Derailed

Wicked tired the past several days. Lack of sleep + lots of work (currently at 19 days since a day off from work…and still counting ’til Sunday). I took Wednesday and Thursday entirely off, which is pretty rare. It worked out since the kids were doing hard running intervals Wed, so I just ran the stopwatch and recorded times. Yesterday I was the van driver while they DP’ed up App Gap. I’ve gotten a few good nights of sleep in a row (although I’m up early this AM), so I hope to get a workout in later today. I’ve totally lost my rhythm since going away to camp last week, and now it is a daunting task to face, trying to get back into a rhythm.

Too Busy to Think

…Let alone workout. At least, that is the way I’ve felt over the past 36 hours. Students returned to school yesterday, so I had a lot of welcoming/moving in/meetings to tend to. And then there was a 90′ trail run. My ankles held up so-so during the run, and actually they’ve been pretty good since the run.

Today I tried to take off from physical activity. Seven hours of meetings, however, made me want to do something to relax my mind. I decided to do just a bit of dips and pull-ups, in preparation for the Dip and Pull-up testing we’ll do with the team on Tuesday. I only did a handful of each exercise, to wake up the muscles. In just a few minutes of low reps and low intensity dips/pull ups, I was able to realize that I’m still pretty damn tired.

Goal for tomorrow is to totally avoid physical activity, 100%. Golf is the only possibility. Tuesday PM: max dips and max pullups. Goals are 30 pull, 40 dip.

R & R

Today was meant to be a rest day, and I took it almost entirely off. I did about 20-30′ worth of technique and skill practice on a couple of lifts. I have been reviewing information in the book, “Starting Strength,” and I spent a bit of time today focused on DL, OHS, and FS.

In the deadlift, I have to work on using more quad at the beginning of the pull, and not relying too much on ham/glute activation early in the pull. When I pull a heavy weight, my hips go up pretty high before the bar raises off the floor.  This means I am pulling with my upper-body at a very low angle (near parallel to the floor), leading to a pretty large amount of torque through my lower back. So, more quads at the beginning to straighten the knee, and then afterwards ham/glutes to extend the hip.

FS / OHS are pretty new to me, so I’m not sure how good or bad I’m doing them. I dig the OHS, and I was able to do a couple of sets of 5 x 65# in that move.

Tomorrow I have a bunch of meetings, but I think I’ll be able to get in a workout. I’m still thinking some GHD situps and back-extensions will serve me well. We’ll see what the main site has to say!