only week 2 with coach and i am already stronger in the ways in which my weakness would betray me before. my max lifts have not gone up in these two weeks for the big three, but i am developing a base. a great example are the front squats which are quad dominant and require a huge amount of core strength. this is my weakest lift by far. BY FAR. i can backsquat 225, but i've only ever front squatted 100x1 before.

today i did 95x5 with relative ease. i was surprised and happy.

defining PMd me a great article on powerlifting and i thought i would put it here...
http://articles.elitefts.com/trainin...fting-is-hard/

I'm still a newbie. I only use machines because I'm afraid to hurt myself with free weights and I don't feel I'm strong enough to use them yet.

However, I love seeing the muscles developing in my arms. I totally prefer strength training to cardio.

*bump* In an effort to increase my volume a bit, I have committed to doing 300 DB swings/day for 30 days (6 days on, 1 day off x 5), in addition to my daily workout. Should be fun...

I was also following the new rules of lifting series mainly because the workouts changed frequently. Learning a new routine helped with the boredom.

Then, I started approaching the workouts from a different perspective - being more mindful of the actions I was doing instead of wishing I could get through the workout faster.

Combine mindfulness with Queen playing in the background, and you can zone into your strength training.

Anybody still interested in this thread?

Absolutely - I've been lurking around, but try not to talk to myself aloud too often.

same.

i am doing my first meet in early may! it's a nasa meet in phoenix. i am nervous. my deadlift is doing well, but we broke apart my squat to try and get rid of my hip torque so my squat is very weak now. i think my total will be approx 620 lbs, which isn't a competitive total yet, but it's a good start!

are you a xfitter? did you do open?

I lurk around. I'm starting to try to be more serious about this. I'm trying to up my protein and work on my arms more. I have been using resistance bands at home. I'm buying some 8 lb. weights for use at home. Once I get comfortable with the motions, I'll start using weights at my gym as well. I really want to build muscle.

Ladies, sorry I went awol. Schedule's been crazy with 2 trainers out of town at the gym the past few weeks. Boss is back Friday, so that should help.

Kat, yes I'm a crossfitter, but not into the "crossfit as a sport" thing for myself. Being old, fat and slow, there's not a lot of incentive for me, lol. I usually judge for the Open, work equipment crew at Regionals, and I'm a great cheerleader (lol), and that's as close as I get to it. I'm more interested in strongman and recently have been looking at powerlifting.

Last year I spent the first half of the year rehabbing a biceps tendon tear in my left shoulder. Last fall I got interested in powerlifting, and had to learn how to bench, how to sumo deadlift, and have spent the time since then trying to convince my tight old hips to open up so I could squat a little wider and pull sumo from the floor. Conventional deadlift and closer stance squatting is still stronger for me right now, but I'll keep working those others for the mobility benefits and to see if the numbers don't flip later on. Bench is still pretty weak, but as long as the shoulder stays healthy, I don't care overmuch what my bench is.

I have to run, opening the gym this morning, but will try to check in tomorrow morning before work. Looking forward to chatting with some fellow lifters. I've also got about 30 lbs I could lose, and 3FC has always been my go to for that. Something about just being able to check in here daily and be accountable helps keep me on track with the food, when nothing else will. I think it will help to have a performance goal, too, with the powerlifting and whatever I can find for a strongman competition this year. Part of putting on the extra weight was due to having to one-arm every workout, which was frustrating and put me off a lot of my favorite lifts for the longest time. Feeling hopeful that I can hit my old 1RM numbers soon, and hopefully start making some gains again.

i'm really sorry to hear about the bicep tear. my anterior delt on the left gives me trouble on the regular if i don't do lots of shoulder prehab/upper conditioning. i don't know if i ever tore it (never went to a doctor) but it pops up and says howdy to me.

recently had a serratus strain, but i was actually kind of proud of that, because now my bench is at a point where i am really utilizing the serratus. lol

that's cool that you do so much for the sport, supporting it. i am really amazed by people who can do xfit. some of those WOD's floor me. and that open workout with all of the deadlifts? HOLY CRAP!!

i tried xfit. i don't know if i'm older than you (44), but definitely fatter. my knees were killing me from all the box jumps and jump roping, i was sad and felt sorta like i just wasn't a real athlete, but it pushed me to take the plunge and go to my current gym, and i'm happy i did.

why are you doing sumo? i am short leg/long torso but i haven't taken the plunge. i am doing conventional, and will probably stick with it. it's my only lift that isn't tragic.

do you keep a blog or anything?

i sort of lost my mind concerning dieting when i changed gyms. i went from folling 531 3x a week to training 5 days a week 2 hours training at a time. with conditioning thrown in. OH LAWD, sled drags kill me.

anyways, for a couple months, i ate what i wanted. i have started tracking and trying to cut calories again these past couple weeks, which is why i am back here, too. it is really nice to have this thread here. i am a terrible dieter. its taken me years to get from 302 to 223 (today's weight) and i don't expect to get much under 200 by years end, but i do want to go down a couple weight classes.

what organization are you thinking of joining to compete in powerlifting? are there strongmen competitions around you?

