Yup what Cheryl said I usually start with a lot of general body weight warm ups, then pull the empty bar once or twice to "groove" form, then load 135. I added quarters next, then went up by tens. I also don't wait long enough. When I was working on max benches, I brought a book to force myself to wait. Now it's just for fun.

I'm TIRED today!

Cheryl and Mel: Perfect. That's what I thought. Okay. Tomorrow I'm going to try it at 95 and play with it till I get it to 135. Later in the week I'll go for the 135 to start and see where it gets me.

I have a hard time waiting in between sets too. It's mostly about wanting to put away my toys as soon as possible so someone else can do their lifts.

Cheryl, house vs workouts. That's something I struggle with ALL. THE. TIME. There is only so much energy to go around, right?

Have a great evening everyone!

Lydia, you also don't have to go for a 1RM right now. You could go in and just do sets of 5 or 3, just keep adding weight, resting and pulling, till you can't get any more, then take notes for next time. After a few of those, you'll have some idea where to start with a 1RM day. You can also just play with it, do sets of 5 till you feel it's not going to happen at the next weight, then pull sets of 3, then drop to singles. Just try to take plenty of time to rest...it's only 1 barbell! Be sure to report in with what you did, too. We want to hear about your numbers, too, whatever they are, so we can have a party about it! (Let's all try to remember that "heavy" is a very individual thing, and I still can't do a freaking handstand, so I'm not here to judge, I just like to hear about peeps's victories, KWIM?)

Well, the gym cleaning went pretty quick today, 2 hours, which is about right. There are 3 of us, and the other lady that's doing it is a dynamo, love her, she does good work and works fast. The guy, he was about 40 minutes late, and does about the same quality of work as my teenaged nephew, unfortunately, so when he "cleans" something, it's like it didn't happen at all. I'm pretty sure he's not going to last on the cleaning crew. After the cleaning was done, I stuck around to work on tightening the deck screws. I got about half the deck done, and will do the rest next week. I'd meant to take the strongman stones out and wash some of the grody ones, but ran out of time for that.

Okay, enough with the computer break. My Sunday has almost run away, it's 5:15 pm, I've been home 2 hours, now I have to groom a dog and deliver him home...looks like my brilliant plan of catching up on the animal pen cleaning chores (leftover from Friday's crazy scheduling) will have to wait another day!

Cheryl, Lydia - Juggling the work, taking care of the family & keeping everything in & around the home in working order also seriously interferes with the exercise & healthy eating in my case. I tend to let maintenance to the home come before maintnance of my body. Still, over the past 5 years both my body & my home have improved. (patting myself on the back here).

Lydia - your arms loook awesome on your avatar picture

Cheryl - Very nice to hear some other woman about maintenance & repait jobs. Dis i understand correctly that you made a log for your son ???

Hi to all the other exercisers. I'm taking a break (maybe nap) so i can attend power class and zumba afterward tonight.

have a great day all,
Rabbit

Hey, thanks Rabbit.

OKAY! DID SOME DEADLIFTS TODAY! First off, I forgot that this was something I wanted to do today so at the end of my upper body workout I remembered. I'm sure my strength was compromised a little but eh, I was warmed up.

I began conservatively since my expectation at the end of the workout was low. I only loaded the bar with 25# on each side. Did a practice lift. Then I began adding ten to each side. Lift. No problem. Another ten. Lift. Pretty easy. Okay. Another ten. Lift. Yep. That I feel. So a total lift of 155# my first try. Uhm, it felt heavy and I was lifting from the lowest setting on the squat rack safety bars not the ground. But wow. It was fun. I'll keep working at this and see where I get. At the tail end I took all the plates off and loaded it with the 45's just so that I knew what that felt like for my next session. I'll start there and then add to it. Very different experience than doing this movement at a lighter weight just for reps. Great fun. Thanks ladies.


I also did a few clumsy Turkish getups just for you Mel.

