip. I forgot the granddaughter had chalk all over the tape on the bar that Molly like to use. That just made it way too grippy for me and my hands weren’t feeling great from the get go.
Today was was of those strange days when it comes to strength where it just feels light. I really wish that could happen more often so I wouldn’t overthink it when it when the weight gets heavier.
First up were the squats at 255 pounds. For repping, especially five reps a set this is a relatively heavy weight for me. I’ve always had more trouble repping weights than I have had with heavy singles.
Today was definitely one of those days. You know the days where normal tasks seem to be a pretty good challenge. Mentally I am not here and I’m not really here physically too much either.
It started out from waking up a bit early from some weird ass dream. There was some girl who I feel like I should know that had something wrong but wouldn’t say what it was. It’s left me with that off feeling all day.
Today was a great day for my strength. Unlike the last session where even the light 135 warm up sets felt terrible and super heavy they, along with even the working sets felt great, light and explosive today.
My back squats today at 245 felt pretty great save a couple of sloppy reps. Other than the couple of sloppy reps they were all fast and explosive and feeling pretty light. I had failed this weight the other day but made the decision that I would give it another go give than it’s a weight I fell I should be able to make just about any day.
I woke up early today and well rested. It’s been a while. Finally we’ve been able to sleep with just the fan instead of the air conditioner which always allows me to have a better night’s sleep. The air conditioner is nice to make it more tolerable but the sound of them tends to keep me awake or annoy me a bit 95% of the time. The fan is quiet on low and it lets some of the outside noises in which tend to relax me.
I was watching lifting videos this morning and I noticed the belt and it dawned on me that I have never used one. I haven’t even tried using one since I never felt the need. It’s kind of hard to even test out using one if you don’t have one.
It just never occurred to me before to even consider getting one thinking it would be like the other things I was told I’d need for Crossfit.
I have to admit I didn’t really have any high expectations for my strength workout today. Shortly before I was going to do it part of my one quad just suddenly started to cramp a bit. That just came right out of the blue and have no idea where it came from.
I took a little time to stretch and warm up a little bit to felt things out. See I do stretch and warm up if I feel I need to!
I decided it’s time to start getting used to some dumbbell movements today. I chose to do one of street parking’s suns out guns out ones.
It wasn’t for time so it made it easier to focus on taking my time with movements I haven’t done in years. The first part was 100 should presses with 15 v ups every time you break up the presses. I did sit ups because for some unknown to me reason my body just doesn’t seem to want to understand V ups.
I woke up pretty early today so I did my strength work somewhat early in the morning since I already had my coffee for the day. Not as early as I would have liked to have done it but I feel like the right thing to do is be respectful of the neighbors. I don’t know what they can here but we don’t hear much from them. Today was the first time in I have no idea how long that the air conditioner wasn’t necessary while doing my strength.
I have been feeling pretty run down the past few days. I think the biggest reason for feeling so run down the past few days is the fact that this annoying heat and humidity is back yet again. It kills me. It kills my appetite too and I think that it is stopping me from eating enough. It’s the middle of August so that shouldn’t be an issue much longer now.
This day was one of those days. I decided to get off my lazy ass and do a WOD. Enough of the excuses of being tired or hot or what ever else I could come up with. I’ve been wanting to do this week’s sandbag WOD but didn’t get around to it do to being so run down the past few days.
The WOD consisted of 21 lungesters and then 21 sandbag power clean and toss over the box, rest a minute than 2 rounds of 15 of each.
For today’s strength in the program it’s squat, bench, good morning and pull ups. Probably my least favorite day of the three but it’s still good to work on things I don’t like or care all that much about even if it’s just for balance. Don’t get me wrong, I do stretch if I feel the need to and I’m in the minority that I am pretty flexible at my age but I prefer if anything to be a little tighter while lifting.
Today I ended up not doing a metcon. I’m just feeling a little burned out on them from the rough time I had on Friday.
I normally don’t do Street parking’s “Oly” program. (BTW that word “oly” is fucking stupid.) Today it looked interesting enough I thought I would play today.
The first part was work up to a heavy single power clean. This felt really good. I made it up to 195 which felt easy and looked easy.
I originally had planned on skipping today’s WOD but ended up deciding on doing it. The WOD was 3 rounds of row 500 meters, 20 back squats and 15 power cleans then row 500 more meters. I chose to do the RX+ weight since I knew I could handle it and have for a long time been feeling the need to get out of my comfort zone. The Street Parking WODS tend to be lighter weight wise than the WODS we did at our old gym.
First things first I have to acknowledge that we work out in a home gym now so we can do things our way and on our schedule. There’s a possibility I may even go do a WOD in the middle of writing this post.
The post I saw on Reddit last night was about whether a coach should call out a member for being late to class in Crossfit. The comments mentioned various punishments that their gym used and it got me thinking.
I have to admit that I really wasn’t feeling it today. I felt like I didn’t really have the energy to do my strength let alone a WOD. The most likely culprit for me feeling run down the past day or two is being a bit dehydrated. The heat is catching up with me and geocaching a bit in the sun on Saturday didn’t help matters nor did waiting the the car while the girlfriend ran into the store.
I will preface this by saying that I really wasn’t feeling any WODS today. I don’t know why but I was just having that feeling where I want to sit around and be lazy all day type of day. I think I am just somewhat burned out from the heat and humidity and maybe a little dehydrated.
