peeeeee arrrrrrrrrr

I dunno if I've mentioned it in here before, but my friend adopted a new ginger kitten several months ago and named him Max. As in, one-rep max.  In an example of random coincidence, I had a friend in high school/college who back in the '80s also had an orange cat named Max. That Max weighed a whopping 25lbs, had a head the size of a grapefruit, and was called Max after Cedric Maxwell. (If you don't know who that is, you obviously were not a fan of the Bird-era Celtics. Your loss.)  But I am not here to discuss great sports teams of my youth or cats who were even bigger than my beloved fat Eddie (but, srsly, what's with orange cats and being jumbo-sized?), but rather one-rep maxes and PRs.


Max:

 (one-rep) Max:

(one-rep) Max:

(and just for a change of pace,) Eddie:

Mainly I would like to talk about PRs and one-rep maxes today so I can brag about how I went for one Sunday and got it. But in doing so, I've also got to talk about my not-so-glorious failure a couple weeks ago. That's the thing about lifting weights, kids. Sometimes you win. Sometimes gravity wins. The days that gravity wins, you can be pissed as hell. (Ask me about the time I [gently, I'm not a COMPLETE idiot] punched the side of the power rack in frustration.)  You can get down on yourself.  (Ask me about the million times I've told myself I suck.)  And after all that, sometimes you can try to figure out why gravity won.

So, yeah, a couple weeks ago I was at the gym doing rack pulls** and I was feeling good. Strong. I started out at 155x8.  It felt like I was picking up nothing, almost literally. Huh. Next I did 185x8.  Usually when I do these, I get about 6 reps at 185, but I have gotten 8 reps a time or two before. On this day, not only were the 8 reps doable, they didn't even feel difficult. I started thinking this was a day to go for a PR. Since my all-time rack pull PR was two plates*** (225) x3, and that was over a year ago, and since on a good day lately I've been able to do 225x2, I figured I'd go for a one rep max. And I figured that one rep max would be...235? But you don't (or *I* don't) just skip from 185 to 235. I did a set of 205x5 which was, again, what I've been getting lately on a good day. It felt good. Almost--but not quite--"easy."  Okay, I thought, I should be able to tie my rep PR at 225 and then get my one rep max at 235.  Took my proper amount of rest between sets. Pulled 225. Times two. Dammit. The fact I didn't tie my rep PR should have told me that despite how well the earlier sets had gone, it was not the day to try that one rep max. But I had gotten the idea into my head and sometimes ideas don't leave my head as promptly as they should. Sigh. I then tried three times to budge that 235 and couldn't even get it a millimeter off the rack.

I was pretty angry. I didn't punch anything though. Go me.  (Sigh again.)

Part of the problem was that someone had switched out a bench press bar for the oly bar that belongs in the power rack and the knurls on it were in a different place and also were very rough such that my palms were getting all torn up.  But I didn't want to use that as an excuse. The reason that bar did not move was NOT because my hands hurt, kwim?  On sober reflection, I was pretty sure that my progression was wrong, i.e. that the way I'd worked up to that 235 was not ideal.  

My pitiful amount of weightlifting knowledge may indeed be pitiful, but I do know that it's unwise to try for a one rep max too often. So I gave it a couple weeks and decided to try again Sunday, fueled by a blenderful of protein green smoothie, Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, and a whole wheat bagel.  And I did my progression differently. I started out lighter: 135x8. Then 155x8. Then 185x8. Then 205x5. And then I went directly to 235 and got that single glorious lockout. I wish I had video proof of it for y'all, but I was not filming.  

Mainly I'd have liked you to see the ridiculous new gym pants I was wearing.  I think I may have let on earlier that I Have a Problem with buying gym clothes. In that I, y'know, keep doing it. Especially when they're on sale. Athleta has these pants on sale.  I thought they were cute and I thought they were similar to some other Athleta capris that I have and like very much. And they have pockets. Well. They came in the mail and they are indeed pretty cute and very comfy and high quality and lalalala, but in direct sunlight they are far, far more neon green than that website photo would lead you to believe. I felt...conspicuous. 

Um, but that's a digression. We were talking about going for PRs and one-rep maxes. Allegedly.

Here are a couple articles about warming up for a one-rep max. I've read the T-Nation one ages ago and, yeah, apparently did not learn anything from it, because if it's to be believed I still did way too many warm up reps today.  My max might be higher than 235 if only I tested it correctly, huh?

Though according to this if my three rep is 225, my one rep should be 238, and if my eight rep is 185, my one rep should be 230, so 235 *is* in the right ballpark.  I tried a couple other one-rep max calculators on the interwebs and they all gave me the exact same figures, so I guess there is one scientifically accepted formula for this shiz. 

I'm sure this was all as boring as crap for those of you who don't lift and who don't want to read my links or play with that max rep calculator for like twenty minutes. Sorry. Here's a sleeping baby kitten and Klokov bending over for your time.

If there existed a picture of Klokov holding a baby kitten, I'm pretty sure the internet would explode.

xoxo

**I tried to find a video of rack pulls to throw in here in case there were those of you who don't know what they are, but 90% of them were people pulling from their knee height or above, which NO. I could probably pull 300 lbs if I were pulling from above my knees. God.

***I swear, half the appeal of lifting is the lingo. Throwing "I pulled two plates" into a conversation makes me feel so much less like your average middle-aged working stiff and so much more of a fucking badass. I know. SAD.

dislocating your shoulders for fun and profit

The end of last week I worked three overnight shifts in a row to cover a co-worker's time off.  Overnight shifts are twelve hours. Day shifts are ten. To preclude my getting a shit ton of overtime, I left work early last Monday (the day I got my biometric screening!) which enabled me to go to a yoga class I can't usually attend.  It's always an adventure to attend a new class with a teacher you're not familiar with. They all have their own styles and their own different spins on things, you know?

