Goal10312021: Crush a Pumpkin

goal06082021

Hello!

I'm putting this in Challenges because I am challenging myself - anyone else who is interested is absolutely welcome to try as well, but if this thread is better suited to some other board, please let me know.

TL;DR: I'm following Kourtney Olson's Watermelon Crush training plan. In September/October. So, instead of a watermelon, it's gonna have to be a pumpkin.

I wanted to document this portion of my journey, in case anyone else is interested and I wanted a place to share encouragement. So, I'm making a thread about it.

Background on me: I'm 30 years old, 5'2" tall, female, and have always been fat. Literally my entire life. I don't remember a time when I was a "normal" size or my weight wasn't a concern. I'm visibly bigger than all the other kids in my preschool class photo. I haven't been under 200 lbs for more than a few weeks since elementary school. I got there once in 2012, lasted about 6 months - I spent the Spring 2012 semester studying abroad, and had to walk a hell of a lot more in St. Petersburg than I ever did at home, so I dropped about 15 lbs basically by accident. It all came back, and brought friends, once I got back to the States and stopped having to walk everywhere all the time. My mom and younger sister have been riding the same struggle bus right along with me; we did Weight Watchers together in the late 90s/early 2000s (for those of you keeping score at home, yes, that would be when sister and I were literal children); we had a Curves membership for a hot minute circa 2007; we tried going for walks together as a family in the evenings but it never stuck; I tried to build a walking and eventually running habit in college, and discovered MFP around 2010. I was successful, to a point, but eventually stopped tracking and the exercise habit didn't stick and then I got a job and life kept happening and stop me if you've heard this one before. Finally, in November 2020, I decided I was done living like that. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, as they say. I crunched some numbers and realized I had about 30-40 minutes every morning that I was currently spending doomscrolling social media - it would be better for my physical AND mental health to spend that time exercising instead. So, I started doing that. I dusted off this app and started logging my food again, because I can't trust my intuition around eating - I have PCOS, it has my hunger signals all effed up, I have to plan and log and track and expect I will need to do so forever. I've been at it for 290 days as of this morning and I am down 40 lbs - and if I see a single one of them ever again, it will be too soon (I know there's some expected fluctuation in maintenance, this is hyperbole). I'm not doing this again, so I want to do it right and do it forever. I believe, and the evidence so far suggests, that I can lose ~100 lbs in 2 years, so that's the overall plan.

The story so far: I did mostly cardio for the first 6 months of daily exercising - some bodyweight strength, some dumbbell stuff with little 5lb hand weights, but mostly either walking outside or following a workout video in the Planet Fitness app. Once I got vaccinated, I wanted to get back into the gym and start picking up heavy things and putting them down again - I had a dalliance with weightlifting in the mid-late 20teens that I really loved and wanted to get back into it. I followed Bret Contreras' Strong Curves for 12 weeks, just finished that last Saturday, and am so pleased with the strength gains I've made and how much more muscular and defined my legs are than they were in May. A few weeks ago I came across a Reddit thread where someone else expressed a desire to crush a watermelon with their mighty and powerful thighs, and I decided, you know what? I want that for me, too. I want a goal to work toward beyond "weigh this much," and I love the thought of walking down the street knowing my body--no matter what it looks like--possesses that kind of power. So, I looked up Kourtney Olson's Watermelon Crush training program (it's free to download from her website - I won't reproduce the training plan in its entirety here for that reason), read through the materials, and set up a training plan for the next 8 weeks.

The plan: The WC program has 2 training days per week and stretching on the off-days. I'm training on Thursdays and Sundays. Fridays and Mondays will be "active recovery" days - I'll be going for easy ~30-minute walks around my neighborhood. For the past six-ish months, I've been exploring the astounding number of natural areas and parks around my county that have walking trails; I'll be continuing that, going for longer walks at those on Saturdays. Those average around 75 minutes, plus or minus, with a lot of walking on softer sand/gravel as opposed to asphalt. Tuesday and Wednesday, just to maintain the daily-exercise habit, I play a ~15-minute session of Ring Fit Adventure. (I'm level 142. Come at me, bro.) I realized...uh, yesterday that sourcing a *watermelon* to crush when I finish this program will be basically impossible in October, so I'm shifting gears and going to attempt this feat of feminine strength with a more-seasonally-appropriate pumpkin instead. It should work - pumpkin flesh is more dense, but they also have that cavity in the middle that watermelons don't, so I think it should balance out.