The first WOD I did was an EMOM of 4 heavy deadlifts and one lateral burpee over the bar adding a burpee each minute.
I didn’t sleep all that well last night. I don’t know why but it was just one of those nights where I laid there in bed just awake. My brain wouldn’t shut off. That’s the story of my life though. It’s been a little better lately but After a couple of hours I just got up for a while.
I was anticipating that putting a damper on my strength work today.
I was thinking about passing on today’s WOD being tired an it being once again hot but I gave the single shoulder squats a shot and they didn’t feel too bad. The squats were one shoulder sandbag squats. They felt a little awkward with the weight being on one side but there was no reason not to do it or go with a heavier sandbag.
The WOD was 3 rounds of row 750 meters and 50 single shoulder squats with the sandbag.
Continuing with trying to get heavy base lines for where my strength is at this moment I decided to do a heavyish single front squat today.
I stopped at 255. It looked and felt really good. Didn’t even feel all that heavy to me. I stopped there for the day even though I felt like there was more in the tank. Hell I felt like I could possibly meet or surpass my all time max at 273.
I decided to go for a Crossfit total this weekend. It’s been well over a year since I’ve had current numbers and I thought I needed to see where I stand. We’re going to do it again in September but I did it today.
I wasn’t really feeling it today but went for it anyways and I am happy I did. I wasn’t going for all out maxes but instead I was going for heavy for today singles.
Today with my strength it was time to squat heavy again. I wasn’t really feeling it at all today but I had to give it the best effort I could. The heat and humidity is slowly running me down this year I think.
I tried a warm up set without the air conditioner but quickly realized that wasn’t a good idea as it was so humid the bar was already feeling damp.
I’m finally feeling like I am making progress with my squats again. Last time I made progress was with lots of heavy singles and back off sets but now I am just doing 3 x 5.
I’ve always preferred small sets but there’s no harm in trying something different. I’d failed a couple of times in the past and worked back up to it. Finally the other day I smashed through my sets at 255.
Today’s WOD (well technically Thursdays' we did it early) was one that I knew I’d be slower at and knew was the perfect opportunity to try one with 100 pound sandbag. It was only an AMRAP of 5 sandbag over the shoulders and 20 unweighted step-ups.
I knew going into it the step-ups were going to slow me down. That’s a visual thing. While I can become somewhat faster at them and have already improved I know I will always be limited by having to “feel” whether I have solid footing on the box.
First things first I did not sleep well last night and have been tired all morning so I didn’t have all that much hope for my strength today. It’s also pretty hot out already at 9ish in the morning. I turned the air on but still I didn’t want to wait around too long. It was definitely more humid than yesterday was.
The warm up sets felt pretty good although a lot slower today than last time.
Today started off pretty hot but thankfully the humidity isn’t that bad yet . That will change this weekend but it feels okay for now.
I started off the my squats at 250 pounds. They felt pretty great today and honestly pretty easy. Very doable and looked very explosive. This is in the ballpark of where I’ve been getting hung up.
The power cleans at 170 felt great. Very explosive. Very fast elbows and looked really good.
I just wasn’t sure how the strength would go today. My knee is a bit angry from yesterday’s WOD in which I did several hundred hop overs over the sandbag. No matter what those are always awkward for me. I would tend to guess it’s more the vision than anything. Lets see I am hopping back and forth sideways over an object I can’t really tell how close I am to it with really only any functional vision on one side from one eye.
I skipped it last week thinking I may do a heavy single or x age body weight back squats for my birthday so I wanted to be fresh for that. I decided not to do either of those so I picked up where I left off with the 20 rep squats.
Today I was doing 170 pounds. I didn’t fail because of weight. Hell I wasn’t even slowing down on the squats.
After we got done with the grocery store I did my strength for today and it felt great. Power clean day!!
The squats really looked and felt awesome at 235. I am very happy with my progress back to where I should be with squats even if that hasn’t translate directly to numbers on a page it will. Better movement patterns will certainly eventually lead to that along with safer reps.
Last night we once again grabbed Mosby’s for supper along with a couple of adult beverages. Their wings are just so good and they’ve been getting better each weak I’d say. I also had a cheese steak which are pretty decent from there. It’s refreshing that they don’t call it a “Philly cheese steak” and have it in no resemble what you’d actually find n Philly. They’re pretty tasty though.
Today’s schedule had me doing my strength work and I was hoping to get at least one WOD in and I’ve done that now. I am happy to have done that already since tonight is our going out to eat night. In stead of going out though, we’ve been getting unhealthy takeout and alcoholic beverages to go since Pennsylvania has stepped out of the dark ages and is now allowing that.
I see the question asked often enough about what timer to get for WODS at home and it dawned upon me today that I’ve never posted my thoughts on our GymNext Flex timer on here.
The timer it self is almost perfect. It has nice big and bright numbers and we don’t even have ours set to the maximum brightness. Even I can see them okay enough being visually impaired and all.
It isn’t nearly as hot today as it has been but it’s still warm and humid. It could get nasty if the sun peaks out. I did turn the air conditioner on but not until I went out into the garage gym this time instead of a few minute earlier. I just wanted dry the air up a bit so I am not slipping on my sweat doing the squats and more importantly so the bar isn’t slipping around or out of my hands during the deadlifts.
