Lydia, thanks.

I'm pretty sure I paid attention to where I was on the bench because my trainer had pointed out earlier that I needed to watch that.

BUT, I had wondered about where I placed the exercise in my routine. I was tired and probably nervous about not having a spotter for the 85 pounds. Next time, I'll make it first as you suggest.

Rhonda -- I hate to ask for a spotter, so I do my flat bench presses in the power cage. As luck would have it, if the safety bars are in the second set of holes I can still get a full range of motion on the press, but if I fail the bar would stop before it crushed my windpipe. This helps with the nervousness, because I know that the worst that will happen is the bar makes a bit of an ungraceful landing on the safety bars.

Numbness suggests hand or arm positioning to me less than workout order. (Though that certainly affects strength / endurance). Something to watch, at any rate.

Back from skiing with The Boy. He took a bit of a header after catching a ski in the track made by the snow cat / groomer. (The snow is really wet and heavy and not very forgiving.) Both skis popped off, and he skidded to a halt pretty much on his face. Got a bloody nose and a split lip and two "battle scars" from where his goggles pressed into his cheeks. After a few tears, he was whooshing down the slopes again as if nothing had happened. (Ahh, to be 8 again.) Now he won't let me wipe off the battle scars, and the snow cat tracks are getting deeper and the hill steeper with every retelling of the story.

Lydia: meant to say that the rolls are indeed gone, although not before an internal debate over whether it would be better for the birds/squirrels to have the calories or to avoid the preservatives. Into the garbage they went, so now the squirrels have to expend calories to get the preservatives. At any rate, the experiment is over.

//b. strong,
Kim

kaw, how about barbell squat. I'm on the NROL workout A which includes barbell squat. But my gym doesnt have a squat / power rack. would it have the same effect on the smith machine? or should I switch gym? My training goal is general fitness.

First of all, Shannon, I am so sorry to hear about your injury! I hope the recovery is going well and the wound is healing.

Otherwise: you are killing me, ladies, with your stories! A co-worker looked at me suspiciously a few times after I made a few snort-like sounds when reading Mel's hydro story and the headline of the imaginary article after Kim on stage in hooker shoes.

Mel, I do know what electric lines are, after all, I grew up in Europe, where the darn thing is called the same. But your hydro story is priceless.
Reminds me of my hot water heater - I purchased a tankless water heater last year and had it installed via Home Depot (where I purchased it). On New Year's Eve, at about 6 p.m., when I was making final touches on the fabulous dinner I was going to serve (fortunately, just to my best friend with whom we had a New Year's P.J. party at my house) I found out that there was no hot water.
Grrrreat, I thought. That was Friday night. I realized I would have to wait till Sunday, Jan. 2 till Home Depot reopens because the heater was still under warranty so I could not call any 24/7 emergency service. To make a long story short ..... it was finally repaired on JANUARY 14th, so I was without hot water for full fifteen days (there were countless calls to the manufacturer's tech service [Rheem, in Atlanta - I thought you every time, Shannon!] and they sent a number of spare parts because there was no concensus as to where the problem is. It was NOT a time I think of back fondly! Imagine shoveling for an hour, getting all sweaty and with no hot water! Grrr.

I was so happy when it was finally fixed - fortunately, it was still under warranty (it crapped out a month before the end of the warranty) - if I had to pay for it, it would have been almost cheaper to go and get a new one - the plumber charges $80 an hour (anybody knows of a single plumber who is looking to get married?) and he spent some good 10 hours working on it, that's $800!!! (the water heater itself is roughly $1,100), although the installation is very costly.

Alena - sorry about your water heater! Those tankless heaters are great, but when they break they really break.

Kim - I love the 'stiletto accident' story title. Glad the boy didn't suffer any ill effects from his tumble! And my bruise does match your teal shoes, actually.

Rhonda - how has the post superbowl aftermath been? People cleared back out? I sometimes lose weight on an exercise between sessions if I've worked too hard on the days between, or if I put my pivotal exercise too late too.

Lydia - glad you got the roof painted! Funny that DS fussed over losing the boy space. Tell them they can help paint the rest if they want to make it go faster!

Still healing well over here, trying to sync my exercise in with XW's boot camp schedule and the required extra DSS time. I'm trying to make her month of boot camp the month were I get up and get back in the habit of exercise in the morning more. Making lemonaide so to speak. DB routines are going well - I've moved up to 8 rounds of my db swing/squat+press/horizontal pullup in 20 minutes and 5 rounds of the db snatch/clean press/burpee in twenty minutes. I'm not thinking I'll try to add more rounds, maybe try to up the weight. Been pretty consistent with it for the last few weeks, kind of half hearted at it for a couple of weeks before that. Feeling pretty good.

Good day everyone!

Good Morning:

It's 16F this morning. Brrr..

I got the two exercise series from my trainer. There are 15 total activities in each one, including activation, mobility, stretches and strength. He sent video examples of the exercises from:

http://www.bodybyboyle.com/

I'm going to the gym to try the first routine this afternoon. I'll let you know how I do. (No burpees, thank goodness! You go, Shannon!)

OK, I can't do snatches. I started with a 30 pound sandbag, went down to 20 pounds and still fell backwards about as often as I almost did them right.

Everything else was not too bad. Well, there's that split squat to row that is my personal most dreaded exercise.

