I've started a second blog here for just the workout numbers and incidental thoughts when writing them down, http://barbellgoesgymlog.blogspot.com/ . So in the unlikely event that anyone is reading here, feel free to read there as well.
I've had some thoughts lately for longer/hopefully more interesting posts here, so hopefully there'll be a bit more coming in the next few days.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Another surprising new max
This blog has been quite of late partly because I've started an informal workout log elsewhere. I need to start collating some of my larger thoughts and putting them here.
Last week was back squat max testing at the end of a challenging back squat cycle. About a month ago I had what felt like it was going to be a really good back squat session: I felt nice and loose and warm, nothing hurt, the warm up weights felt as light as a feather...and then on some fairly low weight, maybe 65kg, I pulled something in my left inner thigh. Then on the following session of that week, my right leg got in on the action and I managed to ping both the inner thigh and kind of the mid-quad area *getting up from foam rolling*. I was so, so frustrated.
I saw Dr. Fran about it (and still have faint bruises), then for two weeks we took it kind of easy. On the first return to squatting "for real" after that, 80kg felt impossibly hard. I had also lost a fair amount of weight during this cycle, and I was concerned that the relative inactivity combined with the weight loss had taken a toll on my max ability.
I shouldn't have worried. In the end, I managed 95kg on my actual max test day. Not only a 4kg PR, but also significantly over body weight for the first time. I did punk out on an offer to try 97kg, but I couldn't even be sad about it.
Last week was back squat max testing at the end of a challenging back squat cycle. About a month ago I had what felt like it was going to be a really good back squat session: I felt nice and loose and warm, nothing hurt, the warm up weights felt as light as a feather...and then on some fairly low weight, maybe 65kg, I pulled something in my left inner thigh. Then on the following session of that week, my right leg got in on the action and I managed to ping both the inner thigh and kind of the mid-quad area *getting up from foam rolling*. I was so, so frustrated.
I saw Dr. Fran about it (and still have faint bruises), then for two weeks we took it kind of easy. On the first return to squatting "for real" after that, 80kg felt impossibly hard. I had also lost a fair amount of weight during this cycle, and I was concerned that the relative inactivity combined with the weight loss had taken a toll on my max ability.
I shouldn't have worried. In the end, I managed 95kg on my actual max test day. Not only a 4kg PR, but also significantly over body weight for the first time. I did punk out on an offer to try 97kg, but I couldn't even be sad about it.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Working on the clean & jerk anxiety
It seems that Wednesday is Clean & Jerk day for now. Originally I was doing power cleans and power jerks, now they are (kind of) proper cleans and split jerks. So that's fun.
This week I got up to the highest weight yet, 48kg. It felt light -- for several of the 48kg reps I really muscle-cleaned and push-pressed with a slight split because of my brain problems -- but I was somehow pretty stressed out about it. As my stress level went up, getting under the bar was somehow terrifying (not that it is my core competency in the clean at this point, anyway), leading me to just pull the bar all the way up to rack without any downward movement on my part.
I really don't understand the fear. The consequences are pretty low at this weight range, since I can (obviously) muscle clean it and am probably fairly close to being able to strict press it as well (I would guess I strict press somewhere in the 43-45kg range). While I have landed on my ass during a lift once, the barbell and I parted ways safely on the way down. Likewise I have hit myself in the chin with jerks and push-presses, but no harm done. My shoulders and arms no longer hurt with the explosive movement, so that isn't holding me back. Occasionally a front squat will hurt across the low back, but it's not so unpleasant that I can't manage it, even at a higher weight.
One of my goals for myself is to power clean at the "novice" level on the exrx.net chart, which is about 53kg at my weight. At the rate things are going I will probably be in a lower bracket by the time I convince myself to manage the weight, though.
I think one solution to this would just be to get more repetitions, and that is part of the goal in taking the class (although the class has been suspended for a couple of weekends because of gym events), but I probably really do need to just do the needful and buy a bar and some bumpers for home.
This week I got up to the highest weight yet, 48kg. It felt light -- for several of the 48kg reps I really muscle-cleaned and push-pressed with a slight split because of my brain problems -- but I was somehow pretty stressed out about it. As my stress level went up, getting under the bar was somehow terrifying (not that it is my core competency in the clean at this point, anyway), leading me to just pull the bar all the way up to rack without any downward movement on my part.
I really don't understand the fear. The consequences are pretty low at this weight range, since I can (obviously) muscle clean it and am probably fairly close to being able to strict press it as well (I would guess I strict press somewhere in the 43-45kg range). While I have landed on my ass during a lift once, the barbell and I parted ways safely on the way down. Likewise I have hit myself in the chin with jerks and push-presses, but no harm done. My shoulders and arms no longer hurt with the explosive movement, so that isn't holding me back. Occasionally a front squat will hurt across the low back, but it's not so unpleasant that I can't manage it, even at a higher weight.
One of my goals for myself is to power clean at the "novice" level on the exrx.net chart, which is about 53kg at my weight. At the rate things are going I will probably be in a lower bracket by the time I convince myself to manage the weight, though.
I think one solution to this would just be to get more repetitions, and that is part of the goal in taking the class (although the class has been suspended for a couple of weekends because of gym events), but I probably really do need to just do the needful and buy a bar and some bumpers for home.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Occasionally every body part rebels.
This has been a hard week for me, physically, and for no good reason.
On Monday, I pulled something in my left adductor area during a light warm-up squat (55kg). I had felt super loose, warm, and flexible...and then *boom*. I was not too pleased, and the day ended up in light doubles rather than heavy triples.
Wednesday I returned to the gym, where first my right hamstring expressed some skepticism about me changing my shoes. Since most of what I do in the gym isn't terribly posterior-chain biased, I wasn't too concerned.
But then I managed to do the same thing to my right quad GETTING UP OFF THE FLOOR AFTER FOAM ROLLING. I hope the capital letters do a good job of expressing my disgust. Of all the activities I would expect to be safe from random muscular mutiny, foam rolling and, y'know, standing up are pretty high on the list. That quad got a little intensive softball therapy and eventually the work out continued, power cleans + jerks at 40kg.
AND THEN, on a particularly sloppy jerk, my right adductor area decided to get in on the fun. The next rep after that one was pretty timid, but fortunately subsequent reps were not sloppy in the exact same shape and I was able to make it to the end of the workout without further mishap.
On the upside, no upper-body pain or irritation in the jerks at all, or at any point after them on into today. Since I was in arm/shoulder pain pretty much 24/7 a month or so ago, this is a huge win. Hopefully I can get the coordination down well enough to go a bit heavier soon, since 40kg doesn't feel like much, especially in the clean.
I'm also hoping that various life processes, plus lots of foam rolling and stretching, will make tomorrow a little less ridiculous. So we'll see.
On Monday, I pulled something in my left adductor area during a light warm-up squat (55kg). I had felt super loose, warm, and flexible...and then *boom*. I was not too pleased, and the day ended up in light doubles rather than heavy triples.
Wednesday I returned to the gym, where first my right hamstring expressed some skepticism about me changing my shoes. Since most of what I do in the gym isn't terribly posterior-chain biased, I wasn't too concerned.
But then I managed to do the same thing to my right quad GETTING UP OFF THE FLOOR AFTER FOAM ROLLING. I hope the capital letters do a good job of expressing my disgust. Of all the activities I would expect to be safe from random muscular mutiny, foam rolling and, y'know, standing up are pretty high on the list. That quad got a little intensive softball therapy and eventually the work out continued, power cleans + jerks at 40kg.
AND THEN, on a particularly sloppy jerk, my right adductor area decided to get in on the fun. The next rep after that one was pretty timid, but fortunately subsequent reps were not sloppy in the exact same shape and I was able to make it to the end of the workout without further mishap.
On the upside, no upper-body pain or irritation in the jerks at all, or at any point after them on into today. Since I was in arm/shoulder pain pretty much 24/7 a month or so ago, this is a huge win. Hopefully I can get the coordination down well enough to go a bit heavier soon, since 40kg doesn't feel like much, especially in the clean.
I'm also hoping that various life processes, plus lots of foam rolling and stretching, will make tomorrow a little less ridiculous. So we'll see.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
I think I'll watch other people lift
Yesterday I drove up to Petaluma to see a weightlifting competition. My weightlifting class was canceled because of the large Catalyst contingent at the meet; instead I spent the time cleaning my kitchen sink and stove top (ah, adulthood). That's exercise, right?
The drive up was really beautiful; it was a full-on sunny California day and I love driving up to the north bay when I get the opportunity. I think this is the first time I've crossed at San Rafael instead of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I loved the view of the bay below. The drive back home was quite pretty, too, but much more angsty as I realized that depending on the extremely inaccurate Google traffic estimates was going to cost me my hockey game.
