raptron

Omg that bird thread. Phenomenal. And yesss, exactly!

Hope the follow up provides significant relief and that the next challenge weeks don't have quite so many issues for you to deal with.

HELL YEAHHH!!!!!

Totally. Yeah, we just have a bluetooth receiver. It's ok -- the app I found seems to work well! And I hear Europeans are like really into fixing shoulders or something, right @Mad Hatter? I did not go with someone local, but a friend of mine is training lifters and she's dope and her rates were well within my budget! Ahaha. That is ok! I will probably request it in the future. 😁

The weekend happened! I did a 2 hr walk on Friday, lifted on Saturday and did handstands, did another long walk day on Sunday, and that was that, basically. 🤷‍♀️ Final Tally for the Challenge Mobility work: 9/10 Physical therapy: 13/15 shoulder, 4/5 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 6/7 Gymnastics : 3/3 Lunch break: 12/16 Pretty good, all things considered. I also DID find a coach I want to work with -- actually a friend of mine who is in Chicago. She's really great so I'm looking forward to seeing how this all works out. I have my program for this week and it already has a number of movements I don't normally do! Novelty!! Exciting world of new accessories! Accountability to actually DO said accessories, haha.

Hellll yes. I... may put biscuits on my weekend plans now. Oooo. Snaps. 👏 Loool, so true.

Genius!

I think reasonable is probably moreee than I was initially thinking, which I totally get as it is time intensive and expertise-intensive to coach someone. 😆 And I have been self/peer-coached in... ALL OF MY SPORTS for the last 8 years, so I'm a bit nervous about suddenly giving someone lots of money. But hopefully I can find someone I trust enough to make me better at stuff! You are the best, thank you! Oh, yeah! I completely understand the marketing aspect of it, but it does make it a bit harder to figure out who actually already trains some powerlifters. I'm also... maybe a bit reluctant because I've been self-training for my... entire lifting career and worry that someone not used to programming for lifting might do a worse job than I do (and obviously cost way more money, haha). Also, thank you all! Honestly, just typing it out and complaining about looking for a coach made me... actually go try a bit harder. I'm talking with a few people this weekend and then my friend is sending me a list of more local folks tomorrow. My traditional process of "bellyache, then fix it" is working. 😂 Day 5.4 I FaceTime'd with a good friend of mine from college about Vanishing Half. We've been having an impromtu little book club of two lately. I love it. 😁 I worked a little bit late and didn't get to the gym until after 8 pm. There was a quiet, but good crew of folks there. Deadlift: 3 x 305#, 2 x 315#, 2 x 330# ( 🎊 ), 2 x 2 x 315# Deficit deadlifts: 5 x 5 x 245# <-- did some light neck positioning tweaks that helped a lot on these (note to self: try on reg deadlifts~) Bench: 5 x 5 x 145# paused Lateral raises: 4 x 10 x 15# Tricep pull-downs: 4 x 10 I need to stop taking forever on my weeknight workouts. 😅 I got home around 11, ate leftover pot roast, showered, and went right to bed. Mobility work: 8/10 Physical therapy: 12/15 shoulder, 4/5 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 5/7 Gymnastics : 3/3 Lunch break: 11/16 I'm not doing so good on the shoulder PT this week. I'll set some time aside to do that and some inner/outer hip work today. I also will do a handstand workout -- either joining one of the online classes I like or just setting a timer. 👍

I am definitely planning remote at the moment! She seems neat-- I'll poke around her stuff. Also, I emailed 3 coaches after posting that post, so we'll see what I find out. I talked to one my friend recommended in mid-December, but her rates were a bit out of my budget... especially since I am committing to trying to go to practice more often -- each practice is $20 and it adds up quick. I previously spent ~$120-150/month on gymnastics and that is the budget I was earmarking for this. Which I thought was reasonable, but may be way undershooting. Idk, we'll see!

BECAUSE YOU CAN. I like the idea of creating the SPACE for your activities but perhaps not having them set in stone. A card pack sounds great to add more impulse and flex to your plan for plans. 😉

It sounds like it's been pretty successful preparing for the new year and all the surprises in it, right? Love stories about the kiddos as well. ❤️

Day 5.3 I'm still on my slow, slow quest to rebuild my squats. My former favorite lift has been a real bear to bring back up to snuff -- I had knee problems from running, then accumulated fatigue from running that mostly only reared its head during squat sessions, and nowww I'm just barely starting to drag it up from the depths. They're just a bit wonky. I still have twisting issues from my left hip and left shoulder... left knee was also the one that was problematic. Darn left side of my body, in general. So, I'm going to try my best to get things sorted. I'm also considering pursuing some coaching -- at least for programming, but hopefully with some form coaching as well. I've been looking for a female strength coach because I want to give a woman my money instead of yet another random dude in the strength space -- not because I think a male coach would not be a good fit but because I just... WANNA SUPPORT THE LADIES OUT THERE. But it's harder to find female coaches that actually market themselves as powerlifting or strength coaches rather than general fitness or weight loss coaches. 😶 Anyway, here's a workout. Squats: 5 x 260# <-- it's been a minute... these were very hard. I got some upper back cues to try to work on in the future. Squats: 4 x 5 x 245#, 2 x 5 x 225# <-- much volume wow Bench: 6 x 3 x 155#, 3 x 160#, 2 x 2 x 160#, 2 x 8 x 135# DB OHP: 3 x 8 x 35# Walking lunges: 3 x 8 x 40# Band pull-aparts x many Then we played D&D, collecting artifacts and playing it VERY safe as to avoid getting ambushed by traps and things. We were so safe that we blazed through our DMs content and didn't trigger any of his encounters, so we had to end early, ahaha. Mobility work: 8/10 Physical therapy: 12/15 shoulder, 4/5 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 5/7 Gymnastics : 3/3 Lunch break: 10/16 <-- no lunch break again, whoops

