Pain

**He finally has a new name. Before Coach was my coach, he was my go-to-guy and I called him that for months, I never used his name. These days I avoid consulting him at almost all costs but if I think there is a risk of injury or I am totally confused or I need a safe place/someone who understands me, he is my go-to-guy. So from here on out Coach, who hasn’t been my coach for 6 months, is now known (once again) as Go-To-Guy (or GTG).

Yesterday I asked someone “am I supposed to feel worse AFTER a rest day? Isn’t the rest day supposed to make me feel better?” Last night I would sleep for 10 minutes then be up for an hour, sleep 10 minutes and be up for an hour. By the time I was leaving for my lifting session today, I could barely walk.

I started with power jerks + overhead squats. Power jerks were great (to my surprise as this was my first time with them) but I would go down 1/4 inch for the OHS and pain would engulf my thighs of both legs. My hamstrings, quads, glutes, adductors and abductors were screaming from the pain. I sucked it up through 2 sets and then I only did the power jerks. After the last set I did OHS with low weight but the same amount of pain.

I probably should have reassessed my workout at this point but snatches were up and these have been my happy place. These were the only reason I hobbled my way in today. Do we all see where this is going?

Nowhere actually. It went nowhere. I grabbed the bar and started to pull and as pain shot through me I thought “Let’s think about this for a moment.” Reading through the rest of my lifts I decided I could do a snatch grip pull from a high hang and barbell rows (GTG told me ages ago to not Pendlay row and today I asked him why: they are too jarring on the back and shoulders).

In the ‘good old days’ I would be so angry about my failings that I wouldn’t be able to even think of ways to alter the workout or to figure out what my body needs to heal itself. Do I feel like a slacker for not getting all my sets/reps? Absolutely. Do I think I made the right decision? Absolutely.

My mother-daughter 5k team idea has taken on a life of its own and a group I have been working with has asked me to put together a program for them. In return, they will be handling advertising for me and “would you get something together to put in the swag bags?” I was thinking 50-75 participants…Oh no, this is a statewide and I will need between 1,000 and 2,000 promotional items. Terror ran through me. Who would have thought this little mouse whose greatest wish used to be to become invisible, would have her name in thousands of homes? Terror. What the hell did I get myself into now?

Cleans: My Reward

At our old facility I was an unstoppable force. It was where I uncovered my Warrior, found a reason to live, met my lifting role model and where he took me under his wing and turned me into an athlete. I wanted to be strong and fast and jump enormous heights. I wanted to do what Coach did so I watched him, the hardest worker there, and then worked harder.

He once said to me “it was always my worst fear that I would meet someone almost as amazing as me.” I finished my set of … Squats? Deadlifts? and looked at him and said “wait, am I that someone?” He just smiled. It was a great moment and if I wasn’t cocky before that, I was after – I was almost as amazing as Coach and he was the best.

But then we left there and I was never good enough again. In the middle of my epic suck I was injured and given the news I won’t ever be able to work hard enough to ever be good enough.

Watch me…

Since my “The Love of Lifting” post, I have been going in with the intention of loving every moment I have with the bar. Yes, I still get frustrated and when I saw cleans on today’s workout I cringed, but I would love every moment. The pressure is gone. I look forward to proving Coach wrong but it no longer needs to be immediate and daily.

I told him last week that I know he’s given up on my cleans and he doesn’t think I will ever get them but I won’t give up. And when I break through this wall, I’ll make sure he witnesses it.

The Professor and The Teacher were the only two there today and they were chatting with each other. When I hit the reps set at 100% it seemed too light and I upped the weight. I pulled to the knees, sped up to the pocket, HIT THE POCKET, dropped my ass and made the catch. 18 months of failing at this weight which I will not announce to the world, a weight far less than what my max SHOULD be (I don’t know how many times he actually told me what it SHOULD be but I will hear those words on every pull until I pass it), I not only caught it but I caught it at the bottom of my squat, with beautiful form. Form that would rival Coach’s.

And then I stood up and jerked it.

Before I stepped up to the bar I thought maybe I should have one of the ladies record this so I could send it to Coach with a little “suck it” note. But I am still self-conscious about the low weight (even if it is a big moment for me) and if I sent it to Coach he would just think “you SHOULD have done this 18 months ago, you SHOULD be doing more, it’s no big deal”. And it is a big f*cking deal! I don’t want it ruined thinking about what he is thinking, or worse, what he would tell me.

