Why do I workout so damn much?
At this point in my life, I'm thoroughly addicted to working out. It's my "hobby" or "vice" if you will. It's an amazing emotional release for good days and bad days (did someone say endorphins?). I go through withdrawals when I don't workout for an extended period of time. I also get really bitchy.
And, seeing as I don't have children (unless you count the 4-legged variety), what else is there to do between getting out of work and before dinner? Watch TV? Spend money on things I don't need? Drink? Nothing? Relax?
Sitting still for long periods of time isn't really my game. Plus, I really just love to lift and hit things!
Why do I compete in kettlebell sport?
Deep down inside, I am highly competitive. I LOVE to compete. Win, lose, draw...doesn't matter. And I love to have fun. I don't really get all amped up "I'm going to smash your face in or I'm going to kick your ass at "X" sport", it's all basically fun to me. I love the training, the preparation, and the payoff at competition to see how much you've actually improved. I've met some awesome people at kettlebell meets. EVERYONE is supportive, not like fighting where people are either for you or against you. The only pressure is what I put on myself. I love that it's kind of a strange sport; lift a kettlebell as many times as possible in a 10 minute span, probably doesn't sound like fun to most people, but it's a challenge to me to keep my pace, form and technique, and not get frustrated at a no count. And everyone needs to be challenged by something and push towards a goal, everyone needs to fight, it is a basic human instinct and in kettlebell sport we fight ourselves to make it through 10 minutes and to hit the number of reps to win the meet or make rank or hit a PR or if you're really lucky you get all three.
How I do it.
Practice. Training. Reps. Time. Patience. All of the above, in large doses! Doug put our training up to 4 days a week for San Fran. Normally "off season" we only do two or three days of kettlebell training, four is killing me. Last week was the first week at four days, and this week was the first week my reps on my 10:00 set have gone down. While I feel stronger and more confident in my form, I'll be glad when it's competition week and I only have to do a day or two of lifting before we head out west and then let adrenaline take over on my competition set. We do long sets, short sets, sprint sets, heavy sets, etc. We also do a lot of complimentary lifting, body weight work and cardio work. And a lot of stretching. And Physical Therapy/pre-hab work; if it weren't for all the stretching, massaging, foam rolling and needling, I'd be a hot mess and not be able to do anything that I'm currently doing (thanks Mark!).
Here's my 4 day kettlebell comp training week:
-Monday: 10:00 kettlebell LC (Long Cycle) set, push-up/pull-up couplet, 20:00 row, 30:00 stretching, 1 hour MuayThai
-Tuesday: 4:00/1:30 x4 (2:00 each hand) LC, air dyne/box-step intervals
-Wednesday: shoulder press, front or plate raises, farmer carry, some sort of abs, morning cardio if I feel like it
-Thursday: 8:00 set (4:00 each hand), more cardio of some sort (usually rowing and body weight stuff like burpees)
-Friday: HIIT in the morning, then in the evening weighted squats and lunges and curls and tricep work, 1:00 kettlebell sprint sets, and even more cardio
-Saturday: shoulder press, front raises, abs, and hammies (deads and GHR), 1 hour Muay Thai
I was doing three days of kettlebell work per week and then our coach moved us up to four, but the week before a competition we taper back down to only two. After this comp we will be going back to three days a week as I am moving up to a new weight on the kettlebell to make a higher rank and recovery time is more important when moving up.
I'm not being super descriptive on my cardio workouts because they change day to day. They involve lots of airdyne, rowing, jump rope, box step jumps and weighted half jumps. And battle ropes, because I LOVE battle ropes!
It sounds like a lot, but I love it.
Why Muay Thai?
It's challenged me like nothing else ever has. Muay Thai has taught me more than I could ever imagine to learn. Punching, kicking, elbowing, and kneeing is fun and more addictive than you can imagine. Learning technique, perfecting technique, and then learning how to teach other people what you know. Respect, discipline, it all matters, and it is all important in Muay Thai.
I've been training for over 4 years and fought a few times, and still feel like I don't know jack! And I'm ok with that. One person can't know everything. The more you know, the more you realize the less you know.
