Operation 180

Operation 180 has been the mission for pretty much the entire year.  Initially Operation 180 was strictly a numbers based mission.  Snatch 80k, clean & jerk 100k, total 180k.  Pretty simple.  I've come very close to some of those aspects over the last year.  Cleaned 98k in training, clean & jerked 96k in training, and within the last couple of months just barely missed that 80k snatch at the DeGarmo Memorial (video on You win some, you lose some post).  My goal has been and continues to be hitting that 180 total by the American Open this December. 

However, as it often does, life got in the way.  Things happened, things changed, life shifted. Operation 180 just got more complicated.  Now not only is it a numbers mission but it's a mission to change physically, mentally, and emotionally about 180-degrees from what I've become lately. 

Obviously one of the main components is physical change.  The past few weeks my training has been complete and utter shit so I took 10 full days off from training.  In terms of strength, speed, and just lifting stamina I feel very behind.  I'm feeling rather weak and scrawny which are feelings I'm not particularly fond of.  Now I have to gain back some body weight, gain back a lot of strength, get back to pushing for the numbers I made as goals earlier this year (WTF was I doing for the last 7 years?!?!).  I have around 7 weeks to really bust my ass, get my ass larger, and get my ass in gear!

While getting my ass in gear is important, it's just as important to get my mind right.  I can think and hope and wish and pray that I hit 180 but my mind and emotion have to be behind it.  As I mentioned my training has been completely crap and honestly my mental attitude (also my stubbornness) and my emotional attitude towards lifting has been just as much to blame as a decrease in physical performance.  I let myself get burned out on weightlifting.  I allowed myself to become so consumed by it that it took over my entire life.  It was, and still is, a bit obsessive.  Being that overtaken by one thing is not a super healthy way to live in my opinion.  Because of the obsessive nature of the beast I was fretting over every aspect of my lifting including my declining strength.  Being the stubborn ass that I am I kept pushing and pushing and pushing trying to force the lifting which lead me to the next aspect I need to get right......

Emotionally I've been all over the board lately.  It's a multi-faceted issue: frustration with my declining performance, a huge inspiration leaving, unexpected setbacks, exhaustion from working so much (I currently technically have 3-4 separate jobs, don't ask, I'm crazy).  Many if not all of my recent workouts have ended up in tears.  Some times I am able to lift through the tears and do well and other times it's just sitting down on the platform and having a good cry.  There has been punting of foam rollers and water bottles, throwing of straps, wraps, and belts.  Then of course a hefty amount of swearing and even more frustration since I'm not the type for expressing emotion, let alone in public.  To some it may seem like a bit of a temper tantrum, repeated temper tantrums, but truly it runs deeper than that.  If you're not emotional about weightlifting then you're not really invested in it yet.  And I've gone all-in on weightlifting.

Now with all of that in mind I have to get my emotions under control so they don't railroad my workouts straight into the shitter.  If I'm bursting into tears because I can't jerk to save my life that's not going to help.  I need to dial back in and refocus that energy into something productive.  Get the mind and emotions right so I can put them both into a strong, solid lift.

The next few weeks leading into the American Open are 100% about re-assessing my goals.  I have to take my physical, mental, and emotional performances and turn them 180-degrees from what they have been recently.  I've wanted to hit the 80k and 100k all year long but I've also wanted to hit some big squats and big deadlifts.  Getting stronger there will be steps in the right direction.  I have to take where I am (weak and scrawny) and figure out how to get where I want to be (strong like beastess).  It's going to be some some big gains in what I feel is a short time.  Am I up for the challenge?  You're damn right I am!

Operation 180.  Turning my training around 180-degrees, hitting 180k at the American Open.  It's time to Go Beastess!

My Refuge

I am awful at processing emotion.  Or maybe I don't know how to process it.  Or maybe I just don't process it in what I would consider normal fashion.  Hell, I've never been to a therapist.  What I do know is that my version of processing emotion has always involved sport.  For the last 20 years of my life, sport has been my outlet, my refuge.

Growing up whenever I had a hard time I always wanted to go for a walk or go play basketball.  When my cousin died during our senior year of high school, after I visited family I went to basketball practice.  Nothing else made sense so I did the only thing that did make sense, playing.

Last Christmas I went home to see family for the holidays and the day I got in my brother came to the airport  with my dad to surprise me.  About an hour later when we were on our way home in separate cars he got in an accident that totaled his truck along with three others and landed him in the hospital for a day and a half. The day he was released from the hospital I went to the gym to lift.  A couple of days later he had a seizure and we took him to the ER for an overnight stay.  (He's completely happy, healthy, & fine now.)  I got home from the holiday trip and the next day when I stepped on that lifting platform all hell broke loose.  I lifted with a vengeance, an anger, a complete pouring of all emotion into the lift.  I was pushing for weight, for reps, for absolutely anything.  I felt like crying the whole time, not because it was hard or because I was hurting, simply because I needed to cry.