I worked hard for this moment. I worked harder than the hardest worker I know. I deserve to enjoy the best lift of my life. I simply told The Professor “my cleans were good today”. She would have celebrated with me but this is my secret, my moment. I am keeping it safe and when I struggle in the future, when I am told I can never be good enough, never work hard enough, I will have this untarnished, beautiful, perfect moment to think about and I will simply say “Watch me!”.

FYI: Never bet against someone who never gives up.

The Love of Lifting

It was a late night of training for me. My last client asked me a question about a lift and as I was explaining, she interrupted me to say “you really love this don’t you? I have known you for a few years now and, don’t get me wrong because you are so sweet and always smiling, but I have never seen you have joy. But here, here your eyes sparkle, I feel your joy when I walk in the door, you are so excited and happy and proud. When it comes to anything related to lifting you’re like a teenage girl in love.”

And with that, I realize I often come to my blog with my heartache, my struggles, my frustrations and limitations and maybe I have forgotten to share my joy.

A teenage girl in love though? I don’t know, I’ve never been in love and the way I have been loved isn’t really how it’s supposed to be. So how do I feel about lifting?

I feel about lifting the same way I feel about my nephew/godson, a feeling that I never had before him. It is a pure, beautiful, gentle and sweetest feeling. The first time I held Ben and the first time I touched the bar, I knew my soul was forever changed. Newly broken yet forever healed. Both times I felt like I was touching eternity. If that describes love, then yes, I really love lifting.

Hafiz, one of my favorite poets, wrote:

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being

The bar, lifting, has done that. When I see people executing a good lift, I am breathless with the beauty of it. To think that I can be a part of such a beautiful act…well, I am in awe. I am the most blessed person in the world. I am existing in eternity. I am in love.

Mountains and Maxes

The last few months of hypertrophy were technically my starting over point. I could ignore the numbers easily since the reps were so high and my support system was doing it with me. At points I would think “but I want to know what my max numbers have fallen to”, knowing I didn’t really want to know how far back the injury and clusterfu*^ rehab set me back.

Yesterday I was mentally prepared but the hip was not. Yesterday I could have handled this better. Today the hip is fine, I am fine with the exception of 2 hours of sleep, but I just don’t want to know how far I have fallen. I know there is a mountain in front of me, why do I want to know the exact height of it? It crossed my mind to balk at making up this missed workout.

I want to list all the reasons why these numbers are so low, I want to give you excuses and justifications, I want to protect my ego. I don’t want to put them in this post at all. I know I am no longer great but I was never the amazing one before and it was nice. It physically pains me that I have to hand over my title. Not just hand it over but step to the back of the line and fight for every little gain AGAIN but this time…this time I will have to work around recurring injuries and no coaching. This time I am scared. Last week Spencer wrote a piece on the 3 priorities to be successful in this lifting life (and it is my life): 1) consistent coaching; 2) positive and success driven environment; far behind these, 3) programming. I should have skipped that post. Recalling it, I feel like the mountain just got a hell of a lot bigger and steeper.

This sounds like a battle custom-made for a Warrior Girl doesn’t it?

It is with great humility that I deliver my starting (over) weights:

Snatch 85# (got 95# up as a power snatch and lost it as I went to get a delayed squat)
C&J 105# (lost it on the jerk…2 days in a row…wtf)
3RM Front Squat 125#

Tomorrow I get to work the basic movement of the snatch. Tomorrow I have a scientific number to put on the bar. I like formulas, maps, plans, and clear trajectories. I like to have things to work on, after all I am a worker. This Warrior Girl loves a good fight.

I have a program, not a master program but it’s a start and with a few more clients of my own I can afford coaching. I will get up this damn mountain if I have to start at the bottom 100 more times and cut myself on every rock I climb over. So today I was handed the exact height of this mountain but I was also given a map.

Today I officially started climbing.