Tomorrow will be my Week 1, Day 1 of the actual workout, but I went ahead and started doing the stretches on Monday. I was pleasantly surprised at being able to do them; the frog squat needs some work, I think, but I felt like I was doing better at it even just Tuesday over Monday, so I'm sure it will get easier/I will get better at them as time goes by. The non-training-day stretches are pretty basic for the first 4 weeks: butterfly, frog squat, figure-four and what Kourtney calls "Couch Stretch 1.0," though her demo video uses a wall instead of a couch. It's an excellent quad and shin stretch - half kneeling, with the lower leg vertical rather than horizontal, rear foot pressed against a wall/couch instead of flat on the ground.

I'm going to update this thread over the next 8 weeks with my thoughts on my progress, triumphs and struggles, and also just confirmation/accountability that I did the stretches. Happy to answer questions and accept/offer encouragement to others attempting this, and hopefully receive wisdom from the crowd if I have need of it. And, of course, when the time comes there WILL be video and it will be posted here.

Hope you decide to come along for this ride with me! 🎃

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Week 1, Day 1 - 9/1/2021

Whew lad, picking Thursday for one of my training days was definitely necessary. My work schedule is such that I work a later shift on Thursdays each week, going in at 11 versus 8 or 9 AM. I was in the gym for almost two hours this morning! Part of that is needing to constantly refer back to the program to figure out how to do things, part of it is that there's a LOT of very necessary resting time built in.

I did fail my last set of Copenhagen bridges. I know I have a lateral strength imbalance; usually I struggle or fail when I need to balance/rely on the right side of my body (which is weird because I'm right-handed/right-footed), and today it was my right wrist that was done before I needed to be. If you're not familiar with a Copenhagen bridge (and I wasn't before now), they're essentially sideways bridges (a "bridge" being a move where you lay down and lift your hips toward the ceiling). You put one leg up on a bench/similar, the other leg goes under it, and you post up on your arm, then raise and lower your hips. Supporting my body with my left arm (so my right leg was up on the bench) was very doable, if a bit challenging; doing the same on the other side (right arm supporting, left leg on bench) was a LOT more challenging, and I couldn't finish the last set because my wrist was starting to hurt/feel questionable. I even swapped out the second set of lifts for just a hold, so instead of moving I held my body in position for about 25 seconds on each side (which was much easier). I also struggled a bit on the right side doing Cossack squats (one-legged wide squats - spread feet, bend one leg to lower hips but keep the other one straight so you go down to the side, then straighten that leg and lower the other once you're back up to the top, keep going back and forth; it looks kind of like the "Cossack dance" from the Nutcracker), but I did complete all the reps I intended to with those. I suspect my right knee has a fabella (superfluous bone), but I've never been formally evaluated for it. It's just weirdly lumpy in a way the left isn't (and in a way that is consistent with x-rays I've seen of fabellas), and it hurts sometimes (also in ways consistent with what I've read about fabellas).

I'll also need to acquire a set of mini bands/"booty bands" for hip abductions; I didn't have one today, so I had to use the cable machine (and couldn't superset with the Copenhagen bridges like the program instructed, just due to the layout of the space - I don't want to be That Person "supersetting" with two pieces of equipment on opposite sides of the room, and I couldn't move the platform I was using for the Copenhagens closer to the cable abductor. But that's probably fine). I still don't like the cable hip ad/abductors. Besides the mini bands, I think I might also want a slamball - the gym has medicine balls, but they aren't as squishy as I think I need, and the Swiss balls that are squishy are also too big to do isometric adduction ("practice squeezes") with (and I don't want to damage them since they aren't mine). I do love that the specific instructions in the program for how to do the "90/90 Adduction Functional Isometric" move are to "Squeeze it like it owes you money," the juxtaposition of that phrasing with the very clinical and oblique name of the move makes me laugh.

I do need to go in and fix my spreadsheet a little. I made a Google Sheets template from the WC official quick-start guide so I could edit it on my phone; some of the exercises are set up in a way that doesn't make sense (listing a tempo for a hold when it should list a hold time, etc).

Anyway, I bet my thighs are gonna burn the rest of the day. I live on the second floor, and also have to go up to the second floor at work to refill my water cup, so that will be an adventure. I'm going to try to resist the siren call of the elevator, and hopefully tomorrow's active-recovery walk will help soothe the DOMS I'm already starting to feel.

JNettie73

I found you! I am intrigued by all of this and am rooting for you. I cannot wait to see how he next 8 weeks play out!

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@JNettie73 Thank you! I can't wait either LMAO.

Hoo boy was I right about the DOMS. I'm still very sore - I'm bracing myself for a disappointing weigh-in tomorrow morning, even though intellectually I know I did/am doing everything right and I'm definitely retaining hella water right now. It's just really hard to retrain the ol' brain to not put so much emphasis on that little gray screen. I might do my stretching at work during my lunch break today, rather than at home tonight, just because I think it will help my legs feel better; I'm wearing pants that are conducive to such activities today (maybe sometimes casual Friday IS a benefit?) and I have an office with a door that closes.

