The NOT so fun stuff

 

This morning, I woke up excited to discover that my lower back pain seemed to have gone away.  I spent about an hour last night, stretching, rolling, balling my legs / glutes / everything - and what do you know, it worked, obviously (<-- sarcasm).

Over the holiday period I had definitely been putting in the time and hard work with training, but neglected to mobilize and help with recovery as much as I usually try too.

Lesson learnt.  I have to take care of this 30++ body.

So, even with my lower back pain subsiding, the rest of my body feels a little beaten up.  I had written out my plan yesterday and decided to just crack on and do what felt good.

As soon as it stopped feeling good, stop.

With Monday usually being a heavy leg day (of sorts), Tuesday I focus on my core and upper body strength.

Warm up:

Skipping practice & rotator cuff exercises

Hollow hold with PVC + Arch hold with PVC

Hollow rocks with PVC + Arch rocks with PVC

Lat activation on bar + Static open & close on bar

 Strict chin ups + beat swings (sort of like kipping but less bend at the hips)

Wall climb + shoulder taps

HSPU strict practice

HSPU kipping practice

Ring rows + push ups

Dips + free handstand practice (both of these SUCK for me)

Then today I finished off with some mod dragon flys, hollow cast pulls and hollow rocks / v ups.

I would usually do a WOD, but, not today.

Body weight exercises are so frustrating for me.  I feel the burn and I feel exhausted to the point of muscle failure, but I am not out of breath or sweating profusely.  I often feel pretty dejected and like I haven't 'worked' when I leave the gym - but, after sticking with it, I can definitely see and feel improvements.

I guess, this isn't really the FUN stuff that most Crossfitters / athletes like to do.  It is way more fun learning to do butterfly pull ups or kipping HSPU or throwing a barbell around - but, I need this in my program.  I KNOW it is doing my body good.

The WOD over at crossfit looks pretty decent tonight so I might go over for the 6.30pm class and have a play around.  I know tomorrow is a long cardio grind day (no weights, just building an engine) so I feel fine knowing I can spend a bit more energy today. 

 

Here I am with the girls on NYE.  How lucky am I to have such babes as friends :)

Sunday Exploring, a Great Start to 2016

Welcome to 2016

This last year has been one of the best years of my life.  I achieved so many personal goals that I'd set, even as a youngster - so I really do feel like I have achieved something.

2016 is starting with a bang, as I am moving to Los Angeles in February!!  This next month will be spent enjoying as much of London as I can, with my favorite people. 

On Sunday, Michelle and I took a bus over to Walthamstow to check out a quirky place called God's Own Junkyard.  It is filled with old neon signs and even has an onsite cafe so you can have a bite to eat or a cold beer.  We obviously chose the cold beer, even though it was bucketing down with rain and we were saturated.

Once we had seen enough, we headed to the Cat Emporium in Shoreditch on the off chance they had space for walk in customers.  Lol I don't even like cats but Bestie does and I love to tease her about it and the fact that dogs are better than cats.  We enjoyed bagels for late lunch and of course, most of the cats were sleeping.  Jerks!

I couldn't resist getting a selfie with one of the only cats walking around.  Even though I think it hated me ;)

 

Monday was the first day back at work for 2016 so I figured I would try and make it as pain free as possible, with an early mornig leg day. 

Warm up:  1,000m row

All the below 'machine exercises' were done with a medium to light weight, to failure for 4 sets

Leg extensions

Seated leg curl

Calf press

Thigh abducter

Then I completed a series of squat specific warm up exercises and stretches.  My lower back was a bit sore (must have slept funny) so I needed to make sure I wasn't doing more damage than good. 

Back squats

Front rack lunges

Overhead plate lunges

Squat cleans

This week is going to be somewhat of a deload / light week for me. My body is a bit sore from going fairly heavy and hard the last few weeks, so I am going to listen to it and take the rest it so clearly is telling me is needs.

I love and hate being 30++ 

Oh and Ps this was stuck in our heads, the whole way over to Walthamstow.  I hope the same thing happens to you ;)