Practice, practice, practice

Hmmmm....all this talk about progress got me thinking.  I can't say enough how I have a variety of goals and how this helps me stay sane in the gym.  I just don't think I could go in there with one goal in mind all of the time (i.e., lose weight, so I do the same cardio day in and day out).  Recently I have been adding plyometrics back into my workouts.  For a while I stayed away from them because, well, when you carry extra weight and you find yourself jumping around...it's just not...comfortable.  But now that some of the weight is coming off, it's...less uncomfortable. :)

Endurance is something I want to include in my goals because it would just be crazy to look in shape but not actually be in shape.  I have a friend at the gym who is naturally fit looking, who puts on muscle easily, and stays slim naturally.  She eats like crap - never does cardio - and you would really never know it by looking at her.  One day she said to me, "I think I need to start doing different stuff in the gym.  It's ridiculous that I am as strong as I am, but get winded walking to the mailbox."  Exactly.

I have to admit that I also have a hidden motive, too.  More and more research is showing that high intensity bursts during workouts are a great way to break through plateaus, stimulate faster fat loss, and lose stubborn belly fat.  Funny, considering that my belly fat is what has been holding me back (or...should I say, fear of belly fat in motion...lol!).  Adding plyometric and other burst exercises in between lifting sets is a great way to incorporate high intensity exercises into a workout (or...it doesn't just have to be doing intervals on a cardio machine...which is something I will do but it really doesn't excite me in any way).

In the last post I talked about how try & try again isn't always appopriate in the gym.  However, with endurance, high intensity and plyometrics, it is.  More specifically, practice makes endurance.  Two weeks ago I would get really winded halfway through a first set of plyometric exercises.  Now it takes me until the third or fourth set.  Progress.

There was a girl at the gym the other day doing bounding exercises - all the way up to four bounds with the highest boxes.  Trish Warren-style.  It was impressive.  I introduced myself to her and complimented her on the bounding workout.  Her reply, "I learned it through practice."  I know not everyone knows what bounding is, so here is a video of it:

Hmmmm....not sure I will ever get there, but certainly something I can aspire to do one day.  With practice, of course!

If at first you don't succeed...rest?

There are times in the gym when the try and try again motto just doesn't work.  In the last post I talked about the desire to break 65 pound curls and how long it took me to break 125 on barbell bench press.

Monday I worked chest and back together.  I was supersetting barbell chest press with T-bar rows when I realized that I had just pressed 125 for 10 - without a spot.  So...I thought maybe I should go for 135 and see what happened.  I grabbed a spot a proceeded to press 135 for 7 without assistance and 1 with assistance, for a total of 8. 

When I stopped focusing on it and decided to rest for a while, I come back to it and it happens, seemingly without effort.  I could have gone up from 135, I am sure, but I didn't.  Go figure!

Define irony...

Irony: an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

Hmmmm.

As I wrote my last blog post, what I didn't say was that my wrist was hurting.  I was being optimistic - thinking that maybe I had just tweeked it good the day before and would need to rest it for a day.  Imagine my frustration when I finally carried myself to Doctor's Care on the following Sunday because I couldn't grip anything, I couldn't lift anything, and I any motion that required the use of my pinky or thumb resulted in excrutiating pain.  It reminded me of the way my wrist felt when I hurt it trying to learn to snowboard. 

Not knowing what was going on, I had all kinds of outcomes running through my head, most of which ending with me not being able to lift for a long period of time.  I was absolutely convinced that I had a stress fracture.  So off to Doctor's Care I went to receive my fate.  After two days, a radiologist finally called them back, and they called me to deliver the good news...no fractures!!  Yay!  Wait...maybe yay?  If not a fracture...then what?

The doctor said the next reasonable explanation would be tendonitis.  I did what every health professional hates and set off to research it online.  I found a lot of clinical information about elbow tendonitis - especially in relation to weight lifting - and a lot of information about Dequevains tendonitis (a form of wrist tendonitis common to new moms, but not relevant to me because it occurs in a different part of the wrist and hand) - but had a hard time finding information about possible issues with wrist tendonitis and weight lifting.  As a result, I then resulted to the thing even I can't stand...blogs & blog posts. 

A quick search of bodybuilding blogs revealed that this is something very common in the bodybuilding world.  There were dozens of posts where people were asking if others had experienced the same thing.  I started reading through them, but nothing jumped out at me as something that is relevant to my training.  Until I came across one where the first person to respond to the blog question said something about developing tendonitis from EZ bar curls.  As I read through this post, person after person stated that they had been forced to stop doing EZ Bar curls because they developed tendonitis or sharp wrist pain as a result.  In case you are missing it....this is the ironic part.  If you don't know what I am talking about...read my last post.  Or read on.
 EZ Bar curls have been my nemesis.  At least, moving up to curling 70lb EZ bar curls has been.  This is also the case with barbell curls, too.  I just have not been able to break that 65 pound mark.  And I had taken a break from them for two weeks (as of my last post), but I had still done the same motion trying to power through cable curls. 

Another common theme in this post was that people were saying they had been forced to stop doing close grip barbell presses for the same reason.  I had not been doing close grip presses for a while, but in the previous two weeks had added it back into my tricep workout regimen.  It seems as though both of these, or a combination of, may have been the culprit. 

After taking a week off from the gym (save for two days where I killed legs and did some cardio), I started back with weights last week.  First day I did shoulders. My wrist was a little tender, but I went light and there were no residual problems post workout.  Second day I normally would have done arms, but decided to skip arms for the week...so I did back.  No problems with wide-grip lat pulldowns or wide grip seated row.  Couldn't pull weight with a reverse grip...either lat pulldown or barbell rows, but was able to do standard grip barbell rows with no major issues.  Third day was leg day, so no issues there (although I did one hella crazy leg workout that day...I went straight past wanting to throw up to almost passing out...it was great!).  Fourth day was chest and no issues there - even on heavier presses to failure.  I was really surprised by this.  I thought for sure I would feel something in my wrist on chest day, but I made it through a fairly heavy day with no issues.  Then came Saturday.  I was going to just do cardio, but I just couldn't let the week go by without doing arms.  I went to the EZ Bar stand, determined to test this theory.  I decided to go light - 30 lbs - and 4 or 5 reps in, a shooting pain through my wrist and down my arm.  I widened my grip to the outer part of the curve, with the same result.  I widened my grip even more - to the staright part of the bar.  Same result.  I moved on to incline dumbbell curls.  Decided to go light - 15 lbs - to see how it felt.  No pain.  Up to 20...no pain.  25...no pain.  Moved to hammer curls...same thing...up to 35 lbs with no pain.  As a result, I felt brave and decided to try cable curls.  Straight bar...shooting pain at 10 lbs (warm up weight...no good).  Curl bar....shooting pain.  Reverse grip...shooting pain.  Alternating one arm cable curls...no pain.  Agh!  Dumbbells and one arm exercises it is for a while. 

Why is this irony?  Because I was so focused on trying to break 70 lbs on the EZ bar/barbell curls.  I wanted that so bad.  Now I can't even lift 30 pounds!  Ha!  Oh, the irony.

As a final note: I did a tricep circuit immediately following the bicep workout.  Skull crushers...no problem.  Overhead dumbbell extentions...no problem.  Tricep kickbacks...bench dips with my legs elevated...1-arm reverse grip cable extensions...no problem.  I did not try close grip presses or two armed reverse grip extension, as I knew they would be problematic, but was I was happy to get through everything else without issue.

Irony: an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

Guess it's time to change my expectations.