Benchmark: March 2009 Archives

I've been trying to eat nothing but whole foods for about two weeks now. Meat, eggs, vegetables, nuts and fruit, and nothing else. (Such as bread, crackers or any other manufactured crunchy things, ice cream, cheese, pizza.) I kind of want some ice cream and I kind of find it inconvenient to plan a bigger variety of whole-food meals than I used to plan. But honestly on the whole it's not that hard; I was already going to the store a lot and doing some simple cooking almost every day, so I'm better prepared for this kind of diet change than I would have been a couple of years ago.

This is the end of the second week and my energy seems to be higher. I didn't sleep well last night, but I went to the 7 AM workout class as I'd planned and it went really well. Max pull-ups and a barbell snatch-based complex done with a partner for 20 minutes. I had not done snatches in months because of elbow tendonitis, which is now much much better. So the snatches were super fun. I just used the 15 kg bar. My max pull-ups I was afraid were going to be around 13 but I did 17 and was happy with that. (I became relatively deconditioned in 2008 as my priorities changed from PR's to learning to teach and everything that comes with that.)

I went home and napped and ended up with that jet-lagged feeling -- can it really still be the same day as when I was in the gym last? -- and went back at 4 to teach my CrossFit class. The instruction on the snatch complex went well as did their workout. (Yesterday we did a workout involving jerks from the rack and that went really well too. Gratifying to be able to somewhat manage a group and teach/refresh them on something technical.)

Five PM came, my group left and the evening crowd wandered in... and I found myself wanting to do the workout again. I thought, well, if my energy is this good in spite of the "jet lag" from not sleeping, I better take advantage of it. So, I worked out with Erica as my partner and used 20 kg until the final 5 minutes of the 20-minute workout. Three snatch-grip deadlifts, 3 highpulls, 3 snatches, 3 overhead squats, 3 bent-over rows (go figure) alternating with the partner for 20 minutes. I had almost but not quite forgotten how fun it is to snatch when it's not too heavy. One of my life goals is to be still snatching an empty barbell (if not more) when I'm 75.

Before we started the snatch workout, we did max pull-ups as we had done in the morning. I had more determination this time and made 26, which I'm pretty sure I'd never done before. I think I am going to sleep well.

Today's planned workout at the gym was our first instance of having everybody try the "take your 10-rep max back squat and do 20 reps with it." I was one of few who had tried this even once before. In my two most recent entries I described doing 20 squats at a guesstimated 10-RM of 70 kg. Today I went for 80 kg and succeeded. It was significantly more difficult, but the experience makes me more willing to push even harder in a couple of weeks for 20 reps at 85.

Other gym clients who haven't been squatting very long used today's 20 heavy reps to try something tougher than normal, to use their resolve, and to begin to narrow down what is TRULY HEAVY for them. A lot of people seemed to have learned something and to have found it gratifying.

Also for me today, it was fun to do a muscle-up on the pull-up bar with the aid of a green rubberband. I was inspired to this by seeing Leigh Anne do it. It was a nice stunt!