Wrapping up Week 6

We wrapped up Week 6 of Starting Strength last night with the usual stuff. A few of the people in the group were out of town yesterday and one person's girlfriend actually fell and hurt herself (FEEL BETTER CANDYCE!!!), so it was down to a group of three tonight. It was actually the original three who started this whole process, so it was kind of fun. Plus we finished a lot quicker than normal. And it's Friday, which means we started an hour early and it's too hot to go to the park, so the warmup did not consist of jogging! (I don't like to jog much)

First was the usual squats. I upped it to 210 lbs, and I finally think I've got the hang of squats. I can definitely go lower, but my depth has increased (or is it decreased....I mean the good one, just to be clear) a ton since I spent that week at 195, and adding in the 5 lbs makes this seem very possible. I should be good for a while now, but someday in the future there will be another road block. I can't just keep adding 5 lbs every other day forever. But ya, yesterday's 210 went great!

We moved on the shoulder press. Over the week I've been thinking about how I struggle with certain weight increases more than others. After all that thinking, I came to the conclusion that just because I complete a weight doesn't necessarily mean I own that weight. If I struggle through 5 reps of something, isn't +5 going to kick my ass? Which is when my form breaks down and I stall? So with that in mind, I decided that even though I finished 130 lbs on shoulder press on Monday, I had to push as hard as I could. 135 just didn't seem possible if I had to struggle that hard at 130. So I decided to repeat 130 last night, and not move up until I can rock through a weight with good form and breathing.

With all that in mind, I did 130 lbs on shoulder press, and it actually felt heavy. I got all the reps, but two times (one in the first set and after the first rep of the last set) my arms just completely stalled. Each time the guys actually moved to help me, but I said I had it and pushed up. But it was only that one rep that would do that. The rest of the reps in the set would pump out very clean.

So, good day on shoulder press, and I will debate moving up on Wednesday. The following Monday for sure, but Wednesday is a strong maybe at the moment.

Finally there were pullups! I did 3 sets of 7. That's 21 pullups!!! And each set actually felt easier than the one before it. It was a very cool pullup day.

We finished with the usual abs, and then went in for dinner.

So about dinner.....
I did not eat well yesterday. It actually (in retrospect) wasn't too terrible of a day, but aside from my morning juice I ate eggs for breakfast (not bad, but not the usual diet of the week), a banana two hours later, and then devoured Mexican food at our team potluck. I made queso dip, and I'll tell you right now there is not a single healthy thing about my homemade queso dip. There were enchiladas and carne asada and spanish rice too, and man did we eat! And then we had a meeting in the same room for 3 hours, surrounded by the food (which I only nibbled on the chips, but just saying). I only really ate about two plates worth, but it was not fruit and nuts like the rest of the week.

After all that and then the workout, plus the Mediterranean dinner that was scheduled, after working out I decided I should do another vegetable juice, just to be safe. Unfortunately, my roommate had eaten all of the apples. I have yet to try (up to this point in the story) a juice without my usual two apples, and keep in mind that I've been commenting how everything thus far has tasted like apple juice.....

This one did not! I don't even remember what was in it officially, and I will spare the world the recipe of this vegetable monstrosity, and but it had multiple carrots, those two broccoli things from the morning, a cucumber and a ton of spinach. And you know what? It tasted like all of those things. It was horrible. It tasted like vegetables again!

So apparently I don't care for vegetables as much as I'd (proudly) felt all week. I just like apple juice, a lot, and if you can make something taste like apple juice I'll eat it.

I did drink this juice by the way. It wasn't pretty, but I chugged it. I needed the vegetables and it was the only way. It was a rough three minutes, and there were chugging breaks.

That's my week. Today I may cheat a little food wise, but I plan on finding plenty of apples and still making a juice at some point. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bring it!