This Monday night class was ostensibly a beginner's class, but unlike the teacher of the Wednesday night beginner's class, this teacher was heavily into vinyasa flow. Which is not my particular preference--I don't go to yoga to exercise, I go to the gym to exercise and yoga to stretch out my poor abused body and chill. But it was fine.  And, as a bonus, she taught us a shoulder stretch I had never done before, but which felt amazing.  I wanted to add it into my gym warm up routine, but I realized when I tried to that the yoga straps the Y used to have had disappeared. So I bought my own with my Amazon Prime. But while I was waiting for my two day shipping to deposit said strap at my door, I started wondering whether this stretch was in fact safe or liable to damage me.  I decided I would take video of myself doing this stretch and show it to my friend Auntie Hammie, who is the Official Shoulder Safety Officer in our little group of online weightlifting chicks.  Meanwhile, the strap came while I was working my overnights and in my zombie-like condition, I didn't of course get any video taken, never mind uploaded, etc.  But I did visit my massage therapist friend M2 yesterday and demonstrated the stretch to her. She was of the opinion that if I didn't feel any pain when I was doing it, it was fine to do. She, however, could NOT get her arms back over her head when she tried it. I was telling Hammie this and she said, "Oh! It sounds like you're talking about shoulder dislocations." I avowed that maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, because I have no frigging idea what a "shoulder dislocation" is.

So today I finally took video.  Disclaimers: please to ignore dirty house, bloated model, and slanted camera angle. Some day I will a.) vacuum b.) wear a shirt that covers my belly when I'm bloated and c.) buy a tripod. But today was not that day.  I am, however, wearing those Nike flipflops I was talking about.

So, what say you, smart blog readers? Are those "dislocations"?  Do you endorse or condemn this stretch? It really makes my pecs and shoulders feel great so I hope it turns out that it is in fact actually good for me.

xoxo

yoga beer and battle ropes

There was a time when one of my favorite ways to spend a Sunday involved lifting at the Y in the early afternoon, then going across the street to the hipster cafe for a salad and a beer, then walking down to the yoga place and taking the late Sunday afternoon restorative yoga class. Having a beer before yoga always felt vaguely naughty to me, and vaguely naughty is my middle name.  This little bit of bliss came to an end when a.) the other hipster cafe on the same block closed down and the overflow of patrons meant I can rarely get a seat at my hipster cafe on a Sunday, even at the bar and b.) the yoga place switched the late Sunday class from restorative to Vinyasa, which is really too much damn work after lunch and a beer, okay?

Why'm I telling you this? Well, yesterday I found, and bought, what I will now and till the end of time continue to refer to as Yoga Beer.  Because it amuses me.  As do so very many things.

I had to buy it just for the name and (awesome) label alone but it's really quite tasty, even if I'm not the hugest fan of Belgian-style wheat beers.

Now, onto topics that actually have something to do with, y'know, fitness. Like battle ropes. Which apparently my Y recently got. They're wrapped around one of the legs of the TRX and I hadn't ever noticed them or seen anyone touch them until last week, when a dude went to town on them while I was stretching. That looks like fun, I thought. And also: the fuck? have those *always* been there?  I've decided that they have NOT always been there, since yesterday at the gym I saw a variety of people using them, including one of the big powerlifting regulars whom I like to watch lift and the Pack of Latino Mommies.  (I always stereotype chattering, slightly overweight women in their late 20s/early 30s who work out together as "mommies." Is that terribly unfair of me? Or just, y'know, accurate? You be the judge.)  I figure we can't all have suddenly discovered the damn things at once, so they must be new equipment.

Anyway, there are apparently a ton of youtube videos that will teach you how to use these things, but I picked this one to share with you all.

Because it includes a hot shirtless dude. (You're welcome.)  Who apparently doesn't know the difference between "to" and "too" but hey! sometimes if they're pretty enough, they're allowed to be stupid, amirite? OH, JUST KIDDING. On a whole number of different levels.

Anyway. I am going to attempt those things soon.  With my shirt on. Because I'm only vaguely naughty. C'mon now.

xoxo

i wanna do a couple other very bad things

Well, that depends on your definition of bad and your definition of want, but we'll get to that later. First, a tanning update.  I cracked and bought a Groupon for tanning, despite my certainty that it will give me cancer instantaneously, and then I also bought some super special tanning bed lotion that cost over $20 off Amazon that some other internet friends pimped out to me (I was so ignorant of this whole process I was completely unaware you needed super special tanning lotion) and then I was so busy at, and tired from, work that I didn't exactly leave myself time to do the tanning before I have to take my "after" pictures this week. Plus, honestly, I'm still a little skeered.  But I have to use that Groupon and that lotion, so it'll eventually happen. Meanwhile I fell back on the Tan Towels the lovely Ms Bethany recommended.  I am not sure my arms are a color actually found on humans in nature and my belly and legs need another coat today, having started out extra white, but I have to say, the faux tan did bring out my definition in the gym lighting last night.  So, at least partial success.

Now, onto other matters.  One of the very bad things I want to do is only bad in the sense that I have always been against it and have come out against it publicly in this very blog. And I don't so much actually want to do it as much as think I should do it. So, with those caveats out of the way, lemme set the scene.  I have always maintained that I do just enough cardio to keep me in shape for everyday life, i.e. I can sprint for and catch a train successfully without feeling like I'm gonna die. Well, a couple of Saturdays ago I was in that exact position, sprinting to catch the commuter rail home from work.  I made the train. And so did the people just behind me, a couple in which the mom was carrying a nine month old and the dad was carrying a folded up stroller. I made the train but I did feel mildly like I was gonna die. It's not that my heart rate was that high or that it didn't come back down, but my lungs killed. And I thought, Andrea, your VO2 max must suck or something and you couldn't have even been running *that* fast. (Nothing to disillusion you about how fit you are as being paced by people carrying a twenty pound infant and a baby carriage!) So, I glumly admitted to myself that I should probably suck it up and do a little more strenuous cardio a little more often. Specifically, I should suck it up and do HIIT, which I have always maintained I have no intentions of doing, since doing sprint intervals till you feel like puking sounds like no fun at all and I think working out ought to be, on the whole, fun.  Deadlifting is fun. Farmers walks are fun. Hitting shit is fun.  Even weighted planks are fun. Intervals are not so fun.

