Sledgehammers

Yes you read it right. Sledgehammers.


Monday after we finished our hamstring training Roy wanted to do more. Time was up but that was OK with him, he knew I missed the boxing and the ropes last week so he suggested this to make up for it.


He looked at me and asked if I ever swung a sledgehammer.


"Yes, I did! I used to swing a sledgehammer, against a big tire, in the sand pit, in the hot sun, with the football team when I trained with SC."


I saw a look of disappointment come over his face, and I instantly knew I shouldn't have said it with quite so much excitement. I think he wanted to have me do something new, but it wasn't new to me, although I hadn't done it in about 2 years. 


He quickly recovered and started to roll the huge truck tire out into the parking lot. It was about 6:45 p.m. and it was warm out, I took off my shirt, I needed to be in shorts and a bra top for this. 

He said to go for 15 to 20 swings on each side. It sounded like a lot and I said so, he was starting to train another woman so he walked away and left me to my tire and hammer.


After the first couple swings I got it all back. I remember back when I did this with SC, some of the guys on the football team would be there with me, coaching me along. SC would just stand in the shade shouting out orders once in a while. I would be in the hot sun, sweat dripping in my eyes, wondering what the hell I was doing here as I would sometimes miss and sand would go flying up into my face.


The guys were great-- they were all young, anywhere between 18 and 22 and quite strapping young athletes I may add. They looked only better as their backs became wet with sweat along side me. 


They taught me how to start with my hands wide, one at the top of the shaft, one at the bottom, then let the top slide down to meet the bottom as I swung to hit the tire.  I started to develop a rhythm, I liked it. I liked it a lot.


I like things like this, it makes me feel alive. The sheer effort, the sweat, the feeling of the muscles in my entire body working and rippling.


Roy would come check on me every so often, and gave me encouragement, I would just keep swinging my sledge. 


Roy showed me how to hit the tire with the side if the sledge, to reduce the bounce back, it was effective. If you don't hit it with a good solid strike, the reverberation running up the shaft can start to wear on your arms.


20 on each side, four sets. All I needed was some loud music and a couple guys along side!


It's a great workout, it hits your entire body. I can feel it everywhere the next day, and its one of those great things that hits the abs, the obliques, the back, legs, glutes, arms and traps. 


Although my other gym doesn't have a tire and sledgehammers, Roy's does, and I am there three times a week! Now I can add this to the ropes, sled and boxing, all much better than any cardio machine man ever made!

Fridays Training

Woo Hoo! I love Fridays!


Monday, Wednesday and Friday are almost like "two a days" for me, but they aren't brutal like the "two a days" I do during competition prep, that will start soon enough.


In the a.m. it's "calves and conditioning" or it could be "calfs and conditioning", I have looked it up since I see them used interchangeably and when I did, I found this hilarious site called "Legs of Steel" and this is what they had to say:

Women's legs with muscular calves come from working out regularly. Often times they are found on women body builders. Some people prefer the saying "Legs of steel" and if this is what interests you then you can go to:www.legsofsteel.com to see lots of women in this category. The women are listed in alphabetic order so if you find one you like you can find them again easily. There are over 75 different woman listed here.

Ha ha, you know you can find just about anything on the Internet!

I am not promoting the site, and no, I am not listed on the site, It was just a silly thing I wanted to share.

So my Friday morning starts with a 5 minute walk on the treadmill then I go down to the back weight room to hit the calves. I prefer to start with the donkey calf raise, but I need the incline bench and just as I have my schedule, so does another guy and he bench presses (thats ALL he does) and he does it three times a weak. Now I am not the one that will tell him this is not effective nor is it a good idea, especially when I heard him telling someone about his sore shoulders that same morning!

So he does the flat bench then the incline, so I let him do his thing and I hit the seated calf raise first. Two plates, 4 sets of 20. It is easy to throw your shoulders backwards to give yourself a little help, don't do this, keep your back straight and work your CALVES only.

Then the incline bench fellow is done so I take the Olympic bar off the rack and set it up for Donkey Calf raises. I am up to three plates now, that's 135 pounds hanging from my lower hips on a dip belt. I am doing 4 sets of 20, slowly up, slowly down. I need more weight soon, but getting up into position is the hard part with that much weight, I have to push up with one leg and I won't be able to with much more weight. I may need to ask one of the guys to sit on my back soon, and I need to be careful who I ask. Bobbie would don a Cowboy hat and scream "eeh haw" and try to kick me with spurs, I best try to find a smaller, more docile fellow... ha ha ha

Then it's off for conditioning in the Basketball court. I warm up by jogging around the perimeter four times, then I practice on the heavy bag a bit. My boxing has gotten better, but its hard to kick this bag, it's way too hard and there is some velcro at the bottom, so when I practice "knees" I scrape them on the velcro. It's not that I am a wimp, but gyms are really dirty places, and not the place you want to get a scrape.

