Friday

A. Safety bar squat, 6 x 3 @ 70 bar + chains, 10X1; begin a set every :60
+
3 rounds for time:
.5 mile Assault Bike
50m unweighted walking lunges
+
3 sets:
8/side seated 1-leg band curls, 30X1
:10/side single-leg hamstring bridge
:30 hollow rock

A. complete

+

8:57

+

complete, green band

Felt super rough today - it's been a ridiculous week. Almost subbed a nap.

Squats felt heavy and slow.

Bike/lunge piece was tough. 62/58/60 RPMs, which seems quite slow compared to where I've been pedaling. Legs were super shaky after this.

Shoulder is not good. Ugh. Added 2 sets of standing subscap internal rotation holds and CS internal/external rotations to my warm-up.

Thursday

AM @ MobilityFit

9:00 Assault bike

+

same as Monday, except trap 3s were fine and Z press hurt (front rack)

PM

A. Safety bar squat, 12 x 2 @ 70 on bar + chains, 10X1; begin a set every :60
+
3 sets:
50m Farmer's walk, tough
20m walking lunges, 30 lb med ball bear hugged to chest
:60 rest
200m run
:60 rest
+
3 sets:
10/side seated 1-leg band curls, 30X2
:30 hollow rock

A. complete, fast and easy
+
complete-ish
53/hand (heaviest I felt confident picking up today)
subbed 20 bike calories for the run (65 RPM, 1:20 across)
+
complete with purple band


Drew finally acknowledged that some of my concerns about my shoulder may be valid. In addition to the ongoing instability, I should be way farther along than I am, and the simplest shit keeps setting me back.  It was super aggravated today, for literally no reason... Drew talked to Tim, and we're going to baby the shit out of it for another couple weeks. If things aren't drastically better at the 12 week mark, Tim wants an MRI. I really never had an "oh fuck, I re-tore it" moment, and even though it has felt like it wants to dislocate on a couple of occasions, it hasn't... but I just know something isn't right. 

Drew also said to hold off on the running.  To be honest, with the way my shoulder felt today, I was kind of relieved to hear that. The impact sounds terrible.

Friday

AM
@ MobilityFit
2 sets:

Crossover symmetry

Kettlebell screwdrivers, 15lbs

Quarter external rotations, 2.5lbs

External rotations, unweighted

Z press, PVC pipe

Kettlebell front rack hold with scaps engaged, 0:60 with 0:30 Farmer's hold as rest

PVC pull-aparts

Snow angels

3-way bicep curls, 5lb/hand

Earthquake bar, 20 with red, 20 with orange

Single-arm trap 3

Banded tricep extension 

PM
A. Safety bar squat, 10 x 2 @ 70 on bar + chains, 10X1; begin a set every :60
+
3 sets:
10 DB bent-over rows (both arms together), light & controlled, slight bend in knees and big hinge @ hips so torso is almost parallel to the ground
30m walking lunges, 20 lb med ball bear hugged to chest
:60 rest
20 Assault Bike calories
:60 rest
+
3 sets not for time:
10-15 seated 1-leg band curls
:30 hollow rock

A. complete 

+

complete, but skipped the dumbbell rows 

+

complete, 15 with purple band across

Chains were longer than usual on the squats; didn't notice until 8 sets in... 

Cut the dumbbell rows on Drew's advice. Lunges got tough by the 3rd set, but no issues. Biked at 66-68 RPMs, 1:15, 1:14, 1:19 for 20 calories. The last set hurt, I felt like I was going to poop my pants for like 10 minutes afterwards. Is that why we call it the AssBike?

Had a pretty significant heart-to-heart with Drew this morning - it involved tears and two hugs. Got his side of the story regarding Abby, and am feeling a little bit reassured that I'm not already destined for the same path as her. He's really not all that concerned, but said it's not a bad thing that I am concerned, because that means I'll be careful. Errrr no worries there, I'm so careful I'm about ready to put the sling back on.

Highlights of the heart-to-heart:

 - Both my shoulders are loose, probably always have been, and so I'm already at an increased risk of injury compared to the general population (so was Abby). This means that moving forward, my shoulders have to be stronger than anyone else's before asking them to stabilize weight overhead, and that form and technique need to be absolutely perfect. I will need to be very, very careful with mechanics under fatigue, probably forever.

