In which worlds collide, a little.

In the last couple of weeks, I have:

- Set a new PR on the deadlift, at 205 pounds;
- Set a new PR on the rack pull, at 275 pounds, though my grip did not love that weight;
- Pulled a muscle in my back trying to pull 200 pounds for reps after coughing and hacking with allergies all day; and
- Bought two new opera DVDs, with mixed results.

First up on the opera front was the 2013 Aix-en-Provence production of Elektra.  I spent about 50% of the time admiring the production, which was awesome, and 50% of the time coveting Evelyn Herlitzius' upper-arm definition, which was at least as awesome if not more so.  Seriously, the woman is ripped.  And also one of the best Elektras I've ever seen.  It does not seem fair that one woman should have both those advantages.

The production itself was minimalism at its best; a lot of people have criticized the set as "boring", but honestly, it's Elektra - how much distraction from the plot do you really need?  Minimalism works best for this opera, in my opinion, assuming you have excellent singers; and this one does.  Herlitzius is as good an actress as she is a singer, which is saying a great deal about the excellence of both; Waltraud Meier is her usual glorious self;  Adrianne Pieczonka as Chrysothemis is in fine voice and brings an affecting degree of humanism to an often thankless role, and Mikhail Petrenko as Orest is so compelling that it's easy to love him as much as Elektra loves the idea of him, as soon as he walks on the stage.  Buy this one if you haven't already; it's more than worth it.

Next up was the 2013 ROH production of Eugene Onegin, with Simon Keenlyside and Krassimira Stoyanova, in which dancers portrayed the young Onegin and Tatyana while the principals sang the vocal lines.  I think I would have been more fond of this production if the dancers had taken on the roles the whole time while Keenlyside and Stoyanova sang from the sidelines; instead, for a good chunk of the opera, we have to watch while the leading roles are sung by performers who are far, far, far and away too old for the parts - to the point of actual grotesquerie in the case of Stoynova, who is in her 50s and looks a decade older here thanks to a supremely unflattering costume and wig. I don't think I've ever seen a production more brutally unkind to its principal soprano, either intentionally or otherwise. Stoynova is a lovely woman with a beautiful voice, but in this production she bears an unfortunate resemblance to one of the leads in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

I have to admit, though, that the way the duality was performed was not entirely jarring.  Being two different stories, there are two different hearts to the opera.  The first is the Letter Scene, which is brilliant in its portrayal of the discrepancy between Tatyana's fantasies of Perfect Love and, well, any form of objective reality; the difference between the dancer's hope and (very young) optimism and the older Tatyana's regret are so resonant with anyone who's ever wished they could go back and reassure their younger selves, or advise them, or give them a good swift kick in the ass, or all of the above.

Then there's the Duel Scene, which, well done, breaks my heart every time.  The way the scene is done in this opera is devastating- Lensky and the young Onegin performing the duel, while the older Onegin drifts back and forth between them like an unquiet ghost, trying to comfort Lensky, trying to step between Lensky and his younger self, trying to change the past and knowing that he can't.  

Still and all, in my opinion the central relationships in Onegin are not Tatyana and Onegin but Tatyana and Reality on one hand, and Onegin and Lensky on the other; and I really have no complaints to make on either front.  Pavol Breslik is, as always, a treat for both the eyes and the ears; one of these days I will get hold of the Bayerische Staatsoper's Brokeback Onegin production with him and Keenlyside, and then I will never leave my apartment again.

Then there's this sort of strange polonaise where Onegin dances with all these girls, who promptly die after dancing with him - sometimes on top of the corpse of Lensky, who remains on the stage throughout the production, an inescapable reminder.  This is an odd and unnerving scene, but honestly, during my first viewing I mostly thought "You know, if I'd known that dancers were allowed to rub all over Simon Keenlyside, I'd have been a lot less bitter about the ten years of ballet lessons my mother made me take."

In short, though I would follow Simon Keenlyside and Pavol Breslik to the ends of the Earth, I thought the dancers who were supposed to represent Tatyana's and Onegin's younger selves were either underused or underfilmed, to the detriment of the production at least on a first viewing, though maybe not on subsequent ones.  I'm not sure I'd be interested in the production with lesser singers than Breslik and Keenlyside.  In the meantime, I was reduced to doing bicep curls and some light yoga, because my back hates me like Elektra hates Clytemnestra.

