Bit of a mixed morning in the gym. I woke with a bit of soreness and stiffness, particularly behind my right knee, but nothing that seemed extravagant. Doing my warmup squats though, it was becoming more noticeable, but I hoped that it was just a minor problem. After 2 reps at 130kg though, it was too sore, so - after briefly considering going down to 125kg - I abandoned squats for the day.
Moved on to the bench, and did my first reset to 62.5kg, and got them up no problems.
I possibly should have left it there, but I was determined to deadlift - my last set at 140kg I felt my form was a little off, so I was looking to rectify that. Back locked, chest up, eyes forward. Possibly not the best with a sore hamstring/knee, but oh well. Did it at 150kg, and although it felt damnablier heavier, it also felt better, my form felt more solid and my back felt happier.
So pleased to come out of the session with a positive lift (finished with some chins, too - still jumping, but not as much. Have to be more consistent with them!) and will keep an eye on my knee. It's even sorer now as I've cooled down, and my maybe-missing-DISC-due-to-family-committment is heading in the direction of definitely missing it. But I'll see how I pull up tomorrow.
17 September 2011
15 September 2011
Spineroonie
Not sure what the official spelling of 'spineroonie' should be, but I'll go with that. This is Part One... because I've not done all of the spin session yet. Yes, that's right, I quit, and I didn't even vomit. What a sad, sad day for hard men everywhere.
:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 46")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (99") SS L,R:3
:16 12s PG (87") RS (80)
:22 14s PG (87") RS (80)
:28 18s PG+4 (93") RS (60)
:35 24s PG+8 (99") SS seated
:42 30s PG+8 (99") RS (40, seated)
Well, that was the idea, anyway. And no, my PG+ inches aren't quite perfect, but I've only got PG+6 and PG+12. What're ya going to do? Oh, right, get a better trainer...
So HCLRs on a slightly bigger gear, 44" (according to Sheldon) rather than 41". Max RPM of 186, so quite similar to 'normal'. SSes were good, up to 149/72.6, can't complain about that. PGRSes, slightly shorter than last week, and from a higher initial cadence, gave slightly better and more consistent results - 143/60.5 and 140/59.5. The final 'preliminary' was 11s longer and 8" harder than last week, so was rather in the category of 'the tough part' than the preliminary! The result was good though, solid and consistent 125/56 for essentially the whole interval was pleasing.
And then... 24s 99" SS lasted all of about 12s before the legs just wouldn't go anymore, and I didn't have the will to push them any more. I don't know if that was the better thing or not - if I'd kept going, I would have been lucky to finish with a cadence above 60 or so, which is not good quality. On the other hand, pushing through is kinda the point. So. Part one because, once my daughter is in bed, I'm going to try again - do another warmup with HCLRs, then attempt the last two exercises again. Okay, won't be as good as doing them at the time. And maybe if I were with the rest of the squad I'd've made it. Who knows? We do what we can, we try what we can't, and we see what happens. And last week I did them on only 93". Stay tuned...
Edit 1: I've just realised that I'm a numby. No, really. PG is the gear that you can't quite get to 160RPM in 8 seconds from 80RPM, isn't it? Not, in fact, the gear that you can get to 160RPM on. So my PG is actually now 53x15, 93", not 53x16, 87". Whoops. So I in fact have 93" PG, 99" PG+6, 107" PG+14, and 116" PG+23. Erm. Well I'm not doing the whole friggen thing again. And I'm NOT doing the last two on 107".
Edit 2: For all you funky mothers who've been desperately (or coolly) tapping on that refresh key, here it is.
HCLR: Doesn't really matter. Warmup.
99" 24s SS(seated): Max of 132/64.2, held above 130 until ~20s, then decayed ~10RPM over the next 4 seconds. Not bad, but need to push harder at the end - that's when the race is won, after all!
