Haha, Wolf! That was a while ago.

November 3, 2009:
Starting slowly: 2.5 hour orchestra rehearsal.


November 4, 2009:
Lots of stuff...to make up for a slow start the day before! Haha, j/k. But this seriously ended up being a lot more than I'd been planning on!

All day: GTG: 1 jumping pullup + 1 slow negative.

Morning: Pilates class/work rehabbing all the parts of me that are still a bit "off."

Evening: A friend is starting to hold parkour classes during the open gym I go to on Wednesdays, so I participated this week. It was fun and felt pretty productive, so I'll probably try to keep this up!

• Warmup: Rolls, ground kongs, etc.
• Precision practice: (1) Jumping from the floor to a balance beam set directly on the floor, about 3 feet away. (2) Jumping from the balance beam on the floor up to a balance beam that was ~1.5 feet off the ground, horizontal distance of 3 feet. (3) Jumping from the higher beam to the lower one. (3) Jumped from the high beam OVER the low one, to a raised line on the floor about 7-8 feet away (!!!). This is WAY farther than I thought I could jump! And I started off doing it from the floor to the line, so I can broad jump at least that far. I was definitely having trouble with the preciseness of the landings (kept landing with one foot on the line and the other foot trailing - I think it's a mental thing, not physical capability), but I was proud of myself anyway.
• Landing practice: Jumping up and trying to come down silently.
• Vault practice: A few speed vaults, but mostly trying to get my kong. It's coming along!
• Metcon thing (as a group): Pyramid of 21-15-9, doing pullups (jumping for me), pushups (as many NOT on my knees as possible), and situps. Did 21 of each before moving on to the sets of 15, etc. My time was 9:30. Not bad, considering the fact that this was after training all evening.
• A couple random handstands by the wall, on my own, just for the heck of it. Actually held 1 or 2 for a few seconds in a row.

November 5-6, 2009:
Rest days. (Except for GTG.) Dialed up the fish oil dosage a bit...pretty sore. The second day really didn't need to be a rest day, but I was running around trying to get my driver's licence updated at the DMV and doing other necessary but boring stuff.

November 11, 2009:
Apparently Wednesdays are turning into class days? Hmm...I also did a few random jumping pullups and negatives, but not really enough to count as true GTG.

Morning: Pilates class. 1 hour. Was sore starting out, but this helped a lot...until my muscles got cold again after class.

Evening: Parkour class, lol:

• Some random vaulting on my own before class.
• Warmup: Dynamic stretching.
• QM (was this still part of the warmup?) Basic forwards backwards and sideways.
• Lazy vaults: Worked on getting this with my left hand; for some reason it's a lot more difficult than when I do it with my right!
• Speed vaults: Need to kick higher, but pretty good overall. Everything can always use a bit more work!
• Dash vaults: The next one I need to start working on! These were a mess at first, but I got to the point where I can *almost* do one w/o sitting down on the dratted foam block. It's not even really "sitting;" it's more like hitting the block with my butt on the way down, haha.
• Precisions: Jumped from the floor to a low balance beam that was ~4-5 feet away til I stuck 10 landings. Moved to the elevated beams...and stood there on one staring at a beam that was exactly as far away from me as the one on the floor was. The one I just conquered. ::sigh:: Managed to jump off of the tall balance beam onto the floor twice...jumped the distance on the floor *next to* the balance beams. Just failed to actually do it up high, even with a spotter.
• Metcon: 21-15-9 of burpees and situps, with QM in between sets. Time: 7:36.

November 14, 2009:
Rest day. Muscles in my lower back hurt, and not really in a good "my muscles are tired" sort of way. Iced.


November 15, 2009:
Gym, late evening. My back was still a bit stiff, but it felt a lot better. Kept weights to ~80% of my previous maximums because lifting too much when you're already hurt/tired is a good way to injure yourself. Turns out it was a good thing I did; I had a hard time at even 80%, so PRing would've been a bad plan.

• Warmup: 3 rounds of 10 air squats, 10 pushups (5 standard, 5 knees), 10 situps, and 10 pullups (100# assist, hammer grip this time, sets of 7+3)
• Push Press:
  
  • 1x5, 45#
  • 1x5, 50#
  • 1x5, 55#
  • 1x4 (+fail, +fail), 55# This felt pretty good until this last set, where it all went to heck. Was going for another set of 5, but decided to call it after that last fail. Concentrated on breathing properly. Back felt a bit painful after, but not bad.
• Squat:
  
  • Messed around with low bar for a couple reps, but eventually ended up going back to high bar for everything listed here.
  • 1x5, 45#
  • 1x5, 75#
  • 2x5, 105# I might've been able to do another set, but I was starting to get tired and sloppy where my back was concerned. Called it.
• Metcon segueing into a cooldown: ~20+ minutes at different levels on a stationary bike.

Iced some more when I got home.

These things. They made me smile. 

Spencer - Glad they made you smile. I had a pretty big smile on my face too!
Chris - Thanks! I still haven't quite hit 1xBW yet, although that should happen sometime in the next couple weeks if I keep progressing each time I go in.

November 21 and 22, 2009:
Rest days. My body was asking me for that second one, so I took it.