Then I throw the gloves onto the floor and start in with my conditioning. Pushups, high knee jumps, running, burpee/sprawls, squats holding weight overhead. They have these big heavy tubes with hand holds in them, I am not sure what they are called but they are like a more stable form of sandbag training, and they have a huge stack of them in the basketball court, just waiting for me.

Sweat is dripping down my face, I have done many rounds and now a couple guys come in to play basketball, I run around them. I am then down on the floor, doing crunches, frog crunches, side crunches, then shadow boxing and high knees, down to the floor for mountain climbers.

I finish off with more boxing, my hair is plastered to my neck and face. Off I go, I have to go into work.

At 11:45 I am waiting for Roy at his place, I am early and I have a new book "The Metabolic Typing Diet" by William Wolcott and Trish Fahey, and I sit in the sun reading and waiting, actually enjoying myself.

He arrives and it's shoulder day, I love shoulders. I change into my workout clothes and stretch, then we start in with behind the neck shoulder press. I warm up, then we get up to 75 pounds, all the way down until the bar hits my rhomboids, then power up. My left is so much weaker, it struggles. I think we did 4 sets maybe? I did 10, 8, 6, then 5 if I recall. We then did a drop set, 65 pounds, 55 pounds, 45 pounds.

Roy says my stomach is looking better, that means flatter. It is, I have lost some body fat. My weight is down to 126 pounds yet my muscles still look full. This is good, I do have to start the diet soon, so it helps me "mentally" to see  some improvement when not really trying yet.

Then seated dumbbell press, bringing them slowly all the way down to stretch the muscle, and power up. This, I believe we did 5 sets of with 32.5 pounds in each hand.

Last we did dumbbell front raises, with 12.5  pounds. Several sets, my left arm is almost a joke now, it is so weak compared to the right!

No time for boxing or ropes, damn! Stacy comes in, it's her turn, I have to leave, just when I was getting warmed up.


Funny, I love doing this and could do it all day. Some people complain and whine the entire time they are in the gym- what, do you suppose makes us feel so differently about this?


Saturday will be quads, my poor legs have been beat up so much lately, but I win the battle. They might complain and moan, but I keep them in line, pushing harder and harder everyday.

Boxing

Finally. Boxing for women will be an Olympic sport in 2012, it will be history in the making, you can bet I will watch every match.


It's not that I am a boxing fanatic, on the contrary, I think it is a violent, dangerous sport. But if the men can compete then the women should be able to also, simple as that. 


In the picture above we see Gina Carano at 143 pounds and Cris Cyborg at 144.5 pounds. Pretty buff gals huh?


I have only been to two fights, I will never forget the first one. It was in the ballroom of a hotel, a small intimate setting, we were close, three rows back. The first thing I recall were the ring girls. They were young, very young, and pretty and wore very skimpy clothing and strutted around the ring with their cards. 


The men jeered and leered and made cat calls out to them, it repulsed me. I was thinking "many of these men have daughters at home this age, what would they do if it were their daughter in the ring?"


Then I recall the actual fight. It started fast and sudden, I could hear every blow as it landed, I was so close I could almost feel it. Then the blood, and the sounds of a beaten man. I jumped up out of my seat and ran outside, choking down the vomit, I couldn't stay and watch this.


David came after me and I told him to go ahead and watch the fight, I could not go back into the room.


Fast forward 20 years later to August 15, 2009 and I am at the HP Pavillion, with thousands of other people. I would be sitting way far away, in the nose bleed seats and I am there to see Gina Carano vs Cris Cyborg and Josh Thomson vs Gilbert Melendez (Josh was an AKA fighter, so we had to go). It's MMA, but boxing is part of the deal.


I was walking through the arena and some drunk guy gets right in my face and shouts "Cyborg!!!!" I was a little pissed off, she isn't the prettiest gal on earth. But Cooper grabbed my arm "Mom, it's a compliment, let go of it" and I guess he was right, she does have awesome arms and long blond hair, so maybe that is what he was referring to.


They actually referred to the two of them as "The Beauty and The Beast". Gina, the cute, girl next door is "The Beauty", and Cyborg is "The Beast". Unfortunately poor Gina, the crowd favorite, was beat to a pulp, with her parents in the front row watching. 


Here is a video of the actual fight to give you a bit of an idea what it was all about. (Email subscribers will need to navigate directly to the blog to view the video below).




   


I watched every card, it wasn't nearly as difficult as it was the first time. 


Back to the Olympics though. What blows me away is now they are discussing what the ladies should wear!



