Hotwings- This forum started years ago as a body for Life forum. It's how I really goet started in heavy lifting. I think it is a wonderful program for beginners or for seasoned lifters looking to get back to a very structured program. Great choice!
I just watched a video Lydia posted in another thread about common squat problems and apparently mine have been all wrong. I of course had to go right to the bathroom and try in front of a mirror so I could see.
1) My feet have been too close together
2) I've been 'sitting into the squat' by breaking into the knees instead of moving out from the hips and pushing my butt back before sinking down
3) I've been trying to keep my feet pointing straight instead of letting them turn out a little, which results in me bringing them in closer even than they started out and forcing my knees out past my toes
Doing them with the correct techniques described in the video made them feel a lot more comfortable! We'll see what happens when I get home and do them in my workout!
Shannon, Krista's videos are great. We have a squat challenge going on in our Lean Eating group - her challenge is to be the first to do a full butt to calves squat! I agree that it's much easier with her technique. I saw a woman in the gym this morning doing squats with her legs together, and without sticking her butt back first. I wanted to go tell her, but then she started deadlifting about twice what I can, so I lost my nerve. She also was dressed in long pants, a t-shirt with a fleece jacket over it, gloves and a head scarf - strange. And I don't know why she wasn't dying of being too warm.
THis morning was the last time (I hope) of the "all squats" workout. I counted up and there were the warm-up squats 3-4x4-6, so say 20, plus 6 sets of the squat-jump-tuck x 3; 6 sets of back squats x 6; and 6 sets of lumberjack or goblet squats x12; so 6x21 or 126 plus the 20 warm-ups I did manage about 90% getting thighs parallel to the floor! The squat-jump-tuck I start out that low, but can't jump and land back in the squat. Saw some decent air this morning though!
Today is DH's birthday, so I'm not sure if we're going out for dinner or not - we talked about it, but never made a decision. There is a half a cake though. I made it yesterday and he took it to our square dance meeting last night, and they ate half. (I was at a church council meeting where there was nothing but coffee and Safeway chocolate chip cookies, ick.)
Location: Lyin' in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Posts: 2,296
S/C/G: 235/201/175
Height: 5'7"
Hey peeps, !
Lydia, what Mel said about being hooked. Definitely try it out in any way that you feel comfortable doing. If it's for you, you'll know it soon enough. It's my only workout, has been since April, and though I worried it wouldn't be enough, when I first started, I've gotten great results on all fronts, better than I got doing the cardio/weight room combo on my own for a year, so I'm very happy with it. Just IMO, I wouldn't write off the MMA place without stopping in for a visit. The martial arts/CF combo is pretty common, and does not necessarily mean they don't do straight CF training. I'd check them both out, and see if one of them is a good fit. Good luck, and I hope you have fun, at the very least!
Hotwings, if you're interested, you should scope it out, too. CF can be done by anyone, at any fitness level, age or physical ability. They scale the workouts for everybody, according to their abilities, and it's not an elitist environment or anything like that, normally. It's worth a look, anyway, if it interests you. It's not for everyone, but you never know till you try it for yourself.
On the homeschool planning, nope I did not get it done. I've been busy, but also sick, so when I am home, I just want to curl up and sleep...not a lot of activity in the old noggin this week! I will have to block out time for it next week, since I'm booked solid through the weekend. We're starting Aug 31.
Shannon, DB push presses are a whole 'nother ball of wax, IMO. I only use 25 pounders for push press when it's dumbbells, so we're not that different.
to everybody else!
Today we did a Bday workout:
Run 440 yards (400 meters, right?)
44 OH Squats w/pvc
44 AbMat Sit-ups
44 Push Press (barbell, 75# men/55# women)
44 feet of rope (3 rope climbs to the splice)
44 walking lunges
44 mountain climbers
Run 440 yards
Dang! I was SO close to getting this Rx'd today, but could not get to the splice on my 2nd and 3rd rope climbs. I made it to the tape, which is about 2 feet shy of the goal. Still pretty happy with that, since I think that's the best I've done with rope climbs yet.
I did try to knock my own teeth out of my head on one of the push presses. I was getting tired, jumped it up, didn't move my chin back fast enough, and clocked myself right under the jaw with 55# of flying barbell, lol. No bleeding or loose teeth, though, luckily, just got a bruised chin (and ego) out of the deal.