The meet was really neat to watch. There was a contingent of masters' aged beginners who were so great to see (my people!). One guy and two ladies were respectively the first in their sessions with much lower weights than the younger lifters, and I have to give them huge props for getting out there and kicking ass. The ladies also did the split snatch, which was neat to see.
I have an online acquaintance who is similar to me in strength but who has been lifting for over a years; she also competed and did well.
My trainer won her weight class but didn't look entirely satisfied with her performance. I can understand that: you're competing against yourself first of all. I thought she did great, and it was cool seeing her feedback to Greg after her attempts (I couldn't hear them from my seat, but I could see familiar gestures). I got to see several of her teammates as well, including the always super-nice Chyna Cho and super-heavyweight superstar Tamara Solari. Tamara was just amazing -- 120kg clean and jerk! She was also the only national-level super on the women's side, so all of her attempts followed herself. I can't imagine lifting that kind of weight and then having to get up and do it again ASAP...of course Greg did some weight-requesting manipulation to give her a bit more time. Her teammates and Aimee also did a great job of getting the crowd behind her, which was awesome.
My class is canceled again next week thanks to an advanced-level seminar. I really should get around to ordering a ladies' bar and some bumpers. I am itching to do some snatch balances.
The drive up was really beautiful; it was a full-on sunny California day and I love driving up to the north bay when I get the opportunity. I think this is the first time I've crossed at San Rafael instead of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I loved the view of the bay below. The drive back home was quite pretty, too, but much more angsty as I realized that depending on the extremely inaccurate Google traffic estimates was going to cost me my hockey game.
The meet was really neat to watch. There was a contingent of masters' aged beginners who were so great to see (my people!). One guy and two ladies were respectively the first in their sessions with much lower weights than the younger lifters, and I have to give them huge props for getting out there and kicking ass. The ladies also did the split snatch, which was neat to see.
I have an online acquaintance who is similar to me in strength but who has been lifting for over a years; she also competed and did well.
My trainer won her weight class but didn't look entirely satisfied with her performance. I can understand that: you're competing against yourself first of all. I thought she did great, and it was cool seeing her feedback to Greg after her attempts (I couldn't hear them from my seat, but I could see familiar gestures). I got to see several of her teammates as well, including the always super-nice Chyna Cho and super-heavyweight superstar Tamara Solari. Tamara was just amazing -- 120kg clean and jerk! She was also the only national-level super on the women's side, so all of her attempts followed herself. I can't imagine lifting that kind of weight and then having to get up and do it again ASAP...of course Greg did some weight-requesting manipulation to give her a bit more time. Her teammates and Aimee also did a great job of getting the crowd behind her, which was awesome.
My class is canceled again next week thanks to an advanced-level seminar. I really should get around to ordering a ladies' bar and some bumpers. I am itching to do some snatch balances.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Conditioning is such a joy
Right now I do conditioning at the end of two of my sessions per week, Monday and Friday. The routine has become that Monday is a more traditional gym-based -- dare I say CrossFit-inspired -- circuit of some sort and Friday is usually sprinting or agility drills outdoors. Wednesday is my "easy" day where the conditioning is replaced by some sort of back exercise and ab work.
I am so not a fan of conditioning. I actively enjoy sprinting in a hockey game where I'm chasing down an opponent or a lose puck...just randomly running in some sort of formation? Not so much. And the gym-based version has the additional problem that it often includes activities, like wall ball or ball slams, that obviously have no point. We are very fortunate as a society that we get to do pointless activities to make ourselves tired, for sure. Still, in the moment while doing them this is not a great realization to have.
Today in particular, I ran sprint intervals of varying length. Running sprints has 2 major problems: running sucks, and I suck at running. Running is an unpleasant activity, first of all. I know there are people who enjoy it, I do not understand how their brains work. And I suck at running: I'm not able to run hard enough to get to the full extent of my work capacity the way I can on skates. So the element of feeling refreshed after going all-out just isn't there.
Obviously I'm going to keep doing the conditioning; it is my goal to still be a functional human being 40 or 50 years from now. It sure would be nice if I could skate intervals instead, though!
I am so not a fan of conditioning. I actively enjoy sprinting in a hockey game where I'm chasing down an opponent or a lose puck...just randomly running in some sort of formation? Not so much. And the gym-based version has the additional problem that it often includes activities, like wall ball or ball slams, that obviously have no point. We are very fortunate as a society that we get to do pointless activities to make ourselves tired, for sure. Still, in the moment while doing them this is not a great realization to have.
Today in particular, I ran sprint intervals of varying length. Running sprints has 2 major problems: running sucks, and I suck at running. Running is an unpleasant activity, first of all. I know there are people who enjoy it, I do not understand how their brains work. And I suck at running: I'm not able to run hard enough to get to the full extent of my work capacity the way I can on skates. So the element of feeling refreshed after going all-out just isn't there.
Obviously I'm going to keep doing the conditioning; it is my goal to still be a functional human being 40 or 50 years from now. It sure would be nice if I could skate intervals instead, though!
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Class recap
The weightlifting class Saturday was fun and surprisingly hard for the low weights I used. There were three guys there, one was on his own agenda and the other two were roughly following the posted workout; they were both roughly at my level and I would guess similar to me in age.
The workout as written on the board was:
Segment pull + pull 3 x (1+1)
3-position snatches 5 x 3 (up from the floor)
Front squats at 75%, 3 x 5
What I actually ended up doing:
Segment pull + pull 3 x (1+1) @ 20kg (Coach Steve explained this as more of a warm up)
3-position snatches 8 x 3 (down from the hang) also @ 20kg
Snatch balances 4 x 3 at 20, 25, 30kg
Front squats: totally screwed up the math switching to pound plates and generally got confused and flustered - 5 each at 83lb, 103lb, 113lb (66%)
Even though 20kg is not much of anything -- it really did not feel harder than the bare bar -- I was occasionally light-headed in the 3-position snatches and really did need my rest after each set of 3. I think my breathing pattern was partly to blame. It was occasionally nerve-wracking to have Steve watching me, which is something I need to get used to. I'm so comfortable with my usual trainer now that it hadn't occurred to me it would be different with a different watcher.
I like snatch balances a lot and think long term they will help me with my "sneaky feet" (i.e. not landing on my heels). I know I was sandbagging it with the weight, but it's only the second time I've done them and I wasn't totally sure I wouldn't do something derpy.
When it came time to squat, the competitive team started to arrive for their training session and we were asked to move off the platforms onto the gym floor. No problem, except that meant moving to the other style of squat stands, which I am exceedingly awkward and dangerous moving around, and the non-metric weights. So that kind of threw me off track.
The workout as written on the board was:
Segment pull + pull 3 x (1+1)
3-position snatches 5 x 3 (up from the floor)
Front squats at 75%, 3 x 5
What I actually ended up doing:
Segment pull + pull 3 x (1+1) @ 20kg (Coach Steve explained this as more of a warm up)
3-position snatches 8 x 3 (down from the hang) also @ 20kg
Snatch balances 4 x 3 at 20, 25, 30kg
Front squats: totally screwed up the math switching to pound plates and generally got confused and flustered - 5 each at 83lb, 103lb, 113lb (66%)
Even though 20kg is not much of anything -- it really did not feel harder than the bare bar -- I was occasionally light-headed in the 3-position snatches and really did need my rest after each set of 3. I think my breathing pattern was partly to blame. It was occasionally nerve-wracking to have Steve watching me, which is something I need to get used to. I'm so comfortable with my usual trainer now that it hadn't occurred to me it would be different with a different watcher.
I like snatch balances a lot and think long term they will help me with my "sneaky feet" (i.e. not landing on my heels). I know I was sandbagging it with the weight, but it's only the second time I've done them and I wasn't totally sure I wouldn't do something derpy.
When it came time to squat, the competitive team started to arrive for their training session and we were asked to move off the platforms onto the gym floor. No problem, except that meant moving to the other style of squat stands, which I am exceedingly awkward and dangerous moving around, and the non-metric weights. So that kind of threw me off track.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
I'm voting for snatch
I'm interested in trying the Olympic lifting class at the gym, which no longer takes new people unless they've had a session or two of one-on-one training in the progressions for the lifts. So Friday my trainer took me through most of the progressions for the snatch, first with a PVC pipe and then with a 10kg bar. We continued Monday, ultimately moving on to snatches from the floor with 15kg.
