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.

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.

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.