Okay, I'm off to bed. Workout and gym cleaning on the schedule for tomorrow, along with more work on putting down the deck screws that are sticking up.
Mel, Cheryl: Thanks so much for the input. I'm going to call this coming week for an appointment. Maybe I can share a child watching day with one of my girlfriends to get in at least once a week in the late morning.
Cheryl: Hope you are feeling a little better today. It sounds like your pretty busy too with little time to be sick.
Wingo: I did BFL when I began with great success. It was mostly the food side of the program that I focused upon and learned enough about putting a lifting program to add this as well. In fact, I still eat my meals every three hours with a 40/40/20 split. Or at least I try to. When I was losing weight I was about 95% clean. These days, I'm about 80. I'm able to maintain at this level but if I need to lose a few pounds I just right back to the program.
Pat: I was inspired by your squat session and had one of my own today. Two sets of 10 at 115# (back squat) and one set of 8 at 120#. Then I scaled it down to 95# and went all the way down to bottom (glutes to calves) for five reps. (big smile on my third rep when I realized I was actually able to do this then my form began to break because I lost my focus and had to recover for the last two. :rolleyes) Completed unloaded the bar and did another 12 reps of glutes to calves squats just for the range of motion. The rest of the workout were walking lunges with 25#, bodyweight lunges, step ups and bulgarian split squats with a free bar, and few deadlifts with 35# dumbbells. The 30 minutes on the AMT after that felt like more than I could do but I slogged away at it anyway. (I really have neglected my aerobic energy system for the last few months and now I'm paying for it.)
Good afternoon!
Pat - I need to check out Krista's video as well, I wonder if the technique is a little different from men to women... Good job getting more air in the squat/jump/tuck today! I do okay starting and ended in the squat, I just don't get my feet very far up all the time.
Cheryl - you have to be careful with those barbells! Glad you didn't get hurt! That log pic is the cutest thing ever.
Lydia - Nice job on the glutes to calves squats! I sometime lose focus when I stop and think about what I'm actually doing too, funny!
Yesterday's workout -
1 almost all the way up to my chin pullup, 19 assisted pullups
Jump rope - 46 sec
DB swing 15lb/squat+press 15lb DBs/hanging pullup - 6 rnds
walking lunge 15lb DBs - 20
iron cross 5lb DBs - 10,9,8
walking lunge 15lb DBs - 24
squat/jump/tuck - 10x2
assisted pullups - 20
hanging knees/elbows - 10x3
bike - 2 miles, 6 mins
Went to the park today for a run, 7.5 miles of which I ran 6. Ran slowly in some places, but it was still running!
Location: Lyin' in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Posts: 2,296
S/C/G: 235/201/175
Height: 5'7"
Nice workout, Shannon! (Mel, she's almost doing CF, she just doesn't know it.. I won't tell if you don't! Shh...)
Lydia, I can't wait to hear how your visit goes, and what you think. Not sure if I said already, but you can probably take DS with you to the CF gym. At least, ours is overrun with munchkins on a daily basis, and I think that's the norm for a lot of affiliates (that kids are welcome). Great job on the squats! My trainer always makes me go hams to calves, with back squats. I can't wait to get some lifting shoes, as they make it SO much easier to get down there and back up again!
Hotwings, I forgot to say, if you find a CF near you that has a CFKids class, then your daughter (right?) could learn to lift, like she wanted. They do a lot of fun stuff like games, gymnastics, calisthenics, running, jumprope, skipping, etc, but also teach all the basic lifts, which kids, being flexible, do better than most adults.
Today's workout was:
AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 10 mins of:
7 Pull-ups
7 Hang Squat Cleans (135# men/95# women)
Once again, my trainer used his psychic powers to read my mind, since I planned out my warm-up last night, and had squat cleans on my list for today.
I've only done the full squat cleans once before, a few weeks back, so today I kept it light, and did not worry about going fast, just tried to do the lift correctly.
I could feel that I was soft in the bottom (losing my lumbar curve at the very bottom), then I kept having trouble keeping weight on my heels. Clearly, much more practice will be needed before I have this one nailed, but I didn't do too horrible, and actually got a few in that were right on, so there's hope for me, apparently.
