Boy, do I have some things to catch up on! I’m currently on spring break, so I do want to get in a recap of recent athletic endeavors. Later I’ll do a post with a little more more food, and then one on what my powerlifting prep actually consisted of.

Let’s start off with a Crossfit Open recap: 18.3 and 18.4. These were the first workouts featuring movements I couldn’t do. Sidenote: 18.5 is announced tonight and apparently there will be voting; I’m really hoping it is movements I can do though! Chest to bar pull ups would be very questionable for me…

18.3:

Workout 18.3

2 rounds for time of:
100 double-unders
20 overhead squats
100 double-unders
12 ring muscle-ups
100 double-unders
20 dumbbell snatches
100 double-unders
12 bar muscle-ups

Women perform 80-lb. OHS, 35-lb. DB snatches

Time cap: 14 minutes

80# overhead squats are definitely not trivial. I was excited for the doubles because mine have been really strong lately. And ring muscle ups? Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

My first set of doubles was really strong. I think I managed to stringy together the first 50? The overhead squats were better than expected. I believe I did them in 2 sets, partly because sometimes it’s harder to put it down and have to get it up again! 80# snatches definitely felt harder after 100 doubles! I got through my second set of doubles in I think 6:21? So I had about 8 more minutes to play around on the rings. Suffice to say, I didn’t get my first muscle up. I did get closer than I was expecting though, so that’s something!

Workout 18.4

For time:
21 deadlifts, 155 lb.
21 handstand push-ups
15 deadlifts, 155 lb.
15 handstand push-ups
9 deadlifts, 155 lb.
9 handstand push-ups
21 deadlifts, 205 lb.
50-ft. handstand walk
15 deadlifts, 205 lb.
50-ft. handstand walk
9 deadlifts, 205 lb.
50-ft. handstand walk

Time cap: 9 min.

Now, I can’t do handstand push ups. I actually really don’t like handstands in general, so I haven’t ever had much desire to work on them. However, I was pretty confident I could bust out 21 deadlifts pretty fast, so I opted to Rx this workout and just do 21 deadlifts for time. I busted out my set of 21 in 45 seconds. I have to say, I have my powerlifting prep to thank for that. I never really do 155# deadlifts in workouts other than the Open because historically it is on the heavier side for a lot of reps for me. After deadlifting a lot, heavy, for my powerlifting prep, the 155# felt really easy. I ended up continuing on, with 155# and just doing the workout as the scaled, which was with hand release push ups. So I basically did 21-15-9 155# deadlifts and hand release push ups, plus 21 deadlifts, so I would actually get a workout in!

Now, for the powerlifting meet! Since I haven’t blogged a ton lately, I haven’t talked about it too much on here. My school hosted a friendly powerlifting competition, which I did about an 8 week prep for. Again, I’ll go into full details on the prep in another post. I do want to include food a bit here, because that was an interesting challenge. The competition was 6-9pm, and I am definitely a morning workout person so that was different.

I got super lucky with my schedule that day, in that I had the whole morning off and just had classes in the afternoon, so it was a restful day. I made myself my normal lunch: salad with grilled chicken, goat cheese, and pear, plus some GF crackers on the side.

I had a granola bar mid-afternoon, per my usual routine. I had to be at an athlete’s meeting at 5, so in the 30 minutes between arriving home from class and leaving for the meeting, I whipped up a protein-and-carb-rich light dinner. I had egg whites with half a sweet potato (that I roasted earlier in the day—so fancy) and some reduced fat cheddar.

Then, it was time to head over and hear about the rules!

Powerlifting has certain commands you have to follow about when you can lift and rack the bar. I tried to practice these a little bit in training, but the command I was most nervous about is a command that tells you to lift, when you are at the bottom on a bench press. Basically, it means you have to pause at the bottom of a bench press until you get the command to lift. We were told we had to make our first attempts, so I actually dropped down my bench press initial attempt by a few pounds after that warning.

I actually ended up eating another protein bar before the event started. I really didn’t want to go in hungry because I needed all of the strength!

Another challenge was warming up for the event. I was in the competitive division, which was the 2nd of 3 to go. The recreational/beginner division was the first to go, and it was the largest by far. When they started their squat attempts, I started warming up my squat. My initial attempt was 185, a slightly aggressive first attempt but also a number I was very confidant in. I actually warmed up to 195, which was my second attempt. I had a feeling I would be nervous, especially on squats, so it made me feel better knowing I hit those numbers. Then, before I knew it, it was go time!

My first attempt went smoothly, although I do feel like I had waited a little long since warming up before I lifted. It was fine after the first attempt though. After each attempt, we had to tell the people in charge what our next attempt would be.

Then, I went for 195.

It felt pretty easy, but I did get a warning about depth, meaning I had to make sure I went deep enough on the next rep (but my 195 was still accepted). I hit 200 in training on Friday, and my squat PR (from 2014….) was 205, so I went for 205 as my third attempt. I think I was a little overly concerned about going deep enough, and I got stuck at the bottom and failed the lift. As soon as you lose your core in squatting, the lift is just not going to happen. I think I had it in me though! I refueled with chocolate milk post-squats and then watched the heavy lifters go…someone squatted 500# which is so crazy to me.

Next up was bench. I warmed up to my initial attempt of 95#. Bench is by far my worst lift, and one I’ve hardly worked on in my many years of lifting. Actually, for that reason it was fun to train because I saw improvements and PRs. Again, I was nervous about the pause at the bottom.

95 went up easily. My all time max was 115, from a few weeks ago, and it was UGLY. I went for an aggressive second attempt at 110 and didn’t know what to expect, but it also went up well. I went for 115# for my final attempt, and again, it went up super easily. Unfortunately, I missed the command to rack the bar after I successfully lifted it, so the lift didn’t count. Ah well. Annoying, but in the scheme of my total score it was only 5#, and for my own personal records, I know I hit it.

Last up was deadlift. It was around 8:30pm by this time and I was fading. Super tired. But I told myself, I literally only had to lift the bar 3 more times! Again, I warmed up to my first attempt of 225#. At this competition, we were not allowed to use powdered chalk, only liquid chalk. I’ve never used liquid chalk before. Honestly I don’t normally use chalk for deadlifting, but the bars at school are super slippery so that was always a problem. Luckily, I made friends with someone who had liquid chalk, and it seriously made all the difference! 225 was easy. My second attempt was 235, and that also went as planned. My PR (also from 2014…) was 245, so I decided to shoot for 250 for my final attempt….It went up fairly easily, and was my far the prettiest heavy deadlift I’ve done! Normally at near-max weights, the form breaks down (and the back rounds..), but that didn’t happen, I felt it completely in my hamstrings and not in my back. I was SUPER happy to finish with that lift and with a PR! Especially because when I started my powerlifting prep, I initially couldn’t get heavier than 225!

Overall, the meet was an amazing experience. It was so much fun, and everyone was so nice! I also LOVE lifting, especially powerlifting. I love getting stronger and watching things change. It was also fun to have a goal to work towards. 10/10 would do it again. I also had amazing friends who came out to support me!

I got home around 9:30 and ate the same egg/sweet potato meal I had prior to the competition, as well as a brownie with ice cream. I made these super amazing GF/vegan brownies and can’t say enough good things about them. They’re MOSTLY applesauce and chocolate, and the texture coming out of the oven was like the best fudgy brownie. They’r definitely best served hot, and I appreciate that the recipe makes a smaller batch.

Look out for more posts coming soon!