I am not very good at blogging.

So in the *coughmumble* months since I last updated, I have:

- Squatted 135 for a single; new squat goal is 145, which is around my current bodyweight

- Deadlifted 200 for a single; new goal is 225

- Moved up to my 35-pound kettlebell on S&S

- Worked on pull-ups and am now almost able to do a dead-hang chin-up, though working on them kills my arms in the "Danger, Will Robinson" way that seems to imply strained tendons

- Decided that it's high time I did a cut, since I have now been bulking for six months straight and am looking pretty, well, bulky.  And not in the good way.  I'm about 35% body fat, from pictures, and I'd like to cut that down to 25%.  I know I have muscles under there somewhere and I'd like to see them.

Anyway, that's two goals met.  Additional goals include being able to do dragonfly pose.  I'm not actually sure I'm built to do it, but we'll see.

Exercises I am going to have to break up with, part 1.

The lat pull-down.  There's nothing wrong with it per se, and I sort of hate to get rid of it, but it really aggravates my bad shoulder.  For purposes of building up my back, there are other exercises that do just as well that don't cause me as much pain (e.g., rows).

The barbell glute bridge.  Okay, first, I am not tall enough to put my shoulders up on a bench the way you're supposed to.  I'd have to sit on a booster seat.  Second, ow.  I can't imagine that even using the pussy pad would stop the bar from bruising my hipbones worse than anything I have ever done in the gym so far.  I need to strengthen my glutes to help ameliorate my epic hyperlordosis, but I'm thinking heavy kettlebell swings will be more useful and less damaging.

The OHP.  No, I just wish I could break up with the OHP.  It hurts my shoulder when I'm not careful with it, and also I suck at it and I hate doing things I suck at.  But it seems to be a pretty critical exercise, so I will channel the spirit of Pudgy Stockton, make sure to shrug at the top to minimize impingement, and keep putting heavy shit over my head.

My bench press is up to 75 for singles.  Heavy singles on the deadlift are at 185, and 115 on squats.  That puts me 25 pounds away from my goal for the bench press, 15 pounds for the deadlift, and 20 pounds for squats.  It's so annoying to be so close and still have to work your way up a few pounds at a time, but I tried 205 on the deadlift (stapled to the ground) and 135 on the squat (went down fine, but coming back up was not happening) and it's clear that the slow working-up is going to be how I get there.

Well, I've got time.  Probably.  And if I don't, I imagine the state of my deadlift will be the least of my concerns.

General health: okay but not great.  I've been completely exhausted lately - like, brain-fogging, swimming-through-sludge exhausted.  I think part of it is because my RA has been more active than I'd like.  To tell the truth, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to wean off methotrexate like I'd hoped.  I'm down to two pills and I'm really starting to feel it.  The last few days have been better, but I had a couple of days last week where I was hugely stiff and sore getting out of bed.  Oddly, but fortunately, my lifts don't seem to be suffering for it; but it's a little depressing anyway.

Things Kettlebells Have Taught Me, #1

When you're doing rep ladders, it is easy as balls to completely lose sight of how many reps you've done in total, and then you spend the next two or three days praying the Lord your soul to take so you don't have to try to get out of bed in the morning.

This was something I hadn't realized before because I haven't done ladders in anything else.  But man, if you want to trick yourself into ramping up volume to ridiculous extents, ladders are the way to go.  I mean, it's only five reps, right?  And then four, and that's totally not very many, right?

Right?

No, it's not.  But 90 reps sure as fuck is, and that is where you will find yourself before your body has even figured out that you're exercising.  Ouch.

Life lesson: fixing your shit hurts.

Not in the "I am about to snap something up and shouldn't continue this" way, but in the "Holy shit, I have clearly never used that muscle before in my life and now it hurts like Neo's eyes when he first left The Matrix" way.  My upper back is sorer than hell, I've offended something in my right lower back, and I may have to give in and slink back to my gym's spa for a sports massage to make it stop being pissed at me.

Last night was heavy deadlift day.  I was supposed to do 190 for a heavy single and couldn't get it off the floor.  I'm not too broken up over that, because I'd already moved almost 4,000 pounds of back-intensive kettlebell weight before I even hit the gym (because I have New!  Kettlebells!), and I was being super careful because of my right lower back, so I wasn't really in the head space required to pull a new PR.  I'll get it when deload week is over, that 190 pounds isn't going anywhere.  165 wasn't all that happy about coming up either, but I really worked the tips I got from Katie at Iron Sport on the last couple of reps and the difference was noticeable.

