A Little Disappointed

PR'ed my back squat and my overall total.

Hit my current PR for the press.

Not even close to PRing my deadlift.

187.4/245/80 for a total of 512.4.

Primary goals were 185/275/85 for a total of 545. My secondary deadlift goal was 260, for a total of 530.

But let's rewind a little bit. I woke up around 7:45 to plenty of snow and some ongoing freezing rain, which Cosmo and Sophie were not happy about. My lifting slot started at 10:30, so I decided not to eat breakfast, which is standard for my morning workouts. After standing around waiting for.e.ver for my dogs to pee, I came back in, had some coffee with cream (! THIS IS SO GOOD) and starting planning out my outfit.

(Not joking. I wanted to be colorful, and I have so many options. Eventually I settled on a bright blue t-shirt, neon pink socks and headband, and my new orange chucks.)

PhillyGuy came with me, so I have some pictures of myself looking (moderately) strong. When we got there, I was delighted to see Maddox keeping warm.

My glutes and hamstrings were ridiculously sore from Thursday's dynamic lunges, so I spent a ton of time with a foam roller and a lacrosse ball during my warmup. When 10:30 rolled around, we headed downstairs to warm up for the back squat.

Taking a warmup set with the bar.

I'm not completely sure where my warmups ended and my first attempts started - mainly because we were working with kilos and I had zero idea what was on the bar at any given time. I know I made a jump from about 170lbs to 187, bottomed out and failed - and then, when I tried to stand the bar up, it slipped off of my shoulders and right into Tim's hands. Um...oops. Sorry buddy.

At Tim's suggestion, I added a belt, which I've never used before, and backed off for my next attempts. I hit a couple more heavier weights (seriously, NO idea) before attempting 85kg again - or 187.39 pounds.

Want to know what my PR face looks like?

Yeah buddy.

I pulled it off - and it wasn't too slow, either. I was REALLY happy with this, since my squat was what I was most unsure of. After PRing my back squat by 12.4lbs, we headed back upstairs to warm up for the deadlift.

Right about here is where my day started heading downhill. I warmed up with a few reps - 115, 165, 195, 225. Things were feeling good, and I was planning to open with 260lbs (this would be a PR, but I figured it was a given, based on how smooth it felt when I doubled 250 a couple weeks ago), then jump to 270 and 275. So, based on that, I went to take my last warmup lift at 250.

In case you're wondering, THAT is what it looks like when I can't get 250lbs off of the floor to warm up.

And THIS is my "well, fuck, now what" face, as I watched Dorcus take 4-something and tried to figure out what I was going to do.

I decided to open at 245. And I couldn't move it. Opening with a fail is really not good for my attitude. Liz and I chatted briefly - I could NOT figure out what the crap was wrong with me and why I couldn't move a weight I'd pulled for three before. Maybe the soreness from the lunges affected me more than I initially thought?

"Are you cutting weight right now?" she asked.

....oh. "yeah. Yeah, I am." Well, that'll do it. So, I took my next rep at 235 so I'd at least put up something I knew I could do.

And then took my third and final attempt at 245.

245, locked out and totally nonplussed.

Disappointed, I went over to PhillyGuy, who decided we should take a picture of the mini-tear over my callus that popped up while moving 1.65x my bodyweight. (Not 1.82x, like I planned.)

From there, it was time to buck up and warm up for the press.

I took my first attempt around 80lbs - my PR and a given.

I took the next two attempts at 84lbs, both of which were fails. I thought nothing was going to frustrate me more than the deadlift - until I got home and saw this picture of my second attempt.

WHY COULDN'T I PUT MY DAMN HEAD THROUGH AND LOCK THAT SHIT OUT??? GAAAAAAAAAH.

Oh well. So, it wasn't my A+ goal of 545, and it wasn't my secondary "safe" goal of 525, but 512.4 is not too shabby - it's still a PR of 42.4lbs over September's total of 470. And I'm happy to be leaning out, because while my nutrition these past few weeks hasn't been great for my deadlift, it's been killer for my pull ups.