But I'm considering them.

And now onto the second thing. People who are grossed out by potty talk and the mention of bodily functions really need to bail now.  Got it?

Are you gone?

I mean it. If you read after this, it's your own damn responsibility.

Okay.  The second bad thing I would really like to do is colonic irrigation.  I first read about this in the Globe sometime in the '90s*** and it immediately seemed to me like something I would like to try.  To delve straight into the TMI, though I would not say I am chronically constipated, I often feel like when I go, I could go more, but it won't happen.  Particularly when I am dieting and on the poverty calories.  In fact, the best thing about having a cheat day while dieting is not eating all the crap food I've been missing as much as the monster dump the next day.  That feeling of my intestines being totally cleaned out, not in an unpleasant diarrhea way but in a nothing's-blocked-up way, is extremely... pleasurable? satisfying? nice. I'ma go with "nice" because any other terminology sounds vaguely sexual and I'm pretty sure you people are already vowing never to read this blog again.  ANYWAY.  I have always had it in my head that that is the feeling colonic irrigation would give you.  But I obviously never did it in 1994 and over the years I sorta forgot that the whole procedure ever existed.  Until I recently saw it mentioned again somewhere. Being in the midst of my poverty calorie cycle and not happy with the bathroom consequences of such, I thought ah, yes! I always wanted to do that!  So I started googling.

It costs a lot of money.  Plus, I'm sure the initial consultation that goes along with my $130 first session would be all about how I'm not supposed to be eating meat or ingesting sugar or drinking beer or whatever and I'm not sure I could sit and listen to that spiel when all I want is to get that empty feeling of a mondo poop.  Not to mention that when I picture in my head what the operators of some place called ISIS Holistic Clinic must look like, all I get is this:

And then I start giggling, because Fred Armisen in that wig is never not funny.  So, colonic irrigation, i.e. hydrotherapy, probably wouldn't end well for me.  Which is just as well since the medical community is probably as against it as they are tanning beds.  Best case scenario, you've wasted your money engaging in an activity like douching or liver "cleanses" that presumes to clean an area of the body that totally doesn't need any outside help; worst case scenario, some hippie chick who looks like Fred Armisen doesn't know what she's doing and perforates your intestine.

Still sounds better than HIIT.

xoxo

***apparently this was some kind of big fad briefly in the early 90s, as it's a punch line in one of the first Ab Fab episodes as well.  Saffy's yelling at Eddie about how she outsources responsibility for everything in her life including "...and once a week someone shoves a hose up your bum and flushes it out for you!"

foam rolling, the sequel

I wrote about foam rolling for y'all once before.  Two years ago when I first bought mine, to be exact. Embarrassingly enough, even though that foam roller sat on a mat at the top of my stairs where I had to walk by it multiple times every day and even though I took the time to youtube all those foam rolling videos and even though I am a massage therapist licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and thus apparently should know better, I have never really used it all that much.

A few weeks ago, however, I tweaked my low back a bit and it really stiffened up on me in an annoying way.  I felt confident I wasn't injured, just super tight, and I really didn't want that to keep me from my usual workouts, especially since I'd so recently regained my mojo and gotten back into a good, regular routine. Foam rolling to the rescue! But not in the usual way. I'd been reading about people using it in their warmups, rather than, or in addition to, after their workouts.  Apparently this is indeed in line with current scientific thinking.  So I decided to try it, what with my gym having several foam rollers lying around.  They're not as hard and thick as the one I have at home (shut up), and one of them had what appeared to be someone's toenail clipping adhered to it (I don't even...), but they're conveniently there.  So now I go in, do a lil elliptical/crossramp to get the blood flowing, foam roll my back, glutes, and (occasionally when I'm feeling particularly masochistic) IT bands, then lift.  As the British say (at least on TV--don't mock me, British readers), it works a treat!  At the worst of my back stiffness--which has thankfully resolved--I was even foam rolling in between sets to get through my leg days.  Without the foam rolling, I'd have said fuck it and gone home.

If I had any doubts that this was the right path to take, they'd have been assuaged by the fact that Klokov rolls during his warmup.  Except that, y'know, he uses actual pipe.  Because he's Klokov and more badass than you or I or basically anyone.

Yes, yes, I know that's in Russian.  Klokov's in tights and an extremely snug shirt, basically putting his foot behind his shoulder. Do you REALLY need to know what he's saying?

I thought not.

xoxo

I promise I'll stop talking about Klokov soon. As my friends know, I tend to get fascinated with a famous person and want to read all about them, discuss them, etc, then it passes.  Be glad you didn't have to live through my Jay-Z period.

blog salad

Time to round up some random crap!

1.) Still haven't decided anything on the tanning front, though I did buy some Tan Towels off of Amazon. (Thanks, B!) Perhaps this will end up being like most things in my life and I will procrastinate so long, it'll actually be summer and the question will become moot because I'll be able to just go to the damn beach.

2.) This may be the best tuna ever.

Since I have been being so very, very good at making and bringing my lunch to work for over two months, I am now at the point where I'm looking for different things to take.  Hence buying some tuna, which normally I am not a huge fan of.  (Well, I'm a fan of the tuna MELT but it's kinda hard to make one of those in the workplace microwave. Plus, y'know, what with the mayo, the cheese, and the buttered bread, not really helpful with the whole weight loss business.)  In my family growing up we always got the solid white tuna in water, which to me is kinda tasteless.  At my old place of employment where I'd occasionally buy tuna in the caf, they definitely used the chunk light tuna, which to me tastes like cat food.  I figured there had to be some happy medium between "tasteless" and "cat food."  In perusing the shelves at Trader Joe's, I decided solid white in oil might just be that happy medium. Oh, and it is.  I found it so tasty I was able to marry it with my *other* new lunch food experiment, which is training myself to like mustard.  (I've switched from mayo to mustard on my sandwiches in an effort to save calories.)  I tried just putting the drained can of tuna in a bowl, adding approximately 10g of mustard to it, and eating it like that, no bread or anything, and...it was good. I mean, I know it sounds vaguely disgusting, but it's actually tasty. Coming from someone who historically never liked mustard and wasn't big on tuna, this is a ringing endorsement.  So try it if you're bored with your lunch. Just make sure you get that TJ's tuna above.

