on a more positive note, it looks like i've got crossfit set up for friday, no more delays woo

so we may have to put form checks aside for a little bit.

hopefully it goes well over the next week or two and i can ditch this thread and just make a crossfit/nutrition log.

Don't keep it at the same weight. Just add 5lb and try to squat deeper next time.

crossfit today was productive, just an introductory sesh to see where i'm at in terms of flexibility and core strength. my hip/hamstring flexibility is pretty whack (as i have highlighted before) mostly due to sitting all day for work, so we are targeting that as something that needs adjusting before any major lift sessions. i'm sure it'll be a gradual thing, but main thing is just that i'm not diving totally into the crossfit routine til my core and flexibility get to a better place. which makes sense, cuz that's the best way to avoid my rando hip issue (which i'm sure was prolly due to the same kind of inflexibility)

adjustments that i am making in the interim:
- 15 minutes standing at desk for every 15 minutes sitting
- 1L of water for every can of diet soda, slowly get it to the point where i'm just on black coffee and water (i have a morning coffee w 0 cal cream/sweeterns).
- more good fats (guac) with my lunch/dinner etc (chipotle)

gonna update this less often as this introductory bit gets hashed out and just keep at it with my daily cardio.

i like the way this is developing, just a nice environment where i'm on a 2 year plan and just get whooped but lift everything i'm told to lift. we'll see how i feel when the crossfit workouts actually get challenging, tho...

starting to appreciate the concept of AMRAP more with my crossfit guy.

monday: start with the bike, then rolling and stretching out, then working on technique with deadlift with just the bar and light weight. i get a minute to do 3 reps of the DL, then i get a minute to do 18 reps of alternating lunge jumps. each time weight was added to the DL and i kept going until i tapped, which ended up being 4 total orbits or 8 sets. not exactly sure what the weight was where i broke down, i'm just putting faith in my teacher. what broke me was just an absurd pump in my quads after a round of lunge jumps and i felt like my quads had increased in size by a factor of 3, such a new feeling it sorta startled me. finished with some stretches.

tuesday morning: soreness in left achilles tendon from quad stretch, primary soreness in glutes (glutes are completely wrecked).

tuesday crossfit sesh: start with working on technique with the OHP, which is a little different from what i had been taught in chicago. primary focus is on resting the bar in my shoulders like i've completed a power clean, then taking the movement from there. there's a little bit more pressure on the wrists due to wider grip. worked on static press and did a press with a little bit of a hip drop.

from there it was again a duo thing of 6 reps of press, then 6 reps of ring dips, which was using stretchy bands to hold myself in place between 2 gymnastic rings, then dip into it. back and forth in sets of 6 and weight got added to the OHP (i did notice that i went from 65 to 70 lbs) and i think by the 4th rotation i failed after 5 reps. lowered weight back to 65 and did another orbit.

after that i got super murdered by having to get on an exercise bike, not use the handles, and hold two dumbells (15s). press the left dumbell and hold for 2 seconds, press the right dumbbell and hold for 2 seconds, then press both and hold for 2 seconds, all while staying upright and pedaling on the bike. this broke me pretty quick cuz i was just tired from the previous stuff. switched to a lighter medicine ball and pressed the ball above my head for 5 seconds, then held it in my chest for 5 seconds. kept at this until the exercise bike said i had burned 10 calories (felt like i did it for about 2 minutes, and did this twice).

i'm liking the routine so far, i'm getting pushed much harder than i would push myself (as some have noted with my AMRAP willpower problems).

diet i am just pounding a lot of chicken, brown rice, black beans and guac for lunch. dinner steak and sweet potatoes and broccoli. breakfast working on eggs and something less processed than potatoes as a starch. trying to bulk it up. havent checked my fitbit stuff yet but it's in my phone and i'll get around to it during thanksgiving.

next dexa scan on the last day of the month, next crossfit sesh friday after all the thanksgiving stuff. i think i'm at about 153 pounds atm, so good progress on the adding muscle (i hope) but a decent part of it may just be the reintroduction of carbs that aren't just beans and veggies.

Legit exercise, apparently.

lollllll

today was centered around squat (eventually) but got whooped a lot of ways beforehand

- exercise bike warmup
- plank to pushup -> lay on back and raise/lower legs etc etc FML my hips suck
- kettlebell swings and kettlebell goblin squats, 10 apiece 8 rotations. my lower back got mega fatigued after about 5 rotations so was told to replace the swings with situps.
- rowing machine for 4 minutes, the moment I hit 40 calories burned I had to do burpees and jump over the machine to do another burpee. keep doing burpees until the total 4 minutes elapsed. did this twice; first rotation i did 4 and second rotation i only did 1. this completely wrecked my hips (or rather i just didn't have anything left in my hips to do proper hip drive on the rowing machine).
- barbell squat (was told to do high bar instead of low bar which i'm sure triggers a few people here) paired with bulgarian split squats, 6 reps apiece as squat had weight added. coach likes my squat form so can move forward on that.

got a couple days to relax, inner hamstrings are what's bothering me most right now but i assume next few days will be 100% hip flexors since that's what got whooped the most today. lots of good soreness.

The most triggering part is that your coach sounds like a total moron.

"Hey brah, so it seems like you can't squat real good. So I've got this plan to do a bunch of pre exhaustion before any strength work so we can really make it extra ****ty and hopefully you'll hurt yourself, but I can still keep collecting the checks since your signed up for 2 years."

- he says i can squat good
- i'm not putting up hardly any weight at all (squat yday was maxed at 75 lbs) but that concern will be addressed going forward
- i'm not signed up for 2 years, i just pay per day, can quit whenever. but if things progress the way i like then the goal is to get crossfit physique in 2 years

Well I'm glad your coach is just an idiot and not a crook.

