Garage workouts

I have met A LOT of people through kettlebells.

I have met hundreds at each of the certification workshops I've attended, and have kept in touch with a few of them.

Last week, one of the dudes put a post up about the Strong Sundays he hosts out of his garage. Just a mish mosh of people, throwing some weight around.

I inquired, and thought I'd give it a try yesterday.

I figured that since I'll be out of town for the next 4 weekends, that would give me enough time to recover from the PTSD it was bound to induce.

You know The World's Strongest Man competitions? With the barrel throws and the deadlifts with the wheelbarrow thing and the walking with a car on your shoulders?

I LOVE IT.

Yesterday's entire workout was straight out of that.

It was horrible and awesome.





Stone loads with a 75 lb cement ball



Yoke walk with 285 lbs. TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE POUNDS. Can we TALK about how sore my shoulders and neck are today????

I don't have a pic of the farmer walk, which is walking while holding a barbell in each hand. The weight was REALLY heavy and my dumb wide hips paid the price. My hands and the bars kept slamming into them, and I had nice fat bruises on both sides a couple hours later.

I'll save you a picture of my translucent skin, but it looks something like this:



Anyhoo, I will for SURE be partaking in Strong Sundays in the future.

Back to my meathead roots!

Quick kettlebell killer

My trainer assigned a pretty simple  manmaker for yesterday's workout.

Swing for 40 secs, rest for 20 secs, repeats 10x with a 16 kg kb.

Swing a 16? For 10 mins? Psh. Easy peasy.

Oh wait, what's that? My heart is about to explode at minute 3? NEVERMIND THIS IS HARD OMG.

It's fast and furious and perfectly brutal.

Week 14

Weight: -12 lbs
Inches: -9.4

I've super slacked on this blog! Again. Oops. I busted my hamstring 3 weeks ago and am JUST starting to get back into legs and cardio. The upside is that I've tried to bust ass on my upper body workouts, and it's paid off. I can do pullups again! I did sets up 3 dead hang pulls last week, and this week I did singles with an added 10 lbs. I always feel sorta braggy (in a bad way) when I mention pullups, because not many girls can do them. But here's the thing. Literally, I put blood, sweat and tears into being able to do them. Literally. It was a struggle. Being able to do pullups was and is a  HUGE accomplishment for me.

Quick update!

4/11/12

I have to blog this workout. I haven't ended a workout sprawled out on the floor when I finished in a long time. Courtesy of Abby. I can't change the font, which is pretty lame, but it's all good.

Perform Each Couplet (superset) as listed 3 times before moving on to the next one.

Some exercises will be listed for time while others will be a rep set.  Rest 30-45 sec before repeating.

1-

1a- Bulgarian Lunges on bench 8-15 reps

1b- 30 seconds of KB swings

 

2.

2a- Cable Kick Backs 20 reps each leg

2b- 30 seconds of lunge jumps

 

3.

3a- Renegade Rows for 24-30 reps

3b- 30 seconds of alternating swings

 

4.

4a- Goblet Squats for 8-15 Reps

4b-30 seconds of burpees

Key:

Bulgarian lunge = 

Renegade row:

Goblet squat: 

(These pictures are not mine)

8 week check in

It's been kind of a rough couple of weeks! Last week's check in was WEIRD. I lost 1.5 lbs, which is a lot for me for one week, and gained 3.5 inches. 3.5! Wtf! That's almost half of the total that I had lost! It was so bizarre.

After that, my trainer forgot to send me new workouts. To be perfectly honest, being forgotten is the opposite of motivational, especially after having just had such an off check in. On thurs I had a pity party about it. I forgot to pack my shoes and had to leave the gym. I went home and ate a bunch of Wheat Thins, my first snack attack since I started this. That felt less than great.

When I finally got off my ass and decided to at least get cardio done in the fitness center at my apartment complex, someone was on the treadmill. I was SO PISSED. I went back home and sat around a while and finally came to a conclusion. Why am I counting on someone else to be my motivation? If that someone let's me down, I'm just going to totally let all of my hard work go? EFF THAT. I need to be my OWN damn  motivation! At 7:30 (way late for me), I got dressed, went to the gym, and busted out my entire workout. Even added 10 lbs to my deadlift. It felt great, and I think I turned a corner in my training. I'm doing this for me.

My check-in this week evened out a bit. I gained a lb and lost a couple inches. I normally wouldn't be thrilled with that pound, but last week was SO off, that I was ok with the numbers evening out again.

So what's a workout blog like this without progress pics, right? Right. Unless it's your own pics. Blech! These are week 0 vs. week 8. The changes are subtle, I think. Change takes time, so I'm ok with that!

There will be zero rewards for photography skills here, obviously!

3/29/12

Deadlift

Wide and reverse grip lat pulldown/
Cable row/
Back hyper

Seated dumbell curls
Standing barbell curls
DB preacher curls

Week 7 Check In

Weight: -7.5 lbs
Inches: -10

10 Inches!

I went camping (of sorts) this weekend. Knowing that my guy and his friend would probably only bring beer and Slim Jims, I packed some healthy snacks for myself. Roasted chickpeas, protein pumpkin pancakes, blueberry oatmeal muffins, cherry tomatoes and hard boiled eggs. It was a smart move to have healthy things to  eat. I wasn't following my meal plan exactly, but I knew I wasn't completely blowing it, either.