The Rippetoe Four

As everyone who reads this blog (hi to both of you) knows, I've lost some weight since my strength building phase earlier this year. I'm down probably 6-8 pounds at this point, and am sitting around 150.

I can tell a lot of that was adipose, but it's hard to not lose any muscle when you're losing weight, and since I skipped out on the Crossfit Total the other day I've been feeling a bit guilty.

So, for no reason other than that it sounded fun, I did a little Tour de Strength ala Mark Rippetoe. In other words, some of everything we learned at the Barbell Cert in February (actually we also did Hang Cleans at the cert, which I skipped today).

First, 5 Rounds, alternating exercises, of:

Squat, 10 reps @ 135#
Deadlift, 10 reps @ 135#

Then, 5 Rounds, alternating exercises, of:

Bench Press, 10 reps @ 95#
Press, 10 reps @ 50#

Deadlift and Squat were challenging on the last few reps but no problem at all. Bench Press and Shoulder Press both got partitioned almost round 2 on, which really changes the nature of the workout. They broke down like this:

Bench Press: 10, 8+2, 8+2, 6+4, 5+5
Shoulder Press: 10, 7+3, 7+3, 7+3 (a little push-press happened here), 5+5

And that was that. Tomorrow shouldn't be a rest day, but I am taking it as a pure recovery day to be really rested for the photo session on Monday. I'm getting pretty excited, hoping to get some great arty fitness shots.