3.) I have recently started foam rolling as part of my warm up, not just post workout or separate from it when something hurts.  I did this at a point when my lower back was spasming a bit on me and I was looking for a way to calm it down enough to get my workout in, and I've continued even though my back feels better. I think it actually helps. A friend was asking about it and I found a couple links for her, so I thought I'd share them with youse guys too.

4.) This is my new favorite shirt.

It's the Pacifica UPF shirt from Athleta, and that picture doesn't do justice to how cute it looks on with the ruching at the shoulders and the little sleeve pocket.  It's technically a rashguard but it makes a nice gym shirt or a just-wearing-around-over-a-tanktop shirt (if you inappropriately wear gym clothes err'where like me).  I would buy another one in a different color but it's Athleta and thus expensive.

5.) I wrote an impassioned defense of the humble bagel elsewhere when someone claimed they were nutritionally bankrupt.  A Dunkin' Donuts wheat bagel is 280 calories and 13g of protein.  I think that's a better ratio of protein to calories than a lot of "protein" bars, kids.  I was actually surprised myself when I first saw that nutritional information, but the reason for this is that bagels are very gluten-y. Gluten is what gives them that tasty chewy texture and gluten is the part of the wheat that contains the protein. So, basically, you people that have to avoid gluten are shit out of luck when it comes to getting protein from your baked goods. More tuna for you!

Anyone have any great new lunch discoveries, warm up suggestions, favorite new clothes, or rants about unfairly maligned foods? Tell me in the comments!

xoxo

me, pinterest, and some consumer complaints

I don't really "get" some social media and I resist a lot of the rest of it, but I did recently get sucked into Pinterest (three or four years after the rest of the world, right?).  I have no idea how to punctuate the previous sentence, btw.  It may or may not be a surprise to you all, but I like to shop.  Unfortunately, I don't have much money and I refuse to run up enormous amounts of credit card debt, so a lot of the time I am reduced to window shopping or, more specifically, online window shopping. Because you can do that at midnight in your pjs. C'mon now.

Pinterest is genius for this I am finding. I specifically made a board called "things i want, january 2014" and filled it with things that I, y'know, wanted after seeing them online but did not feel it was wise to immediately waste my cash on. Then I was able to go back to these things one or two or three weeks later with the idea that I could reevaluate whether I really wanted them...and 90% of them were sold out. That's a huge money-saver right there, I tell you what.

Like, look at these $50 pj pants from Anthropologie (LOL) that Pinterest saved me from:

 

They're adorable. And now I can just look at them forever without actually wasting fifty fucking dollars on them.

Or this pink sweater:

I don't actually wear pink, I just get seduced by it every winter around this time when I'm so sick of all my drab winter clothing I could spit.

Or these Frye boots:

I couldn't even start to convince myself I could afford them.  But those are some cool boots, yo.

Or this Athleta vest that sold out almost immediately:

But I really really really still did want one of those super thin, lightweight down/down-alternative vests that are out now, because you can comfortably wear them indoors in your cold house or office. Which leads us to the next portion of this blog post.

A couple weeks ago I went to the mall on my day off to see if I could buy a vest similar to the sold-out one above. I went to The North Face store.  The nice young man working there asked if I had any questions.  I refrained from asking my actual question which was, "Why is nothing ever fucking on sale in this store?" Because if that crappy massage job I just suffered through 6 months of*** reminded me of anything, it's that it's NOT NICE to be sarcastic to the underpaid.  No, I just took my leave of his store sans sarcasm and empty handed. Because I was not going to pay $149 for the vest I wanted. So sorry, so poor cheap.

Nevertheless when I returned to the mall later in the week (I had to go to the Container Store and buy a lunch box system because I'm still being good about taking lunch and snacks to work and I was getting liberal hippie guilt from all the plastic ziplock bags I was using), I returned to North Face. And my unspoken sarcasm was dis-proven****. They were finally having their winter sale.  So I bought this:

Which still was not inexpensive, but which I've been wearing almost every day and which frankly looks cuter on me than on that model. Or so I delude myself.  I don't wear mine over an ugly purple turtleneck, so there is that. And M2 told me it brings out the color of my eyes. So.

Pinterest is also good for some fitness stuff.  I found this board which I thought was full of really cool ideas for conditioning/bodyweight workouts, if you're into that sorta thing.  I wanted to try this one:

But I kinda think it requires an interval timer to be done correctly. Which would mean another trip to the mall.*****  I could end up at North Face.

xoxo

***Did I mention in here that my Christmas present to myself was quitting that miserable massage job?  Down to one job. So much happier.

****Spellchecker insists disproven has a hyphen. Really?

*****I wanted to buy one on Amazon but it's really hard to tell in the product descriptions which ones are user friendly and which ones suck. I think I'd wanna see in person before I plunked down my $20-40.

walking...walking...walking...

One of the best (and worst) things about the internet is the ability to "meet" people from all over the world who share your own particular interests and obsessions, which is especially cool when those people turn out to be quite different from you in ways other than your shared interest and you'd have never crossed paths in any other fashion.

Thus it is that your blog hostess, a city girl so bone-urban that she can tell you how to get anywhere on the T and who is deeply uncomfortable when there's not a CVS in walking distance and who thinks that living far enough from one's neighbors that they wouldn't hear you scream if an ax-wielding maniac broke in is deeply unwise, has become online friends with a lovely weightlifting lady who lives on a farm in Texas and recently asked if she'd ever tried "uneven farmers walks."  Not yet! your blog hostess replied, but they're on the list after reading this article.  Come to find out, Actual Weightlifting Farmer didn't know uneven farmers walks were actually "a thing."  She's only forced to do them when feeding her pigs, because she's carrying a bucket of grain and a bucket of milk and the milk invariably weighs more. Her degree of difficulty is added to by the random cows and chickens that get in her way, attempting to hijack her buckets.  Which is probably more charming than the clueless teenage bros who step right in front of one while farmers walking in the Y.  But I say that as a clueless city girl. Maybe cows and teenagers are equal in their ability to be annoying.

