A Surprising Realization

After noticing something rather surprising in the mirror the other day something really hit me. I am likely not going to loose weight but, for once, I don't think it's a bad thing. What I noticed was the hint of 4 pack abs. There are actually subtle lines showing that they will develops as I continue to train. I've also noticed just how hard my body, overall, has become. There is very little fat on my body any longer.

I am going to end up being 190 pounds with good body composition. I think that the training will lead me towards having a low body fat percentage, judging by the changes that have taken place already. All it took was seeing the definition in my stomach to accept what is obviously going to be true. In that moment I stopped aiming for a number and truly just started thinking of how my body composition is going to change over the next few months.

This is obviously what I'm suppose to be doing. My food intake, which would seem like a lot to more then a few of you, is perfect for what I'm doing and my body is responding beautifully. It's even better because I enjoy the training immensely. Can it get any better then that? I don't think so.

I've tried other programs before, but I saw very minimal change. Even then, it was only my weight and it decreased very slowly. To make it worse, I didn't enjoy it. Sure, I could trick myself into thinking that I liked it for a few weeks, but that quickly wore off. I guess what I'm trying to say here is this: You should find something that you enjoy doing for fitness or training. In the end it just depends on what your goal is.

Now, with that rambling done it's time to move on to the numbers. My lat pull downs probably aren't going to increase next time I train. It was fairly difficult moving the amount that I did, and the next jump that it has is  15 pounds more. I should be able to make that before much longer though. When I get around 130 pounds with the lat pull downs I should be able to move to doing assisted pull ups. I think that's all that I have to note about my numbers, though.

Front Squats: 125x2x8

Overhead Press: 77.5x2x8

Dead Lift: 230x5x1

Lat Pull Down: 100x5x3

Thank you again for reading. I appreciate it very much.

A Good Day

Training today went very well. I was able to make good jumps on most of my lifts, and I made my bench this time so I'm happy. This training regiment is working out rather well for me, but ultimately I look forward to working under a proper coach. I cannot wait until I'm able to do Clean and Jerks and Snatches, but that's some time off. I have to increase my upper body strength a bit more before I can get to that point. It's a work in progress and I'm loving every minute of it.

I do want to say that a body builder we see in there regularly had a woman with him. She was doing pretty well, clearly a beginner but her squat form was good. He had her doing something that was like dead lifts. She was not using the Olympic bar for it, so the bar itself weighed next to nothing, and she also wasn't setting the bar back down and resetting. Here's my thing, though, she had around 50 pounds on it. Why wasn't she using the Olympic bar? She could clearly pick it up since the bar weights 45 pounds. As soon as you can move that weight you need to be using the Olympic bar. That's just my two cents though.

He also suggested using the free weight benches instead of doing a real bench press if they weren't free by the time we were ready for them. That's not the sort of training we are doing at this time, though it may become an accessory workout in time. Which I told him. He's a nice enough guy, but he's a body builder and clearly doesn't really understand what we are doing. That's okay, though, he's honestly just trying to help and I have no problem with that so long as he doesn't start talking down to me.

Anyway, on to my numbers! I'm particularly proud of my squat and weighted sit ups since they were both 10 pound jumps. The bench, again, was the same as last time because I missed by one rep. Next time I do them, though, I'll be able to go up. I may have been able to do more on the rows, but I didn't want to push it to far since I had to change my stance on them.

Back Squat: 195x2x8
Bench Press: 105x2x8
Row: 80x5x3
Weighted Sit Ups: 40x5x3

Thank you for reading again!

Strength is Beauty

I have recently started visiting a website called Lift Big Eat Big and, I have to say, that they are fantastic. There are a lot of very strong men and women there. There are also a lot of good articles there. Some of those articles deal specifically with strength training for women or issues that women may have while training. The articles are written by both men and women so we actually get a woman's perspective, instead of seeing article after article written by men that just talk at women, instead of to women.

I bring this website up because it's also introduced me to a lot of very powerful looking women. Women that are likely exceptional athletes but often get horrific comments because of the muscles that they carry. To all the men who think a strong looking woman is 'manish': YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE IF A STRONG WOMAN IS ATTRACTIVE. Yes, you have your preferences. You are free to it. You have absolutely no right, however, to bring that woman down just because you don't think she's attractive or that she should be strong.

A lot of men seem to be intimidated by strong women, though. It's always been this way so it shouldn't be much of a surprise. Facebook tends to be a cesspool of the type of men that will eagerly tear a woman down because she doesn't fit their perception of beauty. Guess what? Strength is beauty. I thank the people at LBEB for that slogan, by the way.

The image above is linked from the LBEB Facebook page. The very powerful looking woman above is Melina. Now, all I can think is that she must be one hell of an athlete and, like my husband, I wonder how much she squats. There were comments that criticized her for how well developed her muscles are, though. I will not quote them because they have since been deleted by the LBEB people. Needless to say, though, they were the same caliber of comments you find all over the internet.

One thing that really impressed me about them, though, is that they not only deleted the comments but made a post in response to people that may visit their page and summarily try to tear down athletes like the woman above. This is how we should all be. Supportive of men and women that pursue different goals in their lives. Not everyone as the same goal, not everyone wants to look like a super model. It's very important to keep that in mind. It's very important to understand that beauty comes from more then just a couple of body types. 

Anyway, I think that's about it for my rant there. Thank you for reading.

Compliments Are Nice

It's always nice when someone compliments your form, or the numbers your able to pick up. It's even nicer when someone tells you that you are a natural weight lifter. Well, at least to me it is. Which is exactly what happened when we trained yesterday.

