It's a bittersweet symphony, this life...

I'm sick.

Not "sick" like I enjoy creepy activities or exhibit creepy behaviors, but sick like my throat is all closed up and raw and I have some serious fatigue.  PERFECT timing with my meet coming up this weekend (hey, sarcasm).

Why did my immune system take a dump on me now?  I've got an idea or two:

Idea one:
I had to prepare to coach against a group of kids who I had spent the last 2 years training and coaching and generating quality coach-athlete relationships with with a group of no-heart, no-personality soft-bread punks.  You can imagine how that went. I put a lot of emotional energy into preparing my kids for this game, and they just kinda laughed it off all week like "You're just saying they're good because you coached them for two years, we will totally (magically) be able to beat them with our nonchalant attitude and complete absence of any physical training base or technical soundness".  And then during the game, it was hard watching former players of mine pretty much embarrassing current players of mine, who just don't want to be coached, apparently.  I was able to have a nice little reunion with the 5 or 6 kids from Novato who I really worked with a lot, but it put into really, painfully sharp contrast that even though I'm geographically where I want to be, coaching wise, there is a massive gulf between where I am this season as a coach and where I feel I should be as a coach.  Cognitive dissonance at it's most simple and frustrating core.  This took a LOT out of me.

Idea two:
I judged and coached all Sunday at the TJs Games.  I would not do this any differently at all, but WOW, this just flat broke me.  I was welling up with tears of inspiration not 5 minutes into the 1st event, and then spent the rest of the day (roughly 9 hours) on my feet cheering, counting, judging, coaching, and strategizing with clients of all skill levels from my gym (you can peep the workouts and placing HERE).  It was an absolutely amazing day, and by the end of it I knew my immune system's goose was cooked.  I was asleep on my coach by 6:30.  I missed Sergio Romo blasting a fastball down the pipe past Miggy Cabrera to shut up the east coast media.  I flat conked out.  And now, I am hurting for sure.

These two things combined much like the frightening confluence of meteorological phenomena over on the east coast right now to just completely put me on my ass.

Now I know what all 3 of you, my readers, are wondering: What does this do to my training this week, leading up to my meet?

Well, dear Cranes and my Mom, I used today as an opportunity to train in less-than-ideal conditions.  I've called in sick from work for the week, so I decided to get in the gym today and bust out my final prep day of squats and bench, and hopefully I will dead lift tomorrow or Wednesday and use Thursday and Friday to rest like crazy.

And even though I felt like absolute trash, the funniest thing happened: I posted 5RM PR's in both my squat AND bench.  The squatting was NOT pretty, but I did it (You can see just how fatigued my back is from everything I mentioned previously on reps 3-5).  The benching was pretty awesome, but I had my doppelganger Bob there to spot me to greatness.

So, Even though it hurt and I questioned myself all the way through, I'm glad I trained today just in case I have to go into my competition feeling gross and sick: I now know I will be fine even though I feel like trash.

Ups and downs were in abundance this week but I suppose that's just part of the rhythm of life.

Here is my video:

As always, thanks for reading.  I'll update you 3 on wednesday about how I'm feeling and any new developments.

Little wins.

Today was my last heavy training day before my meet next weekend, and I felt GREAT. As I was thinking about how I felt after this week (my squats on Tuesday included), I began to feel like my gains in strength while following this set of programming may have out-paced the numbers I was basing my percentages on. Needless to say, that feels really good. I am feeling very confident heading into the meet and I am really happy with my strategy for my attempts.

Here is my training sets for today:

GO GIANTS!

Spiritual fatigue (Also, squats)

So my training is going awesome and awesome and I'm really happy and looking forward to my meet in 2 weeks, plus I think I have my attempt strategy figured out for my squats after today's training session.

*THE MAJORITY OF THIS POST HAS BEEN DELETED*

I had an absolutely fantastic weekend.  I basically got to audit a CrossFit/Strongman seminar that I had taken 2 years ago from one of my favorite athletes, Rob Orlando, because I was the contact for my gym, which hosted the seminar.  Towards the end of the seminar, Rob, an athlete and coach that I admire, asked me if I would be interested in interning on his seminar staff the next time they have a seminar in the northwest (um...YES.). SO: I was offered an opportunity to share something I am passionate about, with people who are paying money to have it shared with them...MAN did that get my imagination going.