Rhonda: I think snatches are hard to do correctly (i.e., all hip snap & drive, less arms) with a barbell. I can see where doing them with a sandbag might be, um, amusing.

Shannon: Glad to hear you're healing. If I still had the teal shoes, I'd send them to you, free of charge, for the match.

Yesterday was a full-body power workout, meaning low reps and high weights. My squat and bench strength was a bit down, but back and hamstring strength a bit up. Weird. I did, however, get a PR on weighted dips: 45 x 4.

In other news, I'm 1.8 measly pounds away from my pretty much arbitrary goal of 140. I'm leaving for vacation in exactly 7 days. I'm sure I could get there by manipulating water weight. Part of me wants to do it, just for fun and so that I can have the psychological kick of seeing 139.8 on the scale before I go. Another part of me says, what's the point? If it's just water weight, it'll come back on the next time I look sideways at a bagel in an airport kiosk.

//b. strong,
Kim

Kim - I love your blog. Popped in there and looked around yesterday. Your writing style entertains me. As does your comment about looking sideways at a bagel and gaining 1.8 pounds. So how do you feel at 141.8? Comfortable in your bathing suit?

Rhonda - I've done snatches with a barbell, and it is all kinds of funny to watch I imagine. I never fell backwards, but my barbell hit the rack a lot. Luckily without pinning me under it. I use dumbbells more often than not because they make me feel safer on the crazier exercises like snatches and swings.

And, did anyone else have an immediate dirty thought when reading Rhonda's 'I can't do snatches' or is it just me after hanging out in the maintainers thread with the discussion 'kitty willows'? I'm seeing innuendo behind every tree and bush.

I gave myself permission not to exercise yesterday, as it would have been seven days in a row of hard workouts if I had. Still did a yoga hip opener flow before bed. Got up and stayed up after the boys left for school this morning so got my db circuit in - db swing 20lb/clean+press 15 lb per/horizontal pullup 8 rounds of 10 reps per, 19:06 total time - and did ten miles on the stationary bike. Warmed up with another hip opener flow, cooled down with 50 crunches. I think I must be out of my mind sometimes.

Good weekend everyone!

jerk

snatch

bush


.....my, my the mind explodes

What an interesting note to come back to! I'm hooommmme! We had a wonderful month in Hawaii. Not much in the way of formal exercise, but lots of water time (snorkel, swim, kayak - which is soo not my sport!), lots of walking, plus eating fresh fruit/veg. According to my home scale I managed to lose 5 lbs. We'll see what the doc's scale says next week.

We didn't have much in the way of snow while we were away, and until tonight the temps were, um, warmer than Texas..... We have a cold spell moving in though, so we'll be back to those below zero numbers.

Anyway, it's back to the gym for me now that we have resumed some normality to our house. One of our cats basically hid from the house sitter the entire time and is now very needy - follows us everywhere and has to be sitting/laying on one of us at every possible opportunity. Rather a nuisance. The other one was fine, accepting that most humans are okay, thank goodness.

I didn't try to catch up on anything other than a quick skim through February thread. Nice to see you back Alena!

Welcome back, Pat! We're leaving for Hawaii on Friday, and I. can't. wait. (Kauaii, more specifically, where we've been so often over the last 40 years that it's like a second home.) We'll get in a little kayaking and a lot of swimming and snorkeling and hiking and beach walking and sand games. I'm also going to try paddleboarding this time, just for kicks and grins.

The needy cat thing is a small price to pay. We get that, too, from one our cats. We figure it balances out cat #2's post-return routine, which is to completely ignore us, with as much disdain as cat body language will produce.

Shannon: Thanks for popping by the blog. I wish I was better at updating it, but I seem to spend most of my on-line time here and a couple of other fitness fora/blogs that I read.

As for the swimsuit question, I haven't tried them on yet. It may be time to invest in new ones, but the Middle of Nowhere NY in February is not the time or place to shop for suits. Of course, I say that before every trip, and then when I get to HI the last thing I want to do is shop for swimsuits (please, could you just poke me in the eye with a sharp stick instead?) so I wind up wearing the old ones. Which just get older and older, curiously.

Happy Saturday, everyone! I have a full lineup of kid's basketball, then gym, then cleaning the bathrooms, then a few hours of work. Wheee.

//b. strong,
Kim

Hey, put that chocolate back!!!!

Can't do it? OK, then 50 pushups, NOW.

And Happy Valentines Day to you too Rhonda!
No problem with chocolate in this house tonight. Too much to do...paint paint paint. Need I say more. This is week two in the freakin' basement. I'm getting my home workout equipment out. I think I'm in for quite a spell here.

Welcome home Pat! We missed you. Sounds like you had a great time and a weightloss on vacation of fantastic. Must have been a wonderful holiday for you and DH.

Kim, I was wondering how many days you have left before your trip. Have a wonderful time and don't stress about the swimsuit. I have no doubt that no one is going to be lookin' at your swimsuit. Not as hard as you've been working.

No chocolate here either. But, we did go to Outback and I did eat a few bites of that blooming onion that someone ordered. It was the first time I've had any in years, and I didn't eat much Man, that thing is bad, bad, bad.

I went to the gym this morning and could hardly move; I was so lethargic for some reason. I hadn't slept well so I suppose that was the problem.