Yesterday's Workout and Setting the New Tone for My Blog

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am taking a much needed deload week from heavy lifting to help my body recover and refresh my mind. I can’t remember the last time I took a break longer than a day from some form of exercise. Of course, I’ve been doing CrossFit style MetCon’s every day after lifting sub maximal weights.

I’m really trying to get better at the classic Olympic lifts; Clean and Jerk and Snatch. The Snatch is really hard for me and will take a lot of practice.
I have been trying to gain strength by following a small bulk diet by creating a caloric surplus, but I am so averse to gaining fat that this is hard. Plus, I eat a lot of unprocessed food and cook my own vegetable filled meals which make you feel full on little calories compared to most meals.
Increasing my intake of food is still in order, and I have gained some strength and weight, but not what I could have. I have gone from 140lbs when I first started to 163lbs now. It’s been over a year, but I’d like to see more strength gains. The problem, as I said before, is my need to keep conditioning in my routine so I’m not just out of breath from walking.
Maintaining a good conditioning base while increasing strength is not easy, but I plan on detailing my adventure into trying. I will hopefully still have interesting topics to cover and stories to tell along the way.
Yesterday’s Workout (01/23/13)

Same weight routine I would follow on Wednesday, just with lighter weights. This helps keep your muscles primed for mobility without putting a lot of stress on them.
Warm-up for 5 min

Clean and Jerk – 95lbs x 3 sets x 3 reps

Front Squat – 115lbs x 3 sets x 3 reps

Snatch Deadlift – 5 reps x 115lbs, 145lbs, 165lbs

Deadlift – 5 reps x 185lbs, 205lbs


MetCon (Metabolic Conditioning) found on a CrossFit file located here
1,500 Rep WOD
10 rounds of:
100 jump ropes
10 burpees
10 situps
10 pushups
10 squats
10 pullups

(Source: Crossfit Houston)
Since I suck at pullups, I subbed jumping pullups instead. The rest was as RX’d (prescribed).
Then Kelley came home and I set up a WOD for her (I’m acting as her strength and conditioning coach) which consisted of:

As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 15 min of:

5 x Burpees

10 x Pushups

15 x 15lb Kettle Bell Swings

20 x 15lb Kettle Bell Squats

30 x Jump Rope

She was sweating pretty well after this one. Doesn’t help that it’s getting to 70+ degrees here in Texas!
For dinner I had slow-cooker mixed veggies with lentils, steamed spaghetti squash, and a microwave collard green egg white omelet. This was great, and then I had a cool treat of plain 0 % Chobani Greek Yogurt with mixed frozen berries and roasted pistachios. And then more.

Feeling a little sore today and will try to just enjoy the outdoors since it’s in the 70’s again. Maybe some sprinting and messing around with my new 15lb Slam Ball!

Have a great day….so glad it’s Friday tomorrow!

My Slow Return to Blogging and A Small Change in Content

Hello, hello....it's been a while!  My job got the best of me and required my full attention to where I just wasn't able to fit blogging in.  After long days at work, I'd push myself through workouts and try to spend more time with Kelley.

 

It's still pretty busy and I am enjoying my time with Kelley too much to just come back full throttle like before.  Now, I'd like to post more of my thoughts and not stress so much about having healthy recipes with each post.  This will become more of what's on my mind in the health world.

 

I am working on increasing my strength while not losing too much of my conditioning from when I just ran a lot.  I decreased how much I run and do more explosive-type exercises after some heavy lifting.

 

Trying to find a good routine that combines both has proven harder than I expected and I seem to burn myself out a lot.  I'm taking this week as a deload week but find I'm still doing more metcon (Crossfit WOD) kind of work outs. Although I'm not lifting heavy, these met-cons are still pretty intense.

 

I only keep a hand-written log of my workouts, but plan to share here on my blog now.  If you are reading this and ever have any advice or questions, please comment away and I'll be sure to respond.  Starting soon, I will post some of my daily eats and workouts along with anything on my mind.

 

I won't stress to take pictures of everything I do right now, but if I have something to share, I'll share it. To any of my followers or anyone just now stumbling on to this blog, I hope you come back to read more.  Please send any suggestions and let me know what you do/don't like about my proposed changes.

 

Until next time.....have a great day and keep healthy and fit!