So, I've got plenty of time to finish out this BCCC and make a hard push to drop the last of my body fat so I'm at a happy, sustainable level, and then turn my focus back to my performance. I still have five and a half months to meet my next big set of goals (deadlift 300, back squat 200).

GOAL: SMOKED.

I killed my goal for the total.

By 35 pounds. (And no, that's not my bar.)

Squat 165. Deadlift 230 (!!). Press 75.

And then I went to costco and restocked on protein and veggies, since I was down to about a quarter of Friday night's rotisserie chicken and a head of romaine.

Now that I have 9 pounds of chicken thighs, 4 pounds of steak and an entire smoked salmon, plus those 24 figs hiding in the back...I'm good for a couple days.

More on the total later. I need to do something about the tumbleweeds of dog fur that have gathered in my corners before they turn on me.

Prepping for the Total

I am stupid excited - today is the Crossfit Total.

Essentially it's your chance both to find out your true max on three basic lifts (strict overhead press, back squat and deadlift), and to set up some baseline numbers. You have three attempts at each lift, with your heaviest completed lift in each combined to reveal your score.

I dig lifting. I dig finding out what I can do. I'm somewhat conservatively shooting for 435, basing this on a 225 deadlift, 75 press and 135 squat. I do not think 135 is my true max for a back squat, but my form has been awful this week with much lighter weight. Even with a piece of PVC, I find my chest sinking down as I squat. SO...while I think, from my prior squats, I could do more like 155, I'm not going to cry if today's not the day for that. I'd rather focus on doing it right and improving the weight later.

ANYWAY. While in the back of my mind I believe I should hit 450-460 today...I am focusing on making my press and my deadlift heavy, and my squat good. And I am stupid, STUPID excited to both do this myself, AND to watch everyone else kill theirs.

To prep for this, I spent last night hanging out with my dogs, watching Bradley Cooper run around Philadelphia-dressed-up-as-New-York in Limitless, and eating the majority of a rotisserie chicken.

Sophie acted coquettish in the hopes it would make some chicken come her way.

Cosmo reluctantly settled for a bully stick. Neither was impressed by Bradley. Whatever.

I got a buttload of sleep - I don't care if being in bed at 10pm on a Friday night makes me a loser. I only stayed up that late for the dogs' sake, to be honest - I could have crashed at 9 or 9:30. This was a brutal week.

After the pups and I took our usual Saturday morning jaunt, I decided to forego my normal routine of chilling in bed with my laptop in favor of getting down to business with breakfast.

I used kitchen shears to cut two strips of thick-cut bacon into small pieces, directly into the pan. After the bacon started to render, I added half a package of sliced mushrooms and, once the mushrooms were mostly cooked, tossed in a couple big handfuls of baby spinach.

I scrambled the entire mess up with three eggs, some salt and pepper, and called it good.

This paleo thing has been pretty good for me. I truly don't miss bread and dairy at all, though that may be because I give myself a couple of meals a week to eat whatever the F I want. Sometimes that means having Conn's potato chips for dinner.

(As far as I know, they only sell these in the Wheeling, WV/St. Clairsville, OH area. We always had them at my great-grandmother's house when I was a kid, and while I'm willing to bet they're not ACTUALLY that good, the fact that I only get them once a decade, when coupled with the nostalgia factor, makes them FUCKING AMAZING.)

Sometimes that means having a pizza for lunch with my boss. (We tried Serafina at 18th & Sansom this week. I had a pizza with prosciutto and an egg. It was underwhelming.) And pretty much every week, it means I slowly eat a bar of dark chocolate (either 70 or 85% cocoa content) a couple squares at a time over the course of the week.

But in general, I feel good and I am noticeably leaner. If I dialed it in a little more I bet I would shed this fat pretty fast, but I'm liking this whole "hey this takes no effort at all" business.

AND I CANNOT WAIT TO PICK UP SOME HEAVY SHIT TODAY.

How's your Labor Day weekend going? Picking up anything heavy? Performing any other feats of fitness?