Week 25: Good Ol' Fashioned Heavy Lifting

Just felt like I needed to lift some heavy things (relatively speaking, of course--my 5 rep max's well into the 2nd trimester are maybe half what my pre-pregnancy lifts were).

Nonetheless, a good session that left my legs quivery.

Squats, several light warm-up reps:

45x10; 65x5; 95x5

Then:

105x5; 115x5; 120x5; 120x5; 120x5

Deadlifts: had to move to a sumo-style to accomodate my belly!

95x5x3; 105x5x3

Bench

65x10x2; 75x10x2; 85x10x2

All good!

Week 25: Walking

So they say that walking is supposed to be the best thing you can do while pregnant. It's also the quickest way for my low back to start to feel tweaky. I mean, I do it, I walk, but I'd so much rather row, bike, life weights, or do something totally dynamic like a typical crossfit metcon where more of my body is engaged to support the core.

So anyway, despite my griping, I went on a lovely after-work walk with my sweetie. We just meandered around the beach of our little town, maybe 2-3 miles total. It wasn't a huge sweat fest, but it was a nice walk. It's also amazing how much my cardiovascular system resents hills right now. It's like there's so much blood in my system that asking my body to do anything in a sustained cardio mode sends me into light breathlessness so much more quickly than before. An odd feeling.

Week 23: Baby Helen

5 Rounds

Row 800 meters

10 - Pull-ups, band assisted

15 - 35# plate swings

Total time: 32? minutes

Week 23: 7 x 5 Dumbbell Progression

7 rounds

Round 1-3: 25# each hand

Round 4-7: 30# each hand

5 Dumbbell deadlifts

5 Dumbbell hang cleans

5 Dumbbell push presses

5 Dumbbell squats

This was fine. I didn't warm up, and felt really fatigued going into it. My ass and hip/low back area has been really sore. A good hard foam roller session helped some, but there's a deep muscle pain in my left glute that's really nagging me. I'm wondering if it's carry over from the relative passivity of the return road trip. Unlike the way down, Nick and I didn't stop for a workout on the return trip, and sitting that long just isn't good for the body.

Anyway, I started out at rx pregger weight of 35# and I just couldn't handle the weight. It felt much heavier than it should have, but I dropped down to 25ers and did the first 3 rounds at that weight, pretty comfortably. At that point, I was warmed up and knew I could push it a tiny bit, so I split the difference and moved up to 30# weights. The original rX was for 5 rounds, but I went to 7 rounds because I knew I could and I wanted to get something out of those 30s.

Finished with another foam roller session for my glute/hip soreness. It helped, but only a small amount.

Week 22: Connect the Dots

En route to the Willamette Valley for a birthday get away, Nick and I took advantage of a grassy patch with some well placed trees at one of the rest stops to get our workout on, outdoors and with with on-lookers. What? You never seen two full grown people doing bearcrawls at a highway rest stop before? As I like to say, if they aren't staring, you aren't doing it right.

So, picture a triangle. At the bottom point of the triangle is a picnic table. Some distance from the picnic table are a line of trees, each spaced out diagonally away from the picnic table. We did a series of exercises from the picnic table to the last tree, then ran back to the picnic table, connecting the dots and completing round 1. Make sense? Yeah, it'd be a lot easier to understand if I had an arial diagram. But I don't.

Here's the workout:

5 Rounds:

Picnic table-Tree #1: Bear Crawl (about 36 crawls)

Tree # 1 - Tree #2: Jump Squats (about 12 squats)

Tree # 2 - Tree #3: Walking Lunges (about 16 walking lunges)

Tree # 3 - Picnic Table: Sprint back (about 100 yards)

This got our blood pumping and kept our asses from falling completely asleep on the next leg of the drive.

Fitness Pictures!

I'm coming up on my 31st birthday, and last year around this time I was in full-scale training mode, working out and leaning-out with the goal of getting into the best shape of my life for my 30th birthday. I was very happy with the results -- mission accomplished! So for my 30th birthday, my awesome husband got me a professional fitness photo shoot with Amanda Waltman of Art of Subtlety Photography in Seattle to commemorate my hard work. So, it's been almost a year, and I'm definitely not in "photo shoot" shape at the moment, but I've been going through some of the awesome pictures from the shoot and am pleased to put up a sampler:

Lifting heavy things, beach-style.

Single-arm 54# Kettlebell Swing. Heavy, and it shows in my face!

Against the rocks at the beach.

Studio shot against a white background....a nice clean picture.

Week 22: 6-16 Progression

5 Rounds:

6 Pull-Ups (Small Band Assist)

8 Push-Ups

10 Lower Ab Leg Raise (Roman Chair)

12 Squats

14 Plate Swings (First Round @ 25#, Remaining @ 35#)

16 Walking Lunges (8 per leg)

Rest 5-10 minutes, then:

Row 500 meters for time. Rest 2 minutes between round.

1st Round: 1:58. Went out too hard, had to pause for a few seconds at 350 meters...still kept it under 2 minutes, which shows exactly how hard I started. :)

2nd Round: 1:59

3rd Round: 1:58

2nd Round

Week 22: 55# of pain

3 Rounds

15 overhead squats #55

15 hang power cleans #55

15 shoulder press #55

15 walking lunges

15 bench dips

So the really sucky part of this was definitely the shoulder presses. I think my non pregnant 1 rep max ever on shoulder press is 105#, and I am definitely NOT in the kind of condition I was in when I pushed that weight up....once! 55# gets heavy in a hurry when you're doing 15 reps after shoulders are already fatigued from holding the bar up for 15 OHS!

The Hang Power Cleans were fun and I didn't run into any problems until I whacked myself in the boobs on the way up. I guess that's the drawback of my new, curvier pregnancy body....I have boobs to get in the way of the barbell! There was no belly-whacking, which is the important thing, but uber-trainer Kevin has forbidden any more HPCs due to the risk of bar-to-belly impact. Bummer, but ya gotta listen to your coach.