I got 5 rounds even, used 50#, and used the pink band for the pull-ups. Good progress on the pull-ups today: usually I get uncoordinated with the kipping pull-ups, and can get maybe 2 or 3 in a row, even with the band, but today, I got the first 3 rounds, I think, all 7 reps straight through, so I'm getting a little better at those!
After the WOD, I was too tired to do any strongman, so we just got right to the gym cleaning as soon as everyone else left. That went well, then I stayed for about an hour and a half after that, to work on the deck. One more session of putting down deck screws next weekend, I think, should see that job done!
Have a good time with that one, Pat! I can't figure out what some of them are, but it sounds interesting.
This weekend was just frantic. DS leaves for school this Friday and we have so much to do still! I didn manage to get to CF on Saturday morning and dragged dh with me. It was a high rep, low weight metcon with those lovely wall balls, and he is still sore
Location: Lyin' in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Posts: 2,296
S/C/G: 235/201/175
Height: 5'7"
Morning, all.
Pat, that looks like a good one. When you do 3x reps like that, do you do all the sets for one movement before moving on?
Mel, I hope dh doesn't divorce you over the wallball thing.
Today we're doing the second of the "3-way" workouts...3 local CF gyms, us included, and each month one of the gyms puts up a challenge workout, and we all do it. Last month was our turn, and it was that awful one with the KTE-burpees. Today we're doing this one:
"With a continuously running clock, do 1 back squat the first minute, 2 back squats the second minute, 3 back squats the third minute, etc, until you can't do all the required reps in that minute. Men use 65#, women 45#."
Doesn't that look so innocent in print? That means it's going to suck, I'm guessing. I've never done one of these types of WODs, with the reps in a minute and the dwindling rest thing, so it should be interesting...and short.
Cheryl - I've been thinking my workouts look more and more like crossfit every week, which makes some sense as I've pulled some of the exercises from things you & Mel have posted! And that WOD does look interesting. I'm interested to see how you do.
Mel - love the wallball...
Pat - that does look interesting, though I can't figure out what a 'supinated grip reverse pushup' is... let us know how it goes.
No exercising this morning - woke up about 4 with some pretty serious cramping going on and was awake for a while, so wasn't feeling the get up early for workout vibe. I'll do it when I get home, might cut the grass as well. Might not.
Location: Lyin' in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Posts: 2,296
S/C/G: 235/201/175
Height: 5'7"
Oh, Shannon, it SUCKED!!! It's prescribed at a light weight, so you just have to keep going and going till you finally, finally die! I got 16 full rounds plus 11 reps of the 17th minute. This one started sucking about round 8. After the 14th, though, I was moving so slow I didn't have enough time left to set the bar down between sets. I was shooting for 14 mins/rounds, since that was 105 reps, so I was very happy to get as far as I did...total was 147 back squats with 45# today (if I'm not botching the math). Might not have been so terrible, except these were hams to calves, every rep, or it didn't count for me (my trainer makes you go down as far as you can, unfortunately). I'm waiting for lunch to cook, then I may not move for the rest of the day.
ETA: Okay, so I tried this recipe today, since I want something good to eat for breakfast that doesn't require cooking. They were easy to make, and taste pretty good. Not sure of the calories, if it's good for CCing or not, but thought I'd pass it along, in case it helps: http://www.norcalsc.com/index.php/po...upcakes_to_go/
Pat, that looks like a good one. When you do 3x reps like that, do you do all the sets for one movement before moving on?
No, Cheryl, on this one you do one set of each with short rests (10-15 sec) and a 3 min rest at the end. I had to do the reverse push-ups separately because they only place to do them is on another floor and across the building from the area that has the good DBs (i.e. that have octagonal sides so they won't roll) and the KBs. Plus the latter is where I do my physical therapy knee exercises which, along with the stationary bike, are my warmup.
These are hard! I need to put the bar a little too high and then step into it and lower myself to start. If I try to do it from a lying-on-the-floor start, I can't get my whole body up. It's kind of like starting a chin-up by hanging.
This was a killer workout, esp as today was the first time I'd done it. Tomorrow is a lower body routine - hard, but more familiar
(1a) Front squat 4 x 5
(1b) BB Romanian deadlift 4 x 9
(2) DB Bulgarian split squat 4 x 9
(3a) Lateral squat 2 x 9
(3b) Donkey kick 2 x 12
It's Friday that worries me, as it includes "Burpee into kip-like pull-up" which is something I've never even attempted. Hope there aren't too many people in the room when I do.