Kat, thanks for the reply. We're the same age..I'll be 45 this June. I'm not an impressive crossfitter, but I enjoy the variety and the community at the gym I go to. If it wasn't for that, and the fact that we have all the strongman toys and enough to make do for powerlifting, I'd have probably gone to a powerlifting gym and/or strongman club, since that's what I like best. I'm pretty lucky to have it all in one place, and great people to boot!

As far as PL feds, I'm still confused by how many there seem to be. I wouldn't mind finding something fun and spectator-friendly, but that isn't only for juicers or where they pass squats that are 3 inches above parallel, kwim? While it would be great to have magical lifting powers, I'm not willing to sacrifice my liver and kidneys, or grow an adam's apple to get there, lol. Also, I want to know that if I hit a PR squat or deadlift in a meet, that it's legit, and not a gimme. There are a lot of USAPL meets local to me, so I guess I'll start there, but would like to find something that is more fun and less stuffed shirt, if that makes sense. Looks like the season runs pretty much fall through spring, so I have some time to look at my options.

As far as strongman goes, there's Washington's Strongest Apple, but that's one with pretty heavy weights since it's a nationals qualifier, I think, but if I could do the weights, that one's usually in June and would be easy to get to. Not sure what other strongman contests there are but I know some peeps who would be able to tell me. Not sure when the show season starts for that.

Gym report for Wednesday here:

Was scheduled to be a rest day for me, but I'd taken Tuesday off and missed floor presses, so I did those in the morning. The assignment was three heavy singles at 90-92.5-95%, using 95% of my 1RM to figure the percentages. My max floor press is actually 110, I think, but I accidentally started out this program using my 1RM bench number, which was 120 in the fall, and since I was able to hit the lifts before I realized my mistake, I've just stuck with that number when figuring percentages. So my heavy singles ended up being at 102 (ish, I used some little half kilo plates to get as close to 103 as I could), 107, and 112 (a little high, but was too lazy to take the kilo plates off for the last set, since they were buried). I warmed up with higher reps and took my time getting there, just to try and give the old shoulders a good warm-up.

That was all I had time for in the morning, since I was working, also.

Came home and did some grown-up stuff, then had some time and didn't feel like sitting at home, so went back to the gym around 5pm, not knowing what I wanted to do, but just wanting out of my own head.

Warmed up and did some bar dips and strict pull-ups, using bands because I'm fat and still don't have the strength back to 100% in the shoulders, from lack of use. Did some jump roping and double-unders. I've been fighting with a calf muscle that keeps cramping up with any running or jumping, so am just getting to where I'm trying to ease back into some jumpy stuff.

Had planned to do some stone loads and paused bench, but then my trainer's son, who has a form of autism, wanted to do the workout with the group. We had a pair of athletes that are doing a competition this weekend, so they were doing the group crossfit workout, but as a team to scale it down, since they have a hard weekend ahead. Anyway, Casey wanted to copy them, so he brought out a barbell and jumprope, but was getting too close to where they were working, and his mom was running the group workout, so I decided to join Casey for the workout, to make our own "team" and lure him out of the way a little so he wouldn't get whacked with a jumprope. He and I swapped out jumping rope and doing jerks and front squats, and I just kept going till he was done...we went about 8 minutes, with lots of manly fist-bumps afterward, and he was happy, lol. So, hadn't planned on doing that, but it was a good warm-up for bench, and it's always fun to play with the boy.

Started to do some paused benching..plan was 5 sets of 5 with a slow descent to the chest, 3 second pause on the chest, just working at staying tight the whole time, as I tend to relax at the bottom or forget that I have legs to push with, too. I did get in 2 sets, but being a trainer and trying to workout is always a trick, because people will ask for help or want to chat you up, so I ended up doing only 2 sets with 85 pounds before it was time for me to pack up and go. They felt good, though, and I think I did well getting and staying tight the whole time. My back felt a little fried on the warm-up sets, so I put a belt on...first time trying to bench with a belt, but it felt good, wasn't as awkward as I expected, so I'll definitely use that for heavier work sets in the future, for practice if nothing else.

Kat, as far as why I decided to try sumo stance deadlifting, it's just an experiment, since it's a shorter ROM and stronger lift for some people. I had to start with the weight up on blocks, like 5" blocks to start, because my hips were so tight and weak I couldn't even get into position to pull from the floor, not a good position, anyway. I started there and just lowered the blocks gradually, as my hips got more flexible and also strong enough to hold that wider stance. I keep doing it because I just think it's fun, and know it's helped my hip mobility and strength, so even if it never becomes stronger for me than conventional deadlifts, I'll keep the sumo in the mix just for the other benefits. Ditto for box squats with a wide stance. Not sure they help my back squat at all, but they've definitely given me a way to work hip mobility and strength, and also to overload a bit, which gives me a false sense of confidence while doing below-parallel back squats.

If I can join in, it's interesting that you needed to 'ease' yourself into sumo DL, Cheryl. I'm a freaking wreck when I try to use conventional DL technique, but the sumo is sooooooo much more comfortable/easier/stronger for me. Maybe because I'm short?...