Feeling a nice post workout buzz.The kind where your are too fatigued to be bothered by anything.

Have a great afternoon everyone and be careful out there. It's HOT today!

Morning. I'm whipped this morning. The dang simple sounding LBWO got me again.

(1a)Explosive DB / KB swing 6x8
(1b) Sumo deadlift 6x3
(1c) Swissball hip bridge into curl 6xamrap
(2a) Single-leg Romanian deadlift, 3x12
(2b) Donkey kickback (using cable station) 3x15

I was a wet noodle when I left the gym, and I found standing in the shower taxing.

Gotta run to a meeting. Have a great day every one! It's been raining here since about 8 pm last night - blech!

Lydia, glad you had fun with it! If you have the bumper plates, you should try it from the floor next time, for comparison. (if you want to) I love the heavy lifting days, myself. We do about 1 a week, but I never know what it will be. We seem to hit the heavy deadlifts and back squats about once a month, though.

Pat, that does look like a killer LBWO! I got tired just reading that! I haven't done heavy sumo deadlifts...does the sumo stance let you lift heavier, since it's a shorter distance for the bar to travel?

Rabbit, I made a strongman log for my trainer's 4 yr old boy. He actually got to try it out for the first time today. I'm pretty sure his mom will be putting up a pic of it in the next few days, so I'll post a link if you guys want to see. On the maintenance and repairs, I'm single, so there's just me to do it, but I also like the work, so I'd probably do it anyway, especially if I could find a man to cook and clean for me, lol!

Had a good time at the gym today, despite the WOD (ugh, you'll see..). My 14 y.o. buddy was there, and we are both pretty close on what we can lift and our times on the workouts, so we are always challenging each other. Today he was working on bar dips, so he wanted me to try it, too. Now we've got a new skill to work on, first one to do a real unassisted dip wins bragging rights.

Then we did the WOD. Today was "Karen", aka 150 Wall Ball for time. My buddy was using 14# so I had to do it, too, dangit! My time was 15:35, and he beat me by 11 seconds...the punk! I hate wallball, and was having to do sets of 5 most of the way through. My trainer did it in 5:45. He's not human.

Break's over. I really would rather be napping, but I am determined to get today's chores/projects list done, so I'm doing it in spurts.

Cheryl, I for one would like to see the picture!

Re: the maintenance & repairs: I'm divorced and my ex used to do, or rathet not do, the maintenance. It turns out that I am actually much better at it then he ever was, so i enjoy doing it. i'm a mechanical engineer by trrade, and I work in R and D so II sort of like working out how to do things.
I would not take a man for the cooking and cleaning tough: cooking is fairly simple (clean foods without all that much preptime almost of the time), and I have a roomba & scooba for the cleaning. MUch much less maintenance & cost than having a man around the house.

Rabbit - I have all hardwood downstairs and a cat... I've been thinking about a Roomba... Does it work well?

Cheryl - I would love to see the picture, too!

Lydia - cool on the deadlifts!

Pat - that LBWO does sound tough...

No workout this morning, came in to work early for a project that when I got here I found out wasn't until next Monday... That is what happens when I don't get enough sleep... Planning dumbbell circuit and light cardio when I get home.

DH has started strength training again, and if he keeps up his current exercise pattern will quickly outgrow the practical functionality of the Weider... heck, I don't use it much anymore myself. I'm looking around for things I can get to augment my weights setup. I know I need a barbell - do they make racks I can buy for home use?

I don't know if I lift heavier with that stance Cheryl, since I do it in a part of the gym that has no BBs, only DB's. Did it with 20# dbs today. The way the workouts are set up you do roations through (a) (b) (c) and the swiss ball and the kettlebells are upstairs, and the bb's are downstairs across the building, and the rest period is 10-15 seconds after (a) and (b) and then 3 mins after (c). I was using 60# BB for regular deadlifts last week. Maybe on Thurs I'll see if I can lift heavier with the sumo stance. The problem comes getting the heavier bar off the rack. Oh wait I can use the fixed one I think.