One Goal Met, One Barrier Overcome

One of the pretty boys (dripping in sarcasm and eye-rolling as I use this term to describe the “I do 100 kinds of bicep curls” people) came in and asked if I was the secretary. Forgetting that I am representing my brand, my business, I clenched my fists (but didn’t beat the shit out of him) and said “If you saw me lift you wouldn’t ask a stupid question”. “You don’t look like a trainer” and condescendingly asked what I lift. “More than you, I can promise that” (best thing Coach ever taught me). So my people skills may need some work but he isn’t my target market anyway. And since it is painfully obvious he has never squatted in his life, I wasn’t lying.

I am following Spencer’s Deep Barbell programming for now. As I talk to other trainers I am discovering I am not the only one who can’t program for themselves. In fact, The Professor is the only one who has said I can do it but I realized she was just trying to instill some confidence…her declaration was followed by saying she is going to need me to hold her accountable for her workouts outside of Coach sessions. We all have our weak spots.

Today’s workout:
A) Clean and Jerk to max 2 misses allowed
B) Clean Pull 3×3 (add 10% of max C&J)

A) Squat Jumps 55# 4×3
B) Incline DB Press 10,8,6 increase weight each time

Expectations were completely reasonable considering the last couple of days. And, in the end, I am not disappointed with the results.

In October, for my 2 year anniversary, I made a long-term goal list. The deadline: October 2015. I achieved one of them today. I lost a lift and instead of hurting myself trying to save it: I DROPPED THE FUCKING BAR!!! Even better: I wasn’t at my gym with bumper plates and blessings to oly lift. I know this goal may seem silly to most people but 1) I have control issues; 2) I hate to fail; 3) I have no money, breaking plates or equipment is not in the budget.

This huge, epic achievement that I finally reached after 2 years occurred in front of Coach (suck it!) on my jerk. Strange, I could clean today but my jerk – my solid move – was not happening today. So, to recap, the on-going 18-month clean argument has been “you can easily get 135” while I continue to stall after 95. My PR jerk is 165. Today. Cleaned 105 missed the jerk. Not just missed the jerk, tossed the whole damn bar over my head and sent it flying back. I broke the 95# barrier after having not even attempted a clean in months. It’s still not my 135#, but honestly, if I hadn’t failed that jerk I still would not have hit 135#. I have no “what ifs”. I find it funny that the solid is where I got stuck.

Truly, thank god I did. My clean pulls were set at 115# and that was heavy enough. First time for squat jumps and after my first two rounds I asked Coach “what the hell is this supposed to be doing?” So apparently it develops explosiveness out of the bottom of the squat. I changed my approach to them and then I got it. I added a set since I was not getting the intended effect from the first two sets.

Incline DB Press: set of 10 at 35#, set of 8 at 40# (failed last rep), set of 6 at 40#. The inability to go to 45# I am totally blaming on nutrition.

Deep Barbell has one more week of the Bulgarian Cycle. I will just work around it as I need to. I get to row, row, row. Coach (suggestions welcome on his name change) said today that swimming needs to be more arms and less legs because of the hip. This is why I didn’t ask him about the swimming, I knew what he would say. I get it. But the problem is that my legs are the only thing graceful about the pool. The arms are the spastic part. Guess that’s going to change.

And all of this may change when I begin martial arts. I imagine that the hip and the shoulder and who knows what else will act up. Adjusting and Achieving…maybe this is the theme of 2014.

Lifting With The Big Boys

I recently gave Coach a list of moments that keep me going. These are the smallest things that wouldn’t even register on his “special moment” radar but for me, these moments make my struggles worthwhile. Today I get to add to that list.

The Thanksgiving lifting with the boys session never happened – it was just Coach and me. Admittedly, it didn’t break my heart at the time as I had enough to worry about with the thought of being the outsider of my family. Being the “outsider, old lady” doing what I love was pressure I didn’t need. But ever since Thanksgiving I have wondered what it would have been like…

Today, unexpectedly, Coach’s younger brother was lacing up his shoes as I walked in the door.

I think it went faster with three of us. Coach up first, then Junior, then myself. I learned so much watching someone new, whose errors I could pick out (Coach being so massive it can be hard to pick out minor shifts in muscle tension). Junior brought a new level of encouragement to my lifts. I am not used to someone shouting “c’mon, c’mon, one more!” and I swear I could have added 10 lbs to deadlifts with that. I did add 10 actually, should have added 20. When it is just Coach and I, it is all about adjustments and how to improve. I am thriving with the new communication Coach and I have developed but I kind of enjoyed the added voice.