The snatch feels so much more natural than the power cleans ever have. Even at the super-low weight -- I have an issue with "not feeling" movements when the weight is low -- and ridiculous slow-motion coordination in most reps, it just makes sense to me. I can more easily feel when I'm too far forward, or not aggressive enough (what I call "fake" reps), or whatever else. The receiving position is also comfortable, particularly after the overhead squat breakthrough, which seems to have carried over to the lighter weights. Getting to full extension -- actually knowing if I did or not in the first place -- is always a weakness for me, but so far I'm a lot better at knowing it with the snatch than I have been with power cleans. It's pretty amazing. I also intuitively understand (although certainly don't do right) where the parts need to go in the second pull...whereas with hang cleans or high block cleans I stand there perplexed for a significant fraction of a minute before I can figure out how to move.
So, woo! I have a lot to learn and a lot to practice, but I'm so glad it's starting out so much less painfully.
The snatch feels so much more natural than the power cleans ever have. Even at the super-low weight -- I have an issue with "not feeling" movements when the weight is low -- and ridiculous slow-motion coordination in most reps, it just makes sense to me. I can more easily feel when I'm too far forward, or not aggressive enough (what I call "fake" reps), or whatever else. The receiving position is also comfortable, particularly after the overhead squat breakthrough, which seems to have carried over to the lighter weights. Getting to full extension -- actually knowing if I did or not in the first place -- is always a weakness for me, but so far I'm a lot better at knowing it with the snatch than I have been with power cleans. It's pretty amazing. I also intuitively understand (although certainly don't do right) where the parts need to go in the second pull...whereas with hang cleans or high block cleans I stand there perplexed for a significant fraction of a minute before I can figure out how to move.
So, woo! I have a lot to learn and a lot to practice, but I'm so glad it's starting out so much less painfully.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Surprise new max
After not being able to do overhead motions for 3 weeks, I assumed overhead squat max day would fall by the wayside. Not so, yesterday was an impromptu max test.
My previous max was 45kg, and I honestly wasn't totally sure I could do that reliably, partly because of the lack of push-press practice in the meantime. I've also picked up a bad habit somehow of lowering the bar too far back on the right side, so after 38kg or so I'm afraid I'm going to end up dropping it down my back (possibly with bonus arm-wrenching) if I lower it back to my shoulders. So my max testing ends up being a session of light power cleans for my trainer as well (which I always feel bad about).
Anyway, we proceeded, and the new max -- which is also a new push-press max -- is 48kg! I tried for 49kg, but didn't quite connect the leg drive on the push press and it was literally the second to last minute of my hour session so there was no chance of retrying. I have no doubt that I can do it, though, and probably 50kg as well.
The real breakthrough of this session was that somewhere in there, possibly my second attempt at 46kg (after dropping it on the way up from the squat the first time), I just suddenly figured out the balance point overhead. After that, everything was much easier than the light weights had been. I'm not sure if it's another example of my needing a fair amount of weight to really figure things out, or if it's just a matter of having enough repetitions in a row, but I'll take it.
My previous max was 45kg, and I honestly wasn't totally sure I could do that reliably, partly because of the lack of push-press practice in the meantime. I've also picked up a bad habit somehow of lowering the bar too far back on the right side, so after 38kg or so I'm afraid I'm going to end up dropping it down my back (possibly with bonus arm-wrenching) if I lower it back to my shoulders. So my max testing ends up being a session of light power cleans for my trainer as well (which I always feel bad about).
Anyway, we proceeded, and the new max -- which is also a new push-press max -- is 48kg! I tried for 49kg, but didn't quite connect the leg drive on the push press and it was literally the second to last minute of my hour session so there was no chance of retrying. I have no doubt that I can do it, though, and probably 50kg as well.
The real breakthrough of this session was that somewhere in there, possibly my second attempt at 46kg (after dropping it on the way up from the squat the first time), I just suddenly figured out the balance point overhead. After that, everything was much easier than the light weights had been. I'm not sure if it's another example of my needing a fair amount of weight to really figure things out, or if it's just a matter of having enough repetitions in a row, but I'll take it.
Monday, March 25, 2013
New max of the time period
Hello, sadly neglected blog.
I haven't been inspired to write too much this month because so much time was dedicated to shoulder rehab and many of my favorite activities have been off-limits in the gym. Band external shoulder rotation moves and new stretches have been extremely effective, but not very interesting blog post fodder. Fortunately, last week saw my return to overhead movements, and this week I will be learning snatch progressions, whee!
While the shoulder was healing, the front squat cycle continued as per usual, and this week was max testing. My new front squat max:
77kg!
I unracked 78kg and started to squat when I lost my nerve, mostly because I felt a little light-headed. It's the first day of Shark Week, which may have contributed, but most likely I just didn't breathe properly. I would have taken another shot at it, but I was already running out of time. It's extremely frustrating sometimes to have a limited slot of gym time vs. the freedom to stay until the job is done.
Another thing that happened over the last 3 weeks is that I returned to ice hockey. I play on a Saturday night league, and I've noticed a little leg tiredness on Mondays. This week was particularly tiredness-inducing because my team was super-shorthanded, with only 8 skaters. I had expected it to take a toll on this front squat max, and maybe it did, but it's hard to tell. 77kg is proportional to my back squat max, but it didn't feel like it was as hard as I'd expect a "real" 1RM max to be.
I haven't been inspired to write too much this month because so much time was dedicated to shoulder rehab and many of my favorite activities have been off-limits in the gym. Band external shoulder rotation moves and new stretches have been extremely effective, but not very interesting blog post fodder. Fortunately, last week saw my return to overhead movements, and this week I will be learning snatch progressions, whee!
While the shoulder was healing, the front squat cycle continued as per usual, and this week was max testing. My new front squat max:
77kg!
I unracked 78kg and started to squat when I lost my nerve, mostly because I felt a little light-headed. It's the first day of Shark Week, which may have contributed, but most likely I just didn't breathe properly. I would have taken another shot at it, but I was already running out of time. It's extremely frustrating sometimes to have a limited slot of gym time vs. the freedom to stay until the job is done.
Another thing that happened over the last 3 weeks is that I returned to ice hockey. I play on a Saturday night league, and I've noticed a little leg tiredness on Mondays. This week was particularly tiredness-inducing because my team was super-shorthanded, with only 8 skaters. I had expected it to take a toll on this front squat max, and maybe it did, but it's hard to tell. 77kg is proportional to my back squat max, but it didn't feel like it was as hard as I'd expect a "real" 1RM max to be.
Friday, February 22, 2013
The tyranny of the feminine ideal
A couple of days ago, British weightlifting Olympian Zoe Smith did an AMA on Reddit, which was pretty cool. Zoe is one of the 3 young women profiled in this BBC documentary.
One thing that kind of made me sad about the thing was this subthread, which asked Zoe to comment on the importance of being attractive as a weightlifter. The original commenter was I think trying to get her to trash the super heavyweights, which is not the direction Zoe took it, but instead the thread comments negatively on women who fit the "manly" stereotype that some people hold about female weightlifters. The example she gives of a woman where something "happened" pharmacologically looks quite similar to a childhood friend of mine, who I assume does not dope for her quiet life of being a perfectly normal everyday woman.
While I recognize that at an elite level in sports most of the women who look markedly masculine got that way through the use of exogenous androgens, it still makes me a bit sad that even in a strength sport there is so much enforcement of a feminine appearance ideal that frankly does not come naturally to all women. I'm well aware that my most feminine features -- my cute little nose, say, or my waist:hip ratio -- owe little or nothing to my deliberate choices. Is it so wrong for me to hope that a young girl who looks a bit different -- maybe a bit blocky, maybe fond of getting the same haircut as her brother -- would also feel welcomed in a weightlifting gym?
Ironically, Holley Mangold, the super heavyweight American lifter mentioned at the top of the comment thread, benefits from this bias (along, of course, with the reflected glamor of her NFL player brother). She is an amazing athlete, of course, but would she have gotten as much attention without the long blonde hair, pretty smile, and bubbly personality? Probably not so much.
One thing that kind of made me sad about the thing was this subthread, which asked Zoe to comment on the importance of being attractive as a weightlifter. The original commenter was I think trying to get her to trash the super heavyweights, which is not the direction Zoe took it, but instead the thread comments negatively on women who fit the "manly" stereotype that some people hold about female weightlifters. The example she gives of a woman where something "happened" pharmacologically looks quite similar to a childhood friend of mine, who I assume does not dope for her quiet life of being a perfectly normal everyday woman.
While I recognize that at an elite level in sports most of the women who look markedly masculine got that way through the use of exogenous androgens, it still makes me a bit sad that even in a strength sport there is so much enforcement of a feminine appearance ideal that frankly does not come naturally to all women. I'm well aware that my most feminine features -- my cute little nose, say, or my waist:hip ratio -- owe little or nothing to my deliberate choices. Is it so wrong for me to hope that a young girl who looks a bit different -- maybe a bit blocky, maybe fond of getting the same haircut as her brother -- would also feel welcomed in a weightlifting gym?