Anyway! I've been farmers walking like it was the key to besting ax-wielding maniacs, kids.  I started a couple years ago when Liz suggested it as a grip enhancer. I continued because it was fun.  I ramped it up after surgery when, as documented, any kind of deadlift movement was off the plate because of my ab weakness and I was looking for ways to add direct trap work.  Heavy farmers walks blast my upper traps in such a way that I swear they are more responsible for my liking how my shoulders look these days than anything else.  My basic move is akin to this guy:

Then, in my quest to build my core strength back up, I discovered the waiters carry:

And then a friend, knowing how enamored I am with the above, sent me that T-Nation article I linked y'all to and since then it's been ALL OVER. I'm doing the one-armed variations.  I've tried the uneven farmers walk (as vouched for by actual farmers, yo!)  And after I reported one of my workouts in number of steps and another friend said she at first misread that as my having farmers-walked up stairs, I've been experimenting with that too.  Yesterday? Up and down a (13 step) flight of stairs ten times while carrying two 25lb kettlebells. Objectively speaking, I gotta say I'm impressed with my bad self for carrying 50lbs up and down 10 flights of stairs without, y'know, having to die afterwards.  I also impressed myself last week when I realized that 4 laps around the perimeter of my gym while carrying the 35lb kbs lasts about minute more than White Wedding, a 4:11 song.  Walking for five minutes straight while carrying 70lbs?  When you weigh 118 pounds yourself?  NOT BAD.  That's not even humble bragging, kids, it's straight up bragging. Deal.

Also? Do farmers walks. They really will help make you strong and fit.

xoxo

in which andrea passes the nsca-cpt and does something new

Well, yes, my scores were "on hold" till I provided proof that I am in fact certified in adult, child, and infant CPR and AED, but having taken care of that little administrative detail and waited the requisite 5 to 7 business days after such proof was received and accepted, I came home yesterday after a somewhat annoying and pretty tiring day to find my results in my e-mail inbox.  I assume my esteemed blog guests all have above average reading comprehension and the detail orientedness to actually look at and process blog titles, so you know how this came out.  I got 115 questions right which apparently equals an 84.  That's a solid B. Not bad for an old women in surgical menopause who probably forgets what she's had for breakfast a good four days out of seven, if you ask me.

Now if someone will just take pity on me give me a chance and hire me.

Besides the good news in my inbox yesterday, the tiring, annoying day wasn't a total wash in other ways either. Don't mean to suggest it was.  Other nice and/or interesting things happened.  I got a pedi.  My nails are now hot pink and ready for summer. Of course, it's supposed to rain most of the long weekend and be like 50 degrees tomorrow in particular, but if any sandal wearing weather should miraculously occur, my feet are ready!  And, more germane to this blog's purported topic, I tried a new exercise at the gym: seated good mornings.

That guy used a little more weight than me. Just, y'know, a few plates.

I looked considerably less shmexy than her doing mine.

But my ROM was way better than his. (My nose and forehead touched the bench. Go big or go home, muthafuckuhs.)

On the other hand, I did have to foam roll the hell outta my lower back this morning. Ahem.

xoxo

P.S. Administrative note: sorry about the extra commenting step, but I got a sudden influx of annoying blog spam and continually deleting it was too much of a pain in the ass.

me n' the Glute Guy have words

I've read a lot of critiques of famous trainers' new books lately.  Having high profile fitness experts suggest that an 800 calorie a day diet is a reasonable way to lose weight for one's wedding or that us ladiez pick a kettlebell that weighs "as much as our purse" is certainly discouraging.  I can't say for certain that if I were offered a bunch o' money to write a book that sells out like that I wouldn't do it, but I'd like to think I wouldn't.  I'd like to think I'd stick to my own message, the one that says no matter how small or overweight or old or out-of-shape or weak you start out and no matter the fact that you possess a vagina, you CAN, with work, lift heavy-ass shit and lifting that heavy-ass shit will change your body in ways that you will most probably like and, more importantly, it will make you feel like a superhero.

It is with sadness that I must then take huge issue with some things in the fitness book I am currently reading, Strong Curves by Bret Contreras and Kellie Davis.  Mr Contreras is well known in the weightlifting/fitness community as The Glute Guy.  I don't know how one sets out on the path to become the world's most renowned expert on, y'know, asses--even after reading Mr Contreras' explanation in the book, I'm still kinda bemused--but, hey, someone's gotta do it. And I'm sure if she's alive, his mom is very proud. Anyway, I'm reading along and while I have my disagreements with some of what the book is selling me--it's a little tilted towards the "clean eating" philosophy that's so trendy and popular and it claims repeatedly that following the book's program will cause you to lose fat and build muscle at the same time which, no--I am mostly enjoying it. If anything, at least it has caused me to go around flexing my glutes during all my ADLs for two days in an attempt to keep them activated. I'm sure that's worth the $9.99 I paid.  (If only for the entertainment value I'm sure it affords anyone who notices me doing it.)

Sadly, I then happen across this little gem: "A woman with a slender upper body and shapely legs may never be able to do a chin-up no matter how lean and strong she gets."

Excuse me, but BULLSHIT.

There is no excuse for a normal-weight woman who strength trains (and has no orthopedic issues that make the movement impossible or unwise, of course) to be unable to do *one* chin-up. Note: we are not talking about an overweight person for whom bodyweight exercises are naturally much harder. Note: we are not talking about your average woman who does not lift weights. We are not talking about 25 chin-ups in a row or 5 sets of 10 or even one wide grip pull-up (which is much harder). We are talking about *one* chin-up, done by a lean woman who has purportedly been working on her strength. To tell that woman that, oh, it's okay, she may never do that one chin-up no matter how much she works is ridiculous. Ridiculous and patronizing. Ridiculous, patronizing, and UNTRUE.

This whole thing makes me capsy.

