Buff Femmes For The Win

(Forgive the dirty hallway mirror)

Tuesday afternoon I returned home from a busy but celebratory morning of errand-running. A long-term project I recently completed is in someone else's hands now, and while I was waiting for my early afternoon appointment I bought myself a new summer dress. I bought it partly to celebrate this minor accomplishment, partly because it was an already cheap dress on sale, and partly because this is a "poofy"-fitting style of short dress that I never would have felt comfortable wearing before my recent weight loss and body transformation. I came home excited to try it on again and took a picture in my hallway mirror. Since I can't do much of anything without joking in the act, I went full-on Schwarzenegger after the first cutesy pose. BAM: evidence of my hard work!

Marmot & I have had unusually packed and inflexible schedules for the past few days, and haven't been able to fit a trip to the gym between our other obligations. (We bicycle everywhere and do push ups at home, but let's be serious: that's nowhere near enough.) We're getting back on track tonight, so keep your fingers crossed that I don't hurt myself again!

There's no crying in lifting!

On the left: my superego. The right: my id. (And my back.)

I don't think I understood how much lifting means to me until this afternoon's failure. This might seem ridiculously unreflective: I have been lifting for almost 5 years; I read articles and books and watch videos on how to lift better in my down time; I write regularly on a blog about lifting, for goodness sake. But being Strong and Capable and Competent have become much more salient aspects of my identity in the last 6 months, making today's minor failure feel much bigger than I thought it would.

I cried a little.

No, that's a lie. I cried a lot.

Reflection on Stagnation: Protein Time for Pancho

 Pancho's plan: embrace protein for future beefiness!

After weeks of minor ailments (a so-tight-I-limp hamstring here, an inflamed knee there), I'm just this week getting back on track with my lifts. It's humbling and frustrating to lose ground. My squats are back down to 5 x 105lbs, and even that felt ever so slightly out of control that next time I should drop down to 95lbs to get my form back perfect. Ugh.

It is true that my upper body lifts have improved, since my ailments have mostly been hip and hamstring related: I can now do 3 sets of 7+ perfect-form chest-to-ground push ups, and my pull ups are vastly improving in form and ease of execution, if not in number of reps. As satisfying as that is, I have always most strongly identified my lifting with strong dead lifts, and I'm still stuck at 175lbs (1 rep max). It has been inspiring as all hell to watch Marmot beat his previous 1RM max by 10lbs every week (now officially passing 2x his body weight!), and now that I'm not feeling injured I want to bring it full-on.

One thing I am going to do to improve my dead lift is to follow Marmot's lifting strategy. Instead of 3 sets of 5 reps, I'm going to warm up with a set of 5 reps, then push myself for 3 or 4 sets of single lifts, slowly adding weight (in 2.5lb increments) until I fail. He has had spectacular success using this strategy, so I will give it a try.

I also think I need to work on my diet a little more carefully. We have been eating paleo (with some flexibility for rice and popcorn when we eat out socially), which makes healthy eating choices for lifting a lot more intuitive as it emphasizes higher protein, more healthy fats and more vegetables than the Standard American Diet. That said, I just read these two articles (one on protein requirements for strength in general, one for protein requirements for strength in women) and I started doubting that I eat enough protein. I definitely eat more than I did on my vegetarian Standard American Diet, which helped me make serious strength gains, but is it enough for the frequency & intensity of strength days we currently enjoy?

The first article I linked to above recommends 1.5g protein for every lb of body weight, so let's use that as a guide.

I weigh 135lbs (down from a puffy 155lbs not 6 months ago--thanks, grain-free diet and paleo!).
1.5 x 135 = 202 g protein per day.

For breakfast I usually eat 2 hard boiled eggs (and some vegetables, usually turnip greens and squash): 14g protein.
For 1st lunch I eat half a chicken breast (and a load of spinach): 17g protein.
For 2nd lunch I eat leftovers so it's variable, but I'd estimate the amnt of meat is comparable to first lunch: 17g protein.
For dinner, I usually eat 2x what I eat at a lunch: approx 35g protein

Total: 83g protein.

YIKES. Apparently I need to eat significantly more! I just spent some time playing around with Nutrition Data, entering actual meals I've eaten instead of the above estimations, and the guess above was pretty accurate; the two days of meals I entered put me between 80g and 90g protein a day. A few weeks ago we purchased this protein supplement (nicknamed "choco-beef" around the house) and, though it's less disgusting than dehydrated chocolate-flavored beef would imply, I've still got enough of a gut-reaction "NO" response to not drink it regularly. I am struggling to figure out how to add more protein to my diet, since each meal feels filling and satisfying.

Here's hoping that upping my protein, changing my lifting strategy and avoiding repetitive stress injuries help me break through my 175lb dead lift plateau. It sure can't hurt, right?

Goals--"Doing Strong" and June 21, 22 workouts

Marmot here, it's late and I'm kind of jazzed up from watching an amazing action movie ( specifically Commando, it's streaming on Netflix and the whole thing seems to just be a set up for Arnold Schwarzenegger to say bad puns after killing literally hundreds of people).  Not being able to sleep I've decided to be productive and write about one of my physical goals.  I've already written about functional fitness so tonight I'll move on to the second of my three goals, strength. 