Ironically, Holley Mangold, the super heavyweight American lifter mentioned at the top of the comment thread, benefits from this bias (along, of course, with the reflected glamor of her NFL player brother). She is an amazing athlete, of course, but would she have gotten as much attention without the long blonde hair, pretty smile, and bubbly personality? Probably not so much.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Whoa!
Today I had a funny little positive negative experience: I failed an overhead squat and landed on my butt. It was the 3rd squat of a triple at 38kg, and I honestly didn't know I was off-balance until I landed. The bar safely went the other way and no one was hurt. I've always been reluctant to fail lifts and left to my own devices play it a little too safe, so I'm really happy about these incidents when they happen for the first time.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
The front squat cycle
With the new PR single the week before last, my back squat cycle ended and a new front squat cycle began. This is now the second front squat cycle in the time I've been training at Catalyst.
Last time around, front squats were misery for me. I'm quite flexible so there was never any question that I could get into a good rack position, but it took me at least 4 weeks to get a rough idea of what that should look like. The very first day of the cycle I'm not sure I even made it up to 35kg, but I was sweating and shaking from just the effort of being in (something like) rack. As the weeks went on, I crunched my hand and wrist dumping 55 or 60kg incorrectly, and ultimately ended up going to urgent care for an x-ray when it still hurt more than a week later (it was fine). I got plenty more practice dumping weights, and when max testing day came I had no confidence that I would succeed in holding up under more than 63 or 65kg. It was really in large part good luck that I made it up to 70kg.
The next cycle, that is the cycle I finished 2 weeks ago, was back squats, power jerks, and power cleans. I think the power jerk work did a great deal to improve my rack and my front squats. Figuring out how to set up so I was stable and upright in the dip and drive was I think a big part of getting comfortable. I also at some point watched a Kelly Starrett video that made a lot of sense to me.
Now I'm back with the front squats, and while they aren't really any easier -- OMG my abs -- I feel a lot more confident addressing the bar and more secure in holding it all together through the whole movement. Now 2 weeks into the cycle, I've done 58kg for a 3 or 4 sets of 4 without catastrophe. I'm not particularly looking forward to 70+kg doubles the week after next, but I'm sure I'll be fine.
Last time around, front squats were misery for me. I'm quite flexible so there was never any question that I could get into a good rack position, but it took me at least 4 weeks to get a rough idea of what that should look like. The very first day of the cycle I'm not sure I even made it up to 35kg, but I was sweating and shaking from just the effort of being in (something like) rack. As the weeks went on, I crunched my hand and wrist dumping 55 or 60kg incorrectly, and ultimately ended up going to urgent care for an x-ray when it still hurt more than a week later (it was fine). I got plenty more practice dumping weights, and when max testing day came I had no confidence that I would succeed in holding up under more than 63 or 65kg. It was really in large part good luck that I made it up to 70kg.
The next cycle, that is the cycle I finished 2 weeks ago, was back squats, power jerks, and power cleans. I think the power jerk work did a great deal to improve my rack and my front squats. Figuring out how to set up so I was stable and upright in the dip and drive was I think a big part of getting comfortable. I also at some point watched a Kelly Starrett video that made a lot of sense to me.
Now I'm back with the front squats, and while they aren't really any easier -- OMG my abs -- I feel a lot more confident addressing the bar and more secure in holding it all together through the whole movement. Now 2 weeks into the cycle, I've done 58kg for a 3 or 4 sets of 4 without catastrophe. I'm not particularly looking forward to 70+kg doubles the week after next, but I'm sure I'll be fine.
Monday, February 11, 2013
The home gym
When we were first house hunting, one of our big priorities was finding a place with room to put in a home work out area. I had had pretty good success with getting access to equipment in commercial gyms in the City and on the peninsula, but here in the south bay we had a hard time finding a gym where you could both get access to a power cage without too long of a wait and also reliably find plates. By the time we actually moved, I was established at Catalyst, but I was still interested in having equipment at home so I pitched in.
The thing is, now that my training has changed, what I want to have at home has changed, too. While my sweetie is happily squatting, deadlifting, and benching in our little power cage, my spoiled little hands long for a ladies' bar and I basically want to do the new movements I'm trying to get down all of the time. I have used our bar for deadlifts and front squats, and attempted hanging knee raises at one point (the pull-up bar is *knurled*...who at the factory thought that was a good idea?).
So at this point I'm waffling over buying a nice spinny ladies' bar and some droppable bumper plates. At heart I'm a miser, so it's a little hard for me to pull the trigger on it; I also have some concerns about my recovery ability, particularly in the upper body, and whether I could make good use of it without causing my arms to fall off.
The thing is, now that my training has changed, what I want to have at home has changed, too. While my sweetie is happily squatting, deadlifting, and benching in our little power cage, my spoiled little hands long for a ladies' bar and I basically want to do the new movements I'm trying to get down all of the time. I have used our bar for deadlifts and front squats, and attempted hanging knee raises at one point (the pull-up bar is *knurled*...who at the factory thought that was a good idea?).
So at this point I'm waffling over buying a nice spinny ladies' bar and some droppable bumper plates. At heart I'm a miser, so it's a little hard for me to pull the trigger on it; I also have some concerns about my recovery ability, particularly in the upper body, and whether I could make good use of it without causing my arms to fall off.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
New max, noro, breakthrough!
The week that just passed has been about as up and down as a week can be, physically.
Monday was my most recent back squat max testing day. I went to the gym feeling pretty dejected; I had been sad leading up to my last deadlift max and I was pretty happy with that result, so I was hopeful that being miserable might lead to a good result this time, too. Going into Monday I'd already exceeded my previously tested max by a kilo the week before and it had been pretty easy. Another thing I had going for me was that it was a rare day completely free of SI pain. I can easily squat on a bad SI joint day -- walking out the weight is usually the worst part -- but it was nice not to have to worry about it.
Up through 85kg or so it was really no big thing. 89kg was hard, with a sticking point, but I managed. Now I had a dilemma: the next weight my trainer put on the bar was 91kg -- which was my goal for myself as well -- but 89kg had stuck badly enough that I wasn't sure the 2kg jump would work out for me. Nevertheless I got under it and...with a serious tilt to the left...got it up. 200 freaking pounds!
Unfortunately my week followed up that high point with a serious low, in the form of a 48 hour stomach flu (norovirus). 23andme tells me I'm somewhat resistant to the virus, which I'd believe based on the relative mildness of the symptoms, but it's still no picnic. Beside the illness itself, I apparently ended up short on magnesium and the fasciculations were pretty crazy for a couple of days.
Friday I was back up and about, and in the gym. Friday has been my power clean day in this cycle, and I've really struggled to figure out the movement, particularly pulling myself under the bar. The week before I failed to clean 40kg because I just couldn't figure out how to get under it. In the mean time I'd watched some super-slow video of Pyrros Dimas doing power cleans, so I was hopeful that that had helped.
My first warm-up attempts at hang cleans did not go well, I basically just forgot how to move. I was so disappointed. We moved on to cleaning from the floor and there too my first rep or two were unintentional muscle cleans, if not straight up reverse curls. Then somehow I got my head out of it and it just clicked. After a stop at 38, 40 just FLEW right up. I think I even said "wow it's light!". A few more doubles at 40 confirmed for me that I had finally figured out how to put the pieces together. I felt pretty confident that if time allowed I could've gone up another 10 kilos that session, but I still wasn't understanding the "quick elbows" cue.
I guess it's technically a new week, but this evening I spent a little time reading Greg's book, and it finally occurred to me that part of why my elbows are slow is because my shoulders are just kind of sitting there. I tried experimentally thrusting my elbows forward just in my kitchen with no bar, and it's so much faster and more decisive with a shrug as Greg describes. So now I'm looking forward to giving that a try for real, if I can do it without losing the plot completely. Woo!
Monday was my most recent back squat max testing day. I went to the gym feeling pretty dejected; I had been sad leading up to my last deadlift max and I was pretty happy with that result, so I was hopeful that being miserable might lead to a good result this time, too. Going into Monday I'd already exceeded my previously tested max by a kilo the week before and it had been pretty easy. Another thing I had going for me was that it was a rare day completely free of SI pain. I can easily squat on a bad SI joint day -- walking out the weight is usually the worst part -- but it was nice not to have to worry about it.
Up through 85kg or so it was really no big thing. 89kg was hard, with a sticking point, but I managed. Now I had a dilemma: the next weight my trainer put on the bar was 91kg -- which was my goal for myself as well -- but 89kg had stuck badly enough that I wasn't sure the 2kg jump would work out for me. Nevertheless I got under it and...with a serious tilt to the left...got it up. 200 freaking pounds!
