Fitness For Thought

My body may not be where I want it to be…

but I can’t deny that I am probably 100% stronger than I was a year ago. 3 months ago, I couldn’t even do 1 pull up, now I’m up to 5-6 consecutive ones! I mean seriously, that’s awesome! And I don’t mean that in a cocky way— it’s just amazing what kind of strength progress one can make when they lift and work hard!

Keep pushing yourself and putting the effort in and you WILL see results!

Trying something a bit different

and incorporating some more resistance training with cables/bands for my upper body workouts. I want to continue to increase strength but not pack on much more muscle (yes, yes, i know- it’s very hard to get huge muscles, blah blah blah, but I personally think my arms and shoulders are getting a bit bulky right now)… so I an attempt to continue to gain strength and lean out, I am going to try this for a bit. We’ll see how it goes. If I don’t feel like I’m getting any results, I’ll go back to more heavy weights.

I’m sticking with the weights for lower body though :)

http://jasonferruggia.com/top-20-bodyweight-exercises-for-building-muscle-strength/

“6) Handstand Pushup

These will build up your shoulders like nothing else and will usually cause less pain than a barbell military press. An impressive number to shoot for is ten full range reps. To get started on these you need to first master the handstand. It’s been said by high level gymnastic coaches that the ability to handstands is one of the most important things you can develop to improve your overall athleticism. Once you have mastered them with your feet against the wall and can hold them for sixty seconds without a problem you can work on free handstands. Just be sure to have spotters around or a mat to roll on to when you’re first starting out.

*must learn how to do a handstand!!!

A jammed knuckle and some rug burn later..I kicked MAJOR ass at tonight’s SGT :)

I actually left feeling pretty damn proud of myself. We had to do it inside in the studio because of the rain so the course was closer together but involved crawling under hurdles (for once my shortness helped me- get through it quickly!), burpees, rope slams, farmers walks, suicides, walking-like push ups, etc.

Aka it was awesome! This was week 5 so only 3 more weeks to go.. I’m definitely going to miss it when it’s over. It really makes me push myself. Even though I might do boxing in the winter and I’m sure that’ll be freaking awesome, I’ll miss this type of competition. Hope the weather is night for the next 3 Fridays so we can do it outside again :)

Nothing like a little failure to bring you back down to reality: Small Group Training tonight…

was super hard. The GM of the gym joined us for her first week and I was honestly not expecting her to do as well as she did. I have to admit- she’s stronger than me— not as fast, but stronger- at least in her upper body. 

We did:  10- squat w/ shoulder presses (light bar + 20lbs), a set of suicides, jumping into these circles, rope slams for 20 seconds (all about speed though), standing obliques while holding a 12 lb. medicine ball above our heads— 12 per side, 20 jumps w/ this ridiculously heavy jump rope, sledge hammer slams on the tire—10 per side, then had to run to the big tires, and flip them 6 times, then run through the cones. 

Holy shitttt- it was tough. Keep in mind- we’re being timed so it’s all about trying to get the best time— well to ME at least! Honestly- that’s my only motivation— to try and beat everyone else. 

I ended up doing WORSE the 2nd round— which really lit a fire to my ass because I was so angry.. especially since I didn’t FEEL slower than the first time.. My arms definitely felt shot each time when I got to the sledge hammer slams since they were right after the jump rope.. so my slams were probably pretty damn slow. 

Overall, from all the rounds, I got the best time 2 mins. 59 seconds during the 3rd round, but I only beat Annette (the GM) by about a second.. She really improved her time from the 1st to 3rd round— by like 30 seconds— I was impressed. 

Anyways, I feel like I pushed myself hard, but I still wasn’t able to improve my time more than 16 seconds.. it just felt really hard… it also reminded me that I’m not as strong as I want to be. I really need to improve on my actual strength. Jared said I should do slower singular exercises instead of my usual more circuit-like strength training. I’m going to do some research, probably ask him a few more questions, and try it. I want to increase my strength, and I want to be able to do a god damn pull up by myself!

Tonight was simply motivation to keep kicking my ass in the gym!