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Update: I did my stretches in my office and it did help. Might stretch the adductors more later tonight, but my quads and hammies are happier now for sure.

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Daily stretch check-in: stretches completed (like two hours ago).

The scale was up about a pound this morning - I was anticipating that but it's still a bit of a bummer. On the plus side, my DOMS is basically gone and my legs are much less stiff...just in time for Day 2, LMAO. I also found that the frog squat stretch was much easier to do with shoes on, probably something to do with having my heels slightly elevated relative to bare feet. I'm also just getting better at doing them, I think. I've figured out how to shift my weight back onto my heels where it belongs when squatting that deeply without falling backward. I'm pretty sure that's also due to having 40 fewer pounds on this body, since I carry most of that in the front, center of gravity and all that.

I was not successful in acquiring a medicine ball/slamball at Target today, so I haven't decided what I'm gonna practice squeezing tomorrow. Might bring a towel, I think if I fold it in half long-ways twice and then roll it into a thicc li'l sausage that should be okay. Maybe two towels and a belt to hold them together, I have that stuff. I did find a set of mini bands, though, so at least I have those and don't need to use the awful cable abductor again. I need to figure out how to transport all that gear, too. I'd prefer not to interrupt my workout to go put my mini bands back in my locker or whatever, so I'd probably want some kind of bag. *Technically* PF doesn't allow bags on the gym floor but nobody at my PF seems to be bothering to enforce that rule, so...

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Week 1, Day 2 - 9/5/2021

Today's workout was much easier - superset C involved a Copenhagen short bottom lever hold, which as established on Thursday is considerably easier than a bridge in that position. We'll see how things go on W2D1 with that. The frog pump is...uh, well, it's not AS awkward as glute bridges, I guess. I'm glad there weren't many other people there, at least.

I rolled up a couple of towels into a suitable squeezin' target and that worked great; the circumference is just the right size to hold my bands, too. The fit is too loose to hold the roll together, so I used a belt for that, but it's a handy place to store them when not in use, at least. It's probably not good to store them under tension, anyway.

I'm off tomorrow for Labor Day. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to set a later alarm and sleep in a bit, or take my AR walk early in the morning like I normally would and then come home and go back to bed, or what.

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I ended up sleeping in a bit, then taking my AR walk later in the morning. I just did my stretches for the day as well. I'm less sore today, after Day 2, than I was on Friday after Day 1. I'm supposed to ramp up the difficulty week-over-week, like any progressive-overload strength training program, so we'll see how that goes.

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I laid down with my phone tonight around 8, ready to settle in for some Nonogram Color (love me a good puzzle game!), and then my phone reminded me I hadn't done my stretches yet. So, I set my phone back down, got up, went out to the other room and got to work. I managed to do the frog squat barefoot - I can't get quite as deep as I can with shod feet (i.e., slightly elevated heels), but I'm getting there, and I was certainly squatting much deeper with my feet flat on the ground than I have historically been able to do. My hips made some indescribable noises when I straightened back up and wiggled around a bit between sets, though, but uh, that's probably fine. I also did the Couch Stretch 1.0 with the couch instead of a wall and tbh, I think I like the wall better, although my house has precious little free wallspace for that kind of thing - there's furniture or art or appliances or cat toys or some other random garbage in front of almost every linear foot of wall in our ~800sqft apartment.

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Daily stretches completed 👍 I also realize I may have been doing the frog squats wrong? I'm supposed to hold the stretch for 5 breaths, i.e., do 3 of these and hold each one for five counts of six (in-two-three-out-two three). Instead I've basically been doing 15 very slow frog squats, holding each for one count of six. Whatever, I'll build up to it. I think Friday I'll try holding the pose for two breaths and see how that goes.

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Today's workout was considerably easier than last Thursday's, surprisingly. I was still there for two hours but I feel much less beat up than I did last week. The Copenhagen bridges called for 12 reps per side today, which I did actually manage to do all of, so I'm proud of me for that.

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Late with the updates but I *did* do my stretches yesterday and Friday, and I did work out this morning. I finally replaced my old gym shoes with some sweet new black-and-electric-lime-green Asics that I'm pretty stoked about. I'm sure they're going to look plenty ratty after I go walking in the dirt next weekend, but they look fresh to death right now so I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts.

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So, the last few days of stretching I've been holding the frog squat for five breaths like I was supposed to have been doing the whole time. It's a challenge, I think I'm counting a bit faster for those than I am for the other stretches, but I'm doing it. It's definitely easier with shoes on.