It was a hot day today. Not all that humid, certainly not as bad as it could have been but still temperatures in the mid 90s is hot weather. The heat had my ass dragging all day until 1 or so I decided to just turn on the gym air conditioner and get my strength over with. It doesn’t help that I only had a couple of hours of sleep again last night.
After a nice relatively cool night in the low 60s for sleeping the sun came up. The temperature shot up to the mid 90s.
I, unfortunately waited until 1 pm or so to do the first WOD I did. I didn’t feel like moving shit around and I was going to do the running version so I wanted to wait until the sun got high enough it wasn’t blinding me.
This morning we installed our old air conditioner in one of the garage windows since the temperature was supposed to get into the mid 90s. We had it available and got a smaller one for the bedroom so might else well make good use of it. I started it about 20 minute before lifting and it really was a game changer.
The squats at 215 felt easy and explosive. They have really been feeling pretty great the past month or two.
After yesterday in what was essentially a cluster fuck of a day for fitness and exercise for me today I am feeling a lot better. I slept good again and ended up with a resting heart rate of 49 today. It’s been great to have the windows open and the fan on as opposed to the loud, annoying air conditioner on these cooler nights. That was the odd thing about yesterday.
Let me first start out with making it clear I wasn’t feeling it at all before I even attempted to do the WOD today. It happens sometimes and thankfully not often at all. We’ll all have some somewhat off days here and there. I think more than anything it’s just the recent heat catching up with me. The last time I just plain couldn’t finish a WOD was when I had gone without thyroid pills for reasons I won’t get into on here.
After slacking yesterday I decided I had to do my strength. It wasn’t too bad this morning heat and humidity wise. A little warm for my liking but tolerable at least. I’d love to be able to do the workouts early in the morning but having neighbors attached I don’t want to be that noisy asshole. It’s a matter of respect. Treat others better than you expect to be treated.
I was lazy today. Not really lazy but it was hot and I didn’t sleep so well the night before thanks to someone deciding to start lighting off fireworks around midnight. I was thinking to do a WOD after we picked up the air conditioner that we ordered but decided not to pick it up. We had a very heavy shower that really did nothing to cool it off that much but instead bumped up the humidity.
I woke up this morning and peaked at the weather radar before getting out of bed and saw there were some weakening thunderstorms approaching. I got dressed and grabbed the cushions off the patio furniture and brought them in. By the time I got my coffee after finishing that the rain started. That was cutting it a little close.
After drinking some coffee and it getting a little later in the morning I decided to work on my strength that I skipped over yesterday while sitting in the living room waiting for a package that I may have to sign for.
I would be lying if I’d say I am surprised at failing today but I would also be in denial if I would say it still didn’t disappoint me. The reality of it is for me I know summer kills me. It always has affected me even as a small child playing. The cold is something I can tolerate more than most people though.
Today the dew point is back up to the 70 degree area which seems to be where it really starts to rear it’s ugly head in how it adversely influences my ability to stay reasonably cool.
Sometimes life throws the unexpected at you and the only thing you can really do is take it for what it is and go with the flow. I’ve had a good run consistently working out basically daily and was felling really good about it..
Last week our lights started flickering but then it went away. We figured it had something to do with the transformer that blew nearby over the weekend.
I definitely had a good but rough day at the home gym today.
My strength today was to be heaviest squats, moderate strict presses and light deadlifts. I just reset the weights on those. I had failed the deadlifts last week.
The squats were at 240. This to me is a moderately heavy weight. Today it didn’t feel heavy at all. It felt great for sure. My technique has so greatly improved it’s amazing.
Today, fairly early in the morning I worked through my normal strength that was scheduled for this day. It went well., really well for me.
It started out with with some nice moderately weighted back squats to get me warmed up. They felt really, really good today! I did them at 230 pounds today which is around where they typically start feeling heavier but that turned out to not the case at all today.
Yesterday I didn’t end up doing a WOD at all. My calves were very crampy so I erred on the side of caution and rested and stretched them. I’m sure I was just dehydrated from the recent heat and humidity and additionally drinking copious amounts of alcohol Thursday night. I’d always rather take a rest day now than exasperate an unknown injury. I did do very heavy deadlifts for me in the heat on Thursday.
I was very disappointed with failing the back squats yesterday early on and knew they were rather light and I only failed because of sweat allowing the bar to shift a bit. Yesterday and even early this morning there was a ridiculously high tropical humidity. It was the kind where sweating does absolutely no good. It just makes your skin wet.
Towards late morning the dew point had been slowly falling from around 75 to 70.
It wasn’t all that bad when I woke up this morning. pretty humid but tolerable. As the morning went on the temperature has increased over time. I did a lot of debating in my head on whether I wanted to attempt my strength work today or push it back a day or two when it’s cooler and less humid
About 9:00 I decided it was time to go do my strength work for today.
Today was one of those days in the Garage gym that seem to be destined to be complete failures with everything going wrong that could but at least in this case it worked out okay all things considered. I did manage to complete two WODS today.
The first one was just back squats and running 400 meters. As I would expect the business along the alley once again decided that a truck with a trailer needed to stop and sit in the road blocking most of it.
Even a bad day lifting is better than a day with no lifting but Sunday and today were two great days for lifting and general fitness to boot.
Yesterday I was feeling pretty tired but I decided to get off my lazy ass and go do some stuff in the garage. I started out with this week’s 20 rep front squats. I did them at 150 pounds this week and I don’t think they could have felt any better than they did.
