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.