Deload Week

It's been a great couple of months of training.  I particularly love the last 5 weeks of it as the programme incorporates more explosive movements like the clean and press and also more bodyweight iso hold stuff e.g. front lever and frog stands.

I've been seeing a lot of progress and am back at 50kg.  I don't feel sluggish at all but the training has left me a bit beat up.  Made it a point to have a massage session.  Now my body feels a bit better.  And I'll have a deload week before embarking on a brand new programme.

A cursory view sees Mr. Ferruggia concentrating more on building strength with a day per week dedicated on power and strongman stuff.

Looks promising.

Current Hip Thrust Personal Best

About a month actively incorporating barbell hip thrusts and I'm at 50kg for 12 reps.

This is far from impressive as some other ladies that I know START hip thrusting at 60kg and are now hip starting 110kg for reps.

I feel like I should be a able to hip thrust much bigger weights.  Most likely it's a confidence issue.  Or maybe I'm just weak.

Anyhow I'll just trudge through and hopefully I'll be joining the >100kg club some time in the near future.

Fitness Reads: David Dellanave's Off The Floor

My favourite lift by far is the deadlift.  There's something so satisfying about lifting heavy shit off the floor.  So when I learned about a new e-book making its rounds about how to deadift more frequently, I didn't hesitate on making the purchase (despite the fact that I had crazy bills to pay this month).

Off The Floor is a 90-page manual on all things deadlift-oriented. In the manual, Dellanave naturally reveals the more popular deadlift variations.  But he also highlights the less popular, quirkier deadlift variations that is actually more 'body-friendly' that we could incorporate into our training programmes.

But what I find most mindblowing was Biofeedback Testing.

I'm quite sure all of us in our training history have felt that certain lifts felt especially shitty on certain days. And not wanting to feel like a loser, we plough through the lifts only to feel shittier still.  The thing is... our body is actually telling us that that particular exercise is not a good idea for that particular day.  So the next best thing is to use another variant of the exercise instead.

It could be something as simple as changing your stance slightly or change the lift altogether e.g. from conventional deadlifts to sumo deadlifts.  So how do you know when a lift is not suitable on a given day?

Enter Biofeedback Testing whereby you test your CNS readiness for a particular lift with something as simple as monitoring your ROM.  I believe Dellanave himself could provide a better explanation on this.  So head over here for a video on how to execute biofeedback testing.

Disclaimer:
I won't earn a single dime if you purchase the e-book.  I'm just excited about this new-found knowledge and just had to share.

Weight... regained!

So I checked my weight on two different scales and they both read 50kg which is a pleasant surprise.  I somewhat knew I have regained most of the size that I've lost during my high fever episode and the fasting month, particularly on my upper body as my clothes fit me better now.

My lower body has always been a bit of a laggard so it doesn't really bother me much.  I know it'll eventually catch up.  I am however pretty happy with the progress in my glutes area.  Hip thrusts have become a staple exercise on leg day (at present I can hip thrust 40kg for 20 reps... and something tells me it's time to load on the weight).  On upper body days I make it a point to include single leg hip thrusts after the main training session.

So in effect I am targeting the glutes at least 4 days a week and the results have been encouraging.