Christ

Clayton,

I'd suggest setting some interim goals for yourself.

Hi El D,

I encourage suggestions, since right now primary interim goal is to just survive in this crossfit routine. Everything that I can control isn't a goal so much as it's just mandatory in the process. My muscles are such weakling that just getting in 2 years of good volume should be v helpful.

------

Next scan is gonna be Thursday or Friday, should be pretty telling for how this month has gone (eat and lift and eat and lift). Obv gonna gain my fair share of lean mass, just a matter of seeing how much lean vs fat I've gained. I may be back somewhere in the ballpark of my weight from the first scan (155ish), so it'll be interesting to see how they compare in terms of lean mass.

I feel better/trimmer in the mirror for the weight that I'm holding, but as we've noted my eyes can be deceiving.

I'll continue posting crossfit logs but may have an eye open to stopping them if they aren't productive. Will obv continue posting the scans.

Nov 27

Today was a special kind of beatdown, I am feeling it plenty

- standard warmup with 5 minutes of exercise bike then core work and stretches

- 12 lunges, then use GHD hip extension machine for 12 reps of downward movement (face pointing to ground) then 12 reps of situp movement (face pointing to air). did 3 orbits of this.

- ~50 feet of farmers walk back and forth (50 down, 50 back), then 20 reps of kettlebell swings. 4 orbits of this. after 1 set of farmers walk i had 40 lbs added to it. the apparatus looked like this. this one strained my core just a little bit, nothing too bad though.

- after that, had to do 50 pushups. doesnt matter how i space them out, but after stopping the # of pushups I had to burn that number of calories on the bike then get back at it. this killed the clayton. think i did 15 pushups, then 10, then 8, then 10, then 7. lots of biking in between. woof.

i'm a little sore, mostly in my upper core and upper back. back at it wednesday.

fitbit of my walk to chipotle (20 mins total) and fitbit of crossfit

nothing special here but good for notekeeping

That's a yoke.

honestly felt like i'd benefit from wearing a belt using that bad boy. was like worlds strongest man on espn2 at 2 in the morning like the good old days.

Feel free to wear a belt then, there's really no reason not to, especially if you feel you should.

That event still going strong in competitions.

yoke totally smashed my core, honestly haven't felt that level of soreness in my core area in a real long time, even after doing p90x core/ab stuff. the stabilizers that the yoke wrecks seem to be doing a good job. also still feeling it in my hip, it's pretty consistently in the inner hip/groin area just from the bike/rowing work that requires the hip drive. consistently building up the core and hip areas.

today went as follows,

- worked on turkish getups with small weight, took me a while to figure out the movements. it's a complicated thing. i don't think it's a particularly brutal routine just from my previous experience with yoga stuff, but with more weight it might be a killer. i was on pretty light weight (15 lbs).

- two stations, i think 4 rotations. 1st station was 8 reps of dumbbell upward hammer curl into press. 2nd station was more like an actual farmers walk. two kettle bells, different weights. press the lighter weight, hold onto the heavier weight at waist. walk the 50 feet back and forth. worked on making sure the press was locked in, otherwise my shoulders would gas real quick.

- three stations, four rotations. 1st station sitting on the floor, back is upright, toes pointed, and pressing light weight dumbbells for 35 seconds. 2nd station was ring push ups, the rings were pretty close to the floor and i'd be on my knees but my hips had to stay forward. slow on the way down, explosive on the way up, 35 seconds total. 3rd station was a medicine ball press-toss upward. calling it a medicine ball isn't totally accurate, but it was medicine ball sized. would just continue trying to press the ball using hip drive and leaping and just try to get the ball as high into the air as i could. also 35 seconds.

this one was way less devastating than monday since i was able to leave the gym walking, just lots of shoulder smashing and some core work. scans tomorrow, back at it friday.

dexa update: pretty good results, though i would say maybe on the positive side of variance a little bit. i weighed in at 156 this morning (so figure 158 with clothes for dexa makes sense) and i was at 153 a couple days ago. some water weight variance there, but the dexa guy said that at most it impacts the lean mass by a couple of pounds.

primary takeaway is 6-8 pounds of lean muscle added and 1 pound of fat added. not bad for a month's work!



keep on trusting that process

No.

Compare your result to a previous result at the same weight.

Luckily, we have the 7/27 result!!! So basically since 7/27 you lost 5 lbs of fat and gained 5 lbs of muscle. I think that result is a bit skewed by you unconsciously bloating yourself with water before this test (yes I know all).

But still 3+ lbs muscle in three months is solid work for a newb. It also coincides with the realities of natty training. But it slows down fast so just worry about strength when that happens. You still gaining muscle but the gains are in ounces after the first year or two.

yeah there may come a point where it's a bit redundant to do the scans monthly. i'm just happy to see the lean mass gains, if the fat gained was higher i would have felt pretty down. and yes i agree its a little skewed. wouldnt surprise me if next months scans were disappointing. ebb and flow to it all.

just nice to see actual progress, gonna keep grinding.

today was good, just worked on the basics of power cleans with some introductory snatch work. sorta started from the most basic and went from there. hook grip, primary movements, etc. i had never done the snatch move before, but was familiar enough with the cleans. there are some parts to it that need practice, just optimizing the move into the hip pocket followed by the drive and catch. as i've said previously in this thread, the big thing i have to get used to is the barbell against my throat, i have a habit of being too stiff in the legs when i catch the weight and i end up being too far forward. ideally like to be more in a squatting position when i catch it, and being less afraid to have the bar up in the neck/clavicles etc.

but yeah, got up to 105 lbs just working on form, feels good. probably back at it sunday morning.