Life of the Lintee Bean

I’ve totally been slacking on the blog!  I know!  No excuse, but I’ve been busy lifting, pressing, pulling, and squatting heavy things.  I haven’t even been playing with yarn much!

I’ve started stage 6 of New Rules of Lifting for Women.  For the most part, I’m still listing my accomplishments each stage.

Stage 3:

• 2 minute plank
• 100 pound wide-grip lat pulldown
• 100 pound barbell row

Stage 4:

• Deadlift greater than my body weight
• 65 pound front barbell squat/push press
• 120 second (2 minute) “Superman”

I’m sure I accomplished something in stage 5, but I failed to write it down.

Stage 6 is all about trying to work up to being able to do an unassisted chin-up.  For reasons I can’t really explain, and in retrospect seem really STUPID, I am not only starting stage 6 (all about building upper body strength), but I also joined in a Fitocracy challenge to do 20,013 push-ups in 2013.  Keeping in mind that I JUST started being able to do push-ups on my toes AT ALL in September, and that I can maybe eek out three sets of 12…. committing to what amounts to 55 push-ups a day for a year seems… well… ambitious.

I’m already behind on the push-up challenge.  I started a few days late, but the first day I managed to crank out over 100 push-ups.  Yes, that’s over a HUNDRED.  It took me ALL DAY.  I did a few sets in the morning, a few sets at lunch… a few more… a few more… huffing and puffing those last few out before bedtime.  The next day I managed ten push-ups, but they nearly drove me to tears.  The third day, ten more done in agony. It is NOT boding well.

Do I give up?  Of course not.  Realizing I’m lagging further and further behind, I decide to challenge a fellow Fitocracy member to a push-up “duel”.  That will motivate me to catch up!  It started two days ago.  I managed to do 21 push-ups the first day.  He did 80.  I can barely lift my arms at this point.  I watched the football game with a friend yesterday and was unable to celebrate any touchdowns with more than a butt-wiggle as lifting my arms hurts too much.

Today I managed to do 103 push-ups… and I am hoping against hope the large gentleman from Texas I challenged to a push-up duel will forget to do any.  I suppose that’s not likely.

If you’re interested in following my progress – I’m tracking my push-ups here.

I continue to meet with my personal trainer, Ron, who is made of muscles and awesome.  I just saw him this week and asked him to introduce me to the new exercises in stage 6.  Unfortunately, I tweaked my knee that morning so we worked on upper body exercises only.  First was negative chin-ups.  These look quite easy when Ron does them. It’s another matter when I try.  I used the assisted pull-up machine to help me get up to the chin-over-bar position.  Then Ron removed the assistance bar and I tried to hang there as long as possible.  In addition to moving the bar, Ron’s job was also to catch me on my sometimes very rapid descent and get my feet back on a bar or step.  (Ron’s job doesn’t seem very much fun, does it?  Perhaps this is why he does not complain when I want him to just entertain me by doing cool exercises I am not capable of.  That’s got to be better than catching a falling chubby 40-something woman falling off a pull-up bar.)

I think my record at hanging on the pull-up bar thing was about ten seconds, including descent.

We also worked on lat pulldowns.  I’ve done lat pulldowns before, but I just bought the new book “New Rules of Lifting: Supercharged” and I see that in his more recent books the author recommends doing lat pulldowns standing or kneeling rather than seated.  I wanted to try that out with Ron.  So, he showed me how to do lat pulldowns on the regular cable machines.

First, we tried them kneeling.  Ron was taking it pretty easy on me, I think he only put about 20-30 pounds on the cable.  If my arms weren’t in pain from push-ups and negative chin-ups, these would have been easy.  Then we tried standing lat pulldowns.  At this point, I decided to ask Ron what sort of weight I should be using.  I can do 100 pound lat pulldowns, just barely – do I use a lighter weight on these standing ones?  Apparently not, as Ron decided to put 100 pounds on the cables.

I grabbed the left cable.  Ron handed me the right cable… and let go… and like a bungee cord I went flying toward the machine’s base.  Ron urged me to “engage my core”.  I don’t know if I was engaging my core or not.  I do know I’d managed to get one leg up somehow and was using it to brace myself against the base of the machine to avoid being drawn and quartered.  I hope that machine is bolted down to the floor.

Ron was still being encouraging.  I was fighting for my life – or at least to keep my arms attached to my torso.  I managed a couple of steps back from the machine.  Ron suggested squatting.  I squatted.  I think I managed a couple of pulldowns before releasing the handles and letting them fly back into the machine.

At the end of the session, we had 10 minutes remaining. Ron asked me what I wanted to do next.  (One of the million reasons I love Ron.  People ask me what my personal trainer makes me do.  He doesn’t “make” me do anything!  He asks what I want to work on.  He suggests things.  He encourages me to do things.  He does not “make” me do things. He says he is more of my “coach” than my trainer.)

I decide to let Ron have the last ten minutes and pick what we do, since I never let him choose.  He chooses body-weight exercises, of course.  Yuck.  We do lateral lunges and skater lunges (hey! maybe these would make me able to skate!) and ninja lunges (anything with “ninja” is cool) and other kinds of lunges, all of which are supposed to strengthen my knee.  Then he suggests we do burpees.

I have never done burpees.  I have never had any desire to do burpees.  In fact, first time I heard of burpees, I found a YouTube video and decided I would probably vomit if I ever tried burpees.  I have a friend that does burpees often.  She admits she once puked.  This is not encouraging.

Ron says he has another client that is “not as fit as me” that can do ten burpees.  Hmm… this implies I have some level of fitness.  I mean, he practically said I am fit, right?  Okay, I’ll try them!  Ron explains that you simply squat, put your legs behind, squat again, then stand up and jump… repeat.  I try it.  I am not coordinated and anything more complicated than “pick up… put down” is difficult.

Squat.

Legs behind.

Squat.

Jump.

Squat….

Legs behind….

Squat…

Jump…

Around #2 or #3, I ask Ron if I should be doing these quickly.  (I am most definitely not.)  He says “if you want to get your heart rate up.”  That is his way of saying Yes.  I try to pick up the pace.

Around #4 or #5, I suddenly fall forward from a standing position on to my hands.  I look at Ron, who’s gasping “Squat!”.  I forgot the squat part.  That was unpleasant.  It hurt, really.

I managed ten burpees.  I didn’t puke, though I thought about it.

Ron suggested we try five with push-ups.  Squat… legs behind… push-up… squat…. jump.

Squat…. legs behind… squat… jump.  Oh, forgot the push-up.

Squat… legs behind… push-up… squat… jump.

Ron says I did about seven… about four of which had push-ups.

So, because I’ve been slacking on the blogging, this is already overly long, but I feel the need to share one more thing.  This is something they do to all the new members at my gym, as I understand it.  Since Ron and I had never done it together, he suggested we do so a while back.  They weigh you (ugh) and measure your body fat (double ugh) and their computer draws an image of “you” (super duper UGH).  Then we did a strength evaluation test.  (The results was – I am not nearly as strong as I thought I was.  Sad.)

Anyway, my big issue is this “image”.  HOW IS THIS MOTIVATING?  Apparently I look really weird now, especially my arms… and I will still look really weird if I reach my goals.  (Me “now” is on the left, “goal me” is on the right.)  I told Ron I wanted him to make the goal me have muscles on her arms, and hold them in a natural position – what is WRONG with my arms?  He said he can’t control the “goal me” picture.  This is lame.

Me (now) vs me (goal)