Kelly

Fuel

My hips, legs, and lower body in general is tight from yesterday. Put in a lot of work yesterday and a lot of loaded squats. Tough one today that I know is a long grind, but I was actually excited for the chance to redeem myself after what I felt like was a pretty poor time last year. Much cooler day today, with the temperature around 40-45°, compared to last year (May 3) being one of the hottest days of the year.

Warm-up

Crossover Symmetry Activation
Bottom Squat Hold
3 Sets
- 5 ATYs (5#)
- 10 Shotguns
- 50 DU

Got every round of dubs unbroken.

Strength & Midline

E2M – 6 Sets

4 Pendlay Rows (165#, supinated)
30s Hollow Hold

Did 10×45# and 4×135# to warm-up. Second week in a row I went with the underhand grip since I had gone two in a row pronated. I feel these rows just a bit on my left shoulder.

Conditioning

kelly “Kelly” – 5 Rounds

400m Run
30 Box Jumps (24″)
30 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)

There were some complications with the music last year so it wasn’t even a true time for me, but I called it 29:59, which I thought was actually shortchanging myself for how long it took me to fix the tunes. Could I push harder on the runs this year?

The first run started out a little faster, but that’s to be expected fresh. Tried to keep a steady pace on the other 4 runs. I did all step up/down on the box since that many jumps will lock up my back. They were 8 right, 8 left, 7 right, and 7 left every round. Wall balls were 4 rounds of 18-12 with a quick 5-10 second breather and unbroken to finish.

Wore my watch so I could see some of the heart rate data and get an idea of my round times. Unfortunately the HR data had a bunch of drops down near or under 100 bpm so the average is pretty useless. Does show a max HR of 166 for the workout, which should be pretty accurate.

Not easy to tell because the GPS data jumps all over the place while inside the gym doing the reps, but looks like my splits were 4:35, 4:48 (9:23), 4:57 (14:20), 5:02 (19:22), and 4:44 (24:06). During the workout when I checked my watch on each run I kept waiting to hit a wall but it never happened. I felt much better throughout than I was expecting. Really happy with how consistent those round times stayed for a long workout. The last round time came down because I did the wall balls unbroken.

I thought if I was able to PR by 3 or maybe 4 minutes that would be great. I thought a 5 round average of 5:00 was a pipe dream, but I was well under that. Improved by almost 6 minutes! I think I could almost walk fast and get that 30 minute time from last year. haha The heat could have been a big factor too.

Definitely looking forward to ROMWOD tonight!

Diet

I’m not sure if I’ve written about it, but I’ve been counting macros for about 4.5 months now. I used to absolutely hate all of the counting and keeping track, so was never able to stick with it for more than a week or two. Something shifted this time around and I’ve actually enjoyed it. My previous “diets” worked, but usually ended up with me falling off the wagon and I’d gain back the weight. My “go to” was always low carb and try to stay cleaner. Doesn’t really work in the long run for me though because I enjoy food too much.

So I read about Renaissance Periodization and figured I’d give it a shot. It’s been working brilliantly so far and I feel much better mentally and physically. I give almost no care to the quality of what I’m fueling my body with as long as the quantity lines up with my macro number goals. The fancy term for it these days seems to be “flexible dieting” or what a lot of people call IIYFM (If It Fits Your Macros). Another popular company besides RP that will help you is Working Against Gravity. While I can see the value in paying RP or WAG for help, it’s really not that hard to do on your own if you have some discipline. If I can do it, so can you. 😉

Progress was steady for the first 2 months. It leveled out during the Open, when I was having a massive 36 hours way over my macros after doing each week’s workout. I didn’t track food on a week vacation so gained a little bit there, but quickly lost that and have been stable at 203# since. The trend lines are still heading in the right direction and body fat % seems to be decreasing. We’re getting towards the end of an 8 week hypertrophy cycle at the gym so this means the muscle building has been working and muscle gain + fat loss are leveling each other out. Will be interesting to see what happens when we switch back to lifting heavy shit during our strength work. I’d like to drop closer to 195# and get the body fat down to 10-11%.

3 Weeks In

My HRV was down to 88 this morning from 100 yesterday. Hmmmm… I was pretty exhausted after being out in the sun walking 9 holes, but that still doesn’t seem right. Had some good weight on the bar for back squats, but overall the day wasn’t very intense. Readings like that keep me doubting the usefulness of HRV.

