MDW Re-Cap

Good morning gym rats! I hope you all had a nice long Memorial Day Weekend and got to enjoy some fair weather, good eats, and QT with family and friends. It’s so nice to have an extra day to get all those chores done that I usually procrastinate on during the typical 2-day weekend. There’s always something that gets tacked onto my “to-do” list and saved for the next long weekend or PTO day.

In keeping with the 2014 tradition, this weekend’s weather was anything but predictable here in Portland. It rained off-and-on making outdoor plans a little dicey but I still managed to be ultra productive. Saturday morning began with my scheduled back sesh (owie sore traps!!) and then off to get my groceries for the week. Yay sale on watermelon! I actually haven’t sliced into it yet but I just love the fresh fruits that pack the store shelves this time of year.

After heading home and getting cleaned-up I picked up my Stepmother and took her out for brunch and pedicures (a belated Mother’s Day present). We went to the Front Room for eats which I was really excited to try since everyone raves about their brunch but I was less-than-impressed and won’t be returning. I ordered the spinach and bacon gnocchi with poached eggs and got the vegetable gnocchi (also with poached eggs). I detest tomatoes and mushrooms which my plate was piled high with. The place was packed though so I just kept my mouth shut and ate the rest as I knew that if I tried to send it back it would be another 30 minutes for the server to return and then another 30 minutes to get my correct order (with a side-order of snot most likely). I had an unsatisfying dinner there a few years ago so I’m 0-for-2 at that place. I will say they make a delicious blood orange mimosa though!

After our post-brunch pedi’s (I got a summery pink-coral color) I drove out to Bridgeton in middle-of-nowhere Western Maine to check-out a sale on a kayak package I had found while perusing Craigslist. Kayaking has always been one of my most favorite outdoor activities. Being out on the water on a calm, sunny day with no distractions is the most relaxing place I know of. Even better than a massage (IMO) since no one else is there to interrupt your train of thought. Unfortunately I had sold my beloved pink kayak of 20+ years last Fall (long story for another day) so I needed another. I’m a big fan of the sit-on-top variety (perfect for sunbathing) and this one was about $325 for the kayak, paddle, and lifejacket. Not a bad deal! It’s an Ocean Kayak which is a reputable brand and it’s small and light enough for me to load and unload on my own. I’m so excited to break it in!

Even better, the Thule roof-racks and roll-bar I had saved in my shed from 3 vehicles ago fit my new Jeep perfectly! I contemplated taking it out for a spin yesterday but the clouds kept rolling-in and I just knew that with my luck by the time I got out to a lake or pond somewhere it would either be down-pouring or worse. Crossing my fingers for next weekend!

Sunday morning began with a lengthened bicep sesh instead of yoga class. I didn’t want to aggravate my shoulder issue but also didn’t want to lose a day of fitness so I split-up my combined bicep/tricep day this week. Then, after a delicious (and typical) grilled chicken salad lunch I decided to take Mugsy out for some exercise. We ended up at the Eastern Promenade where there is a long paved walking path as well as a dog-friendly beach. Of course, Mugsy is only selectively dog-friendly so I took him to the far end before unleashing him and letting him retrieve a stick from the frigid ocean waves about a thousand times. The dog never tires of this game and absolutely LOVES to swim! Apparently that is unusual for a boxer.

That afternoon I headed over to my Dad and Stepmother’s house for a MDW BBQ. I wish I had taken a pic of the sausage and kielbasa platter. It was pretty impressive! I sampled some Lithuanian sausage, chicken & chorizo sausage, and some kielbasa. I’m not much of a sausage fan but I do appreciate the high-protein options for once! I also enjoyed some sesame-glazed grilled shrimp (my request).

Yesterday was by far the most productive of the 3 days. After my tricep sesh (they are sooo sore today!) I took Mugsy to Macworth Island in Falmouth. It was still early enough in the day (about 9:30) so I knew it would be the best time to be able to walk around the wooded path without too many dog encounters. There’s also limited parking on the island so waiting until the afternoon would likely mean having to park on the mainland (too much travel for my poor shins!). It was a gorgeous, sunny and warm walk and we spent a long time playing fetch again on a little secluded beach on the far side (my secret spot). Mugsy will never show his exhaustion while outside but once we get home after that much running and swimming, he is out cold for the day which makes me one happy Momma! After two days in a row of sand and salt water though he was in dire need of a bath so once we got home I plopped him in the tub (which needed a good cleaning anyway) and soaped him up with some peppermint dog wash. He’s so soft and cuddly now…and his white spots are so WHITE! Haha

After cleaning all the dog dirt & grime out of the tub I was on a cleaning kick so I decided to drag the vacuum out and give the interior of my Jeep that thorough cleaning I’ve been procrastinating on since I bought it…5 months ago (insert embarrassed face here). You know I’m not the first owner when you find a French fry under the seat. Gross! By the time I was done with this chore my shins were aching terribly. This doc appointment cannot come soon enough. I really pray they can accurately pinpoint the issue(s) because I am so sick of constantly popping painkillers. Not to mention, my constant (perhaps irrational) fear of getting fat from lack of cardio.

