Boot-camp Boot-camp Ghali

My husband loves that name and calls me Boutros from time to time. Most of our pet names are actually rude.

It was my fault. I started feeling like I was in great shape and boot camp was no longer the enormous challenge it was before. I did it to myself, really.

I have been going in the afternoon which I think definitely helps. More food in the system, not sleepy, had all day to kind of talk myself into it. We have plans tonight and I couldn't sleep thanks to my crazy back, so I decided to just get up and go like 10 mins before I had to leave the house.

Usually we do 4-5 circuits of things 4-5 times. It is tough, but doable.

Wednesday we did circuits of: TRX rows, TRX squat jumps, weird tubing rows, weird tubing chest press, run a bit, kettlebell squats, kettlebell deadlifts, partner assisted running with bands (aka my arch nemesis). We do about 45 seconds each part w/o rest until the end of the 4th circuit. This is our usual routine though the exercises usually vary. At the end they usually make us run about 1/3 to 1/2 a mile, then back for ab stuff.

Today he decided to do some kind of evil new plan.

3 minutes each to do: 50 squats then 50 burpees, run this terrible weighted bag up and down a hill, drag a tire, as many pushups as possible, 50 weighted squats and then 50 medicine ball slams. I did not make it to 50 by the end. We got a super rejuvenating minute of rest b/t all these.

Then it was on to 1.5 mins of V sit-ups, resistance twists (standing using your core. same basic trunk movement as swinging a bat), standing oblique reaches with kettlebells. Then! 50 bicycle crunches x 2, these weird crunches where you reach up and touch your raised leg, and these terrible ones where you get into bicycle crunch position but just lift a straightened leg up and down. I'm terrible at describing these things!

I was dying. I did not have enough breakfast for this!

Obviously

It would figure that the day I posted about how much better I am at boot camp and how I've totally turned a corner would end with me getting my ass handed to me at boot camp. Inevitable.

It was bad, y'all. First off it was late Friday before a long weekend and there were 4 of us there. Let me tell you, you do not want individual 1 on 1 attention at boot camp! I have no idea why, but I just felt like crap the whole time. Wednesday had been an all arms day-and I had done amazingly well at it, which is surprising as I have the upper body strength of a 6 yo. So Friday was all legs. I had no stamina, my muscles were killing me, and my back also got jacked up. My trainer was even like "what is wrong with you today?!" I don't know! It ended with 40 squat jacks, 40 mountain climbers, and 40 burpees. About 30 into the squat jacks he just told me to lie down and do crunches. I was only getting exhausted, and not getting good reps.

We are off this week, so I've been, ahem, resting. I still ran a few times, but I'm not doing hard core intervals or weights. My slacker gene rears its ugly head!

Did you have a fun Fourth? We were pretty low key, but managed to eat some really good food! Are you like me-taking week long breaks occasionally?

This is what dying feels like

You guys. My arms. I have never been this sore in my life-even after the hellish first day of high school softball where we had a practice that lasted for 6 hours.

Yesterday at boot camp we did the following arm killing things:

*3 sets of assisted pushups. These were both awesome and terrible. Basically one person is doing push-ups and the other person is a spotter. You loop a strong, rubber belt around your middle and your spotter helps lift and lower you. So you can get all the way down into a push-up without using all your body weight. This is my main problem with pushups-they are fantastic exercises, but I just straight up am too weak to get far enough into the move to benefit.

I can not tell you how sore my arms are right now.

*two sets of sprints with the same bands/spotter holding you back. These entertain me though they are tough!

Then three sets of:
*kind of a tug of war thing where one person is pulling the rope through and the other person is holding the end with resistance, but also walking to the puller. Like if you were pulling something heavy out of a hole or something. (So basically 6 sets b/c half the time you are the puller, the other half the pullee.)

*pulling a tire with 20 lbs of kettle balls in them. Using the TRX handles at our shoulders, we would take a huge step forward into a lunge and bring the back foot up. Then take a big step lunge with the other foot. Until you die.