 - We are going to baby the shit out of it for a while. Staying far away from positions that aggravate it (overhead), and positions that put any stretch on the anterior capsule (elbows back), which will hopefully allow the ligaments to tighten up a bit. I'm still terrified that I fucked it up by all the things I've been doing (I was rowing, with elbows all the way back, at 10 days post-op... I've benched and done push-ups... and not to mention, the stretching we've added in the past few weeks). None of this hurt, but it was stretching the already stretched ligaments. All of this has been cut, and Drew said I'll drive myself nuts trying to figure out if anything I'd done previously was a mistake. 

 - On that note, what was repaired is holding. I've been almost completely pain-free for the past two days, which Drew said would not be the case if I fucked up the repair.

I still don't feel like it's fixed. I still don't feel like it should be close to dislocating on a simple office exam. But, I feel better that there's a plan in place moving forward. 

Friday

AM @ MobilityFit
10:00 Assault bike
+
3 sets:
Front rack kettlebell hold with scaps retracted, 5 x 0:60 with 12/hand, 0:30 rest
Banded external rotation with single orange band, 10
Banded shoulder press with orange band, 10
Banded tricep pull-down, 20 with cut red band
Earthquake bar, 2:00 hold with red bands and 20s, orange bands and 15s
Crossover Symmetry, rows (red), As (purple), Ts (thumbs up and palms up, green), single-side seated external rotation (green), 10 each
Z press, 10 with PVC pipe
Kettlebell screwdrivers, 10/side with 15lb
Quarter external rotations, 5/side with 2.5lbs
External rotation with elbow on knee, 10/side unweighted

Snow angel, 10 unweighted
Single-arm trap 3, 10/side unweighted
PVC pull-aparts, 10 with #1
3-way bicep curl, 10 each way with 5lb/hand


PM
A. Safety squat, 8 x 2 @ 70 on bar + chains, 10X1; begin a set every :60
+
5 sets:
7-10 controlled ring rows - slightly tougher than last week if shoulder allows
16 alternating reverse lunges, 30 med ball bear hugged to chest
:60 rest
15 Assault Bike calories
:60 rest
+
3 sets not for time:
5-7/side single-leg reverse hypers, 20X2
10-20 seated 1-leg band curls
:30 hollow rock

A. complete
+
complete
7 ring rows across
15 calories in 0:51-0:54
+
complete
unweighted, +10, +20 on the RH
15/leg with purple band


Drew was really happy to hear that after the week off (two, really), my shoulder has markedly calmed down. It's still a little more aggravated than it was two weeks ago, but not nearly as concerning as it was last week. Stayed extremely cautious on the rehab stuff this morning - reduced weight on everything, cut anything that even slightly felt off, and shorted ROM to completely, 100% pain free across the board. I'm still annoyed that I'm doing less 7 weeks out than I was 2 weeks out, but Drew assures me it's normal. Had a conversation about expectations and the road ahead, and we discussed that it might be months before I'm comfortable overhead (deadhang, kipping, snatching, jerking, etc). I can get close without pain, but as soon as I reach 180 degrees, I hit the anchors, and that's probably what caused the latest setback, so we're staying far away from that at the moment.

Squats felt great, really fast. Metcons, no gear.

5 sets got tough, mostly because of the pace I wanted to hold on the bike (66-70 RPMs). Ring rows felt totally fine on my shoulder, still very deliberate about scap engagement and definitely more challenging than last time. 

Wouldn't hate losing the reverse hyper from the program... it's so freaking awkward to get on to without boosting myself up with both arms, and I feel like I'm not even doing it right with the one leg. I know it's supposed to be good for many things, but I'm just not feeling it. On the other hand, once I figured out how to set up the banded curls, I really liked those!

And finally, did a BodPod this morning. Mike keeps asking me about body comp, and I can't tell objectively and I refuse to take a bathroom selfie. I'm a scientist and I like data, so I figured this might be interesting. I did one in December 2013 (I had played with ETP for a few months, and was on Invictus at the time), but I didn't like the result so I just ignored it and decided to focus on performance. Which was a great decision! But didn't get me very far on the scale. I weighed 167 in December 2013, and weighed 167 in May 2015, and while performance was greatly improved, I wanted to drop weight to improve gymnastics (we know this story). Mike wasn't very impressed with these results if you consider it's been 2.5 years, but I figure almost all of this change has occurred since I started working with Mike in July 2015. I was actually pretty pumped to see that those 7 pounds were 11lbs of fat lost and 4lbs of muscle gained, that seems pretty legit to me, especially with maintaining / increasing / prioritizing performance. And it's not like I'm surprised that progress is slow, I mean, come on, I've complained about how perfectly compliant I can be with minimal results since day 1. Although, I wish I had done this before I ate all the gelato and drank all the margaritas last week, because I was pretty solid at 158 for a minute there...