It was humid this morning, very humid. You know when everything feels wet and won’t dry, well that’s how it felt. Sort of like when your down the shore but there is no beach here nor is there a nice refreshing ocean to take a dip in. The dew point and temperature were maybe a degree or two a part at the most. I miss having a personal weather station to see neat information like this.
I can’t deny it. Honestly this week at least WOD wise I’ve been sort of lazy. Part of it was the heat and humidity this week. I’m getting more used to it but it will take time. We just haven’t had any this week. Even if it weren’t for the heat I’m okay with having a few days here and there where I’m somewhat lazy. Well I’m okay with it as long it doesn’t become a pattern but I can’t say I can really imagine that happening since I do love to work out and push myself.
Given the fact that my back squats today were only 205 pounds and I only had three sets of five to do today I again did them with a pause in the hole. Just a few sessions of doing this has my bottom position in much better shape than it was before. There wasn’t anything wrong with it before but improvement is always possible.
I also did my strict presses since they were back to 95 pounds.
From the time I woke up I’ve had a bit of a pressure headache from everything being all closed up. No matter what I couldn’t get my nose to really open up for more than a few seconds. I don’t think I have any allergies but do get irritated from the fine particles. I can even get the same way with dust. Just to be sure I checked my temperature and it’s still 97 point something so n fever.
I turned my 3 x 5 back squats into paused ones again today since it was only 200 pounds. I am hoping history for me repeats itself an as it did in the past the paused squats help me get stronger in the sticking point. Not using any bounce really seems to help me out of the hole. Another nice thing about the paused squats is the help remind me how to stay more up right and push my knees forward forward and out coming out of the bottom rather than my ass shooting up and trying to get me out of good position.
I’ve been wanting to throw these in someplace for a while now but much of the spring the weather has just been pretty uncooperative for outside stuff. If the weather’s been cooperative at all we’ve chosen to do a street parking programmed WOD together. Today Molly had to do a different one and I we wanted to do the programmed one together outside on a different day so I’m holding off on that.
What Can I say. It’s June and certainly time for this sort of weather. I’ve been spoiled by the springs persistent cooler weather with low humidity when it was a warmer day. Over the past few days that’s absolutely changed. Yesterday wasn’t necessary warm but it was very humid.
Today it got into the mid to upper 80s again but with a dew point near 70. There was a nice strong south breeze at least to make it a little more tolerable.
It’s been quite a while since I have used 135 pounds for front squats in a WOD setting. If I had to give an estimate it would have to be around two years since I’ve done so since.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to use it in at the old gym depending on the WOD and what else the WOD would entail. I had gotten to the point that I might go lighter to go faster or of my wrist was acting up.
Once again today I was supposed to do back squats at 255 pound and once again I failed at it. I failed the last rep of the first set this time. Honesty this time around I don’t feel it was a strength issue at all though, today was the first humid day of the year or at least the first humid day I had to lift heavy.
The heat kills me but even more so the humidity does.
I didn’t sleep all that well last night. I fell asleep easily then less than an hour later I was awake. Eventually I grabbed my tablet and went downstairs. I guess it was midnight or 1:00. It was just a bit too warm in here and I’m in no way used to the summer like temperatures. Fire pit smoke didn’t help matters.
This morning I was to do squats, bench press, good mornings and pull ups.
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good so I decided I would do my twenty rep front squats today and if I felt up to a WOD I’d to tomorrows. The front squats went really well for me at 140 pounds. Between the weight increasing and me obviously getting some practice in again my front rack position is greatly improving.
Several years ago I managed to get the mobility to do front squats and hold a good front rack position with a full grip on the bar and that greatly improved my confidence in heavier weights and and just felt more stable in general.
I won’t deny it in anyway at all. My lifts this morning were all relatively heavy. They all felt soul crushingly heavy, squats at 245, strict presses at 125 and deadlifts at 275. I got through them, they all felt slow and grindy but my video shows they were all pretty fast and good form so I got through them.
I think one of the bigger factors in everything feeling so heavy today was ding a WOD with 200 lunges and 100 push ups in it yesterday.
First things first I woke up this morning not feeling all that well rested. I felt like I slept well and don’t remember waking up at all last night. I just felt like I didn’t sleep enough.
In spite of feeling tired and lazy today I did my lifting this morning and while I felt like my ass was dragging I got through everything. The back squats are starting to feel heavyish again as I’m up 240 pounds.
We were originally going to do this WOD yesterday together but Molly got home from work too late to do one so we waited until today. Going into the WOD I knew I would be at least slightly slower than I would typically be in a sandbag WOD using a different filling material than the sand I am used to and probably a slightly different weight. The sand had leaked so many times I surely lost some over time and didn’t keep reweighing it but I know the currently pea gravel filled one is 53 pounds.
It’s one of those annoying things to me but there seems to always be people driving down the alley. I’m not complain about them driving there in any way because they have as much right to be there as me. It’s just the timing sucks. It goes hours between cars any other part of the day but whenever I am out there they appear like magic.
It always slows me down as I am extra cautious when there are cars around since so many people are off in their own little world once they get behind the wheels.
I don’t even try to make it a secret that I just love using the sandbag and doing WODS with it. I find it to be a really versatile addition to our fitness stuff. It doesn’t take up much space and it’s easy to take outside and we plan on taking them to the park sometime.
The one disappointment with the rep fitness one is the filler bags have on several occasions opened up and either made a bit of a mess on the garage door or dust in the face cutting a workout short.