The rest of the day I pretty much just lounged around, watched some mindless TV and read a bit. I’ve been hooked on the Gillian Flynn books lately. I plowed through her most famous, Gone Girl, a couple of weeks ago and thus had to rush out to purchase her other two, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. I highly recommend these if you like a suspenseful page-turner. I only wish I wasn’t such a fast reader; these were supposed to be my summer beach reads!

Anyway, this post has gotten long enough and I really must be on with my day. I’m going to attempt to do shoulders tonight. Praying my right deltoid can handle at least a light load! We have a work offsite on Friday so thankfully it’s only a 3-day workweek for me. I can handle that. I think.

Shock Week...Not So Shocking

Okay, I’m not a fan of shock week either. I’m not sure you can call it a superset when the plan only calls for 1-2 sets of each exercise! I must have written it down wrong because I have had to modify each day this week. I might actually re-design the entire 3-week cycle to some degree before I head back into power week this coming Monday. It also doesn’t make much sense in my overly crowded gym to have a superset scheduled with machines / cables / free weights that cannot be done right next to each other. Once you leave a piece of equipment, it’s gone! Also, cables are pretty much a waste of time ever since they replaced the original ones (which has actual cables) with these awful new rope versions. The tension is totally off and most exercises just aren’t effective anymore. Machines are good for isolating muscles and for safety in form but in general, you can’t go wrong with free weights. The iron is my friend hehe :P

I have saved leg day for today but it’s going to be a light one for sure. That awesome leg burn I gave myself last week was perhaps a little too awesome. I think I actually tried to push myself too hard, specifically with the heavy squats and the 1-leg presses and now I am experiencing off-and-on pain in my knee joints! So far, the complete list of injuries is as-follows:

1. Shin splints in both legs (particularly the left & going on for nearly 10 months now!)

2. Ankle/foot pain in both feet (particularly the left which I am still wrapping almost daily)

3. Knee pain in the outer side of the joints (particularly the right)

4. Sharp tightness/pain in what I think is my hip flexor joint but I’m not entirely sure (only the right side)

5. Mild elbow pain in my right elbow beginning in the past week, I think the result of lifting too heavy on shoulder day. Praying it’s not the onset of tendonitis!

6. An absolutely horrible pain experienced in my right rear delt (I think?) when I tried to do rear delt flies the other day. All other shoulder exercises were tolerable but my arm literally gave out forcing me to drop the weight when I tried to do the flies and I embarrassingly had to resort to 3 sets on the left arm only. I think this is probably from yoga class (too many rapid sun salutations) so I might skip it this weekend.

And no, I am not exaggerating on any of this. Nor do I feel like I am over-training. I’ve actually cut out ALL cardio over the past few weeks simply because I’d rather have my legs sawed off than succumb to a mere 10 minutes of splinting shin pain on the StairMaster or Treadmill and the less impactful pieces of equipment like the elliptical or arc trainer hurt my hip flexor too much. I stretch, I foam-roll, I spread Icy Hot over myself before bedtime, I pop Ibuprophen like they’re candies…I am literally out of ideas at this point. I have an appointment with a Sports Medicine doc in June (that’s as fast as they could get me in unless there’s a cancellation) so I just have to keep pushing through until I get some better advice.

I also increased my calories this week to hopefully allow for better gains. I swear the more I eat, the hungrier I am! Hopefully my metabolism is ready for the increase or else I’m going to be blogging about my depressed state of being an injured lard-ass in the coming weeks LOL! So far so good though. It still amazes me how small food allowances can make a person so happy after being on a competition diet for so long. I literally think the cup of red seedless grapes I’ve been mixing my Greek yogurt with is such a delicacy! I mean grapes, seriously? But they are just one of those foods that while healthy, they aren’t a great option when cutting because there’s just such a high amount of sugar in such a small quantity. So so so sad.

