Monkeys are awesome!

[James Newman]

I am sorry to hear that you are depressed. I feel bad because I haven't been around the past several days to smack you back to reality (spank the monkey??). I don't know much about your time at MH, but we go through periods in our lives. I have always believed that if life is worth living, it is worth recording. I have found more benefit in my own journals and logs than most anything else I have ever done. It has been quite beneficial. I like to look back and see just how far I've come. I wish I had started when it really would be interesting. Take things in stride. One day at a time. This day is yours. What will you do to reach your goals, TODAY?

Newman

[SpacecityPaula]

Here's a funny for you




And better yet, here's a George Burns Monkey for ya!

[Ogedei]

Sucks to hear you are depressed Fey.

The time we all spent on Men's Health was a boon to many of us, but we have moved on. What is left there, or rather from there are the people we have become. It doesn't matter if all that is left is a few posts. It changed many of us for the better.

We are all entitled to having down days mentally. I have my fair share, I am sure everyone does. But...your smart enough, good looking enough and dog gone it, people like you!

I know your deadlift day will kick ass today, and make sure you let us know how it goes!



Og.

[Victoria]

A, chin-up. Things will get better. Tomorrow is a new day. I hope you feel better soon!!!

[Aoife]

Over the weekend we had a house guest, so I didn't work out at all and ate crap. I can call each day 1 point, but by evening we had pulled out the alcohol which I had decided to abstain from till I was back under 130. I don't drink much, but it's the principle of it... which I basically just tossed aside and said fuck it, I'm eating cake and shit anyway.

However whilst I'm feeling all crappy and whatnot on the health and fitness front when it comes to my progress concerning weight and goals, I'm not really in too much of a funk. I've gotten in a fair amount of painting, I'm redesigning my website all by myself and not only groking this stuff, I'm doing a pretty damn good job of it, and I'm managing to keep my house at a certain level of clean and organized (even if it's not the highest level there is...).

I just get irritated with myself sometimes. I hit 160 this weekend after an evening of mimosas, cake, pizza, etc. I've officially tossed back on me another 35 pounds, and certainly there's not too much of that I can call muscle. I thought I was in the right headspace to keep myself in that groove, that place of looking and feeling good. Apparently not, and that just sucks. I'll get over it. Just paying the consequences.

[Aoife]

Normally I'd be doing the day four of the combosets... but last time I found that the shoulder presses being alternated with the deadlifts made my shoulders too fatigued to maintain the right posture for the pull. So I'm rearranging the workout, since I'm also unable to really do dips or pullups without shoulder pain, etc. I'll prolly just change workouts soon... do one of those monster workouts I've seen floating around... or that Waterbury/Cosgrove thing or whatever (after mangling the spelling of the poor lads' names).

Anyway... onto the workout. (It kinda kicked my ass.)

Warmup: treadmill to HR 125, high knees, high legs, lunge forearm to instep stuff, lateral lunges, etc.

Deadlift (straight sets, sumo style. did warmups, workout, then tried for more)
warmup 45x7
warmup 65x3
warmup 95x3
115x5
125x5
125x3 (had a bit of a dizzy spell and nerve feedback from that whole "my back and neck are a chiro's dream" thing)
125x5
125x5
135x1
145x1
150x1

Pretty much everything after the 115 is a PR. I've never done 125 for reps before, I've never deadlifted 150 (or anything over 125, I don't think). So that was kinda cool, but at the same time, I had some issues. There were breaks in a couple of the sets as I started seeing sparkly things and stuff and my fun nerve pinching thing acted up here and there. But still, I'll take it.

Traveling Lunges
bwx10
bwx10

db reverse lunges
40x5
40x5

Shoulder rehab
Y, T, W, L... all 5 reps with 5# dumbells.

physioball leg curl x10
physioball glute bridge 10sx3
physioball leg curl x10
physioball glute bridge 10sx3

Total: time-45:30 avg hr-123

[Aoife]

[Egham]

Congratulations on the PR!