The International Amateur Boxing Association sparked charges of sexism by announcing that officials are discussing whether women fighters should be urged to wear skirts in the ring at the 2012 Games.


The decision on skirts will be made in January before the debut of women's boxing this summer at the London Olympics.


I say let them wear what ever they wear when they usually box! And it isn't a skirt, I can guarantee you that!

Friday's Shoulders

Roy changed the training, he said we will be doing something similar to this for the next couple months. He wants to see how I respond to it. Shouldn't take too long to find out, my body adapts and responds quite quickly. 


Friday- How many times have I told you I love Fridays? I get to do everything I love! I hit the gym when they open at 5:00 am and I walk on the stairmill for 20 minutes, actually I was kind of rocking out because I was listening to some new music and closed my eyes and zoned out, when I opened my eyes I found people staring at me laughing. I get into it sometimes, it's actually the only way to make it through the cardio!


Then abs, I practice my Dragon Flags and hanging leg lifts. Then stretching and just a little boxing, not too much since it is shoulder day with Roy.


Work lasts all of 4 hours...ha ha off at 11:30 and then I drive to Roys.


We stretch and start with barbell shoulder presses. He goes pretty heavy, that's the new program for a while. Low reps, heavy weights, several sets.


The back of the bench is all the way upright. I start with maybe 80 pounds, he loads on more and it is too much but I do the reps. I am only aiming for 6 reps so the weight will be heavy, all the way down to my chest, slowly then power up, try not to rest at the top, just keep going.


I think we find a good weight at 90 pounds, it's hard but doable. I do 6 sets, that's quite a bit. You have to think about the total volume. So what if you normally do 3 sets of 10? That's 30 reps right? I did 6 sets of 6, that's 36 reps- more than you and most likely heavier weights. And, we all know:

Heavy weights = big muscles

The rest periods are of course longer. So we can't do a lot of other things. We move into the second exercise I will do, dumbbell shoulder press.

Again the back of the bench is straight up, so I will lift heavier weights. I think I start with 25 and quickly move to 40 pound dumbbells, again, 6 reps. 6 sets of 6.

That's it!

No boxing :( we are out of time. Time is not always my friend, in fact, it is probably the one thing I complain most in the world (other than my son's cat, Thor). I never seem to have enough time to do everything I want to do.


It makes me think though, of my all time favorite band ever- the Rolling Stones. And, one of the best songs "Time is on my Side". While there is so much I want to do everyday, I need to remember, that time is on my side. It's there for me if I want to be free. I have all the time to do what I choose in life, and while I may not be able to fit it all in one day, I can do it another (and maybe the next Friday).


(Email readers will need to navigate directly to the blog to view the video of the very, very young Rolling Stones below).

As usual, I mix up my protein/carb drink (1 to 4 ratio) and drink it with BCAA's and hop into the car- it's off to Whole Foods for grocery shopping then to the eye doctor to have a silicone Punctual Plug inserted into the tear duct of my left eye. Hmmm, I wonder, do I take off my make up first? Nah! Be daring! Plus, I still want to look good when I walk in the office! I will shop, eat and then go to the Doctor.

Friday...did I tell you I love Fridays?

Saturdays Training

I am back! I am really, honestly not a whiner, but I am sick so infrequently that it just blows me away to wake up feeling...well, sick! I usually bound out of bed like an obnoxious energizer bunny, and it was a week of no bounding, but believe me, I still got up and tried my best. 

There was no hop in this bunny's step.

Saturday I finally felt like my ol' self again. I hadn't missed any training, but the intensity just wasn't there before. I was at the gym at opening as usual.

Warm up by walking a few minutes then lots of stretching, I had all the time in the world and it was leg day, so I needed to warm up a lot. My adductors were still quite sore from Wednesdays quad workout with Roy. 

I hit the hams first, low reps, heavy weight. They need to be trained with as much weight as possible, which means that I cannot possibly do many reps each set. Charles Poliquin once said something like "Show me someone who has huge hams and their training consists of light weight with high reps and I will show you someone who is on steroids".

Hamstrings don't respond with lots of high reps, they need heavy weights.

Seated leg curls

Kneeling leg curls ( I do more reps and sets on the left)

Romanian Deadlifts

I get very excited near the end of the kneeling leg curls, my left is incredibly weaker than the right. So much that it is almost laughable. But I do 8 reps on the left and 6 on the right to help catch it up. The 4th set my left all of a sudden has strength! It is not a struggle! Could it have all of a sudden wised up? I cannot wait until Monday to test it with Roy.

Then the Quads, high reps, lighter weight. (Quads, on the other hand, require high reps).

