Catspaw Starts Strong

[bigm141414]

 

I lol'd. This was me at camp (my first ever instructional experience). I was only bitchy watching bigm do oly lifts, he was the only one that sucked way worse than his experience should dictate.

 

Ouch my pride.

 

 

 

 

Wow, gauntlet thrown, bigm.

 

 

'scuse me while i queue up the training montage so I can impress everyone with my skills. 

[StarGazer]

'scuse me while i queue up the training montage so I can impress everyone with my skills.

You have skills? Could have fooled me

[catspaw]

My gym clothes bag sat on the floor next to my work bag, and I stared at it for several minutes.

 

I have time booked off on my calendar this morning for squatting.  My leg/hip's feeling a lot better -- no longer hurts at all during the day, I don't even feel it.  But when I do a few air squats, even though it doesn't hurt, I become aware of it, like those nerves are sending my brain a yellow caution sign.

 

I imagined all of the possibilities in my head, like a tree of decisions and consequences.  A cladogram of universes.

 

In the best case, I go squat today and hit my 225 goal and feel awesome and it doesn't hurt my hip at all.  But down that road, the "go squat today" road, there are other branches.  Some neutral: I go squat today and during a warmup set realize I might injure myself and have to stop.  Some bad: I go squat today and don't realize I'm injuring myself further, don't make the 225 anyway, but then can't lift for months as I deal with an adductor rip.

 

Along that other major branch is not squatting.  I lose...a day at the gym.

 

I attribute part of my success in life to being bold.  I jump head-first into fires at work.  I climb along japanese mountains, gripping onto a chain that is the only thing between me and catastrophe.

 

"Being bold is not the same thing as being stupid," I tell myself, picking up my work bag, and only my work bag, and leaving the gym clothes bag on the floor at home.

 

But as I walk to the shuttle, one bag fewer, I can't help but feel pissed off with myself.  I don't feel like a responsible adult, I feel like I'm letting a part of myself down.  Patience, I tell her.  Pick your battles.

 

The price of that clean PR on Monday was a slight injury, and that injury is fading quickly.  A small price to pay, but one that must be paid in full.  This impatience is part of that cost.  And it's going to make the next PR taste all the sweeter.

[raptron]

Exercising smart is sometimes harder than exercising hard. <3

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Part of getting older while lifting is learning to listen to those hints. I know that when I haven't injuries have happened. Nice work.

 

Ouch my pride.

'scuse me while i queue up the training montage so I can impress everyone with my skills.

Are you going to bro hug someone on the beach?

[SevenFootGeek]

Part of getting older while lifting is learning to listen to those hints. I know that when I haven't injuries have happened. Nice work.

 

Are you going to bro hug someone on the beach?

 

It is a well known fact that bigm does not hug.  Not willingly.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

It's the wrong season anyway. Need more of a Rocky 4 in the Russian snow sort of montage.

[RisenPhoenix]

It is a well known fact that bigm does not hug.  Not willingly.

 

Unless he's drunk.

 

 

So he's pretty much always willing to hug when around Nerds.

[littlewings]

Late to the party but I love goal #3! 

[catspaw]

YET. You know if she gets hired back (on your team or another) and you see her around you WILL discuss lifting and you WILL compare callouses.

 

I said yes.  Expect copious callous comparisons.

[catspaw]

Sun, Jan 24th - Hyrule Workout

 

We start with an injury check, to see how my adductor is doing.  It's actually doing almost entirely better, though the rest of my leg is extra-tight.  Even after some serious mobility work time (15-20 mins), my calf and hamstring are both tighter than usual.

 

This is typical post-injury: my adductor was a little torn and weak last week, so the rest of my leg was overcompensating.

 

Hyrule declares me fit for lifting, but we're not going to go anything heavier than 80% on snatches, and staying away from heavy squatting (aka: no cleans today).

 

Snatch

  75 x 1

  85 x 1

  85 x 1

  85 x 1

  85 x 1

  95 x 1

  105 x 1

 

All of those 85s were because Hyrule noticed something odd about my timing today and wanted to film it to try to identify what was going on.  My heels were coming up sliiightly too early, which is a new fault for me.  As soon as we figured out that was what the problem was, I adjusted and was good again.

 

Hang snatches

  105 x 1

  105 x 1

  105 x 1

  105 x 1

  105 x 1

 

Split jerks

  75 x 1

  85 x 1

  95 x 1

 

Hyrule stops me here.  My split stance is better today than usual (I'm really focussing on driving my front heel forwards and that seems to be helping), although my split continues to be my normal "too slow", but the bar path is being wonky.  The bar is ending up too far in front of me, even though from the side Hyrule says that the bar path is straight up and down.

 

He has me do a few more reps at 95 to diagnose.  I'm splitting too early, not completing the post-dip drive.  This means that the bar isn't getting high enough (since my upper body strength isn't there), so my body is trying to get under the bar faster, and when I'm doing so, I'm actually going down at an angle, so even though the bar is going straight up, it's ending up too far in front of me.

 

Hyrule says he wants to work on the dip drive issue separately, but let's keep going with singles today and see how high I can get, assuming that things don't fall to even worse shit.

 

  95 x 1

  105 x 1

  115 x 1

  125 x 1

  135 x 1

  145 x 1

  155 x 1 [PR]

 

It's the least exciting PR ever.  We both just kinda shrug.  It doesn't feel earned because the jerks aren't feeling great today.  But a PR nonetheless.

 

We end the day with a band wrapped around my legs, just above the knee.  Hyrule makes me front rack just the empty bar.  The goal is to dip, like I'm about to jerk, and then drive upwards with my legs and see how high I can get the bar to go without any arm assistance.

