Good Week, Even Better Weekend

So my weight this week is NOT at all reflective of the progress I made. My weight stayed the same, 142.6, but my pictures showed a significant change. The two things that really stuck out to me were the detail that's already showing in my upper back and the very tiny bit of hamstring that was noticable in my rear-facing poses. While I was certainly trying to put on overall size this offseason, I knew I needed to focus on my back (mostly width, which is still a work in progress, but also thickness) and my quads/hams. I have spent that past 11 months hammering away at these body parts, literally. And like any athlete can attest to, seeing the fruits of your labor is one of the best feelings ever...right next to being awarded the overall win for that hard work. As much as I began to struggle with dead lifts at one point in my offseason, they have 100%, without a doubt paid off. I only hope the heavy squatting has helped my ass as much as it's helped my quads.

A little side story: I can remember as early as the 6th grade, I began really HATING my legs. I always thought that they were just too big. A good friend of mine also happened to feel the same way about her legs, and we made a pact to always wear pants all year long (I guess neither of us wanted to be the only ones wearing jeans in the middle of the 90 degree summer). As silly as this sounds, I am convinced that my crazy obsession with training legs stems, at least partly, from that time in my life. Also, I have always wanted to have tight, shapely, and if I'm really lucky, striated glutes on stage.

Anyway, my workouts this week felt pretty good. I had a tough time getting going in yesterday's chest workout and this morning's back workout, but once I got into a rhythm, things moved along well. I had taken pictures last night, and we decided that I needed to revamp my back training to focus more on pulldowns. I did a bunch of different pulldown grips including, close grip, reverse grip, wide grip, and straight arm press downs. I also threw in some heavy t-bar rows (love them!), bb rows, and 1-arm db rows.

And I'm looking forward to the rest of this weekend because my little brother's home for the long weekend. It's not often that I get to see him since he's out in Hawaii, but he is at an officer training school in Maryland, so he drove up for the weekend. Tonight, we'll probably meet up with some of his friends, and then tomorrow night it's a little family bbq at my pseudo-parents' house. The only way to make this weekend better is for me to head to the couch now and take a little nap before round 2 of cardio ;-)