Unfortunately my week followed up that high point with a serious low, in the form of a 48 hour stomach flu (norovirus). 23andme tells me I'm somewhat resistant to the virus, which I'd believe based on the relative mildness of the symptoms, but it's still no picnic. Beside the illness itself, I apparently ended up short on magnesium and the fasciculations were pretty crazy for a couple of days.
Friday I was back up and about, and in the gym. Friday has been my power clean day in this cycle, and I've really struggled to figure out the movement, particularly pulling myself under the bar. The week before I failed to clean 40kg because I just couldn't figure out how to get under it. In the mean time I'd watched some super-slow video of Pyrros Dimas doing power cleans, so I was hopeful that that had helped.
My first warm-up attempts at hang cleans did not go well, I basically just forgot how to move. I was so disappointed. We moved on to cleaning from the floor and there too my first rep or two were unintentional muscle cleans, if not straight up reverse curls. Then somehow I got my head out of it and it just clicked. After a stop at 38, 40 just FLEW right up. I think I even said "wow it's light!". A few more doubles at 40 confirmed for me that I had finally figured out how to put the pieces together. I felt pretty confident that if time allowed I could've gone up another 10 kilos that session, but I still wasn't understanding the "quick elbows" cue.
I guess it's technically a new week, but this evening I spent a little time reading Greg's book, and it finally occurred to me that part of why my elbows are slow is because my shoulders are just kind of sitting there. I tried experimentally thrusting my elbows forward just in my kitchen with no bar, and it's so much faster and more decisive with a shrug as Greg describes. So now I'm looking forward to giving that a try for real, if I can do it without losing the plot completely. Woo!
Monday, January 21, 2013
Doing the big things makes the little things littler
A couple of things happened over the last several days that have made me reflect on the impact that being strong makes.
Obviously, being strong makes you better able to lift heavy things. Duh. But what I don't think the cardio-centric mainstream recognizes is the improvement in capacity and ease in doing things that are not necessarily strength dependent. The more strength you have in reserve, the less any given activity actually is "cardio", or work in general.
The first incident that comes to mind is simple: walking up the stairs chatting with a coworker. The coworker in question is an average nondescript fellow, probably within the "healthy" range for his height or close to it. As we walked up the stairs together, I kept up the chat, while he huffed and puffed. I take the elevator whenever possible (yes!), so I was honestly somewhat surprised on both counts.
The next was more obviously a test of strength, or at least strength-endurance, when the sweetie and I bought a new foundation for our bed at Ikea. This is not a terribly heavy piece of furniture, something in the neighborhood of 70lb fully clad in its packaging, but there is a tight turn in the stairs in our house that makes the project a little more interesting. Together we piled it up on top of the car, then got it back down again and up through the house to the bedroom. I did most of the prep of getting the mattress and old box spring out of the way by myself. While there has never been a time when I would've been unable to complete this task, it was a surprise to be energetic and ready for more when it finished. Particularly after doing a few sets of extracurricular front squats earlier in the day.
And then today, the most trivial yet most satisfying in a way: at the gym I made it through 3 sets of jumping rope without trouble, interspersed with push presses and pullup negatives, after squat triples up to 77kg. I am terribly, self-consciously, perhaps-I-really-have-dyspraxia-ly horrible at jumping rope, and more so when exhausted. I literally refuse to do it in front of people. But with the reserve that I have now, it was less of a teary-eyed horror than it has been before.
Obviously, being strong makes you better able to lift heavy things. Duh. But what I don't think the cardio-centric mainstream recognizes is the improvement in capacity and ease in doing things that are not necessarily strength dependent. The more strength you have in reserve, the less any given activity actually is "cardio", or work in general.
The first incident that comes to mind is simple: walking up the stairs chatting with a coworker. The coworker in question is an average nondescript fellow, probably within the "healthy" range for his height or close to it. As we walked up the stairs together, I kept up the chat, while he huffed and puffed. I take the elevator whenever possible (yes!), so I was honestly somewhat surprised on both counts.
The next was more obviously a test of strength, or at least strength-endurance, when the sweetie and I bought a new foundation for our bed at Ikea. This is not a terribly heavy piece of furniture, something in the neighborhood of 70lb fully clad in its packaging, but there is a tight turn in the stairs in our house that makes the project a little more interesting. Together we piled it up on top of the car, then got it back down again and up through the house to the bedroom. I did most of the prep of getting the mattress and old box spring out of the way by myself. While there has never been a time when I would've been unable to complete this task, it was a surprise to be energetic and ready for more when it finished. Particularly after doing a few sets of extracurricular front squats earlier in the day.
And then today, the most trivial yet most satisfying in a way: at the gym I made it through 3 sets of jumping rope without trouble, interspersed with push presses and pullup negatives, after squat triples up to 77kg. I am terribly, self-consciously, perhaps-I-really-have-dyspraxia-ly horrible at jumping rope, and more so when exhausted. I literally refuse to do it in front of people. But with the reserve that I have now, it was less of a teary-eyed horror than it has been before.
40 ain't nothing but a power jerk
Wednesday was my 40th birthday. Earlier in the week I was pretty bummed about it, but by the day of I had made my peace with the number.
It's weird that an arbitrary number should have any emotional power anyway, and particularly a number that doesn't even necessarily represent a halfway point in life expectancy or even professional lifespan. I fully expect Silicon Valley age discrimination to end my tech career before age 65, but it's unrealistic to expect that with my personality I'll stop working when that day comes. As the way point for hormonal decline -- I believe there is a requirement that anything written on the topic must have a line about the typical percentage of decline experienced by age 40 -- it can be pretty forbidding, but that has less to do with 40 itself and more to do with the inconvenience of including accurate graphs and charts in lay audience materials.
Regardless, on the day itself I felt pretty OK about it all. I took the day off of work, but not off of my gym schedule. Of course. My favorite days are holidays and work from home days that I go to the gym. It's so refreshing to do some hard work, shower in my own home, and then possibly make something healthy and delicious.
In this cycle, Wednesdays are power jerk days. So this was my 3rd day of attempting to do them. I've really struggled with figuring them out: First, it was the realization that the dip at the start is not a matter of coiling up for a pounce like a cat, but more of a quick bounce. That was the breakthrough of the week before, despite doing snatch grip behind the head push presses in the last cycle. This week, like last week, I was still in pain, struggling with 25kg, up through the midpoint of my appointment. I went up in weight, grudgingly, hoping that more weight = more momentum = figuring it out already.
And then...it happened. 35kg flew up like it was weightless and my feet ended up where they belonged. I think a big part of it was forgetting about the cues (what are "aggressive elbows" in a context where you aren't hitting people with your elbows, anyway?) and just going with where I had to be to allow the weight to fly straight up to the end of extended arms. We did some doubles at 38, and they went even better.
My trainer offered me the opportunity to do one at 40kg in honor of my birthday...and that was the best one yet.
It's weird that an arbitrary number should have any emotional power anyway, and particularly a number that doesn't even necessarily represent a halfway point in life expectancy or even professional lifespan. I fully expect Silicon Valley age discrimination to end my tech career before age 65, but it's unrealistic to expect that with my personality I'll stop working when that day comes. As the way point for hormonal decline -- I believe there is a requirement that anything written on the topic must have a line about the typical percentage of decline experienced by age 40 -- it can be pretty forbidding, but that has less to do with 40 itself and more to do with the inconvenience of including accurate graphs and charts in lay audience materials.
Regardless, on the day itself I felt pretty OK about it all. I took the day off of work, but not off of my gym schedule. Of course. My favorite days are holidays and work from home days that I go to the gym. It's so refreshing to do some hard work, shower in my own home, and then possibly make something healthy and delicious.
In this cycle, Wednesdays are power jerk days. So this was my 3rd day of attempting to do them. I've really struggled with figuring them out: First, it was the realization that the dip at the start is not a matter of coiling up for a pounce like a cat, but more of a quick bounce. That was the breakthrough of the week before, despite doing snatch grip behind the head push presses in the last cycle. This week, like last week, I was still in pain, struggling with 25kg, up through the midpoint of my appointment. I went up in weight, grudgingly, hoping that more weight = more momentum = figuring it out already.
And then...it happened. 35kg flew up like it was weightless and my feet ended up where they belonged. I think a big part of it was forgetting about the cues (what are "aggressive elbows" in a context where you aren't hitting people with your elbows, anyway?) and just going with where I had to be to allow the weight to fly straight up to the end of extended arms. We did some doubles at 38, and they went even better.