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You gotta be kidding me, FIFTEEN reps per side on the Copenhagen bridge today? I did it, although it was a little shaky for the last few, especially on the right side. Proud of me for that. My knee is acting up today too, which had me a little worried but it seemed OK - I was mostly concerned about the Cossack squats but I knocked those out like a champ, holding a 20lb kettlebell even.

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Honesty time: I skipped the stretching last night, as I wasn't feeling well. So unwell that I took the day off today to watch bad movies and lay on the couch. I'm still not 100% but I think I can manage to at least do some stretching tonight. I skipped my Ring Fit today, will probably do so again tomorrow (or maybe do it tomorrow evening, if nothing else).

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And she's back, baybee! I did do my stretches on Tuesday and Wednesday and I felt well enough to get back into the gym this morning for W4D1, and I killed it. This is the end of Phase 1, next week starts Phase 2 of the program. I need to go in and build my tracking spreadsheets sometime this weekend, and set up my October workout sticker chart as well. I keep a bullet journal...sort of - insofar as I have a Leuchtturm dotted A5 notebook and I write in it with colorful pens and Zebra mildliners, LMFAO. I don't use the official BuJo system, I just like having a paper planner to organize my life with. One of my sections I use to track exercise and, well, it didn't start out as a sticker chart necessarily, but it pretty quickly became that. I draw a calendar and fill it in with the planned workout for each day of the month, then apply a literal gold star to the day to mark that I did the thing. Or blue, green, red, or silver...you know, those foil star stickers from elementary school? Turns out you can just BUY those. Listen, I love a fully-filled-in tracker and there's something really motivating about seeing all them shiny little stars. I've only missed 3 days' exercise this whole year, and 2 of them were this week. The other one was while I was traveling in May and unable to do my normal routine.

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Phase 1 Complete! Next Thursday begins Phase 2. I have my sticker chart set up, but I still need to get my Google sheet built. Crush Day is officially Spooktoberween, 10/31/21, it's written down and everything. I did almost leave one of my mini bands at the gym today, luckily I noticed it was missing from my towel bundle and it was still where I left it when I went back to retrieve it.

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Hoo boy, Phase 2 is rough.

First, we've got some practice squeezes in the actual position that the crush will be attempted (seated, legs straight and crossed, melon/pumpkin firmly ensconced in the crotchal region, support upper body with hands and lean back a bit). The target is now a foam roller; my gym has a couple of them available for use, but I realized I should probably just go ahead and order one of my own, both because of where it needs to be placed (RIGHT up against The Business, like, the manual specifically says to make sure your crush target is touching that area) and because I don't want to risk damaging something that doesn't belong to me. I did wipe down the one I used as best I could. That should be delivered Saturday; I picked one with purple specklies so I can tell it's mine, and I'll probably also write my name on it with a paint marker. I wanted green but the 12" was out of stock and I definitely don't need a longer one, LMAO.

Sumo squats are fine, though I think I'm going to move them to the end of the workout, because the kettlebells in the area of the gym where I do my work only go up to 30lbs and I really need at least 40 to be adequately challenging. They have dumbbells that go heavier, but they are located literally as far away from the stretch/abs/TRX area as possible and carrying a 40lb dumbbell across the entire gym felt a little silly. So I'll just do everything else, then when I'm done I'll go over to the free weights and do my sumos. I'll need to go over there to do sumo deadlifts on Sunday, anyway.

We've modified our Copenhagen bridges now to what's called a long top lever, where the point of contact for the top leg is now the foot instead of the thigh/knee. I messed up that whole superset, trying to figure out how to do the thing and then miscounting. It's AMRAP with a minimum, 10 this week and it goes up from there, and for most of my sets I did not manage to do all 10. It's hard! Sunday calls for just a hold, which I hope will be easier. And the seated Good Mornings have been traded out for what Kourtney calls a "hip lift clam combo," which is a really sanitized way to describe this slightly lewd-looking exercise: post up on your side, knees bent, lift your hips and rotate out your top leg at the same time so your knees come apart while your feet stay together, then lower and close your legs. I can't remember if my second point of contact with the ground was supposed to be just my bottom foot or my whole lower bottom leg, I went with the latter because it was easier but I think I'm supposed to be balancing just on my foot. It gets worse on Sunday; the unilateral frog pump (lay on your back, bend one leg; raise and lower your hips) has been replaced with the bilateral, weighted frog pump (lay on your back, bend both legs and put the soles of your feet together, raise and lower your hips with a weight balanced on them - yes, it looks exactly as lewd as you think it does). Normally I sleep in a little on Sunday and go at 8-8:30 AM instead of 6; maybe I'll check the crowdmeter and see what the least busy time on Sunday is. I know they don't even open until 7 anyway. Nobody needs to see me dryhumping a dumbbell at 9 AM. I don't think 7 AM would be that much better, but at least there would be fewer people.

