No Guts No Glory

This morning I was lame and did some basic all over body stuff and 3 laps with the sled. I am tried from my weekend and just didn't feel up to anything harder.

This weekend was Marc's first ( and last?) Bodybuilding show. The show was at the Sottile Theatre on the College of Charleston Campus. What a cool experience. Everyone was so great and the whole day was a lot of fun (at least for me, I am not sure if Marc had much fun since he could drink any water for 2 days).

I want to send a big thanks for Tres Bennett for all of his help and for putting on such a super show. He kindly went over the basic poses with Marc to make sure he had them down and wouldn't look like to much of a novice on stage. Marc took 2nd place in the Light Heavyweight Class and the guy he lost too won the overall show (He really looked outstanding).

I will be posting pictures today on our website www.spudincstraps.com you can check them out there.

KB and Weights

Tuesday, 8-19

KB class was a mish mash of stuff. We started with a 10 minute "The KB must be moving" session where they got to do whatever KB movements they wanted but they just had to keep moving for 10 minutes. Then we did the following:

2 minutes of Cleans w/ 1 minute off
2 minutes of C&P w/ 1 minute off
2 minutes of Snatching w/ 2 minutes off
2 minutes of Figure 8's w/ 2 minutes off
2 minutes of Judo Chops then done

Then back into a 10 minute all out burst.

I was worn out after 40 minutes so I just taught the rest of class and watched them sweat it out.

Wednesday, 8-20

Our training the morning consisted of abs, 45 degree hack squat where we worked up to 4 plates for 6 reps, Stiff Leg DL's with 106 lb. KB, Close Grip pulldowns, Seated DB shoulder press and some other stuff.

Then Jeanie had the wonderful idea of pulling sled. I had not clients so I went out with her. It was muggy and I poured sweat. I did one lab with 45 lbs. and decided that was awful so I took 10 lbs. off and we did 5 more laps. The total was 2 miles.

The funny thing is that we have 3 semi-wild kitties living behind the gym (Neutered w/ shots) and two of them kept coming out to lounge. They would wait until we were almost on them before realizing they were supposed to act scared and run under the shed. They are so funny and fun to have outside. I fed them at 6:30 this morning and they were still eating at 8:30 when we started pulling the sled. Just goes to show you how nice it is to have readily available food. I will try to get a picture of them to post.

Holy Crap I slept late!!!

At 3:45 am this morning Marc awoke me to say that he would open the gym and I should sleep in - so I did. I got up at 6:15 am got dressed, got breakfast, got to the gym and realized I had missed my window of opportunity to do my interval cardio work. stupid me!

at 7:30 am we did our weight training: incline press, rows, pec flyes, triceps, biceps etc....

at 8:30 only 1 of my group class ladies showed up so she and I went upstairs and did intervals on the treadmill. I did pretty well - this is what I did.

walk 5 min. on 3.8
Run 1 min on 6.5 - 6.8
Walk 1 min on 4.0
for 20 minutes (20 intervals)
Walked for 15 minutes on 4.0 at 1.5% incline.

So, here is the crazy thing. I watched the Marathon this weekend and the lady who won (I love her name Katarina Tomescu-Dita) ran it in 2:26:35. She averaged like a 5 min mile. Wow!!!! When I was at my best running pace 6.8 I was only at an 11 minute mile. That was a little sad. I was running so fast I felt my legs would fly off and I was only barely running compared to Mrs. Marathon of the World.

The other interesting thing is that at a 6.5 pace the treadmill said you would burn around 957 calories an hour. That means that Mrs. Tomescu-Dita was burning around 1800 calories an hour. Holy crap!!!! I hadn't really thought about that.

Anyway, I am not a huge runner fan and didn't think I would enjoy watching a marathon but ended up having fun. My Dad and Step-Mom came over and we watched it together along with the swimming and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Last couple of days

It has been a rough week.

Wednesday we were doing a hard day with 6-8 reps of an almost max weight. For example, after warming up Marc put 215 lbs. on the bar for me to squat with just a belt. I did 6, 1/4 reps which he wasn't happy with but I was just glad to be done. It didn't get much better after that.

Thursdays KB class was an interval. I used the 16 Kg's.

Double Deadlifts
Farmers Walk for 30 feet
3 Double Cleans
Double Rack Position Walk 30 feet back
jog 1/3 a mile

We did 4 sets, with each set the amount we framers walked got farther until the last set we went about 100 feet. Plus we added 3 more double cleans with each set. I struggled with the rack position walks and then tweaked my back on the last set of cleans so after the 4th I bowed out. The group continued with walking alternating overhead press, double overhead holds and one more 1/3 mile run.

Today, Friday I took it easy. I will do my cardio tomorrow morning.

Tuesday night KB's

Ok, so sometimes I lie in bed dreaming up KB workouts. When I am in bed they seem wonderful, and harmless when in actuality they are quite brutal. Last night was one of those workouts. Here is what we did - the track we worked on was 1/3 a mile.

1 Snatch Right hold the KB overhead and take 10 steps
1 Snatch Left hold the KB overhead and take 10 steps

2 Snatches Right hold the KB overhead and take 10 steps
2 Snatches Left hold the KB overhead and take 10 steps.

etc... until you have done 10 snatches per arm.

This took us exactly 1/4 of the way around our track. So then I improvised a little bit.