Today may be active recovery day with a walk on the park trails.  Or maybe I'll decide it's too cold and just go back to sleep.  Both of those options look pretty good right now.

May is Fix Your Shit Month

For purposes of fixing my shit, May actually started yesterday and will continue for the next six weeks.

Tonight I tried out the new squat form that Katie Feeley from Iron Sport Gym taught me, BLACK APOSTASY THOUGH IT SEEMED. It was sort of a trial by fire - heavy squat week, with a new PR on singles, when my quads were already killing me. Regardless, I think it's going to work out well. I hate to say it, but given my particular weaknesses, the Starting Strength squat was causing me to be in perpetual danger of falling on my face. This one feels better; I'll work with it for a couple of months and see how my progress goes.

 Another thing Katie did at the seminar was confirm all my self-diagnosed weaknesses. Not only that, she told me how to fix them. So for May I'm going to set aside my usual accessory programming and hit my weaknesses hard. My main programs will still be S&S and 5/3/1 as usual, but here are the three things I want to fix and how I'm going to work them:

1. Back strength. Rows and lat pull-downs.

2. Retaining tension. Paused squats and just really working tension in everything I do.

3.  Mobility. Ten-minute squat test and Agile 8. I also need to do yoga more often, but that's not so much a weakness correction as a lifestyle choice.

 Next week is deload week. Man, I'm looking forward to that.

Form fixes

Today I went to Iron Sport's squat and deadlifting seminar. It was both awesome and demoralizing. Demoralizing because I was by far and away the weakest person there and even in the women's group I kept having to take weight off the bar; awesome because I got a lot of feedback on my form and ideas for fixes for the areas where it's weak. So on the takehome front, I have two new accessories that I need to fit in: pause squats and rows. I've been considering pause squats for a while but somehow rows never quite occurred to me, even though I know for a fact that my middle and upper back are really weak. Next week is heavy week, so we'll see how the new squat form works out; a few weeks from now, we'll see if the rows are making my form any better on the deadlift. Maybe they'll carry over into my TGUs and swings too. Or my cleans, dear god, that would be amazing.

Wherein the UPS delivery guy plots my fiery downfall

For the last few days, the kettlebell-swinging internet has been abuzz with RKC-certified instructors handing out codes for 40% off Dragon Door kettlebells, for the benefit of those of us not among the anointed.  (And for their own benefit, since I assume they get referral money.)  As planned, I bought two 12kg and a 24kg.  I already had a 25-pounder, but since it's not the same weight, I'm going to see if my daughter wants that one.  If not, I can always still use it for singles work, or trade it in to Play It Again for something else cool.

Now I'm broke, but I got top-of-the-line kettlebells for less than the cost of most no-name ones, so I'm pretty happy.

Last night was deadlift night.  I did the I'm Not Doing Jack Shit protocol because everything I've done this week has made me DOMS-ish and I want to be on point for the squat and deadlift seminar at Iron Sport on Sunday.  I set a new PR - 185 pounds, which is so, so close to my goal weight of 200.  It was just for a single and I want to be able to do 200 for reps, but still.  Super close.  My top set felt easier, too.

But the seminar is just in time, because I caught sight of myself in the mirror angle when I was pulling my work set, and holy shit is my form bad.  I cannot for anything keep my back from rounding, even on fairly light weights.  Even concentrating on pulling my shoulders and lats back doesn't work once the weight starts coming off the ground.  I don't know if it's a weak upper back, shoulder mobility issues, or just my posture at the start of the lift, but hopefully someone at the seminar can tell me.  I just hope my form's not so bad that I have to deload all the way back to the empty bar and work back up.

In honor of the seminar I'm going to, here's the (classic, hilarious) commercial for the gym hosting it:

Ow, my shoulders.

Today I did a set of five walkouts with 135 pounds.  God damn, that is heavy.  But in a weird way; not in the sense that my leg muscles were shaking under the strain, but in the sense that I put 135 pounds on my shoulders and that weight feels like it's grinding my bones to make its bread.  I've got fat to spare, but the weight squashed right through it.  It was strange and uncomfortable, and I sort of have a little more sympathy now for people who use the pussy pad, though not much.

