Training update 4/5-4/11

I forgot to do a training recap last week. Trust me, I start off most days with all good intentions of throwing something – anything up on the blog, but lately between work, training, and the weather being more bipolar than I am, I just haven’t had any major urge to write out something coherent. However, I do love talking about how I train, so I hate to forgo this weekly post out of laziness.

This week’s main focus was trying to wrap my brain around the best possible way to go about reaching all my summer goals without burning out… Easing my way into a more “endurance based” training methodology without hurting myself or hating my life.

Friday April 5: Heavy Bench Presses, overhead presses, chest flys, triceps extensions. 30 minute stretching session with a focus on hips, quads, and glutes.

Saturday April 6: 30 minute circuit training cardio via Nike training ap.

Sunday April 7: After the severity of this email set in:

I spent the day mapping out my plan of attack for the upcoming 20 weeks. Then I had leg day.
Heavy squats, heavy front squats, Bulgarian split squats, and calf raises. I had every intention of doing yoga but instead I went to sleep.

Monday April 8:
My early morning day at work, I was dragging ass. Came home and ran a hard, sluggish, hilly 2 miles. Followed it up with 40 minutes of Tough Mudder Bootcamp

Tuesday April 9: I am marking one day a week as “endurance day” – where I get out and do a variety of activities for an extended period of time to get conditioned for the length of my upcoming races. I only did about an hour and a half today just to ease my way into such extended training, because it’s totally out of my athletic realm at the moment.
I did heavy overhead presses, bicep curls, close grip bench presses, and lateral “T’s” (I don’t know the actual term, but they still put a hurt on my delts even with 10 pound dumbbells) – in between each exercise, I did 10 minutes of plyo drills including tuck jumps, burpees, power skips, and more. After that I did 30 minutes of interval running – 2 minutes running, 1 minute walking, and got about 2.8 miles in. Nothing spectacular but I was beat after plyo and lifting. Days like these make me thankful for jack3d and BCAAs. *disclaimer – I do not advocate training like this unless you plan on doing a long endurance race. If you are just trying to lose weight, or just get in better shape, there are better ways to do it. This is a special instance in my life, and crucial to my success. If your goals aren’t exactly the same as mine, doing dumb stuff like this may be injurious*

Wednesday April 10:
Hallelujah rest day! Probably the first one of my life where I had no problem staying out of the gym.

Thursday: Heavy deadlifts, power cleans, hang cleans, pendlay rows, and static deadlift holds… Rep PRed my deadlifts with 3@210 which was exciting. Followed with farmers carries, sprints, and kettle bell swings. The main aim of today was to work on grip strength, and I totally did. Plus I saw a snake.

This was one of those sessions where at the time, although the weights felt heavy and the static holds and farmers carries required a modicum of patience and mental toughness, I never felt all out physically exerted or drained.
Then, two hours later, my ass is grass. Sleepy, hungry, and a twinge bitchy is about where I’m at right now. I love when solving problems is as easy as eating a steak and taking a nap, though.

Overall, I am really proud of my accomplishments this week. I am really going out of my comfort zone with some of my training strategies, but it has been mostly enjoyable. Getting to eat more food is also something that is extremely exciting as a former fat girl. I can say with confidence that I look forward to what the upcoming weeks and months are going to bring in terms of getting stronger, faster, and more comfortable with my body and all its amazing abilities.

Anybody else have an epic week? Feel free to share below!