I started at the weekly 20 rep front squats a few weeks ago at 95 pounds after finally failing at the back squats. With the back squats I got a lot further along that I anticipated I would. I’m hoping I hit body weight with the front squats too and it’s certainly possible. Once I got the mobility for front squats I’ve been able to hit a high percentage of my back squats max.
First of all, I’ll start off with the slightly disappointing part. It’s not the end of the world or anything but I wouldn’t have minded for it to be successful. I make it no secret that Bench press is a weak lift for me and one I am so uncomfortable with it that it makes it difficult to advance it but doing it in the rack with the safeties set is helping with that uneasiness slowly.
Today’s WOD was a redo of an old one and they gave the day of when it was last programmed so I was able to look it up and see what my past time was for it. Wodify is a steaming pile of shit but at least I was able to get it to work enough to find that. I through on Virvum’s Illuminance for my music choice and embraced the pain.
It got reasonably nice outside today with a temperature near 70 and the sun was shining. The WOD for today was a sort of a deadlift ladder with a 100 meter run between sets so it was the perfect one to do out in the backyard. It was nice to be able to just drop the last rep of the deadlifts. I miss being able to drop it but don’t want to destroy our garage floor or potentially annoy the neighbors too much.
Although I failed the back squat at two hundred fifty five pounds today for 3x5 I am not all that disappointed. I didn’t think that I would get through the 245 or 250 the past two sessions but I did. Today felt doable but just soul crushing having the weight on my back. I’m just not used to heavy weight there right now. Maybe I need to add in some heavy walk outs.
These squats aren’t getting any easier, that’s for damn sure. The weight is feeling heavier than ever and it’s getting mentally tougher but I am truly enjoying pushing myself in a different way than I have before.
With the frequent squatting my technique is drastically improving. That was expected of course because with anything more frequent practice helps improve things. The tendency to want to collapse forward a bit has all but disappeared.
My lifting program had be doing back squats at 245 5x3 today and although I know I can do it it still feels heavy as fuck. Your body screams at you that this shit is too heavy. I did the squats and got through them. They felt slow but the video shows them being pretty quick still. The fact that I did a WOD with high reps of sandbag step ups yesterday didn’t help matters nor did the fact that I stepped up on a 24 inch box rather than the normal 20 inches that I’m used to.
I chose not to do yesterday’s WOD on that day since the wind wasn’t ideal for running. It was a nice temperature but the wind got very gusty after the cold front and showers moved through. so I opted to wait to day given the forecast looked decent enough.
Sure enough it was still breezy this after noon but nice and dry and sunny. Now that it’s later in the season the sun doesn’t bother me as much for running since it’s higher in the sky.
If there is one thing that I can always count on after doing a WOD with either heavy or high rep deadlifts it’s the unsatisfied raging appetite. No amount of food seems to fill me up and no type of food does. My stomach just growls and growls.
The WOD it self was 30 deadlifts and 20 burpee pull ups, three rounds of them for time. I chose the RX weight on the lower end at 165.
We ordered it a while back but there was a delay in receiving it and that was although disappointing completely understandable. We got the rest of it last week but haven’t had a dry day or one that wasn’t chilly and windy since receiving it. We were waiting on the plastic feet and uprights. The feet are nice to have since they make it fairly quiet on the blacktop.
I chose to just use a 35 pound plate and go fast since I haven’t touched a sled in years and wanted to give pulling it a try too.
Over the past couple of days I have basically been too lazy to do a WOD. I’ve done my strength stuff on the days I was supposed to but didn’t do the WODS. I am perfectly fine with that too. I don’t do rest days per se but I do rest when I feel like I need it. Maybe I needed it the past few days or maybe it was just the waking up with a nasty headache from a stuffy head thanks to all of the lovely pollen.
I had originally bought a fitbit quite a while ago to encourage the grand kids to move since they got them for Christmas. It turned out I found the insights if not useful at least they were interesting and helped me push more out of my comfort zone with different types of activities.
The band that it came with broke so I ordered a new one on Amazon lover the summer but that one broke a few months later.
I woke up extra early today and was feeling tired and lazy all day. I was thinking if I didn’t get an increase in energy I’d skip the starting strength today and push it back by a day. Eventually Around 1 I want out in the garage and started setting up but I noticed everything was slippery and wet from the humidity increase. Today was power clean day and didn’t need the bar slipping out of my hand.
Although I do very much enjoy box jumps in spite of my visual handicap I do think they are used wrongly and over used in the program we do. Regardless of that there’s something primal about jumping on an object. It brings me back to being a kid growing up with 3 brothers. Among other things it was one of the things you did, if you saw something you tried to jump on or over it.
Most of this spring so far other than a few days here and there have featured rain at various times of the day. The rain puts a damper on my ability and desire to do running WODS out side. For one I don’t want to track mud through our garage.
The other main reason to defer the running WODS is that Crossfit type of shoes tend to be very slippery when they’re wet and that wouldn’t end well with weight or explosive movements like box jumps or the like.
The inevitable happened today. Going through the street parking’s starting strength program I finally failed at deadlifts. Other than bench press these are probably one of the my weakest lifts compared to where it should be. Grip strength has hurt these in the past for me not to mention earlier on I tended to pull with a bit of a rounded back and knew I did so preventing me from being too aggressive with the weight.