Just wait til I tell you that I also had a fried chicken sandwich on Sunday that wasn't as good as I wanted so this was my REDEMPTION friend chicken sandwich. 😆 Well, I recommend seeking out a fried chicken sandwich. You know, for that SPICE OF LIFE. I have found some kind of sketchy ones, but I'm buying and downloading one made by some reddit weightlifter that I think will work fine. Don't leak my nudes, Redditor. 🙈 I knew you'd be pleased!

Agreed! Running is mostly about accepting how much it is going to suck, repeatedly. One stride at a time. Glad you're feeling better.

Ahhhh! Good luck with the move!

They are definitely easier to LAND (halfs are a blind landing), but you have to commit more which takes a minute. Haha. Day 5.2 Rest night! I ate a fried chicken sandwich and did laundry. ✌️ 😎 ✌️ Mobility work: 8/10 Physical therapy: 11/15 shoulder, 4/5 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 5/7 Gymnastics : 3/3 🎊 Lunch break: 10/16 I feel like I have nothing interesting to say lately. THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING HAPPENING. Love you all still.

Oooh, nice! Good luck with the new slew of exercises. My various letter shoulder PT was from the other PT I really love -- she helped me extensively with my hip/back (there was a period of about 8-10 months where I tied my shoes by rolling on my back like a hedgehog 🙈) and has a gymnastics background. I wound up seeing someone else on a 2-appointment to try dry needling (I didn't notice a positive impact) and he gave me the more weighted work I use (half kneeling overhead work, tempo rows, etc). I have a whole slew of stuff from him I've kind of forgotten about though and should revisit, haha.

Day 5.1 I slipped out to work out around lunch and, @bigm141414 and @sylph will be happy to know that I finally got us a barbell key chart. We re-taped some of the barbells over the weekend, which included changing some of the colors (so deadlift bars and men's olympic bars no longer both are blue!!! WHY DID ANYONE EVER THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? 😤) and obviously was a PERFECT time to create a key to explain them. I drew it on one of our white boards. ✌️ Bench: 3 x 3 x 155#, 3 x 5 x 155# Deadlift: 5 x 3 x 305# <-- ow my hipssss Half kneeling single arm cable rows: 4 x 12 x 60# (PT~!) Curls: 3 x 8 x 20# DB RDL: 4 x 12 x 55# <-- are there exercises that don't use HANDS? God, my hands are so grumpy, haha. Mobility work: 8/10 Physical therapy: 11/15 shoulder, 4/5 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 5/7 Gymnastics : 3/3 🎊 Lunch break: 9/16 <-- working out is definitely a lunch break lol Not really sure what my plans are this week. Definitely lifting 4x. Maybe going to gymnastics on Sunday at the other gym that has a different tumbling surface into the pit? Maybe some at home yoga? Maybe a virtual handstand class? 🤔 POSSIBILITIES.