Squats (2RM PR at the end):

Followed up with the following:
3x10 walking barbell lunges @ 155
EMOM:
odd: Pendlay Row x 5 @ 155#
even: KB Shrugs x 10 @ 70#
then some fun:

Short, distracted post...

TRAINING:

Deadlift and Bench Press today:

Yes, those are socks with a robot pirate on them.

Assistance work was:

(After DL)

EMOM x 10

RDL @ 155#

(After Bench)

EMOM x 10

5 bar dips, 10 hollow rocks

Wiped me out for the day.

Niners are on.  Talk to you later.

Getting-after-it-ness

TRAINING:

Reached high into the air of Asgard to call down the thunder this morning. It's days like this I like to think that the ever-vigilant spirit of Ricky Bruch is smiling upon me with approval.  I only have 3 weeks until my meet so I really want to attack my volume of work for the next two weeks, then back off significantly during the lead-up week.

Today was squat day.  Damn, do I hate squats! They are the worst!  JUST KIDDING SQUATS ARE MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE OMG I LOVE THEM.  Did a 5-4-3 rep scheme today that culminated in a 3RM PR for me.  I was messing around with a wider stance on the earlier sets and my warm-ups which was dumb and could have derailed me pretty badly.  I adjusted back to my "regular" stance to finish up.

I followed this up with:

3x10 barbell lunges @ 135lbs.

then

EMOMx10

odd: Pendlay Row x 5 @ 135lbs.

even: DB Shrugs x 10 @ 50lbs.

Then finished up with some good ol' strongman-style core work:

SCHOOL DAY:

I am WIPED.  Can you believe some of my students had the gall to complain about one single tabata push-up session today? Only 2:40 of ACTUAL WORK? After which they played basket ball?  Kids these days. Rest assured I had zero cares to give to the whiny-pants'. Can't wait to hear all the "sore arm/shoulder/chest" complaints tomorrow (when, miraculously, I will have LESS than zero cares to give to the whiny-pants'!)

FOOTBALL:

I'm seriously worried about the mental/emotional state of the football team.  They just seem kinda lost, going through the motions.  I can count on one hand the number of kids on the team who I would consider "finishers"; kids who follow through on everything, who always give maximal effort, who don't just listen but really HEAR you.  Everyone else just has no get-after-it-ness.  It's like the hustle and grind is beneath them, or annoys them or maybe they just don't understand HOW to do it.  I just wish I was in a better position to do something about it, for the kids' sake.

Thanks for tuning in, see you Thursday night!

Trying to catch a buzz saw.

TRAINING:

Let me preface what I'm about to say with this: I LOVE how strong I am getting training for my powerlifting meet on November 3.  LOVE IT.  However, I cannot wait to get back to doing crossfit and oly-lifting on the regular.  This weekend's training was a serious reminder of that.  I went to a saturday morning workout session at the Novato gym that Gilly runs so that interested clients and athletes can do team workouts and practice transitions and communication and such.  It's awesome.  I paired with my colleague Brittany, who is SERIOUSLY FAST for the following partner workout:

3 rounds:

each partner does each of the following

200m run

15 box jumps (24/20)

15 KB thrusters (44/26) (i used 53s because there ere only 1 set of 44s)

15 Toes to bar

Here is the horrible video of my first "round"

At least I look pretty bad-ass when I'm not trying to do anything athletic...I mean dem traps...dayum.  But WOW, my lungs are gone.  And I'm tubby.  I ended up giving myself a DNF based on near puking and almost passing out twice during the second round and the box jumps during the 3rd.  I apologized profusely to Brittany and then headed off to get cleaned up for a busy day of coaching and being social (more on that in a few...)

Sunday, Gilly and I headed down to Santa Cruz to pick up some equipment from CF Santa Cruz that we're borrowing, and to do some wedding stuff and catch up with friends and family.  It was an awesome day.  I was able to grab a quick workout at CFSC, and it happened to be friggin' death by thruster at 115#.  Dove into it after some convincing by Gilly, with hopes of making 10 minutes...and again, ended up trying to catch a buzz saw (pretty awesome if you can pull it off, but highly unlikely). Wheels started to fall of 7 minutes in and I didn't make it out of the 9th minute.  Felt really strong, I just have SUCH poor conditioning right now.  I was going to edit the video pretty heavily to just see my thrusters...but I wanted to share my awesome dance moves with the world...and show video proof that NICOLE BENSON IS A CHEATER-CHEATER-PUMPKIN-EATER (1:55 in the video).