Shannon, it's just that at 5:30 I look at the workout and think, oh good, only 5 exercises today. This is week 4 of this rotation, you'd think I'd know that it's a tough workout. I'm never sure my brain is awake when I get to the gym early. Plus I was already a little sore from all the up and down of picking veggies for a hour yesteray.

Cheryl: We have bumper plates. I'm trying to be discreet with my deadlifting attempts though Rolling out those big read plates out into the middle of the floor would call all kinds of attention. Seriously though, I have a hard time getting those things on and off the free bar by myself. Anyone else have this trouble or am I just a dork about this?

Oh, and pics please! Lets see your handiwork.

Tea's ready. Gotta go

Lydia, why are you trying to be discreet? They don't do heavy DLs at your gym? I had the same trouble with one of the plates at the Y, like the hole was too small, but if you're having it with all/any of the bumpers, then most likely the BB is a cheaper model that wasn't machined to olympic specs. Yeah, I always felt like a dufus, too, because I needed the lighter plates, and they only had one pair of each size, so I always had to use the stupid one that didn't want to go on there. Now, I wouldn't care, but at the time, I wasn't confident that I was doing deadlifts correctly, so I felt like everybody was staring at me. I love my CF gym, is all I can say to that!

Pat, thanks. I was just curious!

Shoot, those wallballs wiped me out today! I also ripped my left palm open yesterday, using the drill. All those stinking deck screws were rusted in place, so the drill wanted to spin out of my hands all the time. Is it bedtime yet? I'm tired and whiny, obviously! I'll post a link to the pic, when I see one..I'm guessing tomorrow.

Have a good one, my peeps!

No, I've seen one of the directors actually do the heavy DL on occasion. I think he competes or something. I'm trying to be discreet because it's more of a confidence issue much like the one you referred to. I'm not sure I'm doing it correctly and I really don't want the "lifeguard" to blow the whistle at me. Shoot though, I really need to get over that. Besides, I did the "peter pans" on Freemotion cable cross equipment. Mel, knows what I'm talking about. There's not much discreet about that and no one stopped me. Actually, a couple asked if they could cut in to try it too. (You don't want to know...)

Arrrggg. ~sigh~ Okay. I'll go in on a Sunday when it's slow and give it a shot.

I totally understand why you love the CrossFit experience. They teach this stuff correctly, and most importantly provide an environment in which it can be done at any level. Maybe a drive out to the other side of town may be worth it for me. How many gym memberships can I acquire in one year? I could do it short term just to learn the skills I want. Need to figure out the logistics of this though because DS2 is in school for only 2.5 hours.

Now, if I hang in there till next year, I understand there is a CrossFit in OldTowne/Alexandria Va.

Lydia, I can identify with your discretion. I do all weight workouts strictly at home. In my gym the weights section is brightly lit, in front of a huge mirror right next to the weight machines. The machines are full off teens & gym bunnies. NO WAY that I am going to expose my sagged middle aged 50 yr old body in those spotlights.

Shannon - I gave myself a weight set & BB for my birthday some years back.

Roomba does really well, and I would certainly recommend it if you have hardwood floors. I have rough stone floors & 2 cats & 2 teenagers and it does a good job picking up after them. I did have to Roomba-proof my living room though. Roomba does not do high pile carpets and it eats thin wires like the charger wires for your mobile phone and such. It does not eat the normal electricity wires because they are thicker. I got mine refurbished from Amazon last year and I found it well worth the money.

have to get back to work,

Rabbit

I see another cross fitter in in the near future! Lydia, dd knows peeps at her law firm who do cf. Would you like me to find out where?

I've been in bed for the last 18 hours. I got up this morning at did cardio. Not sure what is wrong, but I suspect over training. today I feel normal. Last week was just too much. Now we are in "get ready to go to college mode" here. The fun just never ends!

Mel