Other than that, my main lift for tonight was squats with a top set of 85 and a heavy single of 105 (new PR!).  I had to pause and regroup between reps 4 and 5, but last time I squatted this weight I had to stop between 3 and 4, so I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

Last week I tried doing TGUs with my 35-pounder, Mathilde.  I almost dropped it on my head and killed myself.  I definitely need more time under the 25; a TGU is not something you want to fail.  I also gave my arm an epic bruise doing cleans with it, but at least I can do a one-handed swing with it with something resembling good form.  Just... not for many sets.

My kettlebell coach sent out a mass email to his students with the subject "YOU CAN'T MISS THIS!"  I read the email, and lo, he was actually totally correct.  So a big chunk of my paycheck this Friday is going toward Dragon Door kettlebells.  Right now the plan is to buy two 12kgs and an aspirational 24kg.  I can use it for deadlifts or something.  (Or, god save my quads, goblet squats.)

I think I'd like to compete in kettlebell meets.  I just think it would be really cool.  I was never athletic and I was always so, so jealous of my cousins when they competed in gymnastics meets and brought home trophies.  I probably won't ever compete in powerlifting events because having a 400-pound deadlift would require me to have the sort of body that can move 400 pounds off the floor, and while I'm all for strength, I prefer a more streamlined look.  (I say that as though it's all about aesthetics.  The truth is that I doubt I'm physically capable of reaching that level of strength.  I'm just going to tell myself it's all about not getting all bulky and mannish because that will salve my ego a little.)

That means I need to work on my long cycle, because just the thought of doing it for ten minutes makes my shoulders hurt.  That can go on my list of goals too.

What is this strange feeling? It is almost like warmth.

It was actually warm enough to go hiking today, so I went for a four-and-a-half mile one.  It didn't seem that long.  I still huffed and puffed going up the steeper trails, but overall it didn't feel like that much distance.

Still, it reminded me why I powerlift.  If you want a twenty-second burst of maximal effort, I'm all over it.  Sustaining even 75% effort for more than about thirty seconds?  That is a lot of effort and huffing and puffing and cursing everything.  No wonder I was never any good at PE as a child.  Well, that and my inherent distaste for team sports and pointlessly chasing a ball around a field.

After resting a while post-hike, I did S&S.  The swings I got down to 4:37, though holy crap, was I smoked.  If I can keep up that time for the next few sessions I'll move to one-handed swings with the 25lb.  TGUs - again, with the 25lb - came in at 8:09, but they felt awfully wobbly.  I want to wait to move up weight on that one until I really feel like I own the 25lb bell for every stage of all ten reps.  Oddly enough, they get easier on the last couple of reps, so maybe it's the technique I'm having trouble with more than the weight.  Either way, I'm not putting 35 pounds over my face until I'm stable with the 25.  Probably this will happen by the time I get one-armed swings down  below 5 minutes, so I can move everything up at once.

By the way - if you, like me, just started wondering why the hell lb is the abbreviation for pound, World Wide Words via The Google tells me it's because lb stands for libra, which is a shorter reference to libra pondo or "pound weight"; the English pound comes from the second word, but the abbreviation comes from the first.

Bad week for my PRs.

So I implemented the strategy of doing heavy singles before my work sets.  Well, "heavy."  They're ten pounds over my top work weight.  I might have to boost that up a little.

Monday was squat day, and my heavy set of 90 went up and down like a well-oiled machine but didn't top my all-time heavy lift of 100.

Thursday was bench press day.  I pressed 70 pounds for a single pretty easily despite the fact that it was after work and I hadn't eaten since breakfast; and my blood sugar level was at that point where you start tingling in all your limbs and become half convinced that you've evolved to a transcendent spiritual plane where Eternal Gainz can be yours if you only live on sunlight, water, and communion with the Divine.  (What, is that just me?  Well, I did pull a bench PR in that state, so.)

Today was deadlift day.  I pulled 160 for a single, which was a PR, and my top set was 150x5.  When I started 5/3/1, 150 was my 1RM.

Now if I just didn't have 35% body fat covering all these developing muscles.  I need to be more conscientious about doing S&S twice a week, and also about my diet.


Earlier this week, I realized why "my" power cage is always the one that's empty: it's the only one that doesn't face a mirror.  Today, some poor guy got stuck in the mirrorless power cage and was forced to actually turn sideways in the rack so he could watch his deadlifts in the mirror behind the dumbbell rack.

