Raptron Knees Weaknesses in the Junk

[Elastigirl]

What is a cat cafe?

 

Congrats on the Most Wanted! 

[Raxie]

Ahhh cat cafe <3

 

Basically,  it's a cafe with a bunch of cats in it. So you go and drink coffee and hang out with the cats. Usually they're set up by shelters and you can adopt them when the pop up cafe closes.

[raptron]

What is a cat cafe?

 

Congrats on the Most Wanted! 

Yeah, exactly as Raxie described -- shelter brings some kittens and cats that are up for adoption to a cafe/coffeeshop so people can meet the cats and drink coffee. It's modeled after cat cafes that, I think, have actual resident cats in Japan and people come just to pet and play with the cats (and can still order beverages, of course).

 

And thanks, I hadn't even realized!

 

Also, I just signed up for a 5K for charity because of peer pressure. All the other gymnasts are doing it, going straight to the gym for routine day, and then we've got our holiday cocktail party that evening, so dang, it's gonna be a busy day.

[SymphonicDan]

Haha, Dominique makes all this crazy brilliance look so easy... and then I get on a tumble track and faceplant a basic front handspring :S

[raptron]

Damn elite children make everything look easy.

 

Day 3.1

Pretty good practice, but nothing too crazy/interesting. The floor was packed, so I shelved whip backs for the night and worked on front tumbling for a bit. Then to bars, then to beam with lots of jump and dance work. I think I'll be able to do a 3/4 split jump, which is a D (and therefore a bonus), in my beam routine because honestly, they aren't super hard. My actual split isn't quite full range comfortable in the jump yet, but I don't know, possible progression there. Nothing special, but I put a lot of work in yesterday, which is always good. I just wish my hands were magically indestructible like some people's -- there are a good number of women on the team who just don't rip and it takes 10 minutes at the most before my hands get hot spots. It drives me nuts and there isn't much I can do about it except easing off when I notice the hot spots and saving my hands for another day. 

 

HIIT: --

Mobility: Foam roll 1/1

Fuel: 1/1

[Mad Hatter]

Your weekly update sounded kind of like mine. But yes everything will be fine. Nobody has yet to die from a messy house.

[raptron]

It's true. It's not a fatal affliction.

 

Everything is fine. I am behind on Thanksgiving things but everything I was stressed about is under control anyway, phew. We're okay.

 

Day 3.2

 

Blood donation post-work. No significant physical activity.

 

Lungs: 0/3 HIIT

Mobility: 1/3 foam roll, 0/1 yoga

Fuel: 2/2

 

Day 3.3

I was going to go to November Project this morning, buuuut I WENT BACK TO SLEEP. UGH. I was up late with Mike and my MIL watching Korean dramas and socializing, but she wound up staying up ALL NIGHT finishing the series and was still watching at 5:15 when I woke up the first time and I don't know, I think the voices lulled me back to sleep. I am not used to noise at that hour? I can't really justify it, but I fell back asleep and didn't set another alarm. I even slept through all the texts and a missed call from RP who is a saint for giving me a rides at all and I unconsciously made wait outside my house this morning. I'm such a jerk.

 

I'm going to try to get to the gym today to deload DL + bench and try to put in a HIIT session, but I do feel pretty lousy tired/weak from the blood donation, so I don't know. We'll see. I'm restocking on fluids / iron during the day. I'm also not sure how late my gym is open because they do holiday hours and no one is picking up the phone.

 

*shame*

 

*sadness*

[The Tin Man]

 

I just froze this weekend. I knew I had all sorts of things to do, but I protested and stood in the kitchen eating bowlfuls of Cheerios instead or tunnel-visioned on a video game so I wouldn't have to deal with the reality of my chores. Even my workouts, which I LOVE -- especially squat day -- got lumped into my mental understanding of "adulting" so I just avoided them completely, much to my chagrin because a) I'm donating blood tomorrow and b )Thanksgiving gym hours are weird, and c) this week was scheduled to be a deload, but I'll now probably just have to deload DL and OHP and do my prescribed workouts for squat and bench because ugh.