I was doing my dead lifts and a guy I had seen up there a few times came up to give me some pointers. Well, really one pointer but still. It was something that I knew I should be doing, and that my husband had told me to do as well, but I just couldn't really get the hang of it. When you are dead lifting you should be squeezing the weight up. The issue I was having is that I didn't really know when you were suppose to thrust your hips forward and pull your shoulders back. That's exactly what this guy told me.

After he told me that I thanked him and he went back off to what he was doing. He watched me pull the weight, though, and when I had it up gave me a thumbs up and that's when he said I had good form and that I'm a natural. So, two awesome compliments in one. My husband went over to talk to him after he finished his last pull and was told the same thing. The guy complimented my squat form and all. So, that's always a good day.

Other then that I did have a good day of training. We have, however, discovered that when we did our rows we were doing the wrong version of them. We did the body builder version which has you standing with your back at a slight angle. Apparently, the version that we are suppose to be doing would have you standing with your back parallel to the floor. So, my numbers on that may change when we do them tomorrow, or maybe stay the same. We'll just have to see how it goes. Anyway, here are my numbers for what we did yesterday.

Front Squats: 115x2x8
Overhead Press: 75x2x8
Dead Lift: 220x5x1
Lat Pull Downs: 85x5x3

So, everything went up, and that's always a good day. The lat pull downs made a rather large jump because of the way the machine is set up. There was no way to make a smaller jump then that, but it was easy. I probably could have done more then 85, but it's probably best that I just stayed there. I don't know what the next jump will be, I forgot to check.

Anyway, thank you for reading again!

A Change of Plan

Before you even think it: No, I'm not giving up strength training. However, after a chance meeting my husband made, and a call to an Olympic trainer here there has been a change in our training regiment. He told the trainer my numbers and how quickly I had gained them, and of course the response was that I have to lose weight. I know that. The other part of the response was that we need to get me into meets.

The Olympic lifts look amazingly fun to me, I don't really know why. So having an Olympic trainer say something like that, and by this I mean someone that teaches those lifts, has put the spark back into my training. I was getting a little down trodden about it, though I can't really explain why. I'm sure that some of you who have read my blogs, however, know.

Anyway, the training we are doing now is pure strength training. It includes front and back squats, overhead press, dead lifts, Pull ups (or lat pull downs for me until I strengthen those muscles, weighted sit ups, rows, and benches. Most of these sets are done differently then before. Instead of 3 sets of 5 reps we are doing 8 sets of 2 reps. So I'll list what all my numbers are here. Some of them will be higher then others. One of them I missed because I should of been a little lighter. My lat pull downs are the same as my previous post, but that's because I had done them just a couple of days before and we decided it was best to rest those muscles for now.

Front Squat: 105x2x8
Overhead Press: 70x2x8
Lat Pull Down: 70x5x3
Deadlift: 210x5x1
Squats: 185x2x8
Bench: 105x2x8*
Rows: 75x5x3
Weighted Sit Up: 30x5x3

*The bench press is the one I missed. I should have been a little lower then 105, but I only missed it by one rep. It was exceedingly frustrating because it was the last rep that I missed. So I'll be doing that number again and I should get it with no trouble.

Anyway, that's about it. I'm going to try to drop a little weight while I job hunt, and get my numbers back up there. When I have a job I'll be trying to get some training with that coach. So, wish me luck. Hopefully, in a relatively short amount of time, I'll be going to meets and competing.

Thank you for reading again!

Still Re-finding My Weight

As the title suggests, when I went to train on Tuesday it was another day to find my weight, though for different pulls. It went well overall. Yes, I lost on my bench and power clean, but not as badly as I had feared. Definitely not as badly as I had on the squats or dead lifts. I also added in lat pull downs, which'll help strengthen muscles used in a few of the other pulls.

Anyway, I left the squats at 185 lbs, but I think I was still high on a couple of them. I may drop back to 180 lbs to be on the safe side. We'll see. I've not fully decided on that yet. My bench was 80 lbs on five reps for three sets. My Cleans were 75 lbs on three reps for five sets. When I did my lat pull downs it was 70 lbsx5x3. So, things aren't as bad as they could be.

The good thing about this is that I really should be able to regain what I lost quickly enough, especially if I make sure that I'm getting enough of the protein I need. Lots of fish will be the key for me, I think. It's lean, delicious, has a lot of protein, and I don't ever seem to get sick of eating it. So, yeah. That'll be what my lunches are.

That's about it, though. Thank you for reading.

Back in the Game

So the husband and I had a bit of an unintended break. I ended up not lifting for about 3 weeks. I had a pain in one of my legs that would have made squatting impossible, but I did not mean to be out for as long as I was. Still, I'm back in the game and going to be working on my lifts once again.

I did lose quite a bit of the weight that I would normally be pushing, but I should regain my numbers quickly. I just need to get back into the swing of things. As it stands my squats are around 185 lbs. A couple of them were high, though, so I'll have to do it again before I can move up to 190. My overhead press would actually be 60, but I got so close to making it with 65lbs that I'll just do it again and I should get it next time. And my deadlift is 200lbs. I'm not that far off, but they are much lower then I would like them to be.

I'll be finding my weight again for my bench and powercleans tomorrow. I'm sure the powercleans will be laughable...and the bench. My arms are my weakest area after all. I have to double check but I think I'll be including lat pull downs as well to help make the other lifts stronger. I'll get back to you all on that when I make the next blog post.

Thanks for reading. <3

P.S. Maybe the break will prove to be a good thing for my morale in the long run. I was getting fairly frustrated with the apparent stagnation of my lifts. This may help to pull me out of that, though. Sometimes you do have to reset the lifts, after all, to get past a bump in the road.