Anyway, regardless of being in pain I’m still looking very forward to my leg sesh today. There’s been a couple new studs in there lately and I’m oh so bored without a show to focus on LOL! Tomorrow I’ll be taking my now obligatory off day and then I’ll hit back on Saturday for the last day of shock week. Have any of my readers ever tried Eric Broser’s Power/Rep Range/Shock program? I’m curious how others set-up their workouts and what tips you may have for ensuring satisfying lifts each time. As always, thanks for tuning-in to my latest gym rat rant! xo

Rep Range Re-Cap

One thing I will say about my new lifting plan is that it sufficiently beats the shit out of me! Today ended week #2 of the P/RR/S plan with my early Saturday AM chest & core workout. I decided to take a TRUE rest day yesterday because my body was done. I mean seriously done like in pain from head-to-toe (the good kind) where constant Ibuprophen just barely takes the edge off done! I have to say I was not a big fan of the “rep range” week and didn’t follow it to a T. I found it difficult to follow the 2/1/2 tempo and still lift heavy enough so I opted for heavy weights where necessary and didn’t really follow the tempo as intended. Regardless, each workout left me burning well into the next one so by the time Friday rolled-around I needed a break. It really hit me on Thursday when I spent the day at an off-site volunteer event with work. The day was spent on my hands and knees gardening and while it was mostly light weeding and mulching, hitting a HARD leg sesh immediately afterward was icing on the cake. Doing legs that day wasn’t my smartest move ever. I couldn’t safely hit full sets with my latest 115 squat PR so I begrudgingly decreased back down to 105 lbs. I think I was just too physically exhausted from the day’s labor so while I was mentally ready to hit it my body just wasn’t going to let it happen. However, the lift ended up being phenomenal as a whole and thanks to the 1-leg leg presses that were added this week, my glutes are burning like a mutherfucker still two days later! I don’t know why I hadn’t incorporated such a simple exercise into my routine before but it is definitely one of my favs now!

So anyway, last night being my usual cheat meal / high-carb night I got a delicious (and massive) pulled pork burrito to-go from this restaurant I had been given a GC to (to entice me to go back after a night of horrendous service) and didn’t do much else other than stuff my face and then bake a pumpkin-banana protein bread for breakfast this week. I’ll add the recipe to the recipes tab shortly so be sure to check-in for that!  I’m almost 1 month post-show and I seem to be settling in at about 5 pounds heavier than my stage-weight. I think my reverse diet is going alright so far so I may up my calories ever so slightly come Monday (May 19^th vs show-day of April 19^th). I am going to try to get this calorie increase from just added protein though because my macros have been a bit out of wack lately. I try to stick to a typical 40/30/30 diet but my carbs have been way too high due to my love of fruit so I think I ought to try & offset it before I totally lose my bikini bod LOL! Here’s a pic of the delicious breakfast I started my weekend with today:

One thick slice of my homemade bread (1/6th of the loaf) with maple walnut peanut butter, 1/2 cup scrambled egg whites (for added protein) and of course my coffee! 

My lift today consisted of incline DB chest presses, flat bench DB flies, flat bench BB presses, SB tee-pees (with balancing), Bosu pushups, and finally SB weighted crunches. It was quite unusually crowded for an early Saturday morning thanks to the awful downpour we were having but I managed to get the job done in about an hour. I did not however manage to avoid all of the old men and their annoying questions about my show which really set me on edge but I think I've gone through them all by now so hopefully the inquiries are done with. Can someone please tell me what makes me look so damn approachable when my headphones are on, I have an intentional scowl on my face, and I DO NOT make eye contact?! Oye. Anyway, off I went to run a few errands which included my weekly grocery shopping and back home I came. Despite the lingering drizzle I grilled-up my chicken breast for the week (grilling is just SOOO much tastier than baking!) and made this delightful salad for lunch:

Feta and strawberries together has got to be one of my favorite flavors! I eat a variation of this salad nearly every day for lunch. It's just so fresh, filling, and of course beautiful! 

The sun is starting to poke through the clouds at the moment so I think I ought to take the pup out for a walk before the finicky weather decides to change again. Tomorrow it'll be that time again for my fav yoga class and then I really have no idea what the rest of the weekend will bring. Come Monday though it will be time to start Shock week. I hope my body is ready! Have a fantastic weekend everyone and don't forget to check the updated recipes tab! xo

