Alexus' Adventure in Wonderland

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerful Women
1

32 years old,
5’7,
63kg.
Link to last log: Beginners Gains - Powerful Women - Forums - T Nation

Goals:

  1. Mobility

Very limited ankle dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, and rotation from car accident in 2003. Also have trouble with clawed toes that don’t stretch back from the ball of my foot.

I’m going to do mobilityWOD daily, starting from the first episode. Very religious about my EVA rolling and ball tissue work. Just got some resistance bands (pull-up pack) and micro-bands (rehab pack) and looking forward to learning about their many uses.

  1. Strength

Doing Starting Strength (Ripptoe) and want to try drawing out linear progress. Working towards (3x5) bodyweight squat (though if i could get it for a single I’d be happy, too), 3/4 bodyweight bench, 1/2 bodyweight press (so close!), yellow plate (45kg) powerclean, and 1x5 1.5 bodyweight deadlift. Yes. I am weak. I’m going to fix that.

  1. Olympic lifting

Snatch and Clean and Jerk (for a single) the yellow plates (45kg). Current best snatch is 40kg. Clean is a farce because my front squat is very weak (1RM 45kg) and I can powerclean more than squat out of a clean. Front squat stalled with linear progression and I didn’t make it past the Russian Squat Routine 4x4 so have decided to focus on Strength at least until i have a bodyweight low bar back squat. Currently doing Oly technique with relatively light weights as part of active recovery on my off days.

Oly lifting is very hard for me because I lose a lot of leverage and have difficulty finding positions because of my lack of ankle dorsiflexion. Also significant difficulty split jerking because my toes don’t bend back so I’m learning to squat/power jerk which isn’t much fun either. Oly lifting is my first love. I’m hoping I’ll get a lot better at it with improved mobility and strength (given that I’m going to keep on working technique).

  1. Nutrition

Aiming for at least 100g of protein daily. That is 2 shakes and 2 cans of tuna (but I can sub alternatives). Once that is reliable I’ll track calories for a while. Then look into altering things. Want my legs to grow because they are still a bit atrophied from injury I think. I am growing.

  1. Smoking

Aim to stoppit. Not quite yet. But important to keep saying this.

TRAINING

Still wrecked from maxing my deadlift 3 days ago (seemed like a good idea at the time).

  • Lots of rolling.

Improved toe mobility from working hard on my ‘wiggle your big toe’ stretches and getting stuck in with a golfball over the last couple days and calves are wrecked. That is good news. ITB a mess, too. DOMS in medial glutes from yesterdays x-band walks and micro-band squats.

  • MobilityWOD episode 1

10 minutes hanging out in a deep squat.

mommy! ankles / feet did not like this at all. everything else doing fine.

  • X-band walks 3x10 per side

  • glute bridge 1x15, one legged glute bridge 2x10 (need to check I’m doing these right)

  • a bunch of micro-band squats KNEES OUT! DRIVE THE HIPS THROUGH!

1/2 a rotisserie chicken. goodnight. zzz. been having trouble with waking up crazy early over this last week (so deloady time, i think)

2

I keep meaning to do MobilityWOD but I get lazy. Heh. It is a great site, though.
Good goals all round.

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Thats quite a list Alexus! Hope your music list is updated, 10 min squat is a long time.

4

[quote]alexus wrote:
10 minutes hanging out in a deep squat.
[/quote]
Do you mean just sitting down deep with ass to the floor? Or holding a PL-depth squat for 10 minutes. Big difference.

5

Just checking in on you. I like that stopping with the smoking is on your list.

I’m wiggling my big toes now in solidarity with you.

6

Wonderland, so you decided to take the red pill. S’m good goals there! Wiggling the big toe was the hard part, the other piggies & body parts will fall in line.

I might need to add in some micro band squats again (I think we are talking about the same thing here), along with x walks, after my squatting fiasco yesterday.

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Snaps - here: http://www.mobilitywod.com/
Episode 300 (actually this one recurs several times but it’s here right near the top of the page).

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Yay for the new thread!

I tend to wake up at riducolous times aswell. But I relate that to my love of coffee, although I only have 2 shots a day. Do you like coffee Alexus? And i didnt realise you do mobilityWOD, which is great but sometimes that guy can get a bit confusing.

tweet tweet

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Cal - Thanks. Had a look through a few of the vids and looks like i’m going to be discovering a lot about my bodies deficiencies. Really hope this will help me recruit things properly for all the lifts.

Upscale - More than half of that time was spent with me hugging the hell out of a bench trying to take some of the stress off my ankles. I think the whole thing would have been a lot more relaxing if I’d been wearing my super-oly shoes (2x standard heel raise).

Snapper - Just hanging out down there. Some prying the hips apart, some recruiting then relaxing, some wiggling around and bouncing. The aim was just to spend 10 minutes hanging out down there, however felt useful / good.