I prefer Nia Shanks' view that, hell, you can work your way up to handstand pushups and other crazy hard things and here's how... Because you may be a woman, but you're also a badass. Imagine my surprise when Mr Contreras refers to Ms Shanks in his book and calls her his dear friend.

I think she oughta have a talk with him.

Gah.

xoxo

like the loch ness monster

If you don't get it on video, where's the proof it exists, right?

In that spirit I give you: kneeling squats, 205x8. As long time readers will know, taking video at my gym is strictly verboten, and I thus do not get away with it very often. But it was Sunday afternoon, the weight room was as empty as it ever gets, and the employee on duty was someone who would never give me a hard time. Et voila!


Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

I would say "notice how much better I've gotten at the unrack and re-rack!", but uh, you all have nothing to compare this to. So just trust. It used to be much scarier.

xoxo

dear mr obama

Oh, DON'T WORRY. I'm not about to get all political up in here. No, I'm just gonna engage in some of my usual self-indulgent whining. Because everyone likes that even better. Right? Right????!!!???

Ahem. Okay, so I've been back in the gym for about two months now and back to heavy lifting for six weeks or so. In some ways I'm happy with my progress. My squats aren't back at pre-op levels, but they're coming along nicely.  I hadn't dumbbell benched in six months or probably longer, but when I tried it the other day, I shocked myself at how much I didn't completely suck.  My lat pulldowns are very close to being back to where they were in September.  Because I haven't been able to deadlift much (more about that VERY SOON), I've been doing a lot of direct trap work I wasn't doing prior to surgery and my shrug and farmers walks weights keep increasing nicely.  I've discovered a great new glute exercise--kneeling squats--and every single time I do those, I add weight to the bar.  So, yeah, certain things are coming along nicely, and since my intestines haven't yet fallen out of my hooha in the middle of the gym floor, I'm getting less nervous about that possibility by the day.

But. (Of course there's a but.) Certain things are really fucked.  Even though I had only the tiniest of external incisions, my abs still apparently took a beating. And not being able to lift anything heavier than my freaking purse for 5 1/2 weeks (and I wasn't even lifting that at first!) didn't help. Since I've been back to lifting, every time I've experimented with any deadlift-type movement, like RDLs or rack pulls, even with for-me baby weights, I've had the sensation that I was this close to effing my back up seriously or I was out of proportionately sore and wrecked for days after. All I can figure is that my core is so imbalanced right now, my back so much stronger than my abs, that the low back is completely taking over in stabilizing me during deadlifting as well as, y'know, doing the work it's supposed to.  Apparently when I squat the fact that my low back is stabilizing my core disproportionately skates by because my low back isn't also doing most of the work of the lift. That's my theory anyway.

Oh, and I can't even do one chin up any more, when I used to be able to do 8 or 9 in a row and 4 or 5 pull ups. When I tried on the assisted pull up machine at the gym, I had to use 25lbs of assist. Which is just too demoralizing, yo.  Since, as I mentioned, my lat pulldowns are almost where I was pre-op, it's not a lat issue. It's got to be my core.  Or my fear of engaging my core that much? Feh.

It's not all of my ab/anterior core muscles though, either. I can still plank without much trouble. I went to a trx class last week just for shits n' giggles and I busted out a bunch of crunches in it without any trouble (which frankly surprised me) but then we did this other ab thing at the end that involved keep your legs up off the floor and after a couple, I just laid back down till everyone else was done. Lulz. So maybe it's a hip flexor weakness? Did my gyn do something to my psoas??!????! Horrors! (Lulz again.)

Which brings me back to our post title. Dear Mr Obama, can we get universal health care to cover post-hysterectomy physical therapy for old women who still want to powerlift? I really would like a professional who's smarter than me to do a shitload of tests on me and tell me exactly what muscle imbalance I have and how to fix it, but I can't afford to pay for one.  Kthxbai.

Alright, if you suffered through all that whining and self-absorbed navel-gazing, here's my real navel and scars for your trouble. Pretty tiny, huh? Modern surgery is the ballz. Even if it did disrupt my psoas or something.

And here's my new favorite exercise!

See? Just like hip thrusts without all that embarrassing lying on your back on the gym floor humping the air business.

xoxo

switch it up, yo

Ever look around the gym and realize you, and everyone else, are doing the same ol', same ol' exercises? Nothing wrong with the basics. You won't go wrong doing back squats and bench press and lat pulldowns and planks. But sometimes it's fun to throw in something new and different too. Bonus points if it makes your fellow exercisers stare and think what the HELL is s/he doing????  Amirite? I'm right.

Since I've noticed a bunch of my friends and, okay, myself, throwing some fun and funky exercises into our workouts lately, I thought I'd hunt down some instructional videos on youtube and share the luv.

Suitcase deadlifts:


Good morning squats:


Waiters carry:


Lumberjack squats:


And for the truly ambitious among us, the headstand leg lift:


I think I'll work on getting into the headstand first.

xoxo

too much time in gym + camera = this

Count yourselves lucky. If there were more than one or two days a week I could actually take video in my gym without getting scolded and made to stop, you'd all have to put up with more of this nonsense.  Nevertheless, I blocked out a big part of the afternoon yesterday for my workout so that I could mess around and attempt to capture some stuff I wanted to look at and/or amuse my friends with.

The first thing I wanted to video was myself doing overhead squats with a medicine ball, because the first time I attempted these, I did them directly in front of a mirror and it was rather shocking to me how crooked my hips looked. I mean, I already knew my pelvis is higher and tilted higher on the left, but I didn't realize how much it affected my squat mechanics.  Then, when I went to what we're calling the "fancy pants Y" on Labor Day (my own ghetto Y being closed) and I used a power rack that actually had a mirror right in it, I saw that, yes, my hips are messed up like that when I barbell squat too, if seen from the front. Am I imagining how bad that imbalance looks because I know it's there? I asked myself.  The only answer is to film that mutha.

First attempt.  I thought videoing myself in the mirror where I first saw the problem myself was a good idea.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the camera angle meant you couldn't actually see my hips when I squatted even though *I* could see them in the mirror.  Sigh.  Okay, okay, I'll drop the artsy shit, put my camera on a window ledge, and film head-on.

