Daily check-in: December why you started!

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  • TravelsWithHuckleberry
    TravelsWithHuckleberry Posts: 955 Member
    edited January 2015
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    I'm so proud to be among this amazing group of women. You have made me smile, made me push myself, made me feel strong and confident, and made me feel like I'm a part of something special.

    I <3 you all so much!

    Here's to a fantastic 2015!

    xoxox,
    C.
  • sing809
    sing809 Posts: 54 Member
    I backed off of doing straight up strong lifts and focused on listening to my body after getting some hip pain a couple weeks ago. I continued with the exercises, but I did more warm ups at lower weight and higher reps, and maybe one or two high weight sets. I think it was very helpful. I went back to stronglifts format this week.

    12/31
    Squats: 5x5 @ 135 new personal best
    Bench Press: 5x5 @ 92 new personal best, and I got to try out my new fractional weight set
    Barbell Row: one set at 82, then I backed down to 80

    12/29
    OHP: 5x5 @ 62
    Deadlift: 3 reps at 140 - I've been stuck for a while trying to get a full 5x5 @‌ 140

    Happy New Year everybody!
  • DawnEmbers
    DawnEmbers Posts: 2,451 Member
    nancy274 wrote: »
    Inspiring as always ladies.

    perseverance, good luck on your recovery and congrats on being able to lift aagin.

    DawnEmbers, how do you like Grit class? How does it compare to Body Pump? I've been seeing it advertised but haven't found a good time to go check it out yet.

    I've never done a body pump class. This was the first class I tried at the big gym. Before that I'd only really tried spinning (once cause my mom likes it and it was awful) and zumba but that was back in small town wyoming. Slightly different crowd. I have been meaning to catch a zumba one at the gym here but haven't found the right time with my work schedule.

    I like the class. It's different and hard cause I can't do things like push-ups well. It's only 30 minutes but takes quite a bit of effort. I'll probably go on occasion when I can and it involves some lifting, which is nice. Light weights but lots of squats and such with the weights, more repetition.
  • bepeejaye
    bepeejaye Posts: 775 Member
    Wow! It looks like you ladies rock! Very impressive!!

    Lifting was great today! I guess the gym is getting full because of new year resolutes, but it is always the routine that, by March, the gym becomes as empty as it always is :smiley:

    This is my second month of SL, and, even though I no longer fail, I have not moved from the empty Oly Bar (to adding plates) :'( I tried adding 5 lbs. to it, and I could only do 3 reps....I am thinking to do the 3 reps for the 5 sets, and keep at it until I no longer fail.

    I am steadily albeit slowly adding weights for the other exercises, and always working on form!

    Lift on, ladies!!
  • krokador
    krokador Posts: 1,794 Member
    bepeejaye wrote: »
    Wow! It looks like you ladies rock! Very impressive!!

    Lifting was great today! I guess the gym is getting full because of new year resolutes, but it is always the routine that, by March, the gym becomes as empty as it always is :smiley:

    This is my second month of SL, and, even though I no longer fail, I have not moved from the empty Oly Bar (to adding plates) :'( I tried adding 5 lbs. to it, and I could only do 3 reps....I am thinking to do the 3 reps for the 5 sets, and keep at it until I no longer fail.

    I am steadily albeit slowly adding weights for the other exercises, and always working on form!

    Lift on, ladies!!

    Well, you're supposed to try to add 5lbs for 2-3 workouts even if you don't hit the 5 reps and then deload if you can't hit 5x5. I take it you're talking about OHP? If you,re really stuck, maybe switching to dumbbells for a few workouts would help? If you don't have access to fractionals, this might be a way to work around it.
  • Sumiblue
    Sumiblue Posts: 1,597 Member
    I'm still around doing my workouts. I had a week off and started using my power cage at home. Suddenly the lifts feel more difficult, like the weights are much heavier. After almost buckling under squats last week I've decided to start the program over to concentrate on form. I know that I have not been doing squats low enough. Did 120lb deadlifts 2 days ago, that felt good! I am trying tomeat at a deficit so maybe that is why my lifts are weak.
  • Sumiblue
    Sumiblue Posts: 1,597 Member
    Oops, wrong month, haha!
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    Sumiblue wrote: »
    I'm still around doing my workouts. I had a week off and started using my power cage at home. Suddenly the lifts feel more difficult, like the weights are much heavier. After almost buckling under squats last week I've decided to start the program over to concentrate on form. I know that I have not been doing squats low enough.