99" 30s RS (40, seated): Max of 116/56.3 - Maintained >54 until ~24s where I dropped to 52.5, slammed it all the way back up to a monsterific 54.1 and held it there to the end.
Comparison? Tough, because last week I was on 93" and only had a 7-minute break rather than 5 hours. But you know what I can compare it to? This. Four months ago, in a 6-second all-out sprint, I got to a maximum of 115RPM on 99". Now I'm doing that for 30 seconds, and for 6 seconds I'm doing 150RPM. Suck on that, previous me.
Brief stats are here and here.
:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 46")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (99") SS L,R:3
:16 12s PG (87") RS (80)
:22 14s PG (87") RS (80)
:28 18s PG+4 (93") RS (60)
:35 24s PG+8 (99") SS seated
:42 30s PG+8 (99") RS (40, seated)
Well, that was the idea, anyway. And no, my PG+ inches aren't quite perfect, but I've only got PG+6 and PG+12. What're ya going to do? Oh, right, get a better trainer...
So HCLRs on a slightly bigger gear, 44" (according to Sheldon) rather than 41". Max RPM of 186, so quite similar to 'normal'. SSes were good, up to 149/72.6, can't complain about that. PGRSes, slightly shorter than last week, and from a higher initial cadence, gave slightly better and more consistent results - 143/60.5 and 140/59.5. The final 'preliminary' was 11s longer and 8" harder than last week, so was rather in the category of 'the tough part' than the preliminary! The result was good though, solid and consistent 125/56 for essentially the whole interval was pleasing.
And then... 24s 99" SS lasted all of about 12s before the legs just wouldn't go anymore, and I didn't have the will to push them any more. I don't know if that was the better thing or not - if I'd kept going, I would have been lucky to finish with a cadence above 60 or so, which is not good quality. On the other hand, pushing through is kinda the point. So. Part one because, once my daughter is in bed, I'm going to try again - do another warmup with HCLRs, then attempt the last two exercises again. Okay, won't be as good as doing them at the time. And maybe if I were with the rest of the squad I'd've made it. Who knows? We do what we can, we try what we can't, and we see what happens. And last week I did them on only 93". Stay tuned...
Edit 1: I've just realised that I'm a numby. No, really. PG is the gear that you can't quite get to 160RPM in 8 seconds from 80RPM, isn't it? Not, in fact, the gear that you can get to 160RPM on. So my PG is actually now 53x15, 93", not 53x16, 87". Whoops. So I in fact have 93" PG, 99" PG+6, 107" PG+14, and 116" PG+23. Erm. Well I'm not doing the whole friggen thing again. And I'm NOT doing the last two on 107".
Edit 2: For all you funky mothers who've been desperately (or coolly) tapping on that refresh key, here it is.
HCLR: Doesn't really matter. Warmup.
99" 24s SS(seated): Max of 132/64.2, held above 130 until ~20s, then decayed ~10RPM over the next 4 seconds. Not bad, but need to push harder at the end - that's when the race is won, after all!
99" 30s RS (40, seated): Max of 116/56.3 - Maintained >54 until ~24s where I dropped to 52.5, slammed it all the way back up to a monsterific 54.1 and held it there to the end.
Comparison? Tough, because last week I was on 93" and only had a 7-minute break rather than 5 hours. But you know what I can compare it to? This. Four months ago, in a 6-second all-out sprint, I got to a maximum of 115RPM on 99". Now I'm doing that for 30 seconds, and for 6 seconds I'm doing 150RPM. Suck on that, previous me.
Brief stats are here and here.
14 September 2011
Low-carb cake
One thing you might imagine having to give up on a low-carb diet is cake, right? Well, not so fast there! You can indeed have your cake and eat it too. Just not at the same time, obviously.
Now, I'm going to break the rules of food blogging here by not including any photos. Why? Because I'm not making the cake today, and you know what? It looks like a fucking cake.
