Thursday, August 6, 2009

New personal record

So yesterday in the gym I set another new personal record! One of my goals for last year that I did not reach was to squat 300 pounds. Well, it's 8 months late, but yesterday I squatted 310 pounds for one rep with perfect form! My one-rep max on the squat was stuck at 260 for over a year, but in the past 2 months I've added 50 pounds to it. Not sure what to attribute it to, whether it be the 2 weeks of rest I took after my injury, dialing in my form, or just increasing my strength through neurological adaptation, but it feels great to finally squat 1.5x my body weight. According to my body fat tester I'm at 22% body fat, which means that I've put on about 4 pounds of muscle in the last 2 months while staying at the same body weight. I'm stoked to see where my deadlift numbers are at now, so hopefully a max effort DL workout will show up in the near future. I really want to get an 850 on the Crossfit Total (1 rep max of back squat, deadlift, and shoulder press). I'm at 310 squat and 160 press, so I would need a 380 lb. deadlift to reach that goal. Last time I maxed I got 345, but that was only about a week into my current training regimen. We'll see how it goes. Getting stronger rules :)

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Back to work

Today's Weigh-In: 206.8 lbs.

Yesterday was my first Crossfit workout since being admitted to the hospital. I took it pretty easy, not a whole lot of volume for my first day back. I've definitely lost some cardiovascular endurance, but I know that will come back quickly as long as I stay consistent. I didn't have any trouble completing the workout, and my abs and hip flexors seem to be working just as well as they did before, so I'm glad. I was worried that I would lose a lot of strength or capacity in the damaged muscles. I'll be keeping the volume pretty low this week just to give my body a chance to adapt and to risk reinjuring myself, and then start increasing my intensity as I see fit.

As far as diet goes I've got one good day in the bag so far. I need to build some momentum in this area, so I think I'll forgo any cheat meals this week, and keep my alcohol intake to a minimum. It's just so much easier to stick to a good eating plan when you've got a week or two of good days behind you and you start seeing some real progress. I haven't really felt that momentum for a while so I'm hoping I can get some steam behind this thing and get back under 200 pounds.

I'm going to try to be posting more often now that I'm healthy, so stay tuned for more.