FOOTBALL:

Marin Catholic.  Good Gracious.  Talk about trying to catch a buzz saw.  My JV knuckle-heads played hard all day, and were actually WINNING 8-7 at the close of the first quarter, but they started to wilt a bit after 2 blocked punts, one for a TD, and a kick return touchdown.  And the fact that they were running a no-huddle offense really wore them out.  But I am really proud of the way they hung in there and just kept chopping' wood. I think the final was 8-40ish.

Varsity was a bit of a different story, but a more or less similar result.  Rolling into our bye week after the whipping we took is definitely a boon.  Some interesting and necessary changes are coming that will pay dividends in the future but will probably be difficult to manage in the interim.  Read this.  I don't really want to keep thinking about it.

LIFE:

Saturday night, our gym community threw us an engagement party! I have no words for how tremendously honored and loved it made us feel.  It was a great way to end a really difficult, trying day (what, with the DNF and 2 blow-outs).  Here is a rad pic of my best man, Officer Dahlberg, and Gilly and I from the party:

In summation: Sometimes, life throws a buzz saw at you and you're forced to try to catch it.  The likelihood it'll end up going miserably, painfully, blood-drenchingly bad for you is unfairly high...but it will be the coolest thing ever if you can pull it off.  If not, well then hey, at least you have a cool story to tell about why you have no hands and 2/3 of a face.

Humility. 10/11/12

Training Day:

Thursday is Deadlift and Bench Press day as I prepare for my Power Lifting meet on November 3rd.

I added a lot of accessory work (Romanian DL, Dips, Hollow Rocks) today after an unexpected dose of humility.  I was so stoked after my squats on tuesday, that I decided to send the video to an actual power lifter to view, asking specifically to check the depth of my heavy set.  His response was "I think almost all of those are gonna pass. Don't worry depth isn't your issue right now man"...

Hm.  Well there's that, then.  This quickly settled me right back down and I asked him to go a little deeper on my critique (which he obliged), and thus I was given some stuff to work on, and a solid, if unexpected reality check. It's always when you least expect it, and usually when you need it most.

School Day:

Today was my 7th grade block day.  Block day (85 minutes) are great opportunities for data collection, so that is what we do on block days.  Today was their first attempt at running the mile.  I have to admit, I was really impressed with some of the numbers that my students put up, and definitely pleased with their effort.  Sure, there were some mistakes made on the paper-work/record keeping side of things, but overall it was a great day.  I finished the day by having my yearbook students design a cover for the yearbook using their school-issued iPads.  WOW.  I'm working with some serious talent.

Football:

Since we are playing Marin Catholic this week (did anyone see the subliminal message in the background of the video?), I had to show the JV squad some love and we spent a good 2 hours scrimmaging the freshman team so we could both (JV's and Frosh alike) work on "new stuff" that the coaches had installed this week.  Our JV kids are really starting to turn it around and figure out this whole 'Merican-rules football thing.

Gilly is making stuffed peppers for dinner tonight.  In the crock pot.  I'm going to be hard-pressed to not dig into them before she gets home...they smell SO GOOD.

10/9/12

Great morning of squats today!

I think I am totally ready to blast through the 400 pound mark at my meet in November.

Here were my work sets for today:

320×2
345×2
370×2
390×2 (PR!)

...begin.

So this is my first blog entry.

Currently, I teach 7th/8th grade P.E. at a small K-8 school.

I am an assistant Varsity football coach at my alma mater, where I also coach the throws for the Track team.

I coach this stuff at this place.

I love weightlifting, power lifting, and strongman as sports.

I am engaged to an amazing coach, athlete, friend, and SUPER HOT STACKED BABE

(she can probably clean more than you).

I'm planning on posting my training sessions with some videos, and any pithy thoughts I may have.

Here we go, and thanks for humoring me.