Seriously, don't change in the bathroom. We've seen it.

So Friday on the deadlifting front was not pretty.  It was heavy week and my top weight was 145; I really needed five reps to increase my estimated 1RM and it didn't happen.  I pulled two doubles and a single, and those barely, partly because my hands were killing me.

So today I read around the Starting Strength forums, and reaped some really good and inspiring advice, including:

- This link on technique

- The advice not to chase 1RMs, because 1RMs only matter to competitive lifters.  This was a load off my mind, since my estimated 1RM actually went down since last cycle while the amount of weight I lifted (for fewer reps) went up.

-The idea of doing a heavy single before your work set.  I like heavy singles, and this would make me feel like I've pushed an adaptation even if I fail to meet my rep goal on the top set.

-Heavy squats are heavy.  Maybe cut down on the warmups.

The link on technique has all sorts of good advice, including but not limited to:

• Try narrowing your stance and turning your feet out.
• Start with the bar in your fingers, since that's where it's going to end up anyway.
• Chalk really does help.
• Set your thumb across your fingernails instead of over your fingers.  (I tried this today.  It works!)

All this makes me feel better about the fact that, according to my spreadsheet, I'm supposed to deadlift 150x5 next week when I could barely do 145x2 this week.

Today's workout

This is deload week so I only did three warm-up sets of squats, but then I tried out sumo deadlifts, 45x5, 65x5, 95x5, and 135x3.  They're fun!  Also, 35x10x5 two-handed kettlebell swings.  I was going to do S&S tonight but I'm feeling the deadlifts a little, so I'll wait until tomorrow.


And now a pet peeve.  If your gym only has four stalls in the women's room and there's always a line, for fuck's sake don't take up one of those stalls changing.  There is literally an entire room right next to you specifically dedicated to that purpose.  I guarantee you, honey, you've got nothing we haven't seen before.  Get your ass out of that stall, let your cellulite fly, and free up the space for someone who has two minutes to pee before spin class.

Werther thou goest...

Attention, Met Live in HD viewers: the day you see an Under Armor sports bra land at Jonas Kaufmann's feet during his curtain call is the day you'll know I finally sprang for seats within throwing distance of the stage.

But workout stuff first: this was Week 3 of my second 5/3/1 cycle and my deadlift is concerning me a little.  I tried the hook grip on 135 pounds and it did nothing but nearly kill my hands - I sliced a cuticle open, as a matter of fact, so I'm pretty sure I was doing it wrong.  My top set of 145 went up to lockout with the mixed grip, but it felt unstable.  I'm just going to have to hope I'm getting stronger in recovery as we speak.

On the S&S front, I dropped down to about 6:25 in two-handed swings with the 25-pound bell and started doing TGUs with the 25-pounder too.  I was fairly sure I was going to die of a kettlebell to the face, but no; the TGUs were super challenging but doable. I didn't time them because I didn't want to feel rushed with a new weight, but next time I will.

Also, when your back is sore from deadlifting the seats at the Metropolitan Opera House are murder, which brings me back to Werther.

I often think that there's an odd sort of discrepancy between Jonas Kaufmann live and Jonas Kaufmann in recordings.  As often as I listen to his recordings, I'm always just blown away by him live, whether in lieder or operas. A good example of this is Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin - relatively tame, if lyrical, on the CD and dark, erotic and edgy in his Princeton recital last year.  Changing interpretations, probably, but I've noticed the same thing with a lot of his recordings; while beautiful, they're missing some essential Jonasness that, when you put him in front of an audience, roars out of wherever it's hiding and burns the place down.  This is on my mind both because he sang like a god in Werther last night and because I raided the Met gift shop and bought the Parsifal bluray and Kaufmann's elusive Winterreise, which appears to be currently available on American shores only through the Met.  I'm really looking forward to kicking back with good scotch, a log on the fire, and the Winterreise CD, and we'll see how it sounds.

And maybe I'll practice cleans with my new kettlebell, too.

Link roundup, the Kaufmann edition

Here's a guy who clearly went to the same Carnegie Hall recital I did.

GiryaGirl on not getting caught up in the social-media version of tabloid trash. Of all things ask, "Does this bring more Jonas Kaufmann into my life?  No?  Forget it."  This is an article I definitely needed to read, because I get sucked into that garbage like nobody's business and it never seems to do anything but make me unhappy.

