Pullup Challenge - 30 Days

Im back on the wagon. Finally. Its been a long time, almost 5 months, that I shied away from upper body lifts due to the wrist but now Im back at it. Starting off right with a personal challenge. 30 days. 3 exercises. About 13,500 reps.

Seems like a helluva lot looking at it that way. But its an every day routine and you have to take it one day at a time. Probably a few days Ill need to double up due to my schedule. But Im determined to make it work.

That beautiful caligraphy you are seeing before you is my log for tracking all those reps. Every damn one of them. The pics are from Mondays session. Today I knocked out another 15 pullups, 80 pushups, and 40 kb swings. Im already VERY tight and sore in a lot of places. The 100m sprints I did afterwards probably had a hand in that. 

Regardless, I need to make some progress somewhere and just lifting heavy shit all the time is starting to get old. Like myself. I need to shake things up a bit and keep it interesting. Otherwise Ill just get bored. Unfortunately those pullups are rough. I can only do 1 at a time right now. Yes. ONE. ...dammit. Got to start somewhere I suppose. 

...lil blurry. Ill have to redo that shot sometime.

Deadlift progress 3 months post surgery

Not a bad day lifting wise. I fell off the wagon last week and didn't get much time in but this week Im back at it.
Ended up with a 15 minute AMRAP x20 each
Pushups
 Ring Rows
 V-ups
 KB Swings
 Bulg Deadlift

Shit my Athletes Say - Episode 2

Its been awhile. But every so often I get some gems. Here's ten specially selected for today. Ill admit not all are words or phrases. Some are my responses to their....'creativity'.




Worms eat each other

Hey, you like mudkips?
I swear Im not in the mood for that shit today.
No, really. Mudkips. Kali Muscles energy drink!
Thats Hyphy Mud!....ass.

Prater! You need to meet my aunt!
Ok, whatever you say.
<3 hours later>
Prater! You never met my Aunt!
Wtf?

I didn't mean to I swear!
You supposed to kick the ball not the other athletes!

Your other right foot. Thats the same foot!

Hey, you should totally meet one of my teachers. She just broke up with her boyfriend. But I guess they got back together.
So.....what was the question again?

Can I blow your whistle....(oh shit face)





















There's pathogens in the water. Look!
Dude, worms again.

Prater, let me ride in your bed!
Come on, you got to at least put a little thought into what you say beforehand.

Wait....quarter after is 15 minutes. Right? I dont know...

Brunswick Girl Throwers First Crack at 4x100

Fastest Throwers in Ohio!

Dealing with it

"Don't focus and worry about things you have no control over."

That's not exactly what she said but 2 or so years ago the words of an ex of mine still echo. It's a true statement that I try my best to hold onto despite our personal falling out. We had a interesting conversation a few weeks back that resulted in us not speaking again. But I digress.

Let's rewind a bit. This past weekend was ...odd. Saturday went great. My throwers threw excellent and we scored well. A bunch of PR's across the board. Saturday night went very well. Girls Rugby fundraiser was a success and we raised a nice chunk of change despite an almost panicky start. A good evening overall.

Then Sunday hit... I was better off not waking up and sleeping until Monday. Start off I find my roster is not up to date for the girls first game. Only 10 girls listed. An hour later that situation is handled. Then due to some miscommunications we arrived over an hour early for our game. Then the game started. We battled. Ill admit it was a contest for about 10-15minutes. Then they broke. Points started to be scored and then to make matters worse the injuries started hitting. Final result in my coaching debut was a 31-10 loss, a broken foot ending my outside centers season, a sprained elbow, another sprained her wrist, and to add salt into that gaping wound my full back was red carded.

I wasn't sure how that day could've gone worse except it wasn't even 2:30 at this point. So to recap we almost had to forfeit, got beat, got hurt, and Im hungover through all of this. I blame the parents and all those shots they got me. Thats my defense and Im sticking to it.

Thats kind of what I wanted from Sunday that point on. Even Monday I was out of it...or "emo" as my friend so delicately puts it.



Anyways, back to the originally statement. It was tough to push through but it's true. At this point its sometime Sunday evening and Im ready to call it a day. But, I had to remember that at this moment I had to move forward. Wasn't anything I could do about what happened. Adjustments were needed. Positions had to change. A new methodology needed to be put in. End of that.

Realistically this is never just THAT easy but when you break it down that's what it's about. Get it done. Accept what is. Change what you can. Adapt and grow. I can't dwell on past mistakes or failure but sure as hell can learn from them. So if you're stuck in the shitter or just got dealt a bad hand learn and move forward. Adapt and overcome. Otherwise you're just going to be miserable and reliving that GIF above more often than not.

Conditioning - "Fun" with Intervals

It's no real secret to my athletes and clients that I will always prefer intervals over just basic cardio and training. I've really taken to AMRAP style with conditioning workouts and using intervals for time and then limiting rest to improve capacity.

Case in point is my bleacher training I've been doing lately. I have a nifty interval timer on my phone, HIIT Timer, that I have been using to keep track of all this. Staring at watches is for chumps. Give me some headphones any day. Nice thing is theres a beeper on it that lets you know when the interval is coming up.

Anyways, the setup is rather simple. Get as many reps in 10 minutes as possible according to the interval. I started off sprinting bleachers on 2 minutes. Which was rather easy but I had to start somewhere. Then every workout I drop time. So currently Im down to 90 seconds. Yesterday I went 7 rounds. Calves are pretty tight, lemme tell ya. Next time Im looking at 80s. Maybe 85. Thing is now that it's getting less and less there is not as much rest and the workload increases. So it's definitely getting tougher. Plus if I want to work speed then I need to increase rest otherwise the last few sets are pretty damn slow.

Nice thing with this you can do it with practically any exercise. Today Im hitting the sled. Although Im running a TABATA workout with that...God help me.