#getshredded2019

Monday week 6!!!!

Never miss a Monday. Yeehaw.

Two of the most important words you will ever utter are I am. Because whatever  comes after I am will shape your life. Whatever you define yourself as makes you, breaks you and creates you. Those words define it!!! They dictate it!!! Make sure you are defining yourself as what you want to be and not falling into the trap that so many people land into of limiting themselves by defining themselves wrong and being okay with it!!! I see it everywhere - people defining themselves wrong because self loathing can be a form of camaraderie and when it starts it’s hard to stop. You are one definition away from a totally different “I am”. I am resilient. I am strong. I am loving. I am focused. I am wise. I am capable of anything. I am grateful. I am connected. I am disciplined. I am. I am. If you think you can achieve great things, you will. Don’t only speak them or think them but believe them. You make your own rules!!! Thoughts are powerful. They become your actions, your actions become your habits and habits create your results. Let me tell you if you choose to see potential and reframe the way you define yourself, then all of a sudden you will be surround by it! You will grow into it!! It rewires your brain!!! “I’m lazy.” “I’m unhealthy.” “I’m unfocused.” Excuse me but no one is defining you by those words except you and whatever you say you will start to believe!! That’s on you. And I don't know about you but I don't want to shrink myself. I don't want to limit myself. I don't want to define myself with words that make me hate myself or make me feel bad even though I might be able to feel momentary friendship through mutual hate. Recognize this. Whatever you tell yourself over and over, even things you think are meaningless, become who you are!! You get what you focus on!! Belief changes things!! Make sure you are being true to yourself and the person you want to be. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Yesterday I was incredibly sleep deprived and didn't eat and therefore started not feeling well so I skipped the workout and got my ass in bed around 9 pm with a shot of vitamin C and called it a rest day. Today I was refreshed and good to go for an upper body day although I was fvking starving. (I need to start breaking up my workouts and going to do cardio at an insane hour like 4 or 5 am or something because my days are getting longer and longer and crazier and the hours I have are shorter and shorter.) By the time I finish my workout I'm usually too hungry and tired to do cardio but today I made sure to get some conditioning and abs in before I did my workout so I wouldn't have a way out and then focused mostly on back in this workout. It looked like:

5 minutes incline treadmill

5 minutes dead-treadmill sprints (where you shut the belt off and manually push the belt as fast as you can, trust me... its hard and I wanted to do more but knew I didn't have a ton of time)

10 minutes rowing

plank in & outs with feet on the rowing machine seat, then decline sit ups

a mobility warmup

triset: inverted row 3 x to failure//5 pushups//5 planks - knee to elbow then opposite elbow, each side so 10 total

pushups 3x10

3 sets pull up negatives to failure 

scapular pull-ups (dead hang and you retract your shoulder blades to work on the starting motion)

3 sets assisted pullups 

superset: heavy seated cable rows 3x 5-8reps @70 lbs, then dropped weight to 60 lbs and did 2 sets // bent over dumbbells rows 3x8 @35 lb dumbbells then dropped to 30lbs each

superset: dumbbell incline press 3x10 @25 lbs // incline skull crushers with preloaded bar 3x12 @30 lbs (idk why this sometimes hurts my elbows. Slow & controlled. Full contraction. I normally do 40 lbs but the incline made it feel harder? might scrap this one altogether)

standing cable bicep curls for the gurls 3x12 @30 lbs

Week 5 day 2

4 rounds of:

10 pushups

10 preloaded barbell bicep curls

10 standing military press

10 barbell bent over rows

Then 4 rounds of:

10 incline dumbbell chest press

10 chest supported dumbbell rows

Conditioning, Conditioning. Conditioning. I’ve been working on strength for so long but I wanna cross over into more aerobic/agility and heart rate raising activities. It’s because of the race I want to run this fall but I'm getting ahead of myself. Time seems to be in a shortage this week and things feel weird but I’m still doing it. In some cases I am harder on myself than anyone I know. Being hard on yourself can be a good thing (sometimes) until it starts to be a bad thing. But, one step at a time. It’s the only way to get anywhere. As long as you are trying you are getting there.

I was super crunched for time today so all I could do was this and that’s fine. I did the thing and that’s all I could do. I used a weight that was incredibly challenging - the same preloaded barbell for the entire circuit, then the same dumbbells for the second one: I was in and out of the gym in about 30 a 40 minutes and it kept my heart rate up. You can always get it done.

February is one of the toughest months for me and probably anyone else in the area. It’s always gray, usually always cold and bleh and no one smiles in February. Nothing happens. It’s just a transition before getting excited for spring. During this month it sort of feels (personally) like someone dropped my brain in a mud puddle but I just keep trekking onward hoping that it will pay off. As long as you are trying you are on your way. This time of the year we evaluate our resolutions, goals for the year and our personal mountains may start to feel like impossible climbs and my god those feelings are so real but this will pass too and one day you’ll be looking back, glad that you listened to that voice that kept telling you to keep trying.