Back squats (lots of them, I mean like 60)

Front foot elevated split squats

Tom walks in and says "I see you are killin' it as usual!", yes I am back in the game! We chat a bit and he is telling me about a Saturday Night Live repeat episode he and his wife saw the night before, I need to Google it. Something about "a box" (I did, and it was hilarious). I told Cooper, David and Lauren about it at lunch and Cooper almost spit his food out, he had already seen it. 


If you want to see it, feel free to take a look at this link. It's potty humor, I must warn you, but pretty darn funny! How did we get there talking by the squat rack? I have no idea....


I finished with 3 sets of 10 on the Glute Ham Raise. I have to do this at the end, it is just too brutal to do any other time. But I LOVE it!

20 minutes on the stairmill

Boxing in the gym. I walk in and there are many men playing basketball, and several sitting on the bleachers. I count, there are 21 men. 6 have no shirt on, and I can periodically see the bodies of those with shirts on too. Oh I am off topic.

I will go 5 rounds of boxing, 2 minutes on and 1 off. I am practicing more with my left as this is my weaker side, I need to develop the strength. I am sweating, and although I have a headband on to keep my hair out of my face, it's useless, I am a mess. I am wailing on that bag like my life depended on it.

One of the guys stops by as he walks to the water fountain "Good workout huh?" "Yes" I respond, "It's a great workout!"

5 is enough, that is a total of 10 minutes, I will go one more round on Sunday, soon I will be able to go a half hour. 

Boxing

I asked Cooper if he had any gloves he didn't need, and he gave me these. They are 12  ounce gloves. I like boxing, it is a really good cardiovascular workout and good for shoulder development.


It's also important to vary your training so your mind and body don't get lazy. I finished my lifting, it was shoulder day, and then I walked down to the basketball courts located in the gym.


I set my gymboss to 3 minutes on, 1 minute rest and approached the heavy bag.

I quickly found out that 3 minutes by myself slamming that bag was too much, so I changed it to 2 minutes, and thought I would try the speed bag a bit too. This is much harder than it looks, the darn bag just doesn't cooperate, it just ends up spinning around in circles. I know this will take quite a bit of practice. 

Back to the heavy bag, there are two so I alternate between the two, moving my feet, changing my stance, concentrating on starting the power from my hips and through the shoulders, not a fling of the fist like a "girl".

I am out of breath, I have only gone 5 two minute rounds and 2 on the speed bag, this is going to be a challenge I can see. But I will do this on my cardio days and weekends and days off, which means I have lots of time to perfect my skills.


When I tell Cooper about this he laughs at me, he has been doing it for years. He said I don't need the speed bag- speed bags are stupid. I question him and he looks me in the eye and says "Mom, there is not one speed bag at AKA".....oh, OK then, screw the speed bag!


When I went to see Roy the other day he asked if I had trained already that day- my shoulders were pumped. Nope, but I had boxed in the morning, and the effects are still evident.


If your gym has heavy bags, I suggest you give this a try, I am loving it!

Shoulders and Boxing

Fridays at noon I meet Roy and we are training shoulders. The last couple weeks we have done some boxing too- that is a really good workout! I have a new respect for my son.


First we did seated barbell shoulder press, the back is straight up on the bench, no incline or decline. We are doing 1 1/4 presses, so bring the bar down very slowly all the way to the chest, then up 1/4 of the way, back down and then power all the way up.


You cannot push as much weight this way, I think I had 75 pounds total, 5 sets of 8 or 9. I lost count. Roy has it all written down though.


Then over to the dumbbells, un supported dumbbell press, bringing them all the way down to get a good stretch in the shoulders, then power up. I started with 25 pound dumbbells and ended with 30. 4 sets of 10.


Then lateral raises, three different weights to hit all the different muscle fibers (slow twitch to fast twitch). He has some micro weights that we use but I don't have those at my gym.


I think it was this: 8 reps at 12.5 pounds; 12 reps at 10 pounds; 20 reps at 5 pounds. 4 sets of this, the shoulders do really start to burn.


Then it was boxing! 3 rounds of 3 minutes with a 1 minute rest in between. Punches, jabs, hooks, and I have to duck when he shouts duck and swings at me. I am pretty good at ducking, not so good at the upper cuts...


I was breathing hard! He would move around the room, pads on hands moving his hands so I could keep throwing punches. I have to do this more often!


When I got home that night David was commenting on my size, I have gotten a bit larger in the last couple months. He is very supportive, but always wants to make sure I have a good idea of what I actually look like, since my own vision can get a bit skewed. Here is what he said:


"When you have dieted down for a competition, you look like a Wide Receiver.
When you start putting on a little weight, you look more like a Running Back. But you know, you have put a lot of weight on now and you are starting to look a little like an Offensive Lineman."


Hmm, time to cut back on the food?