 

Basically, I am annoyed at myself for acting like a child. I can think of a lot of things that exacerbated my behavior, but really... I just shrank and hid instead of dealing with the tasks I had set out for MYSELF. Boooo, self. 

 

 

Those days/weekends/weeks are no good and I am no stranger to it. I know you though and, knowing you, you will be back to it (or are already back to it)!

 

Day 3.3

I was going to go to November Project this morning, buuuut I WENT BACK TO SLEEP. UGH. I was up late with Mike and my MIL watching Korean dramas and socializing, but she wound up staying up ALL NIGHT finishing the series and was still watching at 5:15 when I woke up the first time and I don't know, I think the voices lulled me back to sleep. I am not used to noise at that hour? I can't really justify it, but I fell back asleep and didn't set another alarm. I even slept through all the texts and a missed call from RP who is a saint for giving me a rides at all and I unconsciously made wait outside my house this morning. I'm such a jerk.

 

 

Missed you there! Next week? (not a verbal harvest)

 

And I wish I could've made it to open Thanksgiving. I got back from my brother's at 7:15 and mayyybe fell asleep like a half hour later. I may have been tired.

[raptron]

Maybe just a little! We'll see about Wednesday.

 

Day 3.4

Bodyweight stuff at home including gtg chin-ups and pull-ups in my runs around the kitchen.

 

 

Day 3.5

Put in my missed bench + squat workouts today. I felt kind of nauseous most of the day and post-heavy squats, I was definitely verging on wanting to puke, so I didn't do much accessory work other than 1 set of pistols and more chins + pull ups, BUT --

 

Squats

5 x 45#

5 x 95#

5 x 115#

3 x 135#

5 x 165#

3 x 185#

6 x 210# <-- work set PR. last time I squatted 210# was in January and it was 1-rep for 4T.

5 x 185#

 

Bench

5 x 45#

5 x 60#

3 x 70#

5 x 85#

3 x 100#

1 x 110# 

3 x 100#

 

Not baaad. No HIIT before of aforementioned nausea, but I'm okay with that.

 

Lungs: 0/3 HIIT sessions [planning on plyo at gymnastics tomorrow and sprints after the gym on Sunday]

Mobility: 2/3 foam roll, 1/1 yoga (video)

Fuel: 3/5

[SymphonicDan]

Funny how that sometimes happens... you don't do some particular strength thing for ages, and you come back to it thinking you might have lost your strength but you end up stronger than before :S I guess it means that cycling one's workouts is a good thing to do (i.e., training hard one way, then training hard a differrent way, and then maybe having a couple of "fallow" weeks when you don't do much, maybe if you're super busy, or travelling).

 

Hope you feel better soon from the nausea

 

Also, you squat significantly more than me, and I'm a 185cm ex-high-jumper! Maybe it's because I don't practise squats so much, but nevertheless I'm jealous of your numbers

[raptron]

Haha, well to be fair, I'm not pulling these attempts out of thin air or anything. I've been following a program since, I believe, the start of September, that has me doing each big lift just once as week and recalculates every 3 weeks. I started a bit low, so it's taken until now to finally ramp up to some weights that are new-to-me, PR-level weights. Taking a week off probably helped though.

 

Nausea's mostly good now, though generally off feeling. I did not eat well this weekend because we had so much food -- not necessarily the food I should have been eating or wanted to eat -- but shopping seemed unreasonable with such a full fridge. I also made cookies and ate all of them. /shrug

 

3.6

Gymnastics practice. Brief but pretty good. Tight/DOMSy from the squats on Friday, but not bad otherwise. Lots of thought about routine-building and choreography plus a lot of work on front tucks and front pikes. Plus I grudgingly did 8 minutes of plyo intervals. Then we went shopping with my MIL, went out to dinner, and were generally festive and gay. 

 

I'm trying to convince Mike that it would be a good idea to get a Christmas tree. We're going to be gone from 12/23 - 12/28 back to see my family in Chicago, but that's 23 days of tree if we get it now! He says he doesn't want to deal with the needles, but I think it's worth it just for the smell and the general emotional uplift. I really love Christmas trees and I've been feeling a bit gloomy guts lately, so I think it'd be a nice visual reminder to cheer up. I'm lucky to have no negative associations with the holidays -- in fact, I love this time of year. But yeah, we're probably going to get a tree.