Fight training also teaches you a lot about who you are as a person. I can get through terrible, terrible things. I'm tougher mentally, physically and emotionally than most people. I can take a punch, and I can give one too. It's made me patient with myself and made me realize how much you actually need the "off" days to appreciate the good days - not off days as in days of rest, but days where you feel and train like crap. As many good things that come out of fight training, just as many bad things come from it too. It makes me bitchy and highly unsympathetic when it comes to people being injured or unmotivated.
At this point, Muay Thai has become an awesome compliment to kettlebell training. Everything is based on your hips and shoulders in Muay Thai, and everything is based on hips and shoulders in kettlebell. And, I just love working hard, the harder the workout, the better. After most of my workouts, 9 times out of 10, I am on the floor. I love the "I feel like I want to throw up" feeling after a hard workout, that depleted-I-gave-it-everything feeling.
The Diet.
DIET is not a four letter word. Again, it is NOT a four letter word. The #1 definition of the word diet when used as a noun, is: the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats. It says NOTHING about crash dieting, or temporary diets or super restrictive diets. Diet is how you eat! Doug and I have learned a lot over the course of our training careers, and have changed a lot too. And that's ok. It's ok to evolve, how do you think all of us got to where we are today? At this point, with all the kettlebell work, we have a fine line between undereating, overeating, eating to sustain, eating to perform, and eating for fat loss. Wait, what? It's a fine line for everyone and while too many people don't eat enough and try being too restrictive in an effort to lose weight, unfortunately the vast majority of people in this country eat way too much food and the food they eat is terrible. Everyone has their own set BMR and basic caloric needs in order to function on a day to day basis. Based on what you're trying to do, you either eat slightly less or slightly more. I think just for me to live, and not train at all, but just to sustain basic functions like breathing, I need around 1,600 calories. Because I workout, I need more calories, so I normally eat between 1,900-2,300 depending on how loaded my workouts are for the day. We did run into some issues with overeating around the holiday's, just like everyone else, we're human. We're a month removed from Christmas, and I've dropped 6-7 lbs in 4 weeks. I got my calorie intake vs. output back in check, and I've got my workout schedule in check. Humans are creatures of habit, we like schedules. Doug and I also started using Intermittent Fasting (IF) as part of our diet program. For more on Intermittent Fasting, http://prideconditioning.com/intermittent-fasting-101-the-team-seamans-smoothie-recipe/ (that is NOT my smoothie recipe, it's too large and I HATE the texture of blended apples and bananas!).
So, my diet. What/How do I eat? Just like my workouts, my meals are on a schedule too. If I'm overdue to eat, stay far away, I am not the nicest person when I am "hangry" (so hungry you get angry). We've implemented Intermittent Fasting. In a nutshell, once we eat dinner around 9-9:30, we don't eat again for 12 hours. We do still take in fluids, but no food. Our first meal is a shake of frozen fruit, almond milk and protein powder, and a rice cake or 2. I have this around 9:30, and don't eat again until noon, when I have 4 ounces of chicken and 1 cup of green beans. I then have an apple at 4:30. On my extremely loaded days, Monday and Friday normally, I will have a protein shake after my workout, otherwise, I don't have anything again until dinner. Dinner is my largest meal of the day. This is because it is both my last one of the day, and since I lift weights at night, it's essentially my post-workout meal - lots of carbs and protein, very little fat.
What's this macro-nutrient stuff all about? Hitting your macros is fairly important, as well as knowing which meals need to be more loaded than others. Macros are the macro-nutritent ratios between protein, fats and carbs you need to take in according to your fitness/weight loss goals. Everyone's is different. I normally come extremely close to hitting my macros on a daily basis. Except for the fat content. I hate consuming fats. Don't get me wrong, I love avocado and butter and almond butter, and all the "good" stuff, but it makes me perform like shit. It also makes me feel like shit. Again, everyone is different. Doug is a little different and loves fat and performs well on a high fat intake but his physique will suffer from it and we both believe that since we are trainers our bodies are our business cards, this is hard to balance with eating for performance. If we both only ate for performance and totally ignored aesthetics, our macros and caloric intakes would be a bit different, but we try to balance performance with physique, which is very hard to do.