Day 4.5 I had a hissy fit on Friday -- it was very cold, I left late, the gym was busy when I got there, weekends feel like an illusion, squats are mean and I hate them, etc. etc. 25 min handstand practice + shoulder mob while waiting for the gym to clear up a little Squats: 4 x 3 x 260#, 2 x 3 x 245#= Single leg glute bridges: 4 x 25 per side w/10s static hold at end Dips: 5 x 5 x 25# <-- these felt good... probably because I didn't bench this day, ha. Slow lateral raises: 4 x 10 x 15# Front plate raise: 4 x 20 x 25# (PT) Midway through the workout, I was still in a sour mood but somewhere around weighted dips, I noticed I already felt way better. 🤦‍♀️ Weird times. My friend gave me a ride home, I read in bed, and went to sleep at a reasonable hour. Day 4.6 Gymnastics practice! The gym we have a practice available on Saturdays has a TumblTrak (trampoline strip) into the foam pit, as seen in previous updates, haha. My main goal was to work on back twisting during this workout and I did! I am a bit of a head case about tumbling on different surfaces (floor to mat, mat to pit, TT to pit, etc), so it took me a while to work up the nerve. But, my friend was also working on them and she managed to throw a few first, which inspired me not to chicken out. 😆 I did a 1/2 twist and then the next 3 were actual fulls. Not perfect by any means but a big step! I wish we had other surfaces that went into the pit because I find the TT doesn't translate very well to floor (it's much, much slower and the tumbling angles are different), but it'll be good for re-learning that air awareness and fixing my twisting form. I had a bit of a brain explosion -- I remarked "well last time I worked on these was at gym camp... which was A YEAR AND A HALF AGO WHAT!!?!?!??!?!" Quar-time is... weird, y'all. I didn't film any because my phone was hooked up to the speaker. Anyone have a preferred workaround for filming while playing music on iPhones? Pretty please? 🙏 Dinner + hangs with QP. Chill, chill, chill. Day 4.7 I skipped my lifting workout plan to run errands and make a pot roast instead. I do not think I had had pot roast in at least 10 years. It turned out very well (mostly because of the sauce), and now I have comfort food for the snow storm. 👍 I took a brief nap, bounced between books I'm reading for a while, and then had a FaceTime date with MC til a bit too late. I will never learn. Mobility work: 8/8 Physical therapy: 11/12 shoulder, 4/4 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 5/5 Gymnastics : 3/3 Lunch break: 8/11 Not a bad spread for these goals so far. My shoulder is still being a bit twingey, so I'm not going to lay off the focus on it just yet. My hips could also use more love... but I'm not sure what approach I want to take with them. I've figured out a new, different part time standing desk situation that might help -- at least for some of the day after deadlifts. We'll see.

Ahahah, that routine is very amusing. Two of the times I went to acro yoga was with my friend's ex who is close to 6' tall and also a lifter, so she bases almost all of the time. She was very excited to have me base for her... hahah. The place I went seems to encourage people to learn how to do both, but I do assume most people specialize in one over the other. It seems very... have 1 dedicated partner you do the vast majority with, which is not really my style in general (heh) so I did wind up doing my fair bit of hand balancing on my own while I was hanging around not spotting or working with one of the other folks. 😝 Lol @ your Frankenstein collection of borrowed body parts, hahah. 😂

We'll be able to spend more time out of the house soon, I hope. 😭 Day 4.3 There's something about 4 pm - 6 pm is like PEAK PRODUCTIVITY lately, and I'm not mad about it. I do a lot of faffing around between 2-3 pm. I went around plasticizing the windows in advance of the deep freeze coming on the back end of the week and by the time I was done, I didn't have time to go to the gym. I did about 30 minutes of yoga and then played D&D with the pals. Day 4.4 Layered up for the gym (brr) and sprung right into action. Deadlifts: 3 x 5 x 315# <-- 🤩 Deficit deadlifts: 2 x 4 x 225# <-- tried to do these on plates bc the mats were in use but they kept slipping so I quit early Bench: 5 x 3 x 155#, 3 x 3 x 160# DB RDLs: 4 x 12 x 55# DBs One-armed cable rows: 4 x 12 x 60# Didn't do shoulder PT, oops. Here's set 2 of my deads. I am very pleased. VERY PLEASED. 😊 Mobility work: 5/8 Physical therapy: 10/12 shoulder, 3/4 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 4.5/5 Gymnastics : 2/3 Lunch break: 8/11

Day 4.1 REST DAY. BOOOO. BORING. WE HATES THE REST DAYS. I've realized that while I used to relish in the occasional "let's say in and unwind" type of night, BEING HOME IS NO LONGER INHERENTLY RELAXING. 🙃 Ah well. I... did something with this evening, but I couldn't tell you what. 🤷‍♀️ Day 4.2 Went to the gym late and figured that would help me lift faster but LOL it did not. I spent too long there, as per usual. Bench: 3 x 3 x 155#, 4 x 5 x 145# paused Squat: 4 x 5 x 245# Curls: 5 x 8 x 20# Tricep push-ups: 4 x 10 Pistol squats for the lols: 4 x 5 per side Internal and external rotations 4 x 7 x 5# I had dinner and finished my book Ten Thousand Doors of January -- it was very lovely and I'd recommend it to most and it's a book about books, basically. Mobility work: 5/8 Physical therapy: 10/12 shoulder, 3/4 ankles Yoga OR handstand workout: 4/5 Gymnastics : 2/3 Lunch break: 6/11 W: Lifting + D&D Th: Mobility... and a some other kind of physicality! Maybe yoga? F: Lifting + QP hangs S: Gymnastics? S: Lifting + handstands

GOOOO WEDNESDAY! Even if, totally. They're not worth less bc of the company they keep. 😉

Agh, that is frustrating! I wound up seeing someone out of pocket for shoulder issues after PT didn't land on a fix for me and while the issue... continues (sigh), it is in a way better spot and I have a better slew of things to do for it. It suuucks, but these folks tend to be pretty stellar. Fingers crossed you come out with a good plan.

JUST GOING TO NOTE THAT THESE THINGS ARE RELATED. STRANGELY, so strangely, when I stopped skipping upper body accessory work... my bench went up. 🤯 🤯 🤯 CRAZY, I KNOW. Also that Alan Thrall video omg, lmaoooo. Also, enjoy Wicked and the Divine. So good!