 

HIIT: 1/3

Mobility: 3/3 foam roll, 1/1 yoga

Fuel: 3/6

 

3.7

I didn't make it to the gym. I couldn't really convince myself to go just to do cardio and light stuff, so I did 2 tabata circuits at home of a few different things (jumps, stair jumps, jump rope, and bounces). Not my best, but I put the effort in. All other useful potential to the day disappeared as my husband and I had our first real day to ourselves in 2 weeks once we dropped off my MIL at the airport. We spent it bingeing on Agents of SHIELD.

 

HIIT: 2/3

Mobility: 3/3 foam roll, 1/1 yoga

Fuel: 3/7

[CourtnieMarie]

you should totally get a christmas tree! the needles are nothing crazy to deal with. we decided not to have one this year since we can't put it in a place where it'll be seen from any windows. and I like seeing the lights from the outside... but maybe we'll go get a smaller christmas type plant at on of the local farms... like a big wreath! or a kissing ball? who knows!

 

also, the SO and I love a good SHIELD binge!

[raptron]

The negotiation deal for a tree has finally been sealed with a promise that I'll buy him sushi. We'll get the tree Friday.

 

Yeah, we just started yesterday and are already halfway through S1. SO MUCH BINGE.

[Raxie]

There is nothing like the smell of a Christmas tree to cheer up

 

Glad your tummy's feeling better! Also, awesome job on those squats.

[Shukar]

If you have the option, watching captain America 2 at the appropriate part of the season binging would be useful I expect.

[raptron]

I've already seen it so it's already been spoils'd a bit with "HEY IT'S THAT GUY!" etc. Also Centipede by name alone is already too close, haha. 

[CourtnieMarie]

Oh trust. If i remember right there are plenty of surprises yet to come! I love how they work it into the marvel universe as seemlessly as they can! <3 the whedons

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Fell off the grid there for a bit, but I'm caught up now!

I definitely fall into those ruts where I have so much to do that I don't do any of it and just play video games instead...sometimes it's needed to refocus...? :-)

Wooo! Congratulations on whips!!!!! That's really exciting!

Just gonna put it out there...the 90's x-men cartoon theme would be AWESOME floor routine music... ;-) I learned recently guys don't get music for floor and that made me sad...I wanted todo cool gymnasticsy things to the x-men theme song haha!

Yay for Christmas tree!! I got a new fake one and got it set up....branches are much fuller than my old one, so my ornaments aren't enough anymore and I need to go get more...but it's beautiful and makes me happy!

[nightlight]

i vote to get a tree.

why? because i can't have one. so others should.

[maigrey]

Tree for sushi seems like a deal!

[raptron]

Oh trust. If i remember right there are plenty of surprises yet to come! I love how they work it into the marvel universe as seemlessly as they can! <3 the whedons

For real, all the <3.

 

Fell off the grid there for a bit, but I'm caught up now!

I definitely fall into those ruts where I have so much to do that I don't do any of it and just play video games instead...sometimes it's needed to refocus...? :-)

Wooo! Congratulations on whips!!!!! That's really exciting!

Just gonna put it out there...the 90's x-men cartoon theme would be AWESOME floor routine music... ;-) I learned recently guys don't get music for floor and that made me sad...I wanted todo cool gymnasticsy things to the x-men theme song haha!

Yay for Christmas tree!! I got a new fake one and got it set up....branches are much fuller than my old one, so my ornaments aren't enough anymore and I need to go get more...but it's beautiful and makes me happy!

Yeah, I think periodic let-the-world-fade-away weekends are a good thing, but the timing on this past one was just the worst! I should not have worried though, as my MIL cleaned anything I set down for more than 10 seconds and seemed to really enjoy bringing order to our chaotic apartment. 