My trainer offered me the opportunity to do one at 40kg in honor of my birthday...and that was the best one yet.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Frailty Pt. 2
After my first run at trying to learn cleans last Friday, my shoulders were pretty tender. Sunday I added insult to injury when I took down the 45lb bar my sweetie left racked above eye level (we are an extremely mixed-height household) and re-racked it at a reasonable height, without warming up first. In the muscle-clean portion of the exercise I turned to my friend and said,
"I'm going to feel that."
Talk about an understatement. My shoulders were sore in the gym on Tuesday, when my little post-squats metcon involved the rowing machine. It got worse yesterday, not so much from the push-presses and power jerks -- which don't move the arms in whatever direction my shoulders don't want to move -- but just in loading the bar, and to a lesser extent lowering the bar back to rack after a successful jerk. The final straw was a 15kg plate. I returned to the office unable to lift my right arm, but by the end of the day it was more cooperative.
In addition to ice and ibuprofen, today was supposed to feature plenty of rest for my poor arms. Unfortunately, like a moron, I decided to change the water cooler in the work kitchen. Not only did I fail to get the water bottle to shoulder height -- we have a particularly tall water cooler -- but I also managed to aggravate my shoulder badly enough to bring tears to my eyes. Six hours later I'm back to being able to lift my arm, but it seems pretty clear to me that cleans should not in my future tomorrow.
I have always expected myself to be up to the strength-oriented tasks of normal life. I was the older, and more sturdy, daughter in a family with no boys, and I always took it personally whenever my dad complained about being the person who carried things in our family. I carry my own suitcase, even when the suitcase is 42" tall to my 60" and the stairs are steep. And I always, always change the water cooler for myself. The last time I declined to do so involved a real shoulder injury, after a serious fall in a skating class. It feels shameful to be unable to lift 5 measly gallons of water.
I am ruing the cost of this attitude now that the workout I looked forward to all week is in jeopardy, though. I've wanted to learn to do cleans for so long, since they've always been that 4th or 5th major movement that "everybody" should do but "nobody does them right without good coaching". Here is finally my chance to capitalize on good coaching, and I've fucked it up for a water bottle.
Argh.
"I'm going to feel that."
Talk about an understatement. My shoulders were sore in the gym on Tuesday, when my little post-squats metcon involved the rowing machine. It got worse yesterday, not so much from the push-presses and power jerks -- which don't move the arms in whatever direction my shoulders don't want to move -- but just in loading the bar, and to a lesser extent lowering the bar back to rack after a successful jerk. The final straw was a 15kg plate. I returned to the office unable to lift my right arm, but by the end of the day it was more cooperative.
In addition to ice and ibuprofen, today was supposed to feature plenty of rest for my poor arms. Unfortunately, like a moron, I decided to change the water cooler in the work kitchen. Not only did I fail to get the water bottle to shoulder height -- we have a particularly tall water cooler -- but I also managed to aggravate my shoulder badly enough to bring tears to my eyes. Six hours later I'm back to being able to lift my arm, but it seems pretty clear to me that cleans should not in my future tomorrow.
I have always expected myself to be up to the strength-oriented tasks of normal life. I was the older, and more sturdy, daughter in a family with no boys, and I always took it personally whenever my dad complained about being the person who carried things in our family. I carry my own suitcase, even when the suitcase is 42" tall to my 60" and the stairs are steep. And I always, always change the water cooler for myself. The last time I declined to do so involved a real shoulder injury, after a serious fall in a skating class. It feels shameful to be unable to lift 5 measly gallons of water.
I am ruing the cost of this attitude now that the workout I looked forward to all week is in jeopardy, though. I've wanted to learn to do cleans for so long, since they've always been that 4th or 5th major movement that "everybody" should do but "nobody does them right without good coaching". Here is finally my chance to capitalize on good coaching, and I've fucked it up for a water bottle.
Argh.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Frailty
I rescheduled this week's squat workout for tomorrow because last night I managed to anger my back by lying the wrong way on the floor, and when I woke up this morning (not on the floor) it still hurt to walk. I'm pretty much back to normal now. I'm not sure what the mechanism is for something that makes all movement a misery for 18 hours or so and then resolves, but my uneducated suspicion is that the SI joint is involved. That or mental illness. Probably both.
The thing that sucks the most about hurting yourself lying on the floor is getting up. In my case, I got to explore what means of getting to my feet and up the stairs would be least damaging to body and dignity while my SO looked on, eager to help but really not capable of doing so. I guess that's a relationship milestone: the first time you watch your sweetie writhe on the floor like a moron.
One good thing about it all is that I haven't had one of the multi-week ordeals of back pain that seem to be more related to my original injury in over 5 months now. So I feel pretty good that my training may have helped me finally get over the hump on that issue.
The thing that sucks the most about hurting yourself lying on the floor is getting up. In my case, I got to explore what means of getting to my feet and up the stairs would be least damaging to body and dignity while my SO looked on, eager to help but really not capable of doing so. I guess that's a relationship milestone: the first time you watch your sweetie writhe on the floor like a moron.
One good thing about it all is that I haven't had one of the multi-week ordeals of back pain that seem to be more related to my original injury in over 5 months now. So I feel pretty good that my training may have helped me finally get over the hump on that issue.
In praise of a gym teacher
There were two gym teachers in my high school, a man and a woman. The woman was a nice enough lady who had lost her first love to the Vietnam War, and might not have been teaching otherwise. The man was also the wrestling coach, and probably exactly what you imagine when you think the words "wrestling coach". He could have been dropped in by central casting.
I was no fan of gym class. I did well enough to avoid sinking my GPA, but I was constantly on edge about it. I was a strong swimmer, an adequate runner, a profoundly mediocre gymnast, and completely hopeless in ball sports of any kind. Until I went abroad my junior year, to a country where I was average height and basketball was off the curriculum, I was convinced I was about two steps above disability.
Looking back on it, though, the interesting thing to me is that the second gym teacher, the gruff wrestling coach, programmed his class not for the confirmed jocks but for people like me. He taught us about flexibility. He had us try aerobics (this was like 1986, practically Peak Fonda). While I'm not sure his message actually got across, I do sincerely believe he was trying to introduce us to options for lifelong fitness.
And he did one other highly unconventional thing after class: he let girls into his weight room. It may sound pretty ridiculous now, but back then it wasn't uncommon for the weight training equipment to be inside the men's locker room, so even basic physical access was hardly a given.
I had read somewhere, probably in something Olympics-related in the 1984 cycle, that swimmers were now lifting weights, so I wanted to try it. That gruff wrestling coach let me in, and taught me some moves: curls, shrugs, upright rows, bent-over rows, dumbbell presses and flyes. These same movements were the bulk of my non-cardio gym activities through most of the 90s, eventually supplemented with leg presses, lunges, and unweighted squats thanks in part to (yes!) the Stripper FAQ.
I would like to be able to say that I took to it like a duck to water, and the crusty old wrestling coach became my mentor. Alas, that is not the case. Without a program or a goal, I lost interest in the weight room and didn't return until college, and fairly haphazardly then. Still, here I am, 25 years on, still moving weights, so in the end I guess that lesson of lifelong fitness did stick.
I was no fan of gym class. I did well enough to avoid sinking my GPA, but I was constantly on edge about it. I was a strong swimmer, an adequate runner, a profoundly mediocre gymnast, and completely hopeless in ball sports of any kind. Until I went abroad my junior year, to a country where I was average height and basketball was off the curriculum, I was convinced I was about two steps above disability.
Looking back on it, though, the interesting thing to me is that the second gym teacher, the gruff wrestling coach, programmed his class not for the confirmed jocks but for people like me. He taught us about flexibility. He had us try aerobics (this was like 1986, practically Peak Fonda). While I'm not sure his message actually got across, I do sincerely believe he was trying to introduce us to options for lifelong fitness.
And he did one other highly unconventional thing after class: he let girls into his weight room. It may sound pretty ridiculous now, but back then it wasn't uncommon for the weight training equipment to be inside the men's locker room, so even basic physical access was hardly a given.
I had read somewhere, probably in something Olympics-related in the 1984 cycle, that swimmers were now lifting weights, so I wanted to try it. That gruff wrestling coach let me in, and taught me some moves: curls, shrugs, upright rows, bent-over rows, dumbbell presses and flyes. These same movements were the bulk of my non-cardio gym activities through most of the 90s, eventually supplemented with leg presses, lunges, and unweighted squats thanks in part to (yes!) the Stripper FAQ.
