Pulled a muscle for a PR

This morning I went to the gym early before my 9am massage appointment. The focus was to be on upper body - chest/shoulders, etc.

It was cool because I think soon I can up to 45's for my dumbbell bench. Then I went over to the rack to do some push presses. I have been working with 5 reps at #85. Today it seemed just a little easy so I threw some 25's on there which made the bar 95 lbs.

It was all going good but then as I was lowering the bar on the last rep I felt a twinge in my left shoulder. Wasn't terribly painful, just kind of like "Oh, something happened back there!" kind of a feeling. So this is a PR for me, I haven't tried to max out on these yet but I think next week I'll try to get 105 over my head

So went to my massage and it wasn't as crazy painful as last time. We worked on my back and legs - tight quads, IT bands, hips, calves, the works. I got Biofreeze put on too which was awesome. Later this afternoon my shoulder REALLY started to hurt. I lied down, took some Ibuprofen and we put the heated blanket under my shoulders to warm up the muscle. After describing it to my husband he concludes it's just a pull and says it's happened to him like 20 times. Never happened to me with my shoulder before. It freaking hurts! But the good news is he thinks it'll be gone in 2-3 days if I rest.

Also, this is pretty cool. Found this article called "Are you Strong?" and the answer appears to be yes in most cases! I fall into the good or between good and great for most things. I don't do all the exercises listed/or have not tried to do that many reps in one sitting. But for the big lifts and major things I focus on, I'm doing pretty damn good for coming up on my first full year of lifting.

The Squatpocalypse

After a few weeks of deloading - taking a break from lifting really heavy and just lifting like 60-70% of my 1rm for more reps - I squatted heavy on Monday and am paying for it dearly. Only like 155 4 sets of 5 reps. I have done heavier before. Yet my legs are acting like I've never done a squat before. WTF.

It was so bad that I was incapable of deadlifting yesterday. My quads literally cramped up when I tried. So I moved on and focused on other back-like exercises, and finished it off with some kettle bell stuff. Apparently my legs don't want me to deadlift but they're perfectly ok with Turkish Get Ups. I haven't done them in a long ass time (April? May?) and they have always been a killer for me. Yet somehow I found them to be alot easier, my knee didn't hurt at all while in the lunge position, and while I did feel tired at the end I found I had much more endurance than before, WITH a slightly heavier weight than I used back then. Guess it's a sign of overall improvement in fitness. Yay!

This morning I went running (my legs no longer feel like death) and this time I was fully aware of how to use my new watch's heart rate display. It was mostly either in the green/aerobic zone, or the orange/threshold zone. However it kept randomly crapping out after the first mile and was showing like 90 bpm, which is not possible. So my average HR ends up being like 120. But at least I figured out that it's all screwy, and when it DOES show my actual HR it's where it needs to be, and that I am pushing myself. So I guess the pace I am running at is right for me at this point. It's a little frustrating because I know I used to be faster than this 2 years ago, but I am also not training as often - lately it's been 1-2 times a week with an average of 3 miles each run. I'd like to get out there 3 times a week with one long run of up to 8 or 10 miles. But I'm training differently now, with much more of an emphasis on lifting, whereas 2 years ago I did not lift at all. I'm 170lbs muscular vs 160 lbs of not-muscle. I think that if I train more and work on intervals at least once a week, I can get down to like a 9 min mile. And I need to do a better job of pacing myself, which is something I'm normally good at but lately I'm just too focused on trying to go fast.

I'm happy to say that my husband is lifting at my gym almost every day after he gets out of work. He's even doing DEEP SQUATS - he can't really squat heavy because he doesn't have great balance as a result of his foot surgeries. So we've both been hobbling down the stairs and grunting like old people. Even though our schedules only match up to lift together once a week I'm glad that he is going on his own time.

So that's all for now, gonna relax for a bit before heading to work.

Garmin Forerunner 225

My new watch is here!

Goodbye, Nike Sportwatch. You gave me a good almost-2 years, but it's time to move on. It took forever to connect, if it connected at all. Sometimes it would take 15 minutes to find a signal and by then I was already halfway done with my run. It crapped out so much that I was never sure what my actual pace was. So I got this new Garmin Forerunner 225. I can get it discounted through my work so I contemplated getting the 610, but I really don't need all those features. Plus this one has a built in heart rate monitor that is measured at the wrist which is a feature I was really interested in.

I took it out for a test run and I'm already loving it. Turned it on and it instantly connected in my kitchen, didn't have to go outside or spend 10 minutes walking around to get a signal. During my run the updates were really good too. There were many spots on the path where my Nike watch always dropped connection, but I suppose there is one truly dead spot because the Garmin crapped out there too. It showed me like a 15 minute mile or something. But it updated my pace within a matter of seconds, where the Nike watch took several minutes to realize I was still running. I can't push myself if it's telling me I'm running a 13 minute mile when I know that's not correct.

Distance was 3 miles, pace 9:44/min mile, it also does elevation which Nike does not (56 feet elevation gain on this run), 180 cadence (maxed out at 199)

Now for the heart rate, here's where I was really surprised. My avg heart rate was like 129. Kinda low! I did sprint a bit at the end and got it up to 175. I didn't know how to set the heart rate to display during my run and didn't want to fiddle with it while running and risk messing it up. But now I know how to do it so I can make sure my heart rate is on point during my runs. I did just get my blood pressure medicine changed so going forward my heart rate might be lower than it should be, but at least now I'll know.

The reason I want a good watch that's accurate and can show heart rate is because I want to be able to push myself to do better. If my pace is slacking and my heart rate is too low then that means I can go faster. I know some people like to run "blind" without watches or tech, but I'm not one of them. I like knowing where I'm at so I can improve, or back off if I'm pushing too hard.

Still figuring out the Garmin Connect website, there are alot of sections to it.

Sore.

Ever since I had my full body deep tissue massage last Friday I have been sore as crap. The soreness from the massage itself lasted about 3 days, then I went to the gym and now I'm sore from that!

I noticed the massage has improved my range of motion in certain places. I can squat deeper. And today I'm sore in different places, I know I've been more quad dominant in the past but the massage must have allowed me to utilize my hamstrings and adductors more because they are sore as crap for the first time in a long time. Then I ran on my sore legs yesterday and made it worse. It's like I'm brand new to lifting all over again.

So I skipped the gym this morning. Then I got to work and my manager is like "I want you to lift a bunch of giant boxes full of shoes up onto some tall shelves!" And I'm like "CAN DO!" but man did it just make my back even more sore!

Still - not gonna let it stop me from running tomorrow.