We had a good weekend. DH decided he did want to go out to eat on Fri so we did. I had a steak salad (took 1/2 home), a glass of wine, and one piece of ww bread. Oh, and a bite of DH's appetizer: creamed spinach in a crepe with a very fresh tasting tomato sauce Then we got home and some friends who've been away most of the summer invited us to dinner on Sat. I had a lovely no-cook weekend Well, I did can another 6.5 pints of relish, and froze swiss chard and peas. Sat the weather was gorgous and I spent time outside as much as possible. Yesterday was rainy so I was inside doing the aforesaid canning/freezing.
Today is sunny, but cool, and it's DARK when I get up at 5:20ish! I had to use headlights to drive to the gym. I'm not ready for summer to be done. But I do have 2 weeks vacation starting a week from Wed, so I have to look forward to.
PS - Cheryl those egg muffins look good. Did you put the bacon in? I'm not crazy about bacon, but some veggie sausage might be good....
Pat - thanks for that! I've been doing those and calling them 'hanging pullups' from a video I found somewhere else! If I can find it I'll post it and we'll see if they are actually different...
Cheryl - sounds like you did great! And, I imagine it did suck!
DH went to hang with a friend tonight so I flipped my plans around, cut the grass first to save the light, then did my workout. So, a little shorter than I planned on some things as I was already a little tired...
Today:
- 55 mins of cutting grass cardio - 410 cals according to my HRM
- 2x15 squats - as low as I could get with 330 'lbs' of resistance set on my Weider
- 4 sets of 10 pushups + 30 seconds jump rope
- 50 wall ball with my sad little 1 lb ball
- 50 swill ball back extension
- 10 swiss ball hamstring curl-
- 10 per side one legged bridge
- 10 db snatch per side, 15 lb
- 10 db clean + press, 15 lb per
- 10 burpee
- 1 min jump rope
About 44 minutes
After that I was wiped out flat. The original plan of four circuits of the DB exercises plus some other stuff around it went right out the window.
I do have to help a coworker assemble some shelves and move some boxes tomorrow (about 75-100 boxes at 50-75 pounds per) so I'm figuring I'll make up for anything I missed today.
I love the fall, but I think I'm going to miss summer this year myself...
Location: Lyin' in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Posts: 2,296
S/C/G: 235/201/175
Height: 5'7"
Pat, I didn't have bacon. I put in some ground turkey that had been precooked (with chopped onions and bbq sauce for flavor...one of my usual 'cook ahead' protein sources for lunch/dinner), I snipped the tops off some broccoli crowns, I snipped some sun dried tomatoes, and added a little milk, since I only had 8 eggs today. I didn't measure, just threw stuff together till it looked good, and it made 12 muffins, using just a little less than a 1/4 cup dry measuring cup of the mixture. I used a fork to keep stirring the mix while dipping it out, so the heavier ingredients would be distributed pretty evenly. I used paper muffin cups, rather than greasing the pan, which worked fine. I forgot to add salt or any spices, and it could have used a little salt, but tastes pretty good as is. I think the veggie sausage should work great in this. I think these will be great in the morning, I can pop 2 in the microwave, maybe 30 seconds, voila, protein, eat an orange or something like that, and call it breakfast.
Shannon, another good one, thanks for sharing! I think I may try that push-up/jumprope combo in my warm-up tomorrow. I need to practice more with the jumprope. On the hanging pull-ups, I first thought you meant "deadhang pull-ups", like strict pull-ups with no kip, but later figured out what you meant. At CF, they just call those "rows", and use them a first step toward pull-ups.
Way past my bedtime, so I'm going to get some sleep. I'll check in tomorrow.
She also was dressed in long pants, a t-shirt with a fleece jacket over it, gloves and a head scarf - strange. And I don't know why she wasn't dying of being too warm. 
I did manage about 90% getting thighs parallel to the floor! The squat-jump-tuck I start out that low, but can't jump and land back in the squat. Saw some decent air this morning though! 
!
That log pic is the cutest thing ever.
I won't tell if you don't! Shh...)
Then we got home and some friends who've been away most of the summer invited us to dinner on Sat. I had a lovely no-cook weekend 
But I do have 2 weeks vacation starting a week from Wed, so I have to look forward to.