For a typical day, here's a screenshot of a log I made on myfitnesspal.com... (You may notice my macro numbers on the bottom don't match up with what the macros say, but myfitnesspal.com is geared for weight loss, not athletic performance. For more on calculating macros, check this out: http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/)
As you can see, I'm incredibly close to hitting my macros. I'm a little off in some categories, but I'm happy with how close I am. I'm also closer to the fat loss goals according to my macros, even though it's not my goal. Trying to eat 2,000 calories or more is hard and very time consuming. I'm also not losing weight because I do more lifting than cardio, which is making me denser (I'm a better anchor than floating device). I'm not complaining, because with kettelbells, being stronger is the goal.
What does hitting your macros and meal timing get you? Results.
Here's some photos taken over the course of a day.
First up: Post Kettlebell/Cardio Workout. This was done in the morning due to PT/needling in the afternoon, and I cannot lift without eating, so I did have a rice cake or 2 before this workout.
Second: This is what I look like when I first wake up, if I don't workout before going to work. As you can tell between this set of photos and the one above, lighting makes a difference, as well as the space it was taken in. Bathroom lighting, or at least in our's, is usually pretty terrible. Bright direct light, plus a window that's next to the adjoining wall that let's in natural light that conflicts with the bulbs...just bad.
And last: Post-Breakfast on the Left/Post-Lunch on the Right.
I didn't take a post-dinner picture simply because I forgot. But you can see that I do put on a little bit of weight throughout the course of the day, but it's nothing substantial. I am also extremely pale, so I do not photograph well. When Doug was taking the gym pictures, the HDR setting was on, so it took 2 versions of the pictures (1 regular and one HDR), and I almost had a glare coming off of me on the HDR pictures, so these are plain jane.
-"Why don't you drink?" Because I can't perform at my very best hungover. When my performance sucks, my attitude sucks. When my attitude sucks, everything else (and everyone else) suffers because of this. I also am so in tune with my diet, I have no room for extra, empty calories. My calories sustain and fuel me.
-The typical fitness myths (lifting makes you manly, undereating, women should only do cardio, etc.)
-Questioning why I like to punch/kick/elbow/knee things/people. (because it's fun?)
-What I eat and why I eat it. (I'm fully aware chicken and green beans are not "exciting" or cool like pizza, but I can tune out how food tastes and I know it's good for me...I made it and I know where it came from.)
-Questioning why I workout so much. (if I didn't, I'd be even bitchier, and no one wants that!)
-People that complain they don't want callouses. (Holy hell, this might be my number one biggest irk...I dare anyone to shake my hand, and see if they can even feel my calluses. Unless you're creeping me out by swirling your finger around my palm (really?), chances are, you won't even notice! Plus, hands are the original tool! You can build/heal/destroy/conquer/teach/love/share, etc. with just your hands. So use them!)
-"Real women have curves" Sigh...I have breasts, a uterus, and a vagina. Even though I am naturally slim and I am the "white-girl-with-no-curves" (thanks to the genetics of a 5'4" former gymnast father and a 4'11" mother who still wears girls clothing), am I not still a woman? As far as I know, or am aware of, the ability to carry a child is all that really constitutes a "real" woman.
I'm sure there's many more, but those are the big ones.
The Rest of My Updates
My knee is right about 75-80% right now. I'd love to get an MRI to see what really happened, but at the same time, I don't because A), they're expensive, B) what if nothing shows up as being wrong? I'm pretty sure, based on what I can and cannot do, that something happened to either the cartilage or meniscus. Exactly what, I'm not sure. At this point, I can squat about 70% of my pre-injury weight (on a 5 reps set, pre-injury = 135lbs, now it's 95lbs); I can deadlift the same (165lbs); but my lunge is where I'm suffering the most, about 33% of my normal weight (used to lunge with 30lb dumbbells in each hand, and now I'm on 10lbs each hand, and it's a struggle). I can jump, I can row, I can bike. I can't run yet, and while I abhor running, I want to because I can't.
I'm incredibly excited for what this year is going to bring. Between more kettlebell competitions, traveling, and hopefully going to Oregon Thai Camp, it's going to be jam packed!
'Till next time, that's all for now!
(PS: I wrote this before the competition in San Fran, and realize it's after the comp now. An update/review of he IUKL/AKA West Coast Championship will be coming soon. After we get some pictures back. Hopefully.)