 

I have considered it previously! It was my ring-tone for a while. And unless you are trying to compete in the Olympics, you should make a floor routine to music anyway! There was a guy last year who competed floor to #Selfie -- which I'm sure was a double deduction, one for music and one for words -- but it was hilarious and awesome. 

 

i vote to get a tree.

why? because i can't have one. so others should.

I will share my tree with youuu.

 

Tree for sushi seems like a deal!

My negotiation skills ain't nothin to fuck wit.

 

Day 4.1

DO ALL THE THINGS. Last night was pretty much a three-of-everything workout, which I haven't done in a long time. It was hard and horrible, but whatever, I did soooo much in terms of practice. The first time I actually looked at the clock, there were only 10 minutes left and it was time for conditioning. We played around with these, which was hilarious and fun:

 

 

There is no time to practice new skills with the 3oE workout method, but Thursday should be prime for some of that. I haven't choreographed anything yet and I'm already kind of annoyed with my floor music choice -- which is a bad sign -- but fuck it, I am committing. I wish my gym had a mirrored space because choreographing without a mirror can lead to all sorts of embarrassing things, but oh welll. Do what ya gotta do. Tonight, tomorrow night, and Friday I'll see what I can put together and not completely hate.

 

HIIT: 0/3

Mobility: 1/3 foam roll, 0/1 yoga so far

Fuel: 1/7

 

COOL IDEA I WISH I HAD ON SATURDAY OR SOMETHING:

Maybe I've been on Pinterest too much lately, but I think it would be kind of neat to create some kind of reward Advent Calendar for the month. You'd make a little advent calendar of rewards for yourself and instead of opening one automatically each day because it's one day closer to Christmas, you'd only get to open it if you do something that works toward your overall goals -- be it challenge or something else. I think it'd be cute and possibly not even that hard to do.

 

Maybe make a list of nice things you don't get for yourself often (fancy lip balm, new eyeshadow, hazelnuts, a pomegranate, in-game currency for something). Then you could randomize the rewards so you don't know which day correlates with which reward and therefore give the incentive to actually care about EACH day even if there are trinkets or items in the full bucket of goodies that aren't necessarily the most exciting things in the world. Opening each one would be both a semi-surprise and a reward. 

 

I might do it anyway, even though the month has started, or I'll save it for another year. Either way, I thought I might share.

[Raxie]

That advent calendar idea is awesome!!! You could even start a PvP (that isn't really "versus") and have other people do it too I'd definitely join in.

[maigrey]

COOL IDEA I WISH I HAD ON SATURDAY OR SOMETHING:

Maybe I've been on Pinterest too much lately, but I think it would be kind of neat to create some kind of reward Advent Calendar for the month. You'd make a little advent calendar of rewards for yourself and instead of opening one automatically each day because it's one day closer to Christmas, you'd only get to open it if you do something that works toward your overall goals -- be it challenge or something else. I think it'd be cute and possibly not even that hard to do.

 

Maybe make a list of nice things you don't get for yourself often (fancy lip balm, new eyeshadow, hazelnuts, a pomegranate, in-game currency for something). Then you could randomize the rewards so you don't know which day correlates with which reward and therefore give the incentive to actually care about EACH day even if there are trinkets or items in the full bucket of goodies that aren't necessarily the most exciting things in the world. Opening each one would be both a semi-surprise and a reward. 

 

I might do it anyway, even though the month has started, or I'll save it for another year. Either way, I thought I might share.

A friend of mine did a beer calendar this way - she bought 24 beers (or ones that were in the fridge that she hadn't gotten around to trying yet), labeled 24 grocery store bottle bags with 1-24 and had her hubby put the bottles in the bags randomly so she doesn't know what she's getting...

 

You could TOTALLY do that, even starting today.

[raptron]

A local liquor store actually sells pre-assembled advent beer calendars. My friend bought one for me but I never picked it up from his house and it's been um, unofficially cellared for the past year, hahah. 

[SymphonicDan]

Is there still time to change your choice of floor music - since you haven't yet choreographed anything? I mean, "Flight of the Bumblebee" was always going to be a bad idea...

 

Also, when is the compeition? Is it the same one that you did this April?