So, am I crazy--oh shut up--or do you see how one side of my butt ends up lower than the other because of my crookedness?  Should I be concerned about this?  It doesn't bother me when I'm squatting.

Then I decided to prove to the world that I can in fact get both a 25lb and a 5lb plate onto my own back without help to do a weighted plank, a fact I only discovered yesterday.  Once you see the lulzy technique involved, you might want to stop watching because 70 seconds of me planking is not exciting.  OTOH, perhaps you're starved for entertainment.  Do as you wish, reader, do as you wish.

Finally, something a bit more serious.  The newest, um, trend? amongst my imaginary (i.e. online) friends is doing box squats and everyone's been posting theirs up.  I took a little video at the end of the day yesterday, messing around with them.  This is 115x8, onto a step which is, I know, above parallel.  If I take out a riser as I did on some of my earlier sets, it's a touch too low for me to do a full sit onto for many reps with any significant weight.  Will probably continue using both heights to practice. Anyway, how's the form look on these? I was interested in how they were gonna look because they feel weird and like I can't get my feet where they'd be in a regular squat, but meh.  

Oh, and for the fashion-minded, those are the Lulus mentioned in the previous post. I lurve them.  

xoxo

domo arigato, the sequel

As promised--or is that threatened?--here's me attempting my good mornings.  Theoretically this is 70x8, but if you count the reps, it's actually nine.  Apparently I got distracted.  Or can't count above seven without the use of my fingers.  Or had some kind of pre-senile dementia moment.  I dunno.  If I didn't just tell you, though, I bet none of y'all would have even noticed.  But never let it be said I mislead my beloved blog readers.


Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

Please feel free to compare these to the videos I posted the other night and/or the information in your own head and tell me what, if anything, I am doing right or wrong. Or, y'know, critique my hairstyle, comment on my bare feet and the likelihood I'ma get athletes foot in that nasty gym, or, if applicable, yell "OMG, Andrea! You're gonna snap your back up!" at your computer screen.

And, as a bonus, here's me doing some RDLs.  185x5.  I went back and filmed these at just about the end of my workout. Which was probably a bad idea, because I was exhausted by that point and even though I was trying to concentrate on my form, it was breaking down.  However, I figure those of you who like fat asses can perve on mine and the rest of you can ponder the fact I put my shoes back on or, y'know, use the sight of my fat ass as motivation to stay away from the Cheetoes. Your call!

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

Also, please register my disgruntlement that I had to go the tinypic route because blogger kept giving me error messages and refusing to directly upload my videos from my computer.  Damn you, blogger, damn you.

xoxo

domo arigato

If you're Of a Certain Age, I've probably just infected you with a heinous earworm for which you are almost certainly cursing me even as you read.  You're welcome.  Full service blog, I keep telling you all.  My ex husband actually like that song, about which I would say "case closed" except you would say, rightfully, "and why would you marry such a person, Andrea?"  I'd have to claim hormones, youth, and bad role models, and then we'd get into a whole philosophical discussion that has NOTHING to do with the subject matter of this post.


Good mornings!  The exercise that is.

It gets its name because it supposed to be reminiscent of this:

Meh. Whatever.  Why not just call it a barbell bow?

I did these for the first time the other day.  I was a little irritated because I felt like I wasn't quite reaching 90 degrees, secondary to tight hamstrings.  Well, here's Erin Stern.

Maybe it's the angle, but I don't think she's reaching 90 degrees either. And she's famous.  And her hamstrings look like that.  I feel less frustrated.  All I'm sayin'.

This guy's reaching 90 degrees.  He also has orange plates. They'd match my water bottle.  Maybe I can convince the Y to bust out the spray paint?  Eh. Probably not.

And this woman, at the beginning, is doing with her head what *I* thought was correct: looking at the floor.  The rest of these people are all looking up.  I'm confused.  The more youtube tutorials you watch, the less ya know. But the concentric thing is interesting too. Hadn't seen that before.

There will, at some point, be video of me trying these out. So, y'know, we can all point and laugh and, uh, fix my form.  (There's also going to be view of me winning my online dip contest.  Bragging rites shall be mine.) Until then--and forgive me if this is old news--here you go.  Proof that barbell's been across my traps an awful lot lately.

Admit it. That's sexeh.

xoxo

in honor of my dad

It occurs to me that if this post was really in honor of my father (RIP, Dad, we miss you <3), it should rightfully have squat video to showcase the Bulgy Polish Catcher's Thighs he gifted me with being put to good use. Unfortunately that was not on the video agenda today. There is plenty of footage of me walking around in leggings, showing them off in all their chunky glory, however. That'll have to do.

What was on the video agenda today? First up, rack pulls!

Some notes before we begin, eh? You'll notice that the camera angle changes from one side to the other in the course of these. Here's the thing. I haven't done these in a good three weeks because of my lil hip problem and also?  Any time I do them it's a crapshoot whether I'm going to feel strong as fuck and rip out a PR or whether I'll inexplicably not be able to move weight I moved easily a week or two before. No rhyme or reason. I figured that today I would video my set at 165 so that even if it became apparent this was gonna be a crap day, I'd at least have that. I set up on the incline bench press bench.  Bueno!  165 felt easy peasy. Gonna try for the PR, but no need to video all my sets. So I took my camera off the bench. Then some guys camped out there to, y'know, do incline bench. The nerve!  Thus the rest of the rack pull video is from my non-preferred side.  (It's tough to be me.)

165x5:

205x1.5:
(205x2 would be a PR, but I just couldn't get that second rep locked out completely.)

205x0:
If my head wasn't out of the frame, I'm sure you'd have been able to read my lips.

205x2:

Third time's the charm!

Not really happy at all with my form. There's entirely too much back rounding. It was bad enough when I played them back on the camera at the gym, but looking at them on my computer? Eek.  Definitely need to video these again the next time I do them.  And I'm going for two plates.

Next up!  Weighted dips!