 

Answer?  1/2 inch.  It baaaaarely goes up.  I do it over and over.  Nothing.  He has me front squat and explode at the top, and the bar goes up to eye level.  Now this should be more than a dip, but the delta shouldn't be that big.

 

Hyrule tries many cues to get something out of me and my glutes are definitely activated when I pause in the dip, but nothing works. 

 

"Well," Hyrule says, "the good news is you're jerking bodyweight with no leg help, so once we get those firing you'll be jerking your clean weight in no time.  Bad news is this'll take some work."

 

He reminds me how long it took to get my lats to fire properly.

 

I'm given a bunch of supplementary exercises to do this week, and he promises many hip thrusts and back planks in my future.  Joy.

[Shukar]

So I heard a rumor you had obtained a new sleep tracking device, how's that working for you? Sleeping as good as you're eating and lifting?

[catspaw]

So I heard a rumor you had obtained a new sleep tracking device, how's that working for you? Sleeping as good as you're eating and lifting?

 

It's....okay.

 

I like seeing the data, but I wouldn't say that it really helps me sleep better in any way.

 

For example, last night: "You were asleep for 8.3 hours and sleeping soundly for 1.8 hours."

 

Well that's not great.  Let's go look at the little graphs and see what's up:

• Temperature: great
• Humidity: great
• Air quality: great
• Light level: great
• Noise level: great

So, not super useful in this case.  I think the "sleep tracker" would be better as a rentable sleep diagnostic.  Check your room one week per year to see how stuff like your humidity is doing, and then put it back away.  my $0.02.

[catspaw]

When the guy in the squat rack says he's going to need about half an hour and you can't complain because that's how long you plan to take too....

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[catspaw]

Wed, Jan 27th - Workout Log

 

Relevant part of the workout log today is squats.  I also did a bunch of mobility shit at the start (like, a bunch) for the leg, and spent a bunch of time afterwards doing Hyrule homework for posterior chain activation which I would describe as "not exciting, at best".

 

But back to the fun stuff...

 

Squats

  135 x 5

  135 x 5

  155 x 4

  175 x 2

  175 x 2

  195 x 1

  205 x 1

  215 x 1

  225 x 1 [10 lb PR]

 

Bam!  It was heavy but easy, if that makes sense.  Like my CNS was "uhhhh are you sure about this?" once I unracked it, but in terms of actual RPE it certainly wasn't anything like the 12/10 I feel like I give oly lifts sometimes.

 

Things I'm really bad at: rest periods before a PR attempt.  Uuuugh I am The Worst.

 

I kinda wanted to add more weight afterwards and push it, but decided to save subsequent PRs for a later date.  BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, CATSPAW.  This is like 2/3s of what I pay Hyrule for: to determine when my aggressiveness for PRs is appropriate, and when I'm just being a dopamine junkie in an alleyway somewhere yelling at passersby: "hey, got any spare goals?"

[StarGazer]

 

I kinda wanted to add more weight afterwards and push it, but decided to save subsequent PRs for a later date.  BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, CATSPAW.  This is like 2/3s of what I pay Hyrule for: to determine when my aggressiveness for PRs is appropriate, and when I'm just being a dopamine junkie in an alleyway somewhere yelling at passersby: "hey, got any spare goals?"

 

I'm just picturing you all disheveled, hunched over and twitching trying to creepily ask people for goals from some sketchy alleyway.

 

Also.... YAY PR! And good job on self-restraint.

[wildross]

Yeah for 225#!  It always looks more balanced on the bar to me than 135#.

 

And even more yeah for self restraint.  I think it is a key to avoiding injury (especially as we age).  Is that PR today (or showing off to the other person in the gym) worth not lifting for 1,2,3, 6 months?  No.  Stick with the plan.  It's trite, but the hare wins a surprising number of times.

 

Delayed gratification is a learned skill.

[RisenPhoenix]

A w00t w00t for the PR!

[miss_marissa]

Yaaasssss PRs! Congrats on conquering 2 plates and not immediately going for 3

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[catspaw]

I'm just picturing you all disheveled, hunched over and twitching trying to creepily ask people for goals from some sketchy alleyway.

There's an ongoing joke between my manager and I about me winning. He feels (and not unreasonably so) that I'm motivated by improbable, challenging goals. That that's when I kick into "great, let's figure out how to do this" mode, laser focused, and align the universe to my whims to make it happen. But, of course, I'm in the least goal-oriented role ever: managing a team and balancing their individual happiness, career growth, team cohesion, etc. with project goals that are of course never as simple as "launch this thing" but are instead intertwined and messy.

I can find satisfaction elsewhere, like watching my reports do well and watching the team thrive. But the reward is diffuse and more like the soft pleasure of reading a good book on a long Sunday afternoon than the sharp high of a dopamine bomb.

We joke about it, but it's one of those half jokes buried deeply in truth. There are shades of "don't go, change" swirled in there, and not unkindly: this is the job track and future that I've chosen for myself. And so I get my highs elsewhere: videogames, lifting, jumping out of planes. And for now that's enough.

[raptron]

YASSSSSS.

[msuroo]

Woooo twoooo wheeeeellllssss

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[Sam Ashen]

Woooo twoooo wheeeeellllssss

 

Threeeee Wheeeelllssss coming up for you!  

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Yes, two wheel!

And fuck jumping outta planes. Did it once, never a-fucking-gain.

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[msuroo]

Yes, two wheel!

And fuck jumping outta planes. Did it once, never a-fucking-gain.

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I've never done it. That fact makes me sad.

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