Dead lifts and pull ups

Another mixed routine for us at the gym yesterday. I was very much looking forward to a full-on leg day, since my knee was too irritated Monday to lift safely. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the gym my entire posterior chain on the right side (lower back, glutes, hip adductor, hamstring all the way down to the back of my knee) was irritated to the point of seizing. The only thing I could figure out to cause such a problem is my regular over-the-shoulder bag that I wear on my right shoulder, which I've been loading with more stuff than usual recently. Damn! Time to switch to the (better-balanced, more dorky) backpack.

Anyway, Marmot powered through an immensely impressive leg day (succeeding in the dead lift weight which was such an educational failure Monday), while I worked on my push ups / pull ups. I've expressed frustration before at not being able to break through 4-5 pull ups in one set. While I still have that problem, I tried to max out my total number of reps: that is, do as many sets as I can (even if it's only 2-3 pull ups at a time) until I can't pull myself up anymore. I also experimented with some new, challenging squat techniques for giggles...until my hips rejected the idea.

(Side note: after an extensive session last night with the foam roller and tennis ball, my right side is much improved, if not quite at 100%. More foam roller torture tonight!)

Stats beneath the jump.

July 13- mixed day

Hello,

Yesterday we did a bit of a mix of things for several reasons, 1) Marmot really wanted to deadlift, and 2) Pancho's knee wasn't feeling great.  While Pancho did some push-ups, Marmot did some deadlifts, the we went to doing a somewhat regular upper body day.  What's interesting about yesterday is not just lifting more, but also failure.  I thought I would present the workout we did and then talk about what failing out of a lift means.

Videos & thoughts below the jump...

Lower and upper days

Busy busy! Mr Marmot and I have barely had a spare minute the past week to update here. His data-gathering for the ol' dissertation is picking up steam, and I'm excitedly wrapping up a big project that I've been working on for months. We've had a lower-body and upper-body day since posting last, and I think we're finally back on track after our derailed two weeks late last month.

We also haven't written much about the food test; I'll write more on it another day, but for now I'll report that it went so successfully we're sticking with paleo as a guiding frame instead of just a 3-week test. Wonderful!

Upper Body Day: June 5th

This was a pretty good workout, I felt like we reach our daily goals.  We also increased the intensity a bit by adding some ab work in between some of the lifts.  Some of the weights were were doing went down a bit because we haven't done upper body in a bit, but--barring sickness and other problems--we're back on track. 

Warm ups:
25 arm swings
20 Marmot/15 Pancho scapular push ups
20 wall arm-raises

Pull ups:
Marmot: 16; 10; 7
Pancho: 4; 3; 2

Knee Lift:
Marmot:15, 15, 15
Pancho:10 (slow), 10, 10

Dumb bell bench press:
Marmot: 60lbs (per hand) x 15; 60lbs x 15; 60lbs x 10
Pancho: 35lbs (per hand) x 10; 35lbs x 8; 35lbs x 8

Standing Press:
Marmot: 45lbs x5; 65lbs x 5; 70lbs x 5; 75lbs x 5 
Pancho: 45lbs x 4 (10 sec hold); 45lbs x 3 ; 45lbs x 3

Cable row, with Plank at 60 seconds
Marmot: 100lbs x 15; 110lbs x 12; 120lbs x 7
Pancho: 50lbs x 15; 50lbs x 10; 50lbs x 15

When little things go wrong

Marmot and I have been quiet posting here because we've been off our normal schedule. Last week Mr Marmot was ill; Saturday we tried to work an upper body day and met with dramatic failure; then the gym was closed for the holiday weekend; then we had company in town; and Wednesday we went for a leg-day and I was met with, again, dramatic failure.

"Dramatic failure" doesn't mean injury or anything permanent. It was just little things.

Saturday I was in a rare, completely consuming foul mood. Nothing was going right, nothing could ever go right, and everything was horrible. Sunshine that otherwise would have made me lift my chin in pleasant appreciation? Just glare in my eyes. Congenial conversations in the gym? Gratingly loud!  We started as we often do with pull ups. I barely pulled 3, when usually I can do 5 or 6 on my first set; the next two sets were even worse, barely pulling one. Naturally, these failures didn't help my attitude. We tried dumb bell bench press; I was so distracted by feeling angry that I couldn't concentrate on my form, and my shoulder clicked every time I pressed. I decided to call the day a wash and spot Mr Marmot, but my bad mood was contagious, poor guy: he tried to kick up his weights and failed to keep control, dropping them to the side. We left at that, our hands in the air.

Wednesday the problem was more subtle: my form was just off. I tried to squat, but couldn't control my body in the way I usually can. I felt inflexible and struggled going to full depth even with just the unweighted bar. My starting weight felt unmanageable, and I consistently felt off balance and unstable. We decided to strike the squats and try them after dead lifts. Again, my "off in my body" feeling kept me from lifting well: I only lifted 135lbs x 4, and it just didn't feel right in my back or shoulders. I cheered on Marmot as he broke his DL personal record (285lbs, which bent the bar!), and he cheered me on as I did 3 sets of 1-minute plank / 30 sec side plank per side. (He wisely suggested that I do something, so I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time, and plank is as full-body as body-weight exercises go.)

I've noticed that these off-phases go in cycles; when one little thing goes wrong, it can cascade off into a week or even two of feeling bad. You haven't gone up in weight, you haven't even gotten full lifts in, and it builds its own momentum. As frustrating as these phases can be, it's important to recognize that it will pass soon and the only way to help it pass is to keep trying. I knew on that Saturday morning that I wasn't really feeling up to lifting, but I went anyway. Sometimes the pleasure of moving helps the bad mood, and if not, at least I tried.

We'll try again this afternoon. Wish us luck getting past the little things.