Training for Thursday, May 11

I'm just going to cut to it: I had a small/more-painful-than-I-expected surgery on Friday morning (see what I did there?).

I won't be doing any training for about a week while I recover. 

I'll probably write a post about the surgery one day (don't worry, it was nothing even remotely life-threatening). I haven't told many people about it yet. Even though no one reads my blog, it would be wrong to share more about it here first. 

Thursday's training was pretty great, though. I've been killing the CrossFit game lately. I'm not totally where I want to be: I still can't do a muscle-up and I haven't really tried handstand push-ups. I actually had a dream last night where I was completing multiple MUs. It was glorious.

My elbow seems to be finally getting better. As you'll see below, I was able to snatch without it feeling like my elbow was going to burst out of my arm.

Thursday training:

Cycle and to U of M and back: 10 km

Lunch hour:

University of Manitoba Active Living Centre

1.5 mile run on track
I'm definitely still running the Manitoba half, but I'm not going to focus tons on training for it. It's just too time consuming and a bit boring. I'm going to aim to run between 3-10 miles a week. 

WOD prep: shoulder press complex (combo of snatch pulls, snatches, presses, push presses)

More shoulder work: 4 sets of 7 KB cleans, push presses, swings

CrossFit


A. Snatch Pull. Power Snatch, build to a max single (worked up to 65 kg ... I'll take that as PR)

30 – 20 – 10 reps of:

Shuttle Run

BJ overs (24/20″)

Toes 2 bar
Hand Release Push-ups
 
I finished the metcon at 15:49. Not bad. The box jumps and T2B were killers. Running and push-ups are my bread and butter.

Again, I won't be training this week ... which sucks but I have to recover. Renaissance Periodization is going to be a merciless beast the next seven days. As I've written before, no training = no food. It'll be a good challenge though.

I'm also having trouble accurately measuring my weight. I tend to do official weigh-ins on Wednesday. I tipped the scale at precisely 181 lbs. I was hoping to be below that. I weighed myself the next day and the reading was 178 lbs. I weighed myself at the doctor's office Friday and it was 183 lbs. Weird, I guess?

Anyway, I'm going to stay at cut 1 this week and then move to cut 2 regardless. I know weight isn't an accurate measurement for me (and how could be it be based on those fluctuations).  But I still want to adhere to the RP cutting principles of moving cuts when weight loss has plateaued.

 

Training for Tuesday, May 9

Acronym for the day is DOMS, which stands for delayed onset muscle soreness. As I shared with you yesterday, reader, I did a whole pile of squats and literally prayed to not be sore. The aches and pains didn't truly set in until about 2 p.m. today. I've been walking with a noticeable limp since then. Oh well. I hope to cycle to work tomorrow so god willing it all works out.

Also, it's Timbits soccer season currently. And, if your kid is anything like mine or a few other kids I know of, it's also drink-too-much-water-or-gatorade-at-soccer-and-wet-the-bed season. Ugh. The worst.

Anyway, here's today's training. I didn't follow anything specific. I felt like working on my presses (both strict and dip presses). And I wanted to work on some pull-ups.

No cycle

Lunch hour

University of Manitoba Active Living Centre

6 sets of strict barbell shoulder presses x 4-6 reps (three seconds up; one second down; pause; three seconds up). Worked to and maintained 135 lbs.

5 sets of push presses x 3-5 reps. Worked up to 175 lbs. 

10 sets of pull-ups x 5 reps.

Some quick hits:

• Going to weigh myself tomorrow. If I'm at 180 or lower, I'll continue with cut 1. If I'm 181 or higher, I'm going to change it up to cut 2. I haven't been keeping a firm grasp on my weight, but I'm fairly certain I've been losing around a pound a week since starting.
   
• With all the spring/summer activities popping off (softball, soccer, hockey) it's been getting a little more difficult prepping food. It's still happening ... but I'm staying up later than I want to. Going to try better moving forward with my nighttime routine.
• Sara Sigmundsdottir (spelled that without looking) posted an RP cookbook on her Insta-story today. That was pretty cool to see.
• Speaking of her, I checked out most of episode one of Road to the Games (I think that's what it's called) on the CrossFit website. So good. Her, Tia, Davidsdottir, and Julie are featured quite heavily as they train together at CrossFit Mayhem (home of Fittest Man in History, Rich Froning) in Tennessee. Other than them being actual beasts (the women were EASILY throwing 200 lbs-plus over their heads), the thing that struck me the most was how competitive they were. Through all the smiles and jokes was a palpable sense of fear, curiosity, defensiveness, and cockiness from the athletes. There are probably a few reasons for that. Unlike any other sport, it's hard to pull a rabbit out of your ass in CrossFit. You are who you are. You can't hide behind anything or fake your way through a lift or movement. And that can suck in that ultra competitive world. 

Eating & Training

I’ve struggled with this concept for awhile (for reasons I’ll explain in a bit). For the most part, I’ve always had a decent concept of macronutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats) and their roles in making your body go. With that said, I’ve never had much discipline in maintaining any sort of structure or consistency with eating and training.

I’d go through phases where I wanted to lose weight, so I’d workout first thing in the morning (usually some type of HIIT thing) on an empty stomach. Or, I’d train on an empty stomach in the afternoon or whenever else. I was pretty much always training hungry. I was willing to sacrifice performance all in the name of shedding fat and building muscle. Or so I thought.

For me, training on an empty stomach was sort of a recipe for disaster lack lustre results. I’d workout on empty, eat clean for the morning and afternoon, and then pop-off at dinner time. Because I was so hungry and lacking structure, I’d easily consume 2-3 servings at dinner, along with god knows how many snacks before bed. Not good.

As I mentioned in my first post, I’ve been following the principles of Renaissance Periodization (RP) for the last month. In it (amongst other things) is the concept of workout fuel.

For me (everyone’s different. RP is based on your weight, your goal, and then some genius creates a template for you to follow. I’ll have more of RP in another post soon, I promise), I consume 35 g of protein powder with about 25 g of workout carbs (Gatorade, Powerade, etc.) and some water during and after my training session.

I feel it’s been a total game changer–especially for the more intense metcons or longer lifting sessions. I just have more energy and strength, which makes the workout actually kind of fun. I feel like I’m accomplishing something, and not just eeking through it. And I’m seeing physical results.

Anyways, the point of this post isn’t to get too far into RP. I’ll for sure do that another time. I’ve read a lot of stuff over the years about the benefits of training on an empty stomach and I’m here to tell you it’s all a lie. Well, maybe it’s not quite a lie. I don’t know. I guess everyone’s different. Putting a little extra gas in the tank seems to be working for me so far. And maybe it will for you too.