(I’m trying so hard to keep my protein levels up. I even ate shrimp but I don’t like but they were cooked in garlic butter and I needed the protein and calories. I’m staying super tuned into nutrition and having to track like a nut job. I get headaches and things when it drops too low. Every gram of carbs, protein and fats kinda matters to me right now. Hopefully soon this February fog will lift from my brain.)

week 5 day 3

Cardio and Conditioning day

Looked like: 

20 minutes cardio because I still don't have replacement headphones or backup headphones and indoor cardio suxx rly bad without headphones

mobility work

rear delt cable facepulls super-set w/ dumbell lateral raises 3x10-15

bench jumps super-set w/ lying leg raises on bench x 3

planks w/ knee to elbow and leg to opposite elbow until failure x3

4 sets hanging leg raises till failure (not saying much considering I can only do a few!! but its a few more than when I started)

more bench jumps superset with squat jumps x3

decline sit ups 

You know what they say, when it rains it pours. Not my normal day here but it hasn't been my normal month. Gotta be pliable, keep a sense of humor about it so life doesn't drag ya under the current. I wanted to focus on some shoulder work I missed yesterday and then add in core work. Normally today is a day I avoid the weights to give myself a break but ya knowwwww just felt like I needed it. Bench jumps keeled me because those are rather high impact and you gotta really jump and I have a very deep huge black bruise you guess where from falling on the ice last week and it sucked but I'm no baby. Hanging leg raises always do me in because my grip and forearms strength just is. not. there. I mean, I try but come on I have tiny girls hands and it just sucks sometimes. they get tired before I do. still, I try, and it’s getting better. On a personal note: sticking to the basics I followed October-december is crucial for me right now. The basics like my evening rituals, early bedtimes, making sure I'm sleeping enough, etc. I wouldn’t be human if the winter months weren't hard on me, and then where would the fun be in that. 

I took a few to show my gym partner some new things he wanted to try. One of them being the pendlay row. He’s been working mostly on his own now but having to take some serious recovery time from demolishing his body since he’s still a newbie. I grabbed a typical barbell and showed him form and technique and then had him try it and he’s been doing really well but he struggled with this. Maybe the motion or the move was specifically hard for him because I wasnt struggling with the weight.. but he was using the same weight I was and strugggggling. I kept an eye on his form to make sure he wasn't doing it wrong and his formed looked fine so I was surprised it felt heavy. Apparently I couldn't hide that because when I asked him about the weight I laughed and felt a little like a jerk when I asked him why it felt difficult but he had good humor about it. 

Monday: Lower body strength day

Squats 5x5 

Conventional Deadlifts 5x5 

Hip thrusts 4x8-10 

Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts 3x10 @35 lbs each

Seated hamstring curl 15/12/10/8 reps @70 lbs 

warmup: 50 jacks, 50 banded side to side squats, 50 banded hip adbuctors each leg

4 rounds of: (100 reps of each)

25 pull-up negatives

25 pushups

25 feet elevated tricep dips

25 squat & shoulder press

25 bent over rows

25 single leg Romanian Deadlifts (each leg)

(I’m going to attempt to keep this as short and to the point as I can. I sometimes ramble.)

Weeks 4-8 programming:

challenging myself more than I ever have, meaning:

increased weight and reps on compound movements

utilizing supersets, drop sets, and anything to keep my heart rate up and sweaty AF

increasing conditioning (non-weight lifting movements) and cardio at a steady rate

strict on my diet - focusing on essential vitamins, macros, micros, quality

 Personal things to note:

I’m working on a cut while maintaining the muscle I have and so far i’ve built a good baseline. I want to be shredded come April and run a race this fall. This means I need to keep stress handled well and hormones balanced. The cortisol hormone can really fuck you up. I have a history of having a fucked up ruined metabolism by undereating, too much outside stress at one time, autoimmune issues etc but I'm all good now and will be on my way to maintenance again.

My gym partner is ready to branch out on his own. He said he felt like a lost puppy at first but he’s got a good idea of what he has to do now. I bet more people would workout if they had a partner willing to show them what to do for the first couple of weeks. I’m glad he’s ready to be on his own because his personality and mine clash sometimes. I hate to even say that but his energy is so chaotic I gotta take him with a grain of salt. I’m still providing material and support if he needs it but I'm excited to workout on my own again. 

I have some lbs to drop to cut up. At least an extra ten or so. It’s not bad because I carry it well according to outside sources, but it’s also not what I want or where I feel comfortable at. It just doesn't feel good for me even though I built some muscles. Yo girl got too thicc for her own good. At least it all went to my ass. Everyone out here’s getting fat injected into their butt and I’m tryin to wittle mine down because it started feeling out of control. Im getting kind of tired of carrying it around so I’m more than ready to aggressively lean out by this summer and then go to maintenance calories.

I might post some of my weight numbers lifted in the upcoming weeks but I know how obsessed people get with numbers so I usually keep everything except sets and reps to myself (calories, lbs, weight lifted etc).

Notes on specific lifts:

Squat: I’ve always struggled with this one. But I've come far considering when I first started, I could only squat the 45 lb barbell (hahahahaha weak sauce). I’ve worked up well in weight but I feel like I hit a wall or a plateau I need to burst through. Working on increasing weight every session, one inch at a time, to get me over this hump (no pun intended) (or did I intend it). I looked into online forums to see if I was the only one who struggled to squat what seems like a weight I should be able to easily do and, I'm not the only one. There are a few factors that go into this struggle: 1) I have longer femurs unfortunately so I struggle more to move the weight. Shorter, stockier girls push weight a little more easily. It’s not an excuse it’s just a fact based on range of motion, velocity, time, other scientific factors etc. I’m just gonna have to try hard. 2) Mindset. If you feel a weight is heavy, it will feel heavy. It might be a mental hump. I don't know if I can push a weight I've never pushed before. 3) Practice, practice, practice 4) other factors I'm not going to list bc they prob don't apply to me.

Deadlift: I tried out my 1rep max again, which could definitely be more. I’m going to keep pushing close to that number to get over that hump, too.