    i'll come in with you on this. i went back on monday (hopeless, too crowded) and then again properly today, and idk why a only week off has done this but i just totally suck. i AM more flexible, and my scalene muscles seem to have calmed down a lot. plus, i'm here to attest that these days i have lats. so i'd just naturally assumed all that would translate to 'stronger'. mcnope. seems to translate to 'weaker' hopefully just until i get the new mechanics together a bit. so i'm doing pretty much the same thing you are.

    the 'other' rec centre was - i swear to the groke - completely, totally empty when i went in. musta been around 7pm and i was the only person in the whole room. i'll deal with slightly-grungier-and-not-so-yuppie plus lame-squat-rack-with-manual-adjust-on-everything if i can get this. but i really needed to be on my own without witnesses for the way today went.

    workout x.

    squats: (eventually) 5x5@75. but do you know what it took me to get to where my form was even close to adequate for doing that? it took 4x5@45, 2x5@65 and a whole bunch of in-between bodyweight. plus stretching and practicing and i forget now what-all. it wasn't even a issue of weakness (although it was that). it was just general, universal, all-around suck. you'd think i'd never even heard of doing squats before, or looked up a single fact about them. warming up and getting even near my pre-xmas form took forever. and even then i feel like they were all quads. it's like my body's forgotten how there's such things as hamstrings.

    bench: 3x5@45, 5x5@55. that wasn't as bad as i'd been prepared for it to be. my heaviest bench ever has been 70, i think, and it was all coming together nicely back then. i'm disorganized and confused about form again atm, mostly about where on my chest to bring the bar down to each time (too high flares my shoulders and me no likey). but i also think that i was just having a general bad day and that this will improve. plus, the trigger point release work and all on my shoulder has to have altered my mechanics a bit, so i wasn't too thrown off balance by 55.

    ohp: fixed barbells only at this gym. the weaker-not-stronger thing is especially disappointing wrt this one. i did one set at 45 before even starting my squats, but when it came to the real thing i warmed up with 30lb and then did 40 as my working weight. hit and miss, but i don't htink i did anything really insanely awful form-wise. don't think i did anything very stellar either, mind you.

    rows: eff the effing rows is still my heart chant. but whatever is wrong with me i didn't seem to be capable of getting anything else together back-wise, and i do think that back is on the edge of becoming my new weakest link. so i sucked it up, used the fixed 40lb barbell that doesn't go anywhere near the floor at full hang, and did 5xatleast5every set. again trying to focus on form and the whole shoulderblade squeeze at the top and all that.



    i have realised one thing. the shoes i've been using are dangerous. they're airwalks, flat as boards which is great. but they have slippy soles, and that could very well be how i did whatever i've done to the very top end of some major quad muscle. i remember saying that my right foot had inexplicably turned itself outwards while i was down in the hole . . .

    discouraging day. but i'm back and the thing is: i've been down here flailing and feeling all drab and discouraged before, and i have dug in and learned on the basis of it before, and made progress from there.
  • Sumiblue
    Sumiblue Posts: 1,597 Member
    Yes, rows suck but I usually do them fast and get that nice endorphin rush. Your feet might indeed be pivoting out a bit due to the slipperiness. Maybe time for new shoes? I'm experimenting with getting into the hole to get out of it. I have not been getting low enough with squats and am using just the bar and *really* trying to get down there. I have to concentrate on spreading my feet outward so my knees don't cave in. Goodness, so much to think about. I've incorporated front squats and good mornings to my routine,too.