Ingredients:
6 eggs
~100g stevia (I used Natvia, which has 5% carb, 0 sugars)
400g dark choc (I used 85%, you could use higher or lower but the carb count will change)
250ml cream (or use 300ml, if not using a liqueur)
1/3 cup cointreau, rum, or nothing.
Preheat oven to 180C and prepare a cake tin of some description.
Melt choc atop a double boiler or in a microwave or whatever, let cool a bit.
Beat Eggs and stevia. After ~5min, pour in the melted choc while still beating. Continue until it's all well mixed.
Gently fold in the cream (or cream + liqueur) and then pour in to cake tin.
Place cake tin in a roasting pan or some such and pour boiling water in to the pan so that it comes halfway up the side of the cake tin.
Bake for about an hour. Check after half an hour and cover with foil if you think it might get dry or crispy. Unless you like it like that.
Take it out of the oven, but leave the cake in the tin. Let it cool down, cover it if you want, then chuck it in the fridge. DO NOT TOUCH FOR 2 DAYS. Then cut it in to 10-12 pieces, and eat. It'll last a couple of weeks, if you can manage to let it.
Stats? The whole cake contains ~100g carbs, 370g fat and 90g protein. Or about 10/37/9 per 1/10th slice, using 85% chocolate. You can even ice it with a white chocolate/butter icing (roughly equal parts choc and butter melted and cooled, 100g each will cover the cake nicely) and bung on some strawberries without going above ~15g carbs per slice.
Now, I'm going to break the rules of food blogging here by not including any photos. Why? Because I'm not making the cake today, and you know what? It looks like a fucking cake.
Ingredients:
6 eggs
~100g stevia (I used Natvia, which has 5% carb, 0 sugars)
400g dark choc (I used 85%, you could use higher or lower but the carb count will change)
250ml cream (or use 300ml, if not using a liqueur)
1/3 cup cointreau, rum, or nothing.
Preheat oven to 180C and prepare a cake tin of some description.
Melt choc atop a double boiler or in a microwave or whatever, let cool a bit.
Beat Eggs and stevia. After ~5min, pour in the melted choc while still beating. Continue until it's all well mixed.
Gently fold in the cream (or cream + liqueur) and then pour in to cake tin.
Place cake tin in a roasting pan or some such and pour boiling water in to the pan so that it comes halfway up the side of the cake tin.
Bake for about an hour. Check after half an hour and cover with foil if you think it might get dry or crispy. Unless you like it like that.
Take it out of the oven, but leave the cake in the tin. Let it cool down, cover it if you want, then chuck it in the fridge. DO NOT TOUCH FOR 2 DAYS. Then cut it in to 10-12 pieces, and eat. It'll last a couple of weeks, if you can manage to let it.
Stats? The whole cake contains ~100g carbs, 370g fat and 90g protein. Or about 10/37/9 per 1/10th slice, using 85% chocolate. You can even ice it with a white chocolate/butter icing (roughly equal parts choc and butter melted and cooled, 100g each will cover the cake nicely) and bung on some strawberries without going above ~15g carbs per slice.
13 September 2011
Metallica
That's right, it's all starting to get a bit heavy now!
125kg on the squat, and it felt... well, pretty good, really. I do need a form check, because it's a bit harder to be certain about the combination of depth and chest up/straight back now. It's rather obvious when the back rounds, but not so obvious when I don't get full depth - or, rather, I feel like the depth was fine on all of them, but that makes one nervous because one has no variation from which to make a relative judgement - maybe they were all bad?
Anyway. Squat. Is heavy. First rep (actually, since about 105kgs, not just now) I feel like I can barely unrack the bar and that I might fall over, and wonder how on Earth I can possibly get back up if I commit to that first squat! But I do it, and it is good, and then I try to do it 14 more times. Oi, vey.
Press. Is 55kg. Is success! Only just though. On each set after 2 or 3 reps I switched from starting from a dead stop at the bottom, to starting from the top and trying to use the 'bounce' at the bottom. I'm not sure how much it helped, really. But I got all 15 up, and that's the main thing. 57.5 is going to be a struggle though!