I don’t really make it a secret that I’m legally blind and therefore have very poor vision. I also do at least to the best of my ability keep it from being a limiting factor. I do realize and accept that it does cause some reasonable limitations if for any reason due to safety.
Box jumps are one of those movements used in Crossfit that always have and always will make me nervous due to the poor depth perception of only having one useful eye and sometimes misjudging the angle or distance I am to the box.
I failed hard at about rep 7 of my 20 rep back squats doing 205 pounds today. I couldn’t possibly say I’m not disappointed in this, especially after last week felt so good but it is what it is. The last rep was too sloppy.. Really It was a shitty rep so I racked it and aborted there. Started back at 95 pounds for front squats to see where that brings me.
Today was another cool dreary day and my ass has been dragging since I woke up. It happens sometimes. I thought I slept well and my Garmin seems to think I did too but I just have been feeling exhausted all day. We’ll blame it on the weather. I have the stuffy head thing going on from the clouds of pollen out there right now and that is not improving anything with how I’m feeling.
As I’ve posted before, Molly had the bright idea to do a thousand burpees in the month of March challenge. Me being me I had a minor lapse of better judgment and decided to do it with her. No, honestly I’m usually game for bad ideas like this.
We both decided we wouldn’t count the burpees in programmed WODS because those were ones we’d do anyways. This would have to be a thousand additional burpees.
Today’s WOD was one of them that on paper looked like It would be challenging but doable. 50 barbell man makers, which consist of a deadlift, bent over row and cluster complex and then some running. I was tired all day but my choices of days to do this WOD look like it would either be today or Thursday due to rain in the weather forecast.
Warming up with the bar I thought today’s might be one of those that I could RX+ So I threw on tens in addition to the 25 pound plates so I could readily and quickly pull off some weight if I need to.
I did my twenty rep squats today and couldn’t be more ecstatic with how it’s gone the past few weeks. Normally I do it Mondays but I am not going to bullshit myself or anyone else. With the potential snow storm I am going to probably be up all night tonight so I thought it would be smart to o the squats while I am well rested.
The first month or so was a struggle with the leg burn and breath but breath still runs out.
I am continuing with my starting strength and still going strong with the deadlifts. Last week’s deadlifts felt pretty slow and grindy.. Per the video the form was still good and saw no reason no to finish the set so I did but I strongly suspected this week would be the week I fail at the prescribed weight. Don’t get me wrong I was hopeful I would get through them but I kept the realistic expectation in the back of my mind that I’d have to discontinue and restart at a lower weight.
I just got done doing today’s starting strength and it got me thinking again about how grateful I am to be able to have a nicely set up home gym. Due to the fact that we’ve built up our equipment over the years I am able to keep working out like I normally do since we don’t need to go to a public place that’s smartly closed.
Today was 3x5 back squats at 215.
I’ve done it a few times this spring so far with the sandbag and with the bar once when it was sunny but in the 20s in February so we could do a WOD together. Let’s be real. A few minutes that day I was still pouring sweat.
This is about today though. It rained this morning and was cloudy and cool most of the day. Around 1:00 PM the sun was starting to peak through the clouds as they were thinning and breaking up and the temperature was beginning to spike upwards from the low 40s.
Today went surprisingly well for what ended up being more less a rest day other than my normal Monday 20 rep back squat program from street parking that I thought I’d try out.. I started way back at 135 pounds since high reps have never been my thing. I’ve always had a more challenging time with higher reps of squats for some reason so this has been going surprisingly well.
Today was one of those nice days when your workouts go much better than you expect. I wish that happened more often but it does happen sometimes. Unfortunately there are also the days where it turns into a just move day.
I chose to scale the normal programmed WOD for today because I don’t have double unders and really couldn’t give a fuck anymore if the rope is passing under my feet once or twice.
Today’s WOD involved hang power snatches and weighted situps. I’ve been sticking with the normal weights for the power snatches and just flying through that aspect of the WOD so today I decided to give 95 pounds a go.
One of the reasons I’ve been hesitant to do so here at home in the garage is it’s a bit too tight of a space for my liking. I like to have room to bail the snatches and when I have missed them in the past it’s almost always been behind.
Molly decided she wanted to do the thousand burpees during the month of March thing that someone posted about in the street parking group. I have to do them to because I want to help her get through it. So far it hasn’t been too bad. We did a 10 minute EMOM last week and I got through 70 in that then did another 50.
Saturday I after the WOD I did them with her again and got through 100 in 8 and a half minutes or so then did it again an hour later and got 75 that time to make it an even 400.
Working Through the starting strength program today I was back to Bench press and pull ups day today. I’ve been taking it somewhat easy on the pull ups since I lost a lot with a lump on my one wrist last year that head me back for like a year. It was only effecting pull ups. While the lump is still there bit it hasn’t been effecting me in any way since I started the street parking thing.
I was working through my starting strength today and it was bench press day. I was to do 185. This lift has always been my weakest because I never trusted spotters or myself reracking since I can’t see the j cups well. Doing it in the rack with the safety set is game changer for me. I feel like I can push it more.
It doesn’t happen often. Maybe once ever year or two but once in a while when it’s feeling a bit heavyish my Hamstring will cramp doing this lift.
I was working on my starting strength lifts today. One week and I’m already off the schedule I want to be on. Yesterday’s WOD deceived me and took way more out of me than I expected but that’s a different story. The great thing about doing this here at home is how I can be so flexible about timing and scheduling.