Grip strength woes

So Friday was deadlifting day.  Which was problematic to begin with, since I sort of overdid it on the bench press/upper body on Thursday.  I may need to rethink my T/Th/F schedule, though it keeps me out of the gym on Monday, which is the only busy day in the weight room.

Anyway; I did 140x5 but my lockout sucked.  I didn't feel strong at the top, or feel like I was straightening up all the way.  So instead of unloading the bar, I glared at it for a couple of minutes and then decided to do another triple.

Same result.  The weight went up, but the lockout sucked.  Also, I could barely hold onto the bar, and on at least one rep it fell out of my hands right before it hit the floor.  So I tried a set with the alternating grip, and boom - the weight went straight up, no lockout issues at all.

I was a little displeased by this, so I tried a backoff single of 135.  It honest to god dropped right out of my hands at the top of the lift.  Between the noise 135 pounds makes hitting the floor and the sound of me turning the air blue upon lift failure, it's a good thing I don't work out at Planet Fatness or my picture would be on Do Not Admit lists all over the country.  Again, 135 with the alternating grip went up just fine.

So I'm going to have to work grip strength.  And this week I'm going to try hook grip and see if that helps.  Also, the tendons in my forearms hurt.

In other fail news, I got the goals backward for S&S - it's 100 kettlebell swings in 5 minutes and 5 TGUs on each side in 10.  That's bad news for my swings, but does mean I should probably think about moving up weight on the TGU.

Link roundup

So it looks like cardio might not actually kill your gainz after all, depending on what you're doing.

A good day squatting, on the other hand...

Awesome workout today.  I usually don't get the same endorphin rush from lifting that I do from a really good yoga class, but today I did, and left the gym totally energized.  The weights felt totally manageable and even light on the top set of triples; they'd probably have felt light on the extra set of five across too, if I'd rested longer between sets.

Today's workout:
Squats: 45x5x2, 50x3, 60x3, 70x3, 80x3, 80x5
Front squats: 45x5x3
Seated dumbbell press: 20x5x5
Kettlebell windmills: 20x5x5

Well, I say "kettlebell windmills."  I was doing them wrong.  Apparently you're supposed to bend forward a little in a way that is exactly not how you're supposed to do triangle pose, so basically I was doing triangle pose with a 20-pound weight held over my head.  I did a few reps after I'd gotten home and watched YouTube tutorials, though, so I feel a little better about my technique now.

Tiredness, S&S, and a music rec

Today's workout: S&S.  I didn't time it because for a number of reasons, mostly medication-related, today was a super low energy day.

I did start alternating sets of one-arm swings with two-arm swings.  Wow, the one-arm swings are heavy.  They definitely make the two-arm swings feel easy, though.

In non-fitness-related news, David Lang, of Little Match Girl Passion fame, has an incredible work called World to Come for voice and cello, which I just discovered today and I am in love with it:

TFW everyone else in the class is doing it differently.

No workouts were done this weekend.  That's because the DOMS from Friday's overdoing-it were epic.  This weekend was a recovery weekend.

Today's workout:

Kettlebell class, an hour of intervals.  Exercises included one-armed swings, clean and press, snatch, really difficult plank variants, and I don't even know what all else.

And goblet squats.

Now, goblet squats during intervals - yay, right?  By the time the squats rolled around I was about to die and would pretty much take any chance I could get to sit the hell down and see how close to the floor I could get my tailbone.  When I do goblet squats I go ATG because why not?  The weight's light and it stretches out my hips and lower back.  At that point my only concern was staying at the bottom long enough to get my breath back without drawing the instructor's attention and making him think I was a slacker.

But then I look around, and everyone else is at or above parallel.

Now, on one hand, oop and all that.  On the other hand, as mentioned before, I was about to die, and fuck everyone - I was sitting my middle-aged ass down between my ankles for a couple of breaths.  Also, the instructor came by and gave me a cue for getting rid of my lumbar slouch, which I've been worried about but haven't quite known how to fix, so bonus.

On the other hand, I still wonder if all those people doing kettlebell squats at parallel know something I don't.  Maybe it's a better workout that way?  Or at least harder to use it as an excuse to catch your breath.

Oop, turns out I'm pretty girly after all.