Deadlift. Oh boy. Damnably, damnably heavy. 140kgs. 5 times. It went up, but for the first time the bar felt like it didn't really want to leave the floor. I kept repeating to myself "If the bar leaves the floor, the legs and back (and everything else!) can take it the rest of the way." I'd like to thank my eyes for their contribution to the lift!
125kg on the squat, and it felt... well, pretty good, really. I do need a form check, because it's a bit harder to be certain about the combination of depth and chest up/straight back now. It's rather obvious when the back rounds, but not so obvious when I don't get full depth - or, rather, I feel like the depth was fine on all of them, but that makes one nervous because one has no variation from which to make a relative judgement - maybe they were all bad?
Anyway. Squat. Is heavy. First rep (actually, since about 105kgs, not just now) I feel like I can barely unrack the bar and that I might fall over, and wonder how on Earth I can possibly get back up if I commit to that first squat! But I do it, and it is good, and then I try to do it 14 more times. Oi, vey.
Press. Is 55kg. Is success! Only just though. On each set after 2 or 3 reps I switched from starting from a dead stop at the bottom, to starting from the top and trying to use the 'bounce' at the bottom. I'm not sure how much it helped, really. But I got all 15 up, and that's the main thing. 57.5 is going to be a struggle though!
Deadlift. Oh boy. Damnably, damnably heavy. 140kgs. 5 times. It went up, but for the first time the bar felt like it didn't really want to leave the floor. I kept repeating to myself "If the bar leaves the floor, the legs and back (and everything else!) can take it the rest of the way." I'd like to thank my eyes for their contribution to the lift!
11 September 2011
DISC Session #21 with ABOC
Whoops! Bit late for this one, and full of lunch still. Ah well, never mind. Powerjumps and flying 200s with an attempt to pass the leading rider. Powerjumps were fine, very jumpy, marginally powerful. Got up to 4km/hr on the second one on 92", good result.
Edit: 45km/hr! Not 4km/hr. That was not, in fact, an effort to disguise my abilities so as to lull my SSS opponents in to a false sense of security. I'm not that clever. Just typlexic.
Flying 200s the idea was that the following rider laid off, built speed and blasted past the lead rider to take the victory on the line. I was with Carl, and for the first effort the plan didn't quite work, as the trailing rider mistimed his effort and didn't quite get past the lead rider. In the second effort, the trailing rider rode perfectly, passing the lead rider about 10m before the line.
I'll leave it up to the imagination of the reader to determine who was which when!
End of the night, I was rooted. Still rooted from spin on Friday, actually. And, as predicted, this week's spin is even harder. Sigh. I'm sure it'll pay off...
Edit: 45km/hr! Not 4km/hr. That was not, in fact, an effort to disguise my abilities so as to lull my SSS opponents in to a false sense of security. I'm not that clever. Just typlexic.
Flying 200s the idea was that the following rider laid off, built speed and blasted past the lead rider to take the victory on the line. I was with Carl, and for the first effort the plan didn't quite work, as the trailing rider mistimed his effort and didn't quite get past the lead rider. In the second effort, the trailing rider rode perfectly, passing the lead rider about 10m before the line.
I'll leave it up to the imagination of the reader to determine who was which when!
End of the night, I was rooted. Still rooted from spin on Friday, actually. And, as predicted, this week's spin is even harder. Sigh. I'm sure it'll pay off...
09 September 2011
Is ABOC, is sickly.
There was a movie a while ago, called "John Tucker must Die" I'm pretty certain that Carl Brewer of ABOC was channelling that film...
:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 SS:3 L,R
:16 14s PGRS (60 - seated)
:23 16s PGRS (60 - seated)
:30 7s PG-4 RS (100 seated)
:34 24s PG+8 SS (seated)
:41 30s PG+8 RS (40, seated)
I mean, really. That's just awful! Mind you, I suspect that next week will be even worse...