November 23, 2009:
Morning:

• Warmup: 3 rounds of 10 air squats, 10 pushups (all 10 standard in the first round! 6 standard and 4 knees in the others), 10 situps, and 10 pullups (100# assist, switched grips around; 7+3, 6+4, 4+3+3)
• Push press:
  
  • 1x5, 45#
  • 3x5, 55#
• Deadlifts (realized that I accidentally did squats two workouts in a row - oops!):
  
  • 1x5, 45#
  • 1x5, 75#
  • 1x5, 100#
  • 1x2 (+fail, +fail), 135# I think part of this is due to grip - I actually dropped the bar on one of the failures, so I switched to mixed grip partway through.
  • 1x4 (+fail), 135# Form issues? Not sure what's up with this.
• Metcon/cooldown: Ran intervals on a treadmill for 10 minutes, cooled down by walking. Treadmills are boring.

Evening:
Open gymnastics gym:

• Warmup: General tomfoolery on the trampoline.
• Roll practice: Lots and lots and lots of rolling. I was trying to figure out how to do dive rolls safely; that's something that has been on my radar for a while now, but I've never set aside the time to do it. Worked on this by placing a flat mat (1 inch tall and ~1.5-2 ft. wide) on the floor and beginning the roll on the far side of it. Gradually elevated the obstacle by adding more (folded) mats to it. Ended up using 3 folded mats...each of which was maybe 6-8 inches tall. It was a really good thing the floor was squishy/bouncy, that's all I have to say!
• Handstand practice: Little bit at the beginning and end, but my arms were really too tired to train this effectively.

November 26, 2009:
Um...it was Thanksgiving. I did nothing.


November 27 and 28, 2009:
Mostly rest days. I walked all over downtown and the arboretum, part of the time with a small child (~40#) on my shoulders. Considering the fact that I got a *combined* total of 6 hours of sleep those two days, that was enough!! (Interesting side note: Did you know that carrying a kid like that feels an awful lot like the top of the back squat position? Haha, I was amused when I figured that out. )


November 29, 2009:
FINALLY slept and got back into the gym! Thank goodness!!

• Warmup: 3 rounds of 10 air squats, 10 pushups (all 10 standard in the first 2 rounds! 6 standard and 4 knees in the last one), 10 situps, and 10 pullups (100# assist, switched grips around; 10, 6+4, 6+4)
• Press:
  • 1x5, 45#
  • 3x5, 55# I'm still tweaking something just a bit in my lower back with these. I've been concentrating on keeping the natural curve solid the way it should be, but this still needs more work. I may repeat with the same weight to figure this out.
• Squat:
  
  • 1x5, 45#
  • 1x5, 75#
  • 1x5, 105#
  • 3x5, 140# Good, but this needs to go deeper. Not sure I'm bending my knees past 90 degrees, but my muscles certainly get all trembly at the bottom! No adrenaline to help me out this week (Forgot to mention this, but last week there was! Some guy was unloading a bar resting on the rack next to mine. His bar had several 45# plates on each side, and he decided to take *ALL* the plates off of the far side first. There's nothing like seeing a barbell filled with weights flying through the air at you to help you get out of the hole with 100# on your shoulders!!), but I did it anyway. 45# plates look funny with the 2.5# plates on the bar next to them.
• Cooldown: Fail.

November 30, 2009:
Rest day.

Squats or Deadlifts?

December 6, 2009:
(1) Set up stage for full symphony orchestra, as well as various box office/green room tables and chairs.
(2) 1.25 hour dress rehearsal.
(3) 2 hour concert. Shoulder a bit wonky, but not unbearable.

We played some excerpts from Handel's Messiah, Anderson's A Christmas Festival (the Boston Pops Orchestra does a fun version of that), a truly fantastic arrangement of music from The Polar Express, and some assorted sing-along-type Christmas carols. It was a lot of fun!

December 7, 2009:
Slacking! Today was supposed to be my first day out with the UPS truck & driver, but the package volume wasn't high enough for them to need my assistance. At least I got a freelance editing project done...

December 11, 2009:
Sleep: ~8 hours.

5.5 hours Boxes + truck + foot placement. They switched my truck to one of the older ones with the higher step (the bottom step is above my knee if I stand on the ground next to it), so my right knee started protesting towards the end of the day.


December 12 and 13, 2009:
REST DAYS!! Ended up sleeping on a friend's floor Saturday night b/c there was freezing rain and I didn't want to drive 40 miles on a sheet of solid ice in order to get home. Unfortunately, I slept really weird on my right shoulder, and it has been giving me problems since then...


December 14, 2009:
Sleep: 9+ hours. (To make up for the weekend!)

Work: Boxes + truck + foot placement. Only 2.5 hours. Still on the truck with the high steps. We're supposed to use the hand holds anyway when we're getting in and out of the truck, but I started to rely more heavily on them for an assist, to the point where I'd almost count these as a GTG supplement to my pullup efforts.

Gym: Forgot to bring my gym shoes and I was half an hour from home, so I ended up wearing my work boots for the duration of this workout. My goal in going to the gym at all today (and probably for the duration of this job, since it only lasts until the first of the year) is maintenance, not progression. This is reflected in the different set and rep numbers.

• Warmup: 3 rounds of 10 air squats, 10 pushups (all standard), 10 situps, and 10 pullups (100# assist, all sets of 10 except the last, which was 8+2). Couple issues here: (1) I think I got a cut on my neck somewhere in the first round...kept going until I realized I was bleeding all over my shirt. Left to get myself cleaned up, then finished the last two. (2) Work boots are very hot. Warming up was not a problem.
• Press:
  • 1x3, 45# Right shoulder hurt a bit.
  • 1x3, 55# Broke the set b/c my right shoulder REALLY didn't want to do this. Stopped after that.
• Squat:
  • 1x3, 45#
  • 1x3, 75#
  • 1x3, 105#
  • 2x3, 140# Barefoot. The boots were terrible, and it's better to do squats w/o shoes on anyway...
• Cooldown: Static stretches.