For front squats we set up Junior’s weight but then Coach went. After the set, when he realized it was too light, Coach responds “Shit – Warrior Girl is going to make me do extra at the end to make up for it” (true) and Junior replies “She’s just making you better.” Yeah, Junior can hang. I have worried, even before we were training partners, that the extra time he spent with me interfered with his workouts. How many times have I said “I don’t want to be in the way of your goals”? Turns out, I’m just making him better.

I have never seen Coach need a spot on squats and by the last set, which he increased enough that extra reps weren’t necessary, Junior is ready and waiting. I immediately know this is an important moment for me, for the dynamic that exist between Coach and me: I have never seen Coach fail while giving 100%. He has told me this happens but I have never seen it. I have seen his head leave the game, I have seen him fail, but I have never seen this. In the end he didn’t fail but I saw him more…like me. Human. Doing everything right, being fully present, and struggling anyway.

With Coach puking after squats and my hip hurting, Junior looks at me and asks “what’s left?” Ha! We are supposed to have lunges, box jumps (Junior has step ups), sumo squats. My answer “I’m pretty sure we are out” so Junior does his lunges and I notice the issues though I still let Coach do the coaching. And then, as we are just wasting time now, he demonstrates rows and bench while Coach asks about what I notice and how would I cue someone. Coach helped me pick apart Junior’s form, shows me how a give in one spot indicates a form issue in another. Poor Junior, having to hold certain positions as we dissected his lift. I cannot begin to tell you how much I learned in these 30 minutes. Junior is on college break and if I am very lucky I can only hope we have a chance to do this again. Junior is almost as good of a guy as Coach is. While I am usually afraid of answering Coach, Junior’s presence makes me comfortable enough to ask, answer, and learn from Coach. This opportunity was invaluable to me.

And I didn’t feel like an outsider. In fact, I left today feeling more of a belonging, a connection, than I have ever had anywhere in my life. I don’t even think Coach knows the gift he has given me today. And best of all, I can hang with the big boys.

Level up Warrior Girl!

Jerk Joy, Clean & Snatch Frustrations

Warrior Girl had a side quest this week: receive a challenge, process and adjust, continue to eat. I ate everyday and today I just may have hit calorie.

Yesterday’s session was rescheduled to today which means Friday I actually had down time between jobs. I filled this by doing ALL the core work I have been missing (I knew it wasn’t the brightest idea but it shut up the “slacker” voice in my head). I then watched as much as the American Open as I could. I tend to geek out on the Cal Strength videos and it was fun to watch them compete live and Sunday I will be home from work in time to see Akinwale. One happy girl! Next weekend the nearest USAW facility is having a competition and, if I am able to meet a work deadline, I will be going as an early birthday treat.

In case I needed proof my form was good on leg day, my rhomboids are sore and burning from locking my shoulders down and back for 2 hours, I have no stiffness in my lower back, and my hamstrings and glutes are sore, my hip has only a mild ache. And my rear delts do NOT want today to be shoulder day. When Coach arrived he noted his posterior delts and rhomboids feel like garbage. Really?

Push Jerk: The jerk is one of my favorite moves (I know, I have a lot of favorite moves but this is really does rank #1 or #2), I love putting weight over my head and I love watching others do it too. My first round was unbroken but I guess when I am “cheating” that will happen…I wasn’t straightening my wrists. Coach rests at rep 7 or 8 on every set. On my second set I figure it out and, wrists moving the way they should, I too need to break my sets. I manage to get the sound of the bar snapping (I love that sound – if I could get it recorded I would use it as a relaxation tool and possibly be able to sleep). I even got a “good pop” from Coach once or twice. He leaves the next decision to me: kill the wrists on jerks or move onto the hang-pull-shrug practice. Oh, I want to stick with what I like and am successful at but I have so much work to do on my clean…

I decide to focus on my weakness.