*Weighted squats-leaning back holding onto a TRX handle you can lean back into a squat in a new and painful way! We did these holding a 10 lb kettleball.

*Shoulder presses with resistance tubing. These would  be better for me if I could actually stretch the tubing!

Then a fun maybe 0.1-0.2 mile sprint!

Then! Two minutes of ab planks. After all that arm work Abs? Fine. Arms? Shaking like you wouldn't believe.

During, I feel like I'm going to die. We are moving quickly through the exercises and then on to the next ones so you never get a break to catch your breath. I feel like if I could just have 20 seconds b/t things to rest I would be able to do more reps.  And at the end I feel 1) I could've pushed myself harder and 2) I'm going to die. Can someone carry me to my car and then drive it home? The trainer did make me feel better. He said I should be exhausted and barely able to do each rep. So that's good, I guess.

It is definitely a different experience! We are in a park and close to a side road, so whenever we start warming up I feel like a self conscious nerd. He also has music playing  while we do jumping jacks (which you may remember from 30DS I haaaate). Let me tell you, mid workout I have no idea where I am, if music is playing, etc.

Today, my right arm is CRAZY sore. I'm a little worried I have sprained my elbow. I'm a regular sprainer, so this isn't really unusual and I'm sure it will be fine in a few days. Just part of the fun of having ligaments made of silly string. I can't bend my arm much past 90 degrees without it hurting my elbow/tricep. I can't feed myself!! My elbow can not move my hand to mouth! This might be a good thing, actually.

Have you ever sprained something? An elbow? I'm old. Have any remedies besides RICE? 

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!
**yes Megan, I will allow LJ posting ; )

It's always the knees

I went to PT today! I was supposed to go yesterday, but wrote down my appt time for 30 mins later. Oops.

I'm going to go ahead and share my results and exercises in case anyone else has these problems. Plus, the therapist said these are great exercises for anyone who runs.

So like the internet told me, it is my hip flexor and ab-ductor muscles. I did kind of expect b/c I know I use my hip to lift my leg more than my knees (b/c they are weak and painful. My knees were the first part of my body to start failing. In fourth grade. I started regularly dislocating my knee caps at that age. I luckily haven't had this happen in 11 years. It is indescribably painful and more than a little gross.) So imagine me running with my foot turned about 30 degrees out. I'm sure I look totally crazy.

She said she could see the weakness in my knees and that hip flexor pain is often tied to weak knees and hips. She recommended I focus on making sure my knee is pointing forward at all times, and lengthening my stride. Apparently this kind of pain is relatively common in runners. To be honest, I laughed every time she called me a runner. I don't think my like 12-15 miles per week every single day at a super slow pace really qualifies me as a runner.

She had me stand on one foot than the other and just checked my balance. Then she had me squat on one foot. And by "squat" I mean bend my knee about 10 degrees.

Here is what she saw in me (besides my squishy white legs):

The weak side. See how far my knee goes towards median and how my hip kind of has to pop out wide to balance? Apparently that is bad. Also, in taking these pictures it became very obvious how much weaker this side was. I would turn on the auto timer and then wobble and flop trying to hold myself up for the camera. Most of the first tries showed my hands all out to the side trying to balance.

"Good" side. Ok, so it looks like my knee is pointing out.  Bad self photography. But I can get several inches lower and then don't wobble.






Please ignore the towel in my hallway. My dogs had a crazy time in the wet yard today.

Also, I love these shorts b/c they have full tight shorts underneath instead of the built in underoos. They are just the generic bcg from Academy ($13!) and good for PT so the entire gym doesn't have to see my downstairs.

My exercises
1) Standing side leg lifts with a resistance bands
2) Standing back leg lifts with lifted foot rotated out to perpendicular and standing foot straight ahead
3) Clamshell: lie on your side with resistance band around knees. Keep feet together but lift knee, rotating at   the hip.
4. Bridges: lie on your back, knees bent and up, and just lift your butt. I usually do these on a ball. 

Plus hip flexor and ITB stetches. Good times.