Out to the garage after 8am. Warmed up with 5:00 Air Dyne (2.23km).

Coffee Squats

2 Front Squats + 5 Back Squats

45#
135#
185#
225#
245#
265#
280#

I put the belt on for the last two sets. Not only trying to go heavier through each day of this thing, but also trying to go a little longer without the belt too, to help build up the core muscles more. Last week I did 265# for this, so was a nice jump. Felt pretty heavy in the early sets. Just 15# shy of the most I’ve managed for this complex. That makes 21 days in a row.

Accessory

4 Sets

12 Incline DB Bench Press
12 JM Press

I put the bench at 60° and used 40-45-50-50# for the incline bench work. Used 45-55-60-65# for the JM presses. Both felt heavier than last week. Maybe I’m still feeling the effects of “Cindy” from Thursday.

Not too long after this I started to feel shitty. Maybe that’s why my HRV was low this morning. Since Thursday night I’ve been feeling like allergies are hitting me, though I haven’t had any problems in a couple of years. If it wasn’t Sunday I think I might have stayed home and took a nap instead.

Warm-up

Crossover Symmetry Activation
1,000m Row
Bottom Squat Hold
Band Pass-thrus

Gymnastics

10:00 EMOM

3 MU

Was curious how this would go with the way I was feeling. Made every set without a problem. YAY!

Strength

5 Sets

12 Pendlay Rows (95#)
5 Evil Wheels

Conditioning

“Kelly”
5 Rounds

400m Run
30 Box Jumps (24″)
30 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)

Only done this once before. It was a 32:22 almost 3 years ago. Warmest day of the year (so far) is a good day to do a long workout right? This was so bad. I started out with a sub 2:00 first 400 and knew that was too fast. I didn’t rebound any box jumps, but never stopped either. Did mostly step-downs, but some jump downs in the later rounds. Wall balls were two sets of 15 until I went 18-12 in the last round. Should have just went for all 30.

When I got in from my 3rd run the music had stopped. Bluetooth still showed connected but no sound. I think it took me close to 2 minutes to get it going again. The official clock time was 30:59 when I finished, but I’ll be conservative and only knock a minute off for a 29:59 since the rest helped me in a way too. Wish I would have felt closer to 100% today, but it’s still a PR.

Walked 200m, sat on my ass to recover, and then did Crossover Symmetry Plyometric.

After the turnout for “Murph” yesterday, I can’t stop thinking about how great of a community this is to belong to.

I’m a little sore today, but not bad considering that’s 4 days in a row. Since I won’t be able to WOD tomorrow, I had to push to 5 in a row today.

I’m 2 weeks into the strict Paleo diet as part of the challenge at the box. A few croutons and a small amount of shredded cheese on a salad are still the only “cheats” I’ve had. I’m down 8 pounds (172# this morning) and 1.5% body fat. At times, you can see a 6-pack as shown by the picture in yesterday’s post. I can’t believe how much my body has changed in the last two weeks and how much better I’m performing in the workouts. I figured it would take at least a couple of months to get to the 6-pack stages.

I’m increasing my food consumption in an attempt to speed up muscle growth, because I don’t want to lose any more weight; I want to turn some fat pounds into muscle pounds. A lean 175-180 would be ideal. We’ll see how this goes for the next week.

Warm-up

75-50-25 Squats
30-40-50 KBS (Russian)

I used the 62# KB for the swings and finished in 10:05.

WOD

“Kelly”
5 rounds

400m Run
30 Box Jumps
30 Wall Balls

I love box jumps, so this is my kind of WOD. It’s always fun doing one of the benchmark girls or heroes so you have something to look back on if you do it again.

I used a 24″ box for jumps and a 20# MB for wall balls. Our 400m loop is more like 500 according to Google Maps Pedometer, so we’re working extra hard. 🙂 I did all of the box jumps unbroken each round and started with a set of 15-20 for the wall balls each time to keep my intensity up. Tried to do most of my resting during transitions from move to move with a few seconds of sitting down to drink some water. Finished in 32:22.

Squat endurance was my weak point in the benchmark for the challenge, but it’s getting better and better. Squats and wall balls felt pretty good today, especially since that’s 5 days in a row that have included a lot of squats.