The lifts felt slow and heavy today and I couldn’t figure out why.
A few year ago for my birthday burpees I scaled them up to burpee pull ups. That was more less because in my 40s I could do something I couldn’t do as a teenager. As a teen I couldn’t do pull ups. I didn’t try often but when I tried I just couldn’t do them.
Well I got through those burpee pull ups and the first 30 weren’t bad at all but then they started killing me.
I have no idea when or why but doing lunges has finally clicked for me. Lunges are definitely one of those movements that have always given me fits and caused endless frustration. It was more to my sense of balance than skill.
I tend to favor my side opposite the one that has the better vision and it’s completely understandable why. I naturally favor that side with everything because I see better that way.
Doing Today’s WOD I realized that I am able to to keep the intensity high with the WODS from street parking which really is the main purpose of doing them in this manner. The movements have been put together in a way that there’s not the things I can do well and fast with one that I am not good at thrown in every day.
I am much more comfortable with running here during the day.
Lifting is one of those things that I truly love doing. My favorite lift of all is squats. Every single rep gives me a sense of happiness and feels like the one tie I can do something and be in complete control of the situation.
My eyes or I guess you would say poor vision really takes that away from me in a lot of situations. Sure I can run but there’s always the risk of not seeing a car or the thing I am most terrified of is running into a little kid out playing as they should be.
I really haven’t been doing much of anything for strength in the past nine months or so. I’ve been doing the Street Parking 20 rep squat programming but that’s only once a week and still relatively light for me. About A week ago I started to do Starting Strength to see where that takes me. I like experimenting at times.
Today was my third day of the starting strength thing and I was doing my last set of power cleans when Cryptopsy’s Phobophile came on.
We were able to do the sandbag version of today’s WOD together out in the back yard. It was just sandbag burpees and 400 meter carry for basically two rounds.
The weather was decent for the winter. it was by no means warm or anything but it was mild enough to do a workout, out in the backyard and ally. The WOD itself was harder than I expected, particularly the carries.
When we still went to the gym, Molly had found and ordered some fairly bright green j cups that would fit the rig. The black ones matched the black rig and had no contrast so I tended to have some trouble re racking by being off center or maybe too low. Those things were a game changer. The gym owner allowed us to leave them there so I could us them when I was there.
Sometimes You meet someone and they say nice things that just stick with you. I have a couple teachers that are that way.
It started in 2013 Very shortly after we began doing Crossfit another local gym was doing Grace as a fundraiser for one of their members who had cancer or something. That was Crossfit Gamma owned by Mike Jenkins the strong man. Well I did grace with Only 95 pounds and shit form.
I did the first WOD earlier. That was deadlifts and burpees. Not bad. The burpees slowed me down a decent amount do to space and not having room to trip over the bar safely. The deadlifts went really well. I chose 225 pounds for basically 4 a minute adding another burpee each minute and they felt light. I’m happy with that considering I haven’t been deadlifting or lifting anything heavy for that matter in a few months.
My girlfriend came up with a great idea last night. Her idea was to do an EMOM with a heavier sandbag than usual. I’ve been using 50 pounds in WODS for a while and it’s a bit too light but I haven’t wanted to over do it and push it too hard with the second filler. Turns out with the second Filler it makes the total weight 90 pounds.
I was originally going to do the EMOM with ground to overhead but that just wasn’t feeling quite right.
After doing the WOD this morning I realized that the bench was out of the way of the pull up bar so I gave l pull ups a shot again. For quite a while I’ve been able to do sloppy ones but yesterday they looked and felt nicer than ever before.
Pretty cool being able to do stuff that I don’t even practice as much as I should. I really haven’t worked on strict pull ups in months other than a few here or there or some weighted ones here and there.
A little while back I was looking into the other things that street parking offers and I came across the 20 rep squat program. I decided to give it a try. So far so good, I started at only 95 pounds and now I am up to 155 as of today. It’s been feeling pretty good with no missed reps and not feeling heavy yet.
In the past I have had success with lots and lots of heavy singles but I saw this program and thought I’d see how it feels.
If there is one thing I miss about going to an actual gym to work out is there is usually more options for space. We’d often try to set up near each other so we could watch each other and try to keep up with each other. We also did partner WODS together
The one downfall about doing workouts in the garage is there is much less space. Stuff with barbells tends to take up to much space at least for my own comfort.
The idea for this originally popped into my head a week or two ago as a sarcastic comment. Originally I wanted to start about 11:00 PM so I could finish 2019 and start 2020 with it. I was already tired before doing the WOD in the morning so I decided to just row the half marathon after that. The worst part about these long rows is they’re fucking boring. It’s just so long repeating the same thing over and over again.
I hate running, I have always hated running even as a kid, I did not like doing it. At Crossfit It was programmed way too often in my opinion. I wasn’t paying to be told to go play in traffic. You had to either cross a busy road which of course with my vision problems I’m going to err on the caution side of things or for 100 to 200 meters it was run back and fourth in the shopping center’s parking lot and people tend to not pay attention to what the fuck they’re doing while driving in parking lots so I never felt safe doing that.
I’ve been wanting to get back into longer rows for a while now. Well not really wanting but more less knowing it would be beneficial to my health and WODS. Last time I started rowing longer distances it greatly improved my rowing technique. I couldn’t get a stroke rate below 28-29 with fast weak pulls. The longer rows forced my to learn to row efficiently and now I can’t get a high stroke rate any more.