[Aoife]

thanks


Tonite I stayed in. I mowed, but that doesn't count as a workout, other than I was rushing to beat the rain. Came in all sweaty to find that the impending storm caused an outage... NO AIR!!!!! (Did I mention I live in hellish climate in the summer?)

Anyway, stayed in. Did work on the elliptical.
15 minutes, 1.04 miles, avg HR 132*


*for the first 3-4 minutes my heartrate monitor read exactly 93... no matter what I did, while the elliptical had me into the 130s. So, really my average was more like 137-140. but, whatever.

bushed. DOMS are not fun... not bad, but not fun either.


I've gotten a few logs done, we've just registered a domain for that sort of thing. I've been working on my site, it's getting done, I've read some. I'm actually groking css and crap, my html is much improved...

[Aoife]

eh, decided to try and get in 2 workouts today, since I feel like a big fat slacker sitting on my ass here all day doing mental things, occasionally getting up to stuff laundry in the machine. The life of a bored housewife is certainly one to lament, let me tell you...

Elliptical: 20 minutes
Average HR: 152
1.5 miles
level 1-10-1

(level 1 for 2 min, then every minute go up till hit level 10, then come back down ending at level 1. sucks)

I'd like to thank Mr. Trent Reznor for his contribution to my workout... without his music I would not have made the last 5 minutes, I would have just fallen over and died.

Now I need water, my upstairs is freekin HOT. (I hate NC)

[SpacecityPaula]

Which of Mr. Reznor's songs did you listen to?

[Aoife]

So, I figure it's time to change my workout. Do a bit more, a bit higher rep, etc. I've gotten to the point where I know where I am weight-wise for my lifts, and in order to keep seeing progress I need to move on... plus I wound up with too much limiting myself in this routine with the shoulder issues.

So, I'm now working on a 2-day workout based somewhat on NR strength1. I'm planning on 3 sets, 6-8 reps, a bit higher reps than the 5x5s I was doing. Straight sets mainly. Mostly compound movements, core work, and shoulder rehab. I want to see if I can correct my knee issues before they get too bad, it feels generally just like an imbalance between hammy and quad.

To help with the shoulders, no more bb bench for a while, no dips, only light overhead presses, and keep up the prehab, rehab, mobility stuff... (plus I need those exercises to fulfill my personal goal for the challenge.)

My plan, I think will go something like this:

A
squat 3x6-8
alt. db bench 3x8
bulgarian ss 3x6-8 (because I know you want the company, Paula)
cable row 3x6-8


B
deadlift 3x6-8
traveling lunges 3x8
RDL 3x6-8
good mornings 3x8 (I've never ever ever done these before, looks so much fun)


I plan to try to occasionally get in some explosion days... plyo or whatever you want to call them things and some bodyweight stuff. If I do it'll look like this-ish:
box jumps
plyo pushups (off a bench) or pushup plus
squat jumps
woodchops
side jump thingies-I-can't-remember-what-they're-called-from-CP

Every workout will end with some core crap...
front planks
side planks
birddogs
etc.

shoulder work will remain to be stuff like:
band internal and external rotations
scapular presses (or whatever they're called)
Y,T,L,W stuff
reach, roll, & lift
stuff from Tony's article about limiting factors on Tnation
etc
I'll try to usually get these in at the end of a lift after the core stuff, depending on how the shoulders feel.

eh, enough rambling

[Aoife]

Originally Posted by SpacecityPaula

Which of Mr. Reznor's songs did you listen to?

The Hand that Feeds, which has just the right bpm to get the perfect cadence on the elliptical to totally kick my ass.

[Aoife]

tired...

[ohammersmith]

You wrote it in your log already, you have to lift. That's how it works, right?

[Aoife]

Except when the headache lasts for hours, won't go away, and is just on this side of a migraine...

(no, i didn't lift last night. cycle class today, hopefully my foot will be up to it, I think i have a deep splinter I can't get out.)