Today's workout:
Chins, 5x5, 70lbs assistance.
Dips, 5x5, 70lbs assistance
Squats, 45x5x2, 50x5, 55x5, 65x5, 75x5
Bench, 45x5x4, 50x5, 55x5
Deadlift, 45x5, 65x5, 80x5, 95x5, 105x5, 120x5, 135x5

Today I wore my neoprene knee sleeves to the gym for the first time.  Also, the gym was hot today for some reason.

Now, the thing to understand is that I almost never sweat from any part of my body but my hands and underarms.  It's not unheard of, but I really pretty much have to be in sauna-like conditions.  Or, apparently, wearing knee sleeves, because I have never sweat so much from the legs in my entire life.

I'm not even joking.  I was leaving actual drops on the floor.  Drops of sweat were running down my calves.  After every set I had to stop and mop up my legs from sleeve to sock.  It was gross and horrifying and the next time I wear them I am going to chalk the insides until I strew white powder all over the gym like Pig Pen wherever I go.  I just want to squat my body weight, I don't want to drip sweat from my knees while I'm doing it.

TL;DR: Today I sweat at the gym and it was gross and I was kind of traumatized.

On the bright side, 75 pounds on the squats were way easier today than they were on Monday.  And my knees are the one part of my body that don't feel like they've been run over by a truck.  On the not-so-bright side, I struggled with the deadlift on the heavy set, mostly because of grip strength, so I need to do Farmer's Walks.

It also doesn't help that the plates at my gym are 12-sided and tend to jump if not set down just right; so any deadlifts over 135 require you to leap back out of the way to avoid taking 135+ pounds straight to the shin, which makes deadlifting look like some strange hybrid of weight training and Highland dance.  Please buy circular plates for your gyms, people.

In other news, this article on genetics and weightlifting is required reading, though a little disheartening.

Progress on S&S

Today's workout:

S&S warmup, 15 pounds for halos, 25 for goblet squats.  I feel the goblet squats should be getting easier, but they do not agree.

2-handed swings:  25 pounds, 1x10, 6x15, 11 minutes.

TGUs, 5 per side, 15 pounds, 8 minutes.

My times aren't too far off the goal times, but there's a lot of progress to be made before I start thinking about moving up weights.

Swings: no arm pain this time, and I can definitely get farther into each set, and farther into sets as a whole, before my hip drive starts giving out.  Taking in a sharp breath on the hike definitely helps, and the "breathe behind the shield" cue seems useful for pretty much everything.

TGUs:  Going well on the right side, but my left side is way weak.  I can't lever up onto my elbow without bringing my leg off the ground and flailing like an upended turtle.  I've noticed this in my squats too - when the weight gets heavy I tend to push more through the right side.  Maybe TGUs will help even out my squats, to the extent that anything but a miracle can help my squats.

Overall: exhausted today for some reason.  Took a personal day to run some errands, fed the cats early, went back to bed, and dozed off and on until almost 11, and I'm still worn out.  Ugh.  Fairly sure I've lost some body fat, since I can actually sort of feel my hipbones, but I'm not checking my weight again for a few weeks at least.

The worst day squatting is better than... well, not too damn much, to be quite honest.

A training log is kept by every serious trainee as a record of his history under the bar.  It is an important source of data for determinations regarding staleness, overtraining, the effectiveness of newly added exercises, and the overall effectiveness of the training program... It should include the athlete's impressions of that day's workout, useful cues discovered, and any other subjective information that might serve a purpose later... It is an essential tool for both trainee and coach, and as such is not optional. 

 - Rippetoe & Baker, Practical Programming for Strength Training, Third Edition. 

Today's workout: 5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 1

 Squats: 45x5, 45x5, 55x5, 60x5, 70x5, 75x6, 75x5, 75x4, 75x1
Good Mornings: 50x5x3, 55x5x2
Hanging leg raise: 10x5

It's so awesome how a really bad squat day can just ruin your entire workout.  And by "awesome" I mean "Fuck you, squats, it's the first day of my period, don't make me cry in the power rack."

My squats were a mess tonight.  The last few reps had every possible form issue - knees collapsing, egregious good-morning-ness, instability, you name it.  And now my knee hurts.  I'm glad my knee sleeves will be here in a couple of days.