Before I show you this first video, I want to stress to you just how crowded that corner of the weight area is and how flummoxed I was trying to figure out where I could set up my camera.  I put it on the seat of the leg press and this was the result:

BW+25x7:

Ha!  Yup, you can't actually see my upper body.  I left this video in, though, so you could see me set up. Nothing, uh, phallic about strapping that plate between your legs, is there? I feel my metaphorical balls grow every time I do it.  So then I grabbed my Y employee accomplice, Steve, and asked him if he could film.  I did another seven reps only to find out that I hadn't actually instructed Steve how to start videoing. Oops. But I had another set left in me!

BW+25x7:
Once again, third time's the charm!

These look like maybe I could've gone a little deeper, but I'm hoping that's just the camera angle, because Steve told me they looked good. In fact, he told me that most of the guys in the gym couldn't do those.  I didn't tell him that's because my metaphorical balls keep growing. Just KIDDING.

I should really stop discussing testicles in a post dedicated to my father.  Sorry, Dad.

Hope y'all had a wonderful Father's Day!

xoxo

a pain in the a**

As some of you all may know from previous internet whining (the best kind, because no one can reach through their screen and slap you and tell you to man the fuck up), I'm in pain. 

It started out innocently enough. Last Saturday afternoon I was walking from my office to the gym when, for no clear reason, my hip flexors locked up.  They loosened a bit by the time I got there and I was able to lift just fine (and even PR'd on my rack pulls...210...because bragging is just as attractive as whining, y'all). I didn't however squat, because I felt like my hips were just not flexible enough for that at the moment.

Sunday a friend and I took a day trip to Portland (east coast one, in case you forgot where I live), a little endeavor that required about 4 1/2 hours total in the car. Sitting in a car is not kind to one's hip flexors, as we're probably all aware. On the way home, I ended up sitting crosslegged in the passenger seat, as that was the only way I could get my hips comfortable.

Monday a.m., I foam rolled every part of my body that could be foam rolled.  Tuesday I lifted again and Zercher squatted, then went to the Sox game.  The seats in Fenway are also not kind to one's hip flexors and it was a long game with a rain delay. By the time I got home, I was really stiff. Went to bed and had a hard time getting comfortable.  Woke up feeling stiff and uncomfortable all over, but took some ibuprophen and didn't think much of it.

Then Wednesday afternoon I had an appointment at the gynecologist, which is a whole nother boring medical story and right now we're sticking to this one. You're welcome.  I decided I would walk there. About half a mile from my house, my left lower back, hip, and upper leg started to really hurt. This was not the "hip flexors stiffening up" that I'd had walking on Saturday. This was pain, and I wondered if I would even be able to make it all the way there. I did, and actually started feeling better while I was there. So much so that I stuck to my original plan and went to the gym after for some cardio on the elliptical, some farmers walks, chinups, and stretching. I spent most of Wednesday evening sitting on my sofa doing some stuff online while watching the game. When I got up to go upstairs, ow.  Hip and low back were screaming again. Hard time getting comfortable in bed again and only able to lie on one side.

Thursday I woke up a mess.  I desperately tried everything I could to get my left sided hip and low back pain to lessen so that I could, y'know, walk and stand and go to work. I foam rolled and found a really, really tender spot right below my rear pelvis. (Piriformis? I thought. But since it's hard to palpate oneself, especially when you can't see what you're doing and you're in pain, I wasn't completely sold on what muscle I was in.) I put an ice pack on my back/hip while I was blowdrying my hair. I took a handful of ibuprophen. (We'll worry about my liver at a later date. It's not like I don't also love beer.) And I made it to work. Where it soon became apparent that neither sitting, standing, or walking was comfortable. I made an emergency massage appointment after work.

Where, yes, it was determined that my piriformis and piriformis tendon are inflamed. Massage, ice, rest, and, yup, ibuprophen were the recommendations.

Do y'all know why a tight or inflamed piriformis hurts so much? Here are some helpful diagrams.  Google image search is back to being my biatch.

Yes, that's correct. When your piriformis is acting up, it presses on your sciatic nerve. Your sciatic nerve doesn't like that shit and it tells you all about it with PAIN. In the ass, literally. And the leg, the hips, the low back.

I knew all that from massage school. As a matter of fact, I once upon a time did a group project on piriformis syndrome. It was supposed to be multimedia. My friend Sandy who was in another group (and whose type A tendencies once earned her 200 points on a paper where the theoretical max was 100) did a powerpoint presentation. My group had an abstract model of the pelvis, femur, piriformis, and sciatic nerve made out of coat hangers and string by the former art school grad in our group. We also demonstarted stretches. We got a better grade than you might think.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah. So even though I knew about piriformis syndrome, I was hazy on the details of what causes it and what you're supposed to do about it. Last night while I sat with an ice pack down my pants (as a friend said, just another typical Thursday night at Andrea's house!), I did some research. Turns out a lot of things can cause a tight and/or inflamed piriformis. I narrowed down a few that I thought were applicable to me. Tight hip flexors!  Tight medial hamstrings!  Leg length discrepancy!  Actually, I'm not completely sure my legs are different lengths, though many many many years ago, a friend's sister who was studying PT and using me for homework said they were. What I do know is that my pelvis is higher and twisted forward on the left and that contributes to my hip flexors tightening up.

What kind of things aggravate piriformis syndrome? Oh, walking, sitting a lot, running, biking.  Well, I'd done a lot of the first two in the past week.

And what do you do to relieve it?  Massage, ice, stretching, REST. I may have mildly freaked out when I read the recommendation to rest for 2-3 weeks.  How am I supposed to go 2-3 weeks without squatting and deadlifting, not to mention cardio?

Also, I refreshed my memory on the various piriformis stretches, some of which, I will admit, I kinda forgot about and have not been doing.  But then I came across this video.


That's an advanced piriformis stretch? I DO do that one.  Like every single time I stretch. I never ever leave it out. I have to admit, it kinda pissed me off.  Like, why is my piriformis misbehaving when I do the "advanced" stretch regularly?  But I might just have been cranky. An ice pack down your pants tends to promote that.

Here's hoping all your pains in the ass are metaphorical, kids, as well as few and far between! 

xoxo