I would like to be able to say that I took to it like a duck to water, and the crusty old wrestling coach became my mentor. Alas, that is not the case. Without a program or a goal, I lost interest in the weight room and didn't return until college, and fairly haphazardly then. Still, here I am, 25 years on, still moving weights, so in the end I guess that lesson of lifelong fitness did stick.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Mind your knees
With the recent holidays, many people I know, including myself, spent time with family and loved ones. In the days that followed, an interesting trend emerged: quite a few women who lift weights, again including myself, were told by some well-meaning family member to be careful about our knees. It's interesting to me how widespread this caution is.
As it happens, my knees have some history.
I didn't own a car until midway into my first year in Silicon Valley. I hear there is public transportation in the valley, but other than occasionally being stuck behind a bus on El Camino I really haven't seen much evidence of it. Consequently, I cycled. Most days clocked in at 10 miles or fewer, but the occasional 30 mile day was not uncommon. My employer provided a free 24 Hour Fitness membership, so every so often I biked over to the gym to do...more cardio. Despite having discovered real west-coast burritos, tempura ice cream, and a host of other decadent new foods I could suddenly afford, and a new 10-hours-at-an-office lifestyle, I was way too active to gain weight.
The car, of course, changed all of that. I did what any good American does when she finds herself gaining weight: I started running. This was my first brush with running for exercise rather than transportation, and I tried to do everything right: I did the "couch to 5k" program, carefully programming intervals into my fancy watch. I had my gait analyzed and became jealously loyal to The Perfect Shoes. I tried to minimize pavement miles, preferring a local dirt track. Runner's World told me runners should lift weights, too, so I diligently did my 15lb dumbbell chest presses and curls. Despite my best efforts, my knees, especially the right knee, were soon in pain. By the end of the 90s, my running program was gone for good, but the pain lingered. At times I could not fully straighten my leg, or sleep without supporting the knee.
With the gorgeous hills all around me, I went through a hiking phase. 7 miles was my limit before the knee acted up. Sometimes in the last mile I'd contemplate letting the mountain lions eat me.
Years passed, and eventually I picked up lifting. Armed with instructions from The Internet, I took to Gold's with a 5 x 5 program, performing low-bar squats to parallel. The weight got heavy quickly, and to be honest my right knee did hurt before too long. I went to get it checked out...the orthopedist yelled at me to go back to jogging. I did return to lifting once the pain subsided somewhat, but I never got back to squatting the weights I reached in that first round.
Not long before I started my current program, the knee randomly got worse of its own accord. Suddenly walking down stairs was a challenge, standing for a meeting could have consequences for the rest of the day, and straightening it fully was again out of the question. Scared, I got it checked out again, but there was no obvious cause. This ultimately led in part to a very low calorie diet and 30lb weight loss: I hoped that reducing food would reduce inflammation. It seemed to work.
Today, I write all this with a bit of a sense of wonder. I'm in no pain, my leg straightens smoothly. I sleep how I choose. Sometimes I run to cross the street or a parking lot, just for the hell of it (although I'm sure I have no interest in longer distances), and nothing crunches. To be fair, I do have some soreness around the patella on both legs on squat days that I mostly notice going up stairs, but nothing significant.
I can't say for sure that full-depth squats have been the cause of this rehabilitation. It's almost equally likely that consistent foam-rolling and warmup activities have done the work, or at least a portion of it. (Incidentally, the warmup routine is a large part of why I chose Catalyst.) Maybe unrelated factors are at play. But I can say that I'm squatting more weight, through a greater range of motion, than ever before, and I am in less pain than almost any point in the last 15 years.
So...obviously every well-meaning dad and uncle in the world doesn't know me, but I still wonder about the widespread concern with women's knees. Surely the number of women lifting weights seriously with some sort of persistent knee injury is tiny compared to the number of women tolerating a running-related knee injury. In my own family, knee trouble seems to be related more closely to endurance sports or plain inactivity. The concern is meant with love, and that is how we should take it, but it is a shame if it discourages any of us from activities that promote healthy knees.
As it happens, my knees have some history.
I didn't own a car until midway into my first year in Silicon Valley. I hear there is public transportation in the valley, but other than occasionally being stuck behind a bus on El Camino I really haven't seen much evidence of it. Consequently, I cycled. Most days clocked in at 10 miles or fewer, but the occasional 30 mile day was not uncommon. My employer provided a free 24 Hour Fitness membership, so every so often I biked over to the gym to do...more cardio. Despite having discovered real west-coast burritos, tempura ice cream, and a host of other decadent new foods I could suddenly afford, and a new 10-hours-at-an-office lifestyle, I was way too active to gain weight.
The car, of course, changed all of that. I did what any good American does when she finds herself gaining weight: I started running. This was my first brush with running for exercise rather than transportation, and I tried to do everything right: I did the "couch to 5k" program, carefully programming intervals into my fancy watch. I had my gait analyzed and became jealously loyal to The Perfect Shoes. I tried to minimize pavement miles, preferring a local dirt track. Runner's World told me runners should lift weights, too, so I diligently did my 15lb dumbbell chest presses and curls. Despite my best efforts, my knees, especially the right knee, were soon in pain. By the end of the 90s, my running program was gone for good, but the pain lingered. At times I could not fully straighten my leg, or sleep without supporting the knee.
With the gorgeous hills all around me, I went through a hiking phase. 7 miles was my limit before the knee acted up. Sometimes in the last mile I'd contemplate letting the mountain lions eat me.
Years passed, and eventually I picked up lifting. Armed with instructions from The Internet, I took to Gold's with a 5 x 5 program, performing low-bar squats to parallel. The weight got heavy quickly, and to be honest my right knee did hurt before too long. I went to get it checked out...the orthopedist yelled at me to go back to jogging. I did return to lifting once the pain subsided somewhat, but I never got back to squatting the weights I reached in that first round.
Not long before I started my current program, the knee randomly got worse of its own accord. Suddenly walking down stairs was a challenge, standing for a meeting could have consequences for the rest of the day, and straightening it fully was again out of the question. Scared, I got it checked out again, but there was no obvious cause. This ultimately led in part to a very low calorie diet and 30lb weight loss: I hoped that reducing food would reduce inflammation. It seemed to work.
Today, I write all this with a bit of a sense of wonder. I'm in no pain, my leg straightens smoothly. I sleep how I choose. Sometimes I run to cross the street or a parking lot, just for the hell of it (although I'm sure I have no interest in longer distances), and nothing crunches. To be fair, I do have some soreness around the patella on both legs on squat days that I mostly notice going up stairs, but nothing significant.
I can't say for sure that full-depth squats have been the cause of this rehabilitation. It's almost equally likely that consistent foam-rolling and warmup activities have done the work, or at least a portion of it. (Incidentally, the warmup routine is a large part of why I chose Catalyst.) Maybe unrelated factors are at play. But I can say that I'm squatting more weight, through a greater range of motion, than ever before, and I am in less pain than almost any point in the last 15 years.
So...obviously every well-meaning dad and uncle in the world doesn't know me, but I still wonder about the widespread concern with women's knees. Surely the number of women lifting weights seriously with some sort of persistent knee injury is tiny compared to the number of women tolerating a running-related knee injury. In my own family, knee trouble seems to be related more closely to endurance sports or plain inactivity. The concern is meant with love, and that is how we should take it, but it is a shame if it discourages any of us from activities that promote healthy knees.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Max numbers of the time period
In the 4 months that I've trained at Catalyst, there have been two rounds of max testing, roughly 2 months apart (go figure).
The first round was daunting, since it began with a max effort back squat. The back squat is where I originally injured myself: during a warm-up set at Gold's, something in my back went wrong and my next several months became dedicated to questions like "will my left leg ever work normally?" and "how do I avoid having this happen again?" Frustratingly, the medical establishment was not at all helpful in providing treatment or education, and for quite some time I had no idea what the prognosis might be. Vicodin scrips were doled out freely, of course. U.S.A. #1! (I didn't fill them.)
...So I was a bit nervous about back squats, and doing them was the first leap of faith with my new trainer. I relearned them Olympic-lifter style, but until the end of the cycle I rarely if ever exceeded the fairly light weight that did me in.
Deadlifting on the other hand was a different kind of struggle. I have always been strong and confident with this lift. It's a very straightforward experience: you remove the weight from the floor and stand up, or you don't. Now, the main stress in this experience was that the weight was so very light compared to where I had been. Even some weights I'd managed relatively recently during gym false-starts were a fairly huge conditioning challenge in sets of any length. It was terribly humbling.
My numbers from that first testing week:
Back squat: 82kg (!)