11 Snatches per arm 10 steps (each arm)
12 Snatches per arm 20 steps (each arm)
13 Snatches per arm 30 steps (each arm)
etc....

We actually only made it to 17 before we ran out of track. Everyone did well even though it was a butt kicker. 2 of my ladies who have recently graduated to the 12 Kg for most everything did it with that weight. It was their first time going around the track with the 12Kg and they struggled but finished.

My traps were so tight afterwards that I woke up with a raging headache at 3 am and had to get up and take some advil. Now that is a hard workout:)

Yesterday weight training

Forgot to get back to you on my weight training. Worked up to a failure set on:

squat w/ 135 lbs.
Glute Ham Raises w/ 25 lbs.
Seated shoulder press w/ 75 lbs.
Super high step ups w/ 8 kg KB in each hand
Calf raises.

Pretty good. I am sore today!

New Cardio Plan

I am starting a whole new training regimen that will last for 16 weeks. I am excited about it because it gives me focus in what I am doing. So, this morning was the first of 2 Interval training cardio days. Here is what I did:

5 min warmup on Treadmill

2 min Run at 5.5 on Treadmill/2 min climbing the stairs(actually climbing the stairs two at a time)
2 min Run at 6.0/2 min climbing the stairs
2 min Run at 6.5/2 min climbing the stairs
2 min Run at 6.5/2 min climbing the stairs
2 min Run at 7.0/2 min climbing the stairs

I ended with a 10 minutes steady state on the elliptical. Not to bad and time really does go by quickly. The next Cardio session will be steady state and that I will accomplish in KB class tomorrow night - though I do not know what we will be doing yet.

Stay tuned for today's strength training....

Anti-Training

The KB class wanted to pull sled this morning so that is what we did. I got 4 sleds out and off we went. We had a 4th join us after 1 lap so I gave up my sled. They ended up doing 6 laps with 35 lbs. That is 2 miles.

I went inside and practiced my snatch test for when I go re-cert my Level I KB certification. I have to be able to do 19 reps and arm with a 16 Kg kb. I always freak out about this and I want it to be super easy when I go so 8 weeks out I am starting practice. This morning I did a set of 15 an arm and a set of 10 an arm, so I shouldn't have any problem.

Tomorrow no workout! Hooray! My quads are SO SORE from the duck walks yesterday.

Two More days of Horrendous Workout

Thursday, August 7th

KB workout was all legs because frankly, my upper body was still plastered. I worked with a 12 Kg KB.

3 super sets of 20 front squats (all the way down) and 1 round of lunges holding the KB

3 sets of 20 jump squats w/ KB. (Hold the KB with straight arms and jump into a wide leg squat, then jump up into a close leg squat and throw the KB into the air and catch it. Repeat)

Clean, Press & Squat 3 sets of 5 per arm

Friday, August 8th

Marc had this great idea but we trumped it. Here is what he wanted us to do:
Duck walk 1/4 of the way around the building then lunge back to our starting point then back to where we stopped duck walking. Then start again another 1/4 of the way. (As if!)

Here is what we did:
Duck walked around the building 1/3 a mile

I have had tight muscles, sore muscles, uncooperative muscles before but right now I just have pathetically, frail, tired, wobbly muscles. I tried to sit on the floor while I trained some clients and was too scared I would fall trying to get down there because I have no muscle control in my legs. Poor me!

2 Super Hard workouts

Tuesday, August 5th

Pam, Rhea, Davida and Me were the only ones present for KB class. Although we did not do our famous 1,000 rep workout we did manage to make it to 1,000 reps in the class. Here is what we did:

25 cleans per arm with an alternating swing in between. (clean right, alternating swing, clean left alternating swing, clean right etc....) This prodcuces 100 reps.

We did the same protocol with clean and press and snatches.
1 round = 300 reps.
We did 3 rounds to = 900 reps, then finished with 100 swings.

The cool thing is that when I first wrote this workout we only did 15 reps per set and it about killed us. Last night with the 25 reps no one was that worn out. I was impressed. I used a 12 kg. This is a good workout because switching arms after each rep does allow you to do the volume without being totally torched.

Wednesday, August 6

We did everything using a standard 45 lb. straight bar.

Decline Bench
Flat Bench
Rack Shoulder press
Incline Bench

10 reps each, 11 reps each, 12 reps each....to 20 reps each.

And that was all. Sound easy, you try it. I was blistered.

Yoga note:
I took Yin Yoga on Monday and was struck with one of the worst Tension headaches right in the middle of class. I made it through by doing alternate versions of some poses but I was nauseated and everything. That has never happened to me before but I was worn out. Prior to class I took what was supposed to be a 30 min nap but lasted for 2 hours and then after class I laid down to let me headache subside and slept another 1 1/2 hours. Got up for an hour and ate supper then was back in bed at 9 pm. Do ya think I need to rest????

The Weekend

Fridays workout is the only one I have done worth mentioning. It was SUPER hard.

The squats were done with a 45 lb. straight bar and 1 lap = 1/3 a mile

25 Squats
Run 1 lap

50 Squats
Run 2 laps

100 Squats
Run 4 laps

150 Squats
Run 2 laps

In total we did 325 squats and 3 miles of running. I thought I would die!!!

Other than that we had a Strongman Competition on Saturday at the Harley Davidson store. I stayed back at the gym and worked and let the boys go have all the fun.

Next Saturday we are having Trey Brewer the BB Phenom come hang out with our members. That should be a lot fo fun!!!