One of the things I enjoy about doing the street WODS is once in a while they throw in a different movement. A while back it was knee jumps which I had actually done once in a while on my own but it was cool seeing how many people found out they can do a new thing that they thought they couldn’t do.
Anyways Today’s WOD included seated box jumps. I’ve always wanted to try them but was overwhelmed by the visual aspect of it.
I’ve really enjoyed using the sandbag in WODS when it’s an option. I feel it’s very close to real life situations. Either way I’ve been using just the 50 pound filler in our brute for sand bag to practice with it and get used to it.
This week I’ve done two WODS with both the 50 and 25 pound fillers and honestly it still felt pretty light to me. Of course it’s more draining than the 50 pounds but certainly a usable weight.
Even though I’m not giving Crossfit my money to sign up for the open I still like the idea of using the WODS as a personal benchmark. I know not going to a gym will probably limit my ability to to some of them because of equipment or height restrictions in the garage but I’ll still do what I can.
I’ve always struggled with power snatches, not with weight or getting it over head but the lockout so I always was working on trying to correct that.
I’m legally blind with one eye that sees anything more than light or dark. This really makes my depth perception pretty useless. I used to think I need to just try harder or something but eventually realized that it’s one of those things I cannot change. I just need to figure out ways to work through it.
In at the old gym I did box jumps 90% of the time or so.
I decided I’d do Street Parking power WOD today. It called for 8 heavy back squats with 90 seconds in between and increasing weight a little each time.. warming up felt heavy as hell. 185 felt like 90% but I knew I couldn’t have lost 100 pounds in that time. Started working at 235 adding 5 pounds each rep. All except for the sixth rep where I got a bit out of position felt very explosive.
We started doing Street Parking WODS a month or so ago and noticed they had a sandbag WOD and sandbag options for lots of the daily ones. I thought that looked like a interesting new twist and I’ve been wanting a sandbag for a while. Picked up a Brute Force one that takes 25 to 75 pounds figuring it would work for both of us. The 50 has felt almost too light for me but I’ve stuck with it to practice.
We’ve been in a very long rut with getting into the Crossfit gym for various reason but mainly because of scheduling. By the time Molly got home from work we had to wait to get into the box at 6pm. It was just enough time to almost eat supper and digest before going into the gym. The biggest benefit to this change is we’re able to schedule our workouts around what works for us?
Most years since I’ve done Crossfit I’ve signed up for the open. Not to win or qualify for anything but to push myself out of my own comfort zone. Last year I did not sign up because I’d been out of thyroid meds and between doctors so my cardio was a steaming pile of shit in the beginning. I did do the WODS but didn’t think I should push myself too much having not done a lot of fitness related things for a couple months other than pure strength work.
I’ve always struggled mentally with deadlifts. I think that comes from back when I wasn’t able to set my back well. It was OK but not great. I just didn’t have the control of it for what I needed so my deadlifts were always limited and it’s frustrating at times. Most times going for a max my brain just shuts it down when it’s heavy enough to bend the bar.
I’ve been trying to get my cardio back so I’m starting to row again. Last winter I did that and it did wonders for me and my breathing during WODS last year. I think it helped some physically but really helped mentally. Basically made me realize that yes this sucks but you can keep going.
Last year when I did it my rowing for was pretty shitty. I knew it was shitty and knew what I needed to do to fix it but just couldn’t make that brain body connection at first but then it clicked.
I’ve been wanting to pick up a 32kg kettle to use at home for quite a while now. I just never got around to actually doing it due to a bunch of other stuff going on.
We’ve had a few CFF kettle bells for a few years and they’ve been ice except the smooth coating get super slippery when your hands are sweaty. Chalk help a lot with that. The ones at the gym have chipped but they’re abused much more than ours will be and besides that it’s no big deal as long the handle is smooth.
I decided today would be the day that I try something stupid. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while but my rowing sucked and I knew it. I had know I wasn’t finishing the pull for years and that I needed to slow the stroke rate down but just couldn’t seem to figure out how to do that. Having it in the mid 30s just isn’t efficient and kills your ability to keep going.
For my birthday this year I decided to upgrade my birthday burpees into burpee pull ups. That was for sure one of the less intelligent decisions I’ve made.
The first 25 or so weren’t bad. I was surprised. 25 - 35 were painful and by that time I was pouring sweat but it was still doable. I was starting to breathe heavy now.
That last 7 was pure hell. My entire body was burning and my hands were starting to get bitched up from the pull ups.
I have been seeing and hearing about the warrior dash a lot recently. I am glad I didn’t do something stupid like sign up for it again.
When I watched Molly do it the other year, the year I had my thyroid yanked out actually, it looked like a lot of fun. I would actually love to do it myself but there’s one snag in the whole idea of doing it.
Well it’s that time of the year again. It’s time for the Crossfit open. I signed up again to see where I stand compared to last year. I know I have improved greatly in the past year. The biggest thing is experience has taught me how to best approach each workout because I have a better understanding of my own strengths and weaknesses.
I have improved my skills quite a bit over the past year.
Well today we finally made it back to the gym. It felt great to get back in there. I refuse to call it a new years resolution. It’s just that we’ve been busy and I personally lost my drive when my grand mom died a few months ago.
What I am really looking forward to doing is getting back into weights. Something I enjoyed very much in high school when they gave me that instead of a regular gym class due to my poor vision.