Morning Workouts

I mentioned in my last post that even though I absolutely LOVE my new eating schedule of 16 hours fast/8 hour feed, I do not like the fasted workouts. There have only been a handful of workouts that I felt "me" at since beginning fasted training. The real crux is that the ENTIRE point of the 16 hour fast is to end it with a completely fasted workout for maximum effect. Yesterday, I happend to have a really good fasted workout. I thought for a second to determine if there was anything I did differently...then I thought back to the other good fasted workouts I've had (3 in total maybe? 4?). It was so obvious, I felt like an idiot once I put two and two together. All my "good" fasted workouts have been in the morning. Unfortunately, right now my schedule only allows for me to attend one morning workout/week, but that's ok, I'll still take advantage of that to mix things up a bit.

Now that I'm fully adjusted to intermittent fasting I'm going to start fine tuning a few things. First off, my post-workout meal has not been my largest meal of the day all the time, and it should be. It's usually about the same size as my second meal has been. I'm going to start putting in some real effort to make it my largest meal (900 calories or so?) I'm thinking some dinner leftovers of protein and veg, plus a "dessert" of protein shake and berries should get me pretty close to my targets for calories and carbs/protein post workout. My second meal will be smaller, and consist of meat, some fat, and veggies. Rest days will involve vegetables, higher fat intake- bacon? (kidding, except maybe once in awhile) and no fruit.

Back to my morning workout yesterday- it was basically my dream workout. I had a work lunch scheduled for yesterday, so I knew if I wanted to get my workout in, it would have to be in the morning. The night before, I was beat. Earlier that day, I had run 1.5 miles, and performed 150 back extensions and 150 sit-ups. I didn't have the energy to get my workout clothes together, let alone an outfit for work and my shower stuff. I like to do that stuff the night before I wake up early so I don't have to think in the morning. I was trying really hard to talk myself out of it, and just sleep in. As I was laying in bed, I decided to check to see if the workout had been posted. Within seconds I knew I'd be up at 5:15 (7 hours from the current time) and headed to the 6am class.

I woke up with no struggle, it helps immensley that it gets light out at 4:30am here. I quickly threw my gym clothes on, packed a bag and shower stuff with work clothes, fed the animals, downed some BCAA's and was out the door by 5:40am. The drive down I was mentally preparing for a PR. At this new gym, we don't often test our 1 rep max lifts. Sometimes we do a 3 rep max, or 5 rep max, but those are rare as well. We would be testing our 1 rep max back squat, and then our workout was 10 minutes of one arm Kb jerks. Yes. No running, no pull-ups, no box jumps, no burpees, just pure power. The last time I had tested my 1 rep max back squat, I think I hit 195#, but no one was really watching me, so who knows if my depth was good enough? It was also more then a year ago.

I was partnered up with the bad ass girl that I'm always secretly battling with. She is a 6am regular, and when I go in at noon usually, I look to see what her time and weights were. Sometimes she beats me, sometimes I beat her. When I arrived at the gym, I became aware of just how sore I was. My abs, hammies, and shoulders? were all feeling yesterdays Hero WOD, "Michael." After our warm-up, we set up the racks with the bar, and did a few reps with the naked (45#) bar. We went up to 95#, then 135#, 165#, 185#, 205# for a few reps each- all went up real easy. I forgot my soreness. I was super stoked just to get over 200#! Then we loaded on 10 more pounds, and tried for 215#. I got down on my squat and came up about half-way before I knew I wasn't going to make it the rest of the way. I shrugged the bar off my back and jumped forward. We unloaded the bar a little, set it back up on the racks, loaded the weight back on, and she tried for 215#. She failed as well. We took the 5# of each side, and put 2.5# on. The bar weight was 210#. I stepped under it, and this time had it rest a little lower on my back. It felt awkward, but when I stood up, I could feel the difference. I squatted down no problem, and felt my butt touch my calves. I was defintely low enough. I stood up and drove out of the squat with no problem. New PR!!! 210#!!! I'm pretty excited with that. The way 210 went up so easy, I'm wondering if I should have tried 215# again, but with the bar lower on my back? We ran out of time, and like I said, I'm pretty happy with a 210# back squat. Next goal is 225#. These back squat numbers get more impressive the more weight I lose.

For our workout, we did a 10 minute AMRAP of one-armed Kb jerks. The only place we could rest the Kb was locked out overhead, or in the rack position (over chest). Setting the Kb down would restart the rep count. Score is total reps unbroken. I was not confident that I would be able to hold onto the 35# for 10 minutes. The last time we did something similar to this (4 weeks ago?) with the Secret Service Snatch Test, I used a 25# Kb, and that was no problem. I definitely wanted to use the 35#, and get over 100 reps. Not only was I able to hold onto the thing the whole time, but I got 111 reps. Bad ass girl got 156. I was sweating like crazy, but it was so weird because it didn't feel like a "cardio" workout. I LOVE Kb work, despite my arms being ridiculously bruised up. My technique is improving, and the bruises are getting fewer. Post am workout, I downed plenty of amino acids, felt amazing, and that carried me all the way to my 12pm lunch meeting- lunch was seriously the best thing I've ever tasted.

Today, I'm crazy sore. I'm usually in some state of soreness nearly everyday, but today is WOW. My abs and hamstrings are on fire. I sneezed and almost collapsed because it hurt so bad. I immediately proceeded to laugh at myself. Which again, really hurt. I'm sure it was just a delayed response to the 150 sit-ups and 150 back extensions, but I really forget how weighted back squats work the abdominals. I love me some squats!