Power Week

Good Saturday Morning gym rats! Whew what a week it’s been for me fitness-wise. When I woke last Sunday the outside edge of my left foot was bothering me but I shrugged it off as a mild irritation and went about my morning routine including my fav yoga class. Well, after taking a short mid-afternoon cat nap on the couch I tried getting up and boom! Nearly fell over as putting pressure on that foot was suddenly very painful and was now spread all over the left side of my foot and outer ankle. Great. Another sprain/twist like during my failed attempt at becoming a runner two years ago? I swear, I am just prone to leg injuries. I stretch. I foam-roll. I have excellent posture and lifting form. My body just apparently hates me. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever has been going on in my shins over the past 8 or so months is somehow related and is probably the result of never fully recovering from one particular strain and continuing to train as normal. Anyway, I went about my day hobbling along hoping it would go away by the next morning. No such luck. Monday was a 2-ibuprophen every 4 hours kind of day, grimacing every time had to get up from my desk as it was always the initial pressure hit that hurt the worse. Tuesday morning it wasn’t any better so I used the little bit of joint wrap I still had left in my bathroom cabinet to make a makeshift wrap until I could get to the drugstore to purchase a better one. Tuesday was supposed to be legs day but that was in NO WAY going to happen. I was so depressed during my workout too as I was really looking forward to moving past or at least matching last week’s squat PR of 105 lbs. Couldn’t imagine putting that much weight on my poor foot though L Wednesday rolled around and still no better so it was day #3 of upper body lifts. Despite the change in routine, my lifts were actually fantastic this week because it was the first “Power” week of my new P/RR/S routine and since the reps per set were all 4-6 I was able to go heavier than ever on almost every exercise. Actually curling 20’s now almost with EASE and feeling super duper STRONG! I also added in tons more core work than usual this week as these new workouts don’t take me more than 30 or so minutes to finish and well clearly I can’t call that a full workout! When Thursday came I actually felt slight improvement, perhaps thanks to the better wrap I purchased Tuesday night and the constant ingesting of Ibuprophen, but I still opted for another upper body day just to be safe. So Friday morning arrives (yesterday), I have the day off from work to make up for that nightmarish 1-day weekend last weekend, and I am feeling ready to give leg day a shot. I figured I’d start with squats and DLs (the hardest and heaviest exercises on my plan) and if those were too painful I’d quit and switch to a core routine. Well, guess what? I blasted through my entire leg sesh, no pain at all (well, not more than usual anyway), and actually hit a new squat PR of 115! That's almost body-weight squats for me! Okay, so that’s probably not that heavy for most seasoned female lifters but I am happy with it. I actually think I could go heavier but I’m a little scared to without a spotter. I’ll probably continue to rep out the 115 until that becomes easy and then I’ll start to increase by like 5-10 additional lbs at a time. So happy with myself right now!

The funny thing is (switching the subject for a minute here), after a week of absolutely ZERO cardio, I actually lost 3 lbs! I wasn’t trying to of course but I still do my weekly weigh-in just to make sure I’m staying on track. Last weekend I weighed myself after having Thai fried rice and a glass of wine the night before as my cheat meal for the week (divine by the way!) so I’m sure those added 3 lbs were all excess water weight held by the sudden spark in sodium intake but isn't it funny how tiny nutritional tweaks can make such a HUGE difference? Moral of the story; don’t be discouraged (or satisfied) by small fluctuations on the scale so long as you are eating and exercising consistently. That small weight gain or loss may just be due to a nutritional change the day before. Or you just took a large shit LOL!

This morning I was unsure what I would do. I do have that dreaded scheduled rest day each week but when I’m off-season and full of carb-loving energy I don’t usually feel like I need it. Since all my lifts were done for the week I decided to do the Saturday morning yoga class that I haven’t done in months. I was already extremely sore from both leg day as well as the deep tissue 90-minute massage I had last night (more pain than pleasure unfortunately but at least I got all of my troubled areas worked on) so I knew this class would be a struggle. This instructor is very good but she is INTENSE. I swear the woman can bend her body like Gumby (maybe dating myself a bit here LOL) and she instructs some moves that my body just does not want to contort into. Despite all of my lifting I am still a pretty flexible person but this class is just way past my level of yogic expertise (is yogic is a word? LOL). I did my best though, returning to child’s pose or downward dog when necessary and still had a great stretch. I loved the class for the most part despite the pace being a little too fast to maintain good form at times. Great music, great energy, and great variety. Really my only complaint were the 3 annoying “Ohms” everyone was supposed to chant at the end. That shit’s just weird. No thanks.

Tomorrow I am definitely going to hit-up my fav yoga class again (pending no further foot injuries) and then start out the week on Monday with the first day of “Rep Range” lifting. I’m loving the variety! So that’s it for my crazy week in fitness. Have any of you tried-out new workout programs lately? Please share below! Xo