Kimba - Wiggling my toes back at ya!

minimal - I feel like the gym is this wonderful playground that I’ve just discovered. Curiouser and curiouser.

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TRAINING

  • Rolling - Calves pretty bruised so just gentle massage rolling trying to promote blood flow. ITB doing better after all the work I did yesterday. Spent some time on my upper back / around my shoulders.

  • Glute Bridges 1x15, One legged Glute Bridges 2x10 each side.

  • X band walks - 3x 10 steps each side. These feel like just the thing i need to do to strengthen adductors / medial glutes. And strengthening those feels like just the thing I need to do to stabilize my femur around the front of the hip. Some DOMS in medial glutes. That is good.

STARTING STRENGTH B

  • Low Bar Back Squat

20kg 1x5
25kg 2x5
30kg 1x5

35kg 3x5 (0.5kg increase because that is the way the plates roll)

Movement feeling really good for the micro-band around the knees air squats I did yesterday. Will keep doing those on my off days. Weight felt fine. Got much more in me which is as it should be.

  • Powerclean

35kg 1x3
37.5kg 1x2

39.5kg 6x3 (1kg increase)

Okay. Need to be careful about using hip drive rather than using my arms (not sure why I’m suddenly finding this a problem). Can work on being more upright (chest up hips down) from the floor and keeping the bar close - it is a little forwards for the catch. Weight is work, but I’ve got more in me. Getting down under a tiny bit lower for the catch, too, which is good progress for my ankles.

  • Press.

Bailed. There is one guy at my gym who represented the country for Oly Lifting. I don’t see him around very much these days - so when I do I try and do something Oly because occasionally he will offer a pointer or two.

  • Oly Bar Work.

  • hang clean (trying to drop fast into a tight bottom front squat position)

  • drop snatch (trying to get speed under the bar for a tight bottom position)

  • hang snatch (trying to get hip drive then drop)

Tried some snatches with microbands (need to work on frogging my legs out more for Oly Lifting so I can bring my hips in closer to / under the bar). Not sure about these…

Done.

11

Solid workout. I find my calves take a beating when I deadlift - if you maxed a few days ago it could explain the knots.

I actually can’t sit and the bottom of a squat like that. My bodyparts don’t play nicely together.

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Video of X-walks please.

tweet

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I like your goals!

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NEW LOG ALERT!

i will be following(duh). i love the goal list! I wish i was as focused as you. I do hope the no-smoking happens for you. Its important.

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1/2 a chicken is some good honest eating.

yeah for new log!

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cal - i can tell that my new calf ouchies are from the new range of motion because when i stretch out my toes i can feel tendons / muscles up my calves and around my ankles that i never knew existed. i certainly did get a full body slamming from those deadlifts, though. treading very gently with them for a while.

bird - okay. i’ll take some vids on saturday.

nadia - thanks

dasher - yup. smoking fucks up my recovery. reduced oxygen means my tendons don’t recover as well as they would otherwise. among other things, of course.

nimain - i even woke up starving 5 hours later and ate the other half :-p

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TRAINING (yesterday)

  • Lots of rolling. Calves still feeling like they just needed very gentle rolling. Upper back has some ouchies since I’ve gotten stuck into around my shoulder blades with the plastic ball.

  • A little bit of snatching stuff with the bar.

Bailed. I shouldn’t have gone, really. Needed to rest / recover.

TRAINING (today)

  • Lots of rolling. Using the golf ball a bit lightly around my ankles. Will be ready to get stuck into that soon. Surprised at what I’m digging out of around my shoulder blades. Had just given it a cursory roll before.

  • x band walks 3x10 steps

  • a couple micro-band air squats

Starting Strength A

  • Low Bar Back Squat

20kg 1x5
25kg (used microbands) 2x5 - not happy with my pushing my knees out here
30kg 1x5 - without microbands - now pushing knees out much better!

36kg 3x5 (1kg increase)

  • Bench

20kg 1x5 - feeling wobbly and useless with just the bar
25kg 1x5 - better
30kg 1x5

33.5kg 3x5 (1kg increase)

got a hand off / spot on the last set. hmm… when everything is properly tight it feels pretty easy, when things aren’t then it feels very hard. might do this weight once more again really focusing on keeping things tight.

  • Deadlift

40kg 1x5 - slow and controlled
50kg 1x5 - faster
60kg 1x5 - could be holding arch a little bit tighter, i think. felt easy, though so
65kg 1x5 - could be holding arch a little bit tighter.

might do this again next time (assuming i feel not wrecked tomorrow). really focus on form. then will do little weight increases…

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New log!!! *peepin in **

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I’m following along. I’m not sure what X walks are though.

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Ah lost my post. Seriously, I have issues hitting that submit button. Stupid work distracting me from posting on here.

Way to go on the benching progress. My shoulders feel like they have boulders in them. Keep it tight Lexy.