I Needed A Kick In The Pants

I’m sore and beat up.  If I were to make a list of what didn’t hurt, it would be a lot shorter than the list of what does hurt.  Funny enough, I’m not a fan of the attitude that you need to be sore to consider a workout ‘good’.  To me, the stereotypical bodybuilding mentality of limping around for 3 days after you ‘do legs’ is dumb.  Sure, you should be training hard and feeling the effects of it, but half a week of delayed onset muscle soreness isn’t exactly going to be beneficial to your health and wellness.  You’ll be sore when you learn new exercises, or when you make some big progress.  Other than that, you should be recovering without too much pain.

I threw that idea away this weekend.

The beginning of the semester at Adelphi has been pretty amazing.  I’ve received some great compliments from both new and old professors, I’m very excited about my practicum placements, and I think my teaching experience during my health practicum went well.  Making the Dean’s List and watching my GPA climb is pretty nice, I’ve been making some great progress in the gym, and I’ve picked up another percussion student.  Nothing to complain about, right?

Unfortunately, not everything is perfect, and I’ve been pretty stressed out.  I was lucky to be busy (and therefore distracted) during the week, but I was a little apprehensive about a weekend of crappy workouts.  Fortunately, I had quite the opposite, despite eating a pint of Phish Food, a protein bar, and watching The Notebook on Friday night.  (I will credit the ice cream to giving a nice little bloat to use to my advantage on Saturday.

I planned on working out with my friend Julian this weekend, and he’s a motivating training partner if you’ve ever needed one.  If you ever need to get out of your head and train hard, he’s the one you want around.  I’ll share both of my workouts from this past weekend with you so you can understand why I’m feeling sore:

Partner resisted kettlebell swings, 3×8 (These felt awesome, but I’ll need to pick up a heavier ‘bell from Perform Better soon.)

Trap Bar Deadlift:

• 135lbs, 2×5
• 205lbs, 1x5255lbs, 1×5
• 295lbs, 1×5
• 345, 1×5
• 375, 1×3
• 405, 1×4  (I only wanted a triple, but was so angry that I pulled a really ugly 4th rep anyway.  Technically a PR, but I won’t really count it.)

Clean Grip Reverse Lunge

• 95, 1×8
• 135, 1×8
• 185, 2×6
• 205, 1×6

I’ve been pushing these pretty hard recently, and for some reason have found them much harder at the JCC than at Adelphi.  I know that’s all psychological, so I wanted to prove to myself that there wasn’t a difference.  I think I did that.

I followed the lunges with some Prowler pushes, then added farmers walks, but used the trap bar because the JCC’s dumbbells stop at 100lbs.  My last set involved 275lbs on the trap bar, and 360lbs on the Prowler.  I won’t complain about that for my first time ever trying this:

It took me about 20 minutes to clean up after this, and I spent some time hovering over a garbage can just in case.  I wouldn’t really recommend that, but it sure felt good at the time.  (As I write this on Sunday night, I still can feel my calves and lumbar erectors burning from this last set.)

After a quick shower, I headed to my friend Andrew’s house in East Islip, where he, Maggie and I ate Buffalo Wild Wings and streamed the University of Delaware football game.  It wasn’t the ‘rivalry’ that was expected, as UD shut out DSU 45-0.  Way to go, Blue Hens!

Although I posted the JCC’s new Exercise of the Week (Half-Kneeling Cable Row) early this morning, I waited until the busy hours cleared out to train; I was back and in action at about 2:45pm.  Today’s workout involved:

• TRX Facepulls, sets of 8.
• Band Assisted Bench, Single Loop:  225lbs x 5, 255lbs x 5, 275 x 3 (Too easy!), 300 x 2 (Crap…too hard!)

• Chin-Ups, 4×8
• Dummbell Incline Bench, 4×8

My finisher consisted of Tall Kneeling Alternating Battling Ropes,   Kettlebell Snatches (5 per side) and TRX Inverted Rows.  After 10 minutes or so of this I was really sucking wind and called it quits.  After packing everything up and throwing my gym bag in the trunk of my bar, I decided to take a sprint across the parking lot, approximately 80 yards.  I honestly can’t tell you what compelled me to do this, but it was definitely more for my mental health than my physical health.  The walk back to the car was quite refreshing.

I’ve tried to cram in some extra calories to help me recover from a weekend of workouts that were…let’s call them, ‘rogue’.  I seldom go off course, and like to stick with well-scripted plans.  I needed to get a little crazy this weekend, and I think it worked.  At least tomorrow is a rest day!

I’m going to wrap up here; I have some work to do before I go to bed, and I’d like to take a evening walk to clear my head and prepare for next week.  During my stress-management lesson on Friday I discussed the importance of hard exercise as well as regenerative and relaxing exercise.  I’ve already taken care of the former, and I’m looking forward to strolling around the block a few times.

I hope everyone had a good weekend, that your teams won their respective games, and that you’re looking forward to the week ahead.  I know that I sure am!  I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes ever, although I’m a little weary to give J.K. Rowling credit for it.  Instead, I’ll credit my man, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.  Turn the light on, folks.