The short-lever (bent-leg) side planks have been traded out for what I've seen called a "star side plank" or "long top lever side plank with abduction," as Kourtney calls it, meaning a hand-and-foot side plank (as opposed to knee-and-elbow) where you raise both your top arm and top leg. I know I wasn't getting my right leg at the correct angle; left leg felt a little more correct, but it feels like my hip is rotated inward/my leg was being pulled up and forward as opposed to out to the side, and I don't think that's right, I don't think I was engaging the adductors as much as I was supposed to be. It's also very hard and the hold gets longer over the course of the month. I got an automated support/encouragement/marketing email recently with a link to a 9-minute abs video she did; maybe I *should* start doing that. At least the kneeling Pallof presses were replaced with dead-bug Pallof presses, which involves laying down on my back for a while (and not humping anything LMAO), so that's a nice little respite.

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Man, the stretches for Phase 2 are a workout in and of themselves! I'm sure I'll get the hang of it soon enough, but I was definitely sweating tonight. Pigeon pose has always been a favorite of mine, and I'm pleased to find it much easier to do these days (though it is part of the warmup so I've been doing it twice a week for a month now). I see now why Couch Stretch 2.0 is part of Phase 2, it's a good shoulder-stretcher as well.

MadisonMolly2017

@goal06082021
I just came across this for the first time & YOU are Amazing!!!!!! 💪🏻🎉😄💜

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@MadisonMolly Thank you! Stay tuned for the rest of my saga, LMAO.

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Well, P2D2 went about how I expected it to. The Copenhagen holds are a lot harder with the long top lever. I very nearly managed to do the frog pump without making eye contact with another human person, but I'm gonna say it's his fault since I was there first. I really don't want to have to do that over by the free weights as well, but the 20lb dumbbell was a little too easy. I guess I do have 25 and 45lb plates in the abs/TRX area I could use, that would probably be easier to hold onto/safer to use than a kettlebell or one of the bigger dumbbells from the free weights area. The 45lb plate would also probably help me keep my knees apart, too. Star planks are still terrible and no one should do them, but I think I'm getting a little better at them, so there's that at least. I do wish Planet Fitness still had real barbells, but at least the motion for a sumo deadlift is more or less straight up and down, so the Smith machine isn't the worst thing to use for it, I guess.

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Uuuuuugh. Those Copenhagen bridges. When I finish this program and have successfully crushed a pumpkin, if I never do another one of those damn things it will be too soon. I failed almost every set today. It didn't help that, when I went to use some hand sanitizer like a good citizen after blowing my nose, I made the supremely unpleasant discovery that the sanitizer the gym provides smells like moldy bread. I had to pause my workout and go to the bathroom to try washing my hands normally, but the lemony soap scent just layered on top of the sickly-sweet rot smell of the sanitizer, and I got a whiff of it every time I moved my hands or went to adjust my glasses (acetate frames, they slide all over the place if I so much as think about sweating). It was terrible, but I got through it and there's always next week.

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My left knee and hip seem to be upset about something. It's probably something to do with my training - I think I would be in a lot more pain if something were broken, but I am putting those joints through their paces so it makes sense that there would be some soreness. It's just sometimes hard to tell pain that is just evidence you did something apart from pain that indicates a problem.

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clears off cobwebs

Whew! We're in the home stretch now - this is the final week of training, Crush Day is 10/31. I managed to bruise my thigh pretty impressively with the foam roller doing practice squeezes, so I'm skipping those for the remainder of the training to give the tissue a chance to heal, since I expect I will injure myself in some way during the attempt. I've also done some more research on pumpkins and I do think I will need to carve it first to have any hope of destroying it with my powerful bod, but I'm still calling that a win, and it'll be on Halloween anyhow so, y'know, even more seasonally appropriate to do a jack o' lantern (sans candle, of course).

I've modified some of the program to give my poor battered legs a chance to heal - I bruise like a banana anyway, but my nemesis the Copenhagen bridges certainly aren't helping, so I've swapped those out with just regular side planks, and the star planks with suitcase carries (which are like farmer carries but one-handed).

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Crush Day has been postponed. My dumb *kitten* managed to pull a muscle literally yesterday (gluteus medius), I don't want to make it worse. So I'll hold onto the pumpkin for another week and see how my glute feels next weekend.