I had problems getting past 75 pounds last time too.  I don't know what it is about that weight that hangs me up.  Maybe it's the first weight that the bar really starts feeling heavy, I don't know.  What I do know is that I'm going to repeat the squat sequence all three lifting days this week, because I will force an adaptation or die trying.

Seventy-five pounds.  I owe the Blessed Virgin about a hundred candles for making Baby Jesus cry like he has colic.

One good thing about squatting with weights, though - it makes your body weight feel pretty negligible.  I squatted up from sitting on the power-cage base recovering from a heavy set, and nearly bloodied my nose on the uprights and the Buddhist concept of the illusory nature of physical existence at the same time.

Deload week. FEELS BAD, MAN.

Deload week is exactly the opposite of donuts.  My body really wants it but my brain hates every minute.

Today's workout:

Deadlift, 60x5, 75x5, 90x5.
OHP, 25x5, 25x5, 35x5.  No, that is not a typo.  My upper body strength really is that lacking.
Squats, 45x5x3
Power cleans, 45x5.

Today at the gym, a guy was very enthusiastic about how cool my shoes were.  I gave my feet the side-eye in case that last set of deadlifts had caused my shoes to evolve into Romaleos, but no, they were still my beat-up twenty-dollar Chucks.  It was very strange and I finally put a stop to it by grabbing the 25-pound baby barbell and sticking it over my head.  To his credit, he did not commit the sin of trying to talk to me while iron was in play.

I may go this weekend and get a 16kg kettlebell.  I doubt I can do anything with it yet, but it can sit in my carillon and be inspirational.

Starting strength

So here's where I'm starting from, and my collection of current fitness goals, some of which are iffier than others.

Age: 45.  That one, sadly, is not going to improve.
Height: 5'3.  That one probably won't either, no matter what my aerial yoga teacher says.
Weight:  140-something?  I don't know exactly.
Body fat level: 31-32%, according to measurement calculators.  I am a size 8 in jeans and a size 6 in dresses and according to the Navy's body fat standards I am officially obese.  (Fuck you, Navy body fat standards.)

Specific issues: rheumatoid arthritis and an old rotator cuff injury.

For those of you who don't know - e.g., me before I got diagnosed - RA is a systemic autoimmune disease that gets the "arthritis" label because it presents largely as joint pain and damage.  It happens to people of any age.  It makes life difficult because (a) it sometimes flares up and causes a great deal of pain and lack of mobility, and (b) I have to be careful to avoid inflammation.  In fact, I just started back in the gym after a new medication helped put an end to a year or so of near-constant flare-ups.

The rotator cuff injury is from a Body Pump class a few years ago.  It was no one's fault but mine - I tried to use weights that were too heavy and almost blew out my shoulder.  This impatience will become a running theme.

Goals:  I have them.  I will lay them out here, nicely organized.

• Weightlifting.  I'm doing 5/3/1 right now.  The first time around I did Starting Strength, which is still more or less my bible; but 5/3/1 has a slower progression with sub-optimal weights, and that's what I need.  The last time I was lifting, before my flare-ups, I got seriously overtrained on SS.

1. Deadlift 200.  This one I feel pretty good about.  My 1RM now is over 150, so if I don't stall or flare up again I should hit 200 on my 5/3/1 program by late spring or early summer.
2. Squat my body weight.  This one is iffier.  My squats are terrible.  This might happen this year and might not.

• Kettlebells.  I just bought Simple and Sinister and started on that program on my off days.
1. S&S has goals built-in: doing 100 kb swings in five minutes and two sets of five Turkish get-ups in ten minutes, then increasing weight until you hit 24kg.  Right now the whole routine, warm-ups and all, takes me over 45 minutes (because I have no stamina), so there's plenty of work to do here.
2. When I'm done with my 5/3/1 mesocycle, I may take a month off and try to do the 10,000-swings-in-28-days challenge.  It depends on whether my stamina increases from "shit on toast" to "slightly less awful."

• Body composition:  10% body fat loss.  Hopefully the kettlebells and some HIIT on the rowing machine will help with that, but mostly I need to tighten up my diet.  (I eat Primal.)

• Yoga:  I want to be able to go from a tripod headstand in the middle of the room down to crow pose.  I can already go from a half-headstand into crow, I just can't hold it very long, so this one I'm optimistic about too.

So there they are.  Challenging but achievable.  Happiness researchers everywhere should be proud.