Thursday, September 3, 2009

I Should Be Sponsored....

By Dunkin Donuts. It's a little sad when I go to get my coffee in the morning before work that the people that work there have my coffee ready within seconds of me walking through the door (not that a large black coffee takes long to pour). But what's even worse is that they have even begun to notice that I'm dieting and have begun to point out my weight loss on a regular basis. A couple have jokingly asked for diet tips (uuhhh, don't eat the doughnuts?), which I've told them I will gladly offer in exchange for free coffee. Now, I'm not usually a big coffee drinker in the offseason, but when I'm dieting, I loooooove the taste of it...probably because just about anything tastes good when you're starving on a contest diet. So, my little daily slice of heaven during prep is my morning cup of DD (and sometimes my afternoon and evening cups).

This week has brought the return of a more positive attitude for me, and it seems that my workouts follow suit. Monday night's leg workout was initially set up to be a disaster since I had no idea what I wanted to do other than avoid squatting for a change. Well, I avoided them for my quad workout, at least--I wound up sticking them in at the end of my ham workout Tuesday morning. I know, I'm so sneaky. Anyway, the quad workout was completely different than anything we've done in a while and looked like this:

Extensions: 10x10 with the same weight

Leg Press: 3x20 SS w/ Smith Lunges: 3x15

Hack Squats: 2 Rest-Pause sets followed by a high-rep set (Rest-Pause: Plate on each side for 10 reps, rest 20 seconds then attempt 8 reps, rest 20 seconds, then attempt 6 reps)

Now, don't get me wrong, when we were done, I was tired, but I didn't feel completely maxed out and actually considered throwing squats in there. But I opted to back off since I knew I had 30 minutes of cardio left to do still. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I was sore, but nothing horrible, so I proceeded on to my ham workout. I mixed things up a bit there, too, by adding in high rep stiff-leg dead lifts. That movement typically wreaks havoc on my left ham, but using very light weight and focusing on squeezing my hams and glutes made it VERY effective, as I found out when I fell out of bed Wednesday morning. Yesterday, I thought someone had taken a freaking sledgehammer to my legs while I was sleeping. I have not been that sore since before starting my diet, and I loved it!

Last night's shoulder workout also went really well. We've been starting with 5x5 standing military presses, but I think that after this week, I'm going to take them out. I just don't seem to have the strength to do them properly anymore, and I'm going to wind up hurting myself trying to push weight that I can't handle. Training shoulders has been one of the highlights of my week lately, as I continue to see increasing detail in them every time I train them. I have vascularity and separation that I've never had before.

I have to say, I am continuing to feel really positive (for the most part) through this prep. And I'm convinced that it has so much to do with resolving a lot of personal issues that I was struggling with in the months leading up to my prep. It's amazing how certain situations and relationships can have such a negative impact on every aspect of your life. I have always been good at compartmentalizing things and keeping my training separate from everything else in my life, or so I thought. But it's not until recently that I've realized that it has been affected indirectly by negative situations I've put myself in. I'm definitely a little gun-shy and nervous that this feeling is only temporary, and it's only a matter of time before I'm sucked back into being miserable and cranky. And that may be true, but for now, I'm trying hard not to worry about 15 steps ahead (like I usually do) and deal with what's in front of me at this moment. Of course, being that the end of the week is quickly approaching, it's entirely reasonable for me to worry about the cheat meal that lies ahead on Saturday.

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