Deadlift: 95kg
The second round of testing came just before Christmas. In this round of training, the three major movements were the front squat, overhead squat, and deadlift. I loved the overhead squat, on those occasions when my push-press went right it felt like the easiest and most fun thing I've ever done with a barbell. Front squats...not so much. I struggled to find a consistent way of doing them. I ditched incorrectly and sprained my hand. Weights that felt easy refused to go up. Body parts seemingly unrelated to the movement hurt. The Internet (by which I mean some random formula attributed to Polinquin) told me I should be able to move 69kg, but 60kg and higher was a festival of dumped bars. It was pretty much a disaster.
When overhead squat test day came, I had a good run of luck with the push-press up through 41kg or so, and then I failed 43kg, narrowly grazing the top of my head with the bar. I asked to try it again and it went up smoothly. My trainer was prepared to call it a day at 44kg, but I asked to try 45kg, confident that I could at least avoid dropping it on my head. The push-press went up like nothing and the squat was smooth with the slightest, fixable left-elbow buckling at the end. I win!
The day of front squat testing, I was super-sad for no good reason. The company Xmas party -- not the pigging-out opportunity you might imagine, thanks to my gluten issues -- took my usual gym time, so my session was pushed into mid-afternoon. I showed up at the gym wanting to call the whole thing off, or cry in the corner. Possibly both. Instead I did the work and surprised myself by a wide margin.
My numbers from the second testing week:
Deadlift: 106kg
Snatch-grip push-press + overhead squat: 45kg
Front squat: 70kg
There is another result that isn't captured in the numbers. Even as late as the first round of testing in October, an hour session was sometimes a struggle, and training two days in a row was an unspeakable idea. By the beginning of December, two days in a row was a good way to work around a conflict with my usual MWF plan, and by the end of December a one hour session no longer felt even remotely adequate. I started to contemplate two-a-days.
In the next round, the back squat returns, along with power jerks and power cleans. I'll also be continuing to work on front squats on my own time, working to recapture whatever easy trick of form made 70kg possible.
The first round was daunting, since it began with a max effort back squat. The back squat is where I originally injured myself: during a warm-up set at Gold's, something in my back went wrong and my next several months became dedicated to questions like "will my left leg ever work normally?" and "how do I avoid having this happen again?" Frustratingly, the medical establishment was not at all helpful in providing treatment or education, and for quite some time I had no idea what the prognosis might be. Vicodin scrips were doled out freely, of course. U.S.A. #1! (I didn't fill them.)
...So I was a bit nervous about back squats, and doing them was the first leap of faith with my new trainer. I relearned them Olympic-lifter style, but until the end of the cycle I rarely if ever exceeded the fairly light weight that did me in.
Deadlifting on the other hand was a different kind of struggle. I have always been strong and confident with this lift. It's a very straightforward experience: you remove the weight from the floor and stand up, or you don't. Now, the main stress in this experience was that the weight was so very light compared to where I had been. Even some weights I'd managed relatively recently during gym false-starts were a fairly huge conditioning challenge in sets of any length. It was terribly humbling.
My numbers from that first testing week:
Back squat: 82kg (!)
Deadlift: 95kg
The second round of testing came just before Christmas. In this round of training, the three major movements were the front squat, overhead squat, and deadlift. I loved the overhead squat, on those occasions when my push-press went right it felt like the easiest and most fun thing I've ever done with a barbell. Front squats...not so much. I struggled to find a consistent way of doing them. I ditched incorrectly and sprained my hand. Weights that felt easy refused to go up. Body parts seemingly unrelated to the movement hurt. The Internet (by which I mean some random formula attributed to Polinquin) told me I should be able to move 69kg, but 60kg and higher was a festival of dumped bars. It was pretty much a disaster.
When overhead squat test day came, I had a good run of luck with the push-press up through 41kg or so, and then I failed 43kg, narrowly grazing the top of my head with the bar. I asked to try it again and it went up smoothly. My trainer was prepared to call it a day at 44kg, but I asked to try 45kg, confident that I could at least avoid dropping it on my head. The push-press went up like nothing and the squat was smooth with the slightest, fixable left-elbow buckling at the end. I win!
The day of front squat testing, I was super-sad for no good reason. The company Xmas party -- not the pigging-out opportunity you might imagine, thanks to my gluten issues -- took my usual gym time, so my session was pushed into mid-afternoon. I showed up at the gym wanting to call the whole thing off, or cry in the corner. Possibly both. Instead I did the work and surprised myself by a wide margin.
My numbers from the second testing week:
Deadlift: 106kg
Snatch-grip push-press + overhead squat: 45kg
Front squat: 70kg
There is another result that isn't captured in the numbers. Even as late as the first round of testing in October, an hour session was sometimes a struggle, and training two days in a row was an unspeakable idea. By the beginning of December, two days in a row was a good way to work around a conflict with my usual MWF plan, and by the end of December a one hour session no longer felt even remotely adequate. I started to contemplate two-a-days.
In the next round, the back squat returns, along with power jerks and power cleans. I'll also be continuing to work on front squats on my own time, working to recapture whatever easy trick of form made 70kg possible.
Meet the new blog, same as the old blog
One of my priorities for this year (let's not call them "resolutions") is to write more, and to that end I'm resurrecting this blog. The focus will still be fairly in line with the title (I hope), but if all goes well there will be a lot more content.
I shut down this blog two? years ago, during a rough time: I was injured, I was over-subscribed, and I had a hard time imagining a path to improving my situation. Repeatedly, I suffered false-starts and setbacks: finding consistency for a month or two only to be laid low by a back pain flare; trying to return to the ice and discovering I just did not have the logistical fortitude to make it happen with my stress level. I could honestly imagine myself sliding into a useless and painful middle age before my time, even after a 30+lb weight loss -- excuse the pun -- lifted the weight a bit. Fortunately, quite a bit has changed in the last handful of months. The two biggest factors have been training at Catalyst Athletics, and moving.
Before you (or I!) get too excited about "training" I should make it clear: I am certainly on the "paying the bills" side of the house rather than the "Olympic weightlifters with competitive potential" side. I will hopefully have more to say soon about being a more-money-than-brains fitness client in a serious athletic environment. Still, being trained by, and around, real strength athletes has made a huge difference to my practice. I've gotten stronger and more confident more quickly, and with less pain, than ever before.
Moving is the other major factor. For over two years, I was like a business traveler with an extremely limited itinerary, living out of an overnight bag 30 miles from home several nights per week. While it was my choice and my reasons were worth it, it was a stressful and uncomfortable way to live. I rarely slept well or enough, I had little opportunity to prepare my own food, and in general I was stretched thin enough that the social engagements I did manage to make were often embarrassing due to my over-tired, cracked-out demeanor and conversation. Since moving in mid-November, all this has changed: in my new home I go to bed when I'm tired, wake up without an alarm, and my big, beautiful new kitchen is stocked to feed myself as I see fit. To say nothing about the company! Having lived both ways, I can't stress enough how huge of an impact this has had.
So here we are today, at the start of a shiny new blog much like the old blog, with shiny new activities to record and shiny new rants to be ranted. Stick around, won't you?
I shut down this blog two? years ago, during a rough time: I was injured, I was over-subscribed, and I had a hard time imagining a path to improving my situation. Repeatedly, I suffered false-starts and setbacks: finding consistency for a month or two only to be laid low by a back pain flare; trying to return to the ice and discovering I just did not have the logistical fortitude to make it happen with my stress level. I could honestly imagine myself sliding into a useless and painful middle age before my time, even after a 30+lb weight loss -- excuse the pun -- lifted the weight a bit. Fortunately, quite a bit has changed in the last handful of months. The two biggest factors have been training at Catalyst Athletics, and moving.
Before you (or I!) get too excited about "training" I should make it clear: I am certainly on the "paying the bills" side of the house rather than the "Olympic weightlifters with competitive potential" side. I will hopefully have more to say soon about being a more-money-than-brains fitness client in a serious athletic environment. Still, being trained by, and around, real strength athletes has made a huge difference to my practice. I've gotten stronger and more confident more quickly, and with less pain, than ever before.
Moving is the other major factor. For over two years, I was like a business traveler with an extremely limited itinerary, living out of an overnight bag 30 miles from home several nights per week. While it was my choice and my reasons were worth it, it was a stressful and uncomfortable way to live. I rarely slept well or enough, I had little opportunity to prepare my own food, and in general I was stretched thin enough that the social engagements I did manage to make were often embarrassing due to my over-tired, cracked-out demeanor and conversation. Since moving in mid-November, all this has changed: in my new home I go to bed when I'm tired, wake up without an alarm, and my big, beautiful new kitchen is stocked to feed myself as I see fit. To say nothing about the company! Having lived both ways, I can't stress enough how huge of an impact this has had.
So here we are today, at the start of a shiny new blog much like the old blog, with shiny new activities to record and shiny new rants to be ranted. Stick around, won't you?
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