Hang-pull-shrug: And here we go…Coach makes them look so easy. We can work on these at the same time but I watch him today. I was so caught up with “how does he do all these different movements all at one time” that I don’t even realize that his first round was all over the place. The bar was bouncing off every part of his upper thigh. My first round has maybe two that come off the hips and I only think that because I did fall back twice. But otherwise I have no hip movement. Coach figures out his hip pocket and goes back to making them look easy. I continue to struggle so I drop the shrug portion and just concern myself with pocket and pop. Towards the end Coach fixes my grip and I get another couple of good ones. Mid-set he says “go for it” but by the time I realize he means clean it, my entire movement fell apart. Not this again! 8 months away should mean I forgot bad habits. With my new reality the pressure should be off, this should be just for fun, why would I freeze? And do I even know what “just for fun” means and have I ever done anything “just for fun”?

Rear Delt Flys: My posterior shoulder does not want to participate in today anymore.

DB Snatches: Last week these went so well for me. This week we both fell apart. My hip just isn’t moving anymore, I am power snatching instead of squatting, I can no longer hold weight behind me. My stance was so horrible on the couple I managed to catch in the squat that I had to fight like hell to stand back up which sent pain shooting through my hip. Coach’s weren’t pretty either and his repeatedly injured hamstring is bothering him now. His day is done early.

I have some bar speed work to do over the next couple of days. Coach says “the speed will come back” but all I remember from the pre-injury days is “you’re going to slow”. I think to myself “come back? when did I ever have it?” Well, hell, I just became consistent with the deadlift after 2 years, guess I will just have to keep working on this too.

I love these days so much: training partners/coaching Coach and while I promised myself I would just live in the moment, as today ended week 2 of cycle 2, i see the end approaching, a countdown beginning. I am having that sadness creep in: what will happen when it is over, when he begins conditioning work in prep for Rugby and I, well, I don’t even know what my goal is anymore.

Coach would take a breath right now as a reminder to me to breathe. I remind myself what I am often saying to Coach “Be grateful”. I breathe and I am grateful.

Back Day, Giggles, & 20 Year Old Boys

Back day actually managed to put me in a good place. Two weeks without hamstring work and I am welcomed back with heavier RDLs, which is one of my overall favorite movements. Coach’s mark is when he sees my hamstrings quiver and I hit it many times today. I love that feeling and when I turn to walk away, my first couple of steps are carefully taken. Hamstrings worked, I am happy.

But wait…I don’t even know what the next movement is called (plate ham curls?) but they are killer. Nicole blogged about making sex noises while lifting, and I think of that post because there are lots of these during this movement. Part way through I think “but this is so much better than sex” and I start to giggle because I’m probably the only person in the world to think this. As I am giggling my hamstrings cramp. Coach, as astute as he is, has no idea what’s in my brain right now. He notices the cramping though and says “there it is” which sends me into to tremors while I try to stifle my laugh.

I have done these once before but an easier version. Laying down you put two plates on the floor close to your tush, put your heels in the hole, keep hips lifted through all reps, push the plates out and pull them all the way back in. And after 4 sets of 12, I can barely walk. Judging from the mild throb in my hip, I didn’t keep all the movement in my hamstrings.

Rows: I put too much in my biceps and when the back finally got involved, only the right side was working. Coach points out I am getting more and more right-side dominant and I need to fix this soon: right shoulder, right hip, right back, right tricep. I tell him this is all balanced by the fact that I am left brained.

Pull-ups were a slap in the face regarding my muscle deterioration – the once Princess of Strict Pull-ups is now strictly assisted and then I needed more assist than anticipated. Coach says bodyweight work will be easier for me because I am so much lighter than I was but during these I look at him and say all the weight I lost was muscle weight so, yeah, not easier.

I really enjoyed my day. My hamstrings are back in action, I couldn’t get everything where it was supposed to be but I kept trying and adjusting. Pull-ups, well, I have nothing positive to say about those except that even though I am disappointed at their decline, I am not disappointed in me.

Coach asked what I was doing Wednesday and Thursday and if I wanted to lift legs and shoulders with him, his brother and another kid. I have worked out with his brother before but I am a bit…I don’t know how I feel about an upper-30’s year old lady that believes she is a Warrior Girl lifting with a bunch of early to mid 20-year-old guys? My confession: Awesome, I feel kind of awesome. I have worked my butt off and earned my way in. Wow!!