So anyway, 190RPM in the HCLRs, good effort. 146/70.3 for the 53x14 SS, which is not bad, if not my best. First 53x16 RS gave 143/60.5, while the second dropped back to just 136. 53x17 RS from 100 felt like a good effort, up to 152/60.7km/hr.
But all of that was just the preliminaries, really. The last two efforts were aimed to get as close to vomiting as possible without actually doing so. And, I'm excited to say, I managed to do just that! Well, so far anyway. Half an hour later and I'm still recovering!
My aim with these was to hit as hard as possible from the start to a cadence I thought I could manage and hold it there. And I did pretty well - max of 136/61.2 for the 24s effort, and held it around 60km/hr for about 21s before sliding down by 7 or 8 RPM over the last 3 seconds.
For the 30s effort I made an effort at a hard acceleration without going all-out. Only managed to get up to 121/54.5, and cadence was a little erratic, varying between 115-121, but I held it in that range for the whole 30 seconds, so I was happy with that. And hopefully by the time I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll have recovered!
:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 SS:3 L,R
:16 14s PGRS (60 - seated)
:23 16s PGRS (60 - seated)
:30 7s PG-4 RS (100 seated)
:34 24s PG+8 SS (seated)
:41 30s PG+8 RS (40, seated)
I mean, really. That's just awful! Mind you, I suspect that next week will be even worse...
So anyway, 190RPM in the HCLRs, good effort. 146/70.3 for the 53x14 SS, which is not bad, if not my best. First 53x16 RS gave 143/60.5, while the second dropped back to just 136. 53x17 RS from 100 felt like a good effort, up to 152/60.7km/hr.
But all of that was just the preliminaries, really. The last two efforts were aimed to get as close to vomiting as possible without actually doing so. And, I'm excited to say, I managed to do just that! Well, so far anyway. Half an hour later and I'm still recovering!
My aim with these was to hit as hard as possible from the start to a cadence I thought I could manage and hold it there. And I did pretty well - max of 136/61.2 for the 24s effort, and held it around 60km/hr for about 21s before sliding down by 7 or 8 RPM over the last 3 seconds.
For the 30s effort I made an effort at a hard acceleration without going all-out. Only managed to get up to 121/54.5, and cadence was a little erratic, varying between 115-121, but I held it in that range for the whole 30 seconds, so I was happy with that. And hopefully by the time I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll have recovered!
08 September 2011
Aerosmith
120kg of squatting goodness. Which just sounds so wrong. Again, damnably heavy, but it went up okay - except for about 3 reps with not-so-good form. They still went up, just not as well! The bar is so heavy now that I can't correct form problems mid-lift like I used to, so it's vitally important to get in to the right groove during the warmup sets. That's getting better, but I need to be more careful with it - not pushing the hips back far enough is particularly problematic. And very very soon, I may not be able to recover a mistake like that.
Bench... meh. Reset time. I was a bit rushed, but even from my final warmup set at 55kg I was pretty sure it wasn't going to go. Only got through one set at 70kg, but no drama. Don't really need big chesticles for the bike!
Powercleans up to 70kg, and while they weren't very 'clean', they went up okay. Caught a few on my hands today, rather than my delts, which I haven't been doing so much lately. I was really running out of time by this point, and so that combined with losing a bit of focus probably contributed. That, and it's getting heavy!
Bench... meh. Reset time. I was a bit rushed, but even from my final warmup set at 55kg I was pretty sure it wasn't going to go. Only got through one set at 70kg, but no drama. Don't really need big chesticles for the bike!
Powercleans up to 70kg, and while they weren't very 'clean', they went up okay. Caught a few on my hands today, rather than my delts, which I haven't been doing so much lately. I was really running out of time by this point, and so that combined with losing a bit of focus probably contributed. That, and it's getting heavy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)