Wednesday, May 16, 2012

531 C2

I haven't felt very much like logging lately. I've been doing stuff, I've just felt rambly and thus haven't posted, but I think I may indulge myself in rambles.

Is is even possible to have a log that's only about one thing, don't all the parts of life encroach on each other? If I have a good workout, it can make the whole day better. A crappy one can leave me in a terrible mood. I'm finding the reverse can be true too. A crappy mood can easily turn a workout crappy.

I've actually been thinking a lot about feelings lately. Which sounds a bit silly at first I suppose, but I've been having a lot of conversations (Hi Mark!) about being introspective and paying attention to why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. While I still embrace whatever feeling it is, maybe knowing why it is will help recreate it if it's a good feeling and keep it at bay if it's not.

Which brings us to workouts of last week. I did a lot of yoga last week; four classes. And I was incredibly pissed off for 3 of them. Yeah, nice relaxing yoga, making me angry. One class was an instructor that just called out position names in rapid fire. I've done enough yoga that I know what to do, but it was constant movement.  Another was too slow and held positions for too long. The third, I'm not quite Goldilocks, was barely a yoga class. In my book a bosu ball and weights do not belong in yoga. They all got me sweaty, they were workouts, but it took me three classes to figure out why they were so upsetting. Working out is hard, of course there's stuff to bitch about. But what it was is that I wasn't getting what I expected out of the class. For me, yoga is active recovery. I go there to stretch, to move, to relax. I don't want a workout, I want relaxation.

It seems a bit obvious and trivial, but it actually felt like a growing moment. Rather then leave when that third class was making me angry, I made adjustments and got what I wanted out of class. That wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't first come to the realization of what I did want. Knowing why you're doing something, is vital to keep doing it. I don't really want to spend any of my life going through the motions.

I do a lot of motions though (see what I did there?) and just finished up the second wave of 531. I'm feeling really good about bench, OHP (overhead pressing) and DLs (deadlifts). Highlights:

Bench 95x3, I'm starting to understand leg drive more and it's paying off. I'm going to have to start thinking about arching. Which I don't really do, but is going to have to get into why I bench. If it's for numbers, I'm going to have to arch.

OHP 70 x 3, I'm getting this form down, this will go up a lot more soon

DLs 195x3 Chalk is totally worth the hassle and hand prints

And now we're to squats. They're just not feeling good. I think I'll pull them out of 531 and do something else. I'm thinking a bit of time light weight, high rep. Grease the groove as they say. I got some really good suggestions on google+ that I need to play with. I'm deloading this week, so by next week I'll have to have it figured out.

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far :)