And I am so grateful that this Thanksgiving, I won’t just be thinking of my self-made family but I will be seeing some of them. I will be giving thanks for you all who are so supportive, Char who I get to see more than the twice-a-year obligation and is much more friendly than family, and my dear, dear Rebecca who loves me however I together or torn apart I may be. And if I am very lucky, my good and wise brother (wise because he stays hundreds of miles away from the middle of nowhere) will Skype and his little ones will have trivial but ever-so-important stories to tell me.

Back day exceeded expectations. I just may get some sleep tonight.

Rebuilding Strength & Family Traditions

Sunday I could still barely walk from Friday’s leg day. I reported after that insane lift day that my excitement had returned and I couldn’t wait until Monday.

Having ground out all lifts at low weight and 6 sets of 15 reps, we would be getting to 4×10, actually completing a workout in the time we have together and at weight that would give me an approximate assessment of just how much strength I had lost in the last 5 months.

I was sorely mistaken. Not 4×10 but 4×12 chest work with only a 20% weight increase from last week. We won’t get through it together. Narrow grip chest press, incline fly, incline press, decline fly, dips (a version I have never done). Nothing good can come from such a day.

As I will be missing shoulder AND leg days (my favorite days) this week, one good thing did actually happen: somehow I managed to turn all my chest lifts into shoulder lifts…even the dips I put into the shoulders. Not good at all, injury waiting to happen if I make this a habit, but my shoulders feel worked and I love that feeling. After the first set of incline flys I toss the dumbbells and they land at my feet, I was aiming for the mirror. After the next set Coach took the foam roller and started beating me with it. And because we are both 5 years old at this point I start kicking back and both of us are laughing – first smile of my day. “Why are you hitting me?” “To make you laugh, you’re too in your head to accomplish anything”.

A family holiday is coming up and it would be nice to have something positive to hold onto going into those days. Today was not it. An “awesome” mantra I could recite in my head to counter-balance the “you’ve gotten so big”, “you used to be pretty”, “why don’t you eat normal?”, “why do you do lift? It’s so unfeminine, look at you”, “have you seen yourself?”, “why don’t you get a real job?” “you really think you’re going to make this work?”. None of these things actually read horrible but if you heard the tone and the constancy…At one point my father will say “dying dogs should just know when to lay down and die” and after all these years, everything I have managed to learn how to process, I have yet to hear that comment and not want to quit, give up, or die.

I’d rather spend the day with my lifting family, or at least part of the day. If before blood family I would feel well armored for the battle, the attacks would not harm me. If after blood family, the void I am left with would be filled, my choices validated, my wounds attended to. I would be able to unload the baggage.

Let’s hope back day gives me my awesome moment, it is my last workout of the week. But the reality of it is: it’s back day of 4×12 strength re-build. I’m not really sure ‘awesome’ is a realistic expectation.

6×15 Nears An End

Last shoulder day of this obnoxious high rep cycle. I was able to get to all my lifts which is exceptionally exciting as I do love my shoulders (vanity). Shoulder presses began easy but ended harder than they should have. Even after the burning just turned to numbness, I was not going to give up on those last reps. I simply gripped the weight for dear life.

I put too much of my traps in my rear delt flys but, in life and in lifting, I am working on pausing when things are getting haywire. Take a moment, take a breath, get things reset and begin again. It worked. Just between me and blogger-land, today is the first day I actually could tell what this movement is supposed to feel like. How long have I been doing this? Nothing slow about me.

Shrugs: This week I kept my focus on what the shrug portion should be like when I clean and, once again, after all this time, I finally had good shrugs: shoulders back, reset if they come forward. Coach had me slow down the release so I could feel the muscles activate all the way down my upper back. It was like a mini-massage.

Weighted lunges: Oh how I hate these. For the first time in weeks my hip flared. I am concerned about tomorrow. I was instructed to ice when I got home but I still had a long night of work ahead and when I am finished here I must try to get some sleep. No ice. For some reason, with my right leg forward, I was truly wobbly on these.

Lateral lunges: I have grown to like them during this cycle. What? I hated these for 2 years and suddenly over the last few weeks they have become my friend. I have been caught doing them at work, at home, in the store.

I missed my core but tomorrow is squats and deadlifts (120 reps of each, thus the need for some sleep) and I figure those are the best core movements around. I am going to forgive myself this one time. I had to get to yet another job.