I know it sounds extremely selfish to go to practice or go to the gym when I should be with family.  It's just how I process things.  Even in times where it's not a major emergency, a bad day, a bad mood, upset about anything, I want to get a work out in.  It's a physical punishment to process whatever is on my mind.  It is my refuge when things get tough. 

Lately my refuge has provided no solace.  I enter a work out hoping to blow off some frustrations.  I step on the platform with high hopes but by the end I leave the platform worse off than when I started.  There has honestly not been one single workout in the last few weeks that has not ended up in tears before, during, or after the lifting, or at least a bit teary-eyed.  My frustrations have been off the chart and I'm a stubborn girl.  I have kept trying to beat the lifting to death, hoping it would finally submit and once again become my refuge.  I have often heard the definition of insanity as doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome.  Well I have definitely gone off the deep-end in terms of sanity.

I don't know how to "turn off."  I don't know how or when to give up.  I keep pushing and pushing and pushing until I am broken.  I keep going until I end up on the platform in tears, defeated.  I have to be told to stop, take a break, take time off.  This time around I was told I need to take a week off, step away from the platform, not touch a bar.

It has now been 10 straight days without touching a bar.  I can't say its been easy but it has been nice.  I also can't say that I was able to completely shut my brain off when it comes to thinking about weightlifting.  I did try though. 

It is time to get back on that platform and get back to work.  I am hopeful that it will all return to normal.  I need that platform.  I need my refuge, my comfort, my solace. 

You win some, you lose some

We've all heard the saying, "You win some, you lose some."  Last weekend I traveled to St. Joseph, MO for the Rodger DeGarmo Memorial weightlifting meet.  After spending 5 weeks straight of working 7 days a week my training had been taking a hit.  I wasn't able to train as well as I had hoped.  I was completely burnt out from all the stress and was brutally reminded that stress, whether mental or physical, is still stress.  I had a quick 2 week cycle where I had to get mentally ready to compete and just hope my physical readiness was there.  A week out I hit my snatch opener and about 3k less than my clean & jerk opener.  Going into the meet I was nervous about being able to hit my lifts but still thought I could at least pull out some decent lifts.

The day of the meet I went in about the normal level of nervous but still confident that I could do it.  Here's the video of how it actually went.....

I opened with 74k (not in the video) and then jumped 77k.  The 77k ties my all time personal record and is an official meet personal record.  After the 77k I jumped to 80k, a number I've been pushing towards for months now.  Juuuuust barely missed it.  Bring on the clean & jerks.....hit 90k fairly solid in the warm-up room and wanted to open with 93k, something I've done many times before.  As you can see by the video, I'm really quite great at cleaning 93k AND I did it back-to-back-to-back since I had to follow myself for all three attempts.  However, I obviously could not jerk 93k to save my life.  There are many reasons I could give for why I couldn't jerk that weight but in the end the meet accurately reflected how my training has gone.  It's definitely one of those "you lose some" situations.

Now on the flip side of that coin a lifter/teammate that I've been coaching was also competing in this meet.  For him it was without a doubt  "you win some" kinda day.  After a long time of coaxing him to move from 77k weight class up to the 85k weight class, he finally did it and boy did it pay off HUGE.  He gained 6-7k of bodyweight which earned him a 23k improvement on his best total ever.  For those of you metrically challenged he gained around 14lbs which added 50lbs to his best total ever.  Not only that but it also qualified him for the next two national level events.  Like I said, "you win some" kinda day.  And if you're wondering how excited he was about his new bodyweight and level of strength, check out the video....

So yeah it was a win some (my lifter lifting huge), lose some (me completely bombing out of the meet) kinda weekend.

The silver lining for me was really outside of weightlifting. I got to spend an awesome weekend with a great friend and great people enjoying Kansas City, MO.  As far as my lifting goes.....you win some, you lose some, and its time to go back to the drawing board.  

Pissed Off, Crying, Listening to Mudvayne....

....or as it was originally titled "Stress is stress."

It has come to my attention that I can be a complete idiot some times.  Now before you starting weighing in your opinions on that one let me explain why I am an idiot as well as a hypocrite.

I am all for pushing through tough times.  Pushing that extra bit when it seems the hardest.  Giving it your all and then giving more.  It's something I've taken pride in lately, pushing myself to the limit, especially with weightlifting.  However, I am possibly to the point of negative returns.  It's not that I've over reached on lifting, it's that I've over reached on life and working.

My current work schedule looks like this:

Monday 8-5, 6:30-8 (Lift mid-day)
Tuesday 8-5, 6:30-8 (Lift evening)
Wednesday 8-5, 5:30-6:30 (Lift mid-day)
Thursday 8-5, 5:30-6:30 (Lift mid-day)
Friday 8-5, 6:30-8 (No lift)
Saturday 9-10 (Lift with team)
Sunday 10-1 (No lift)

Yep.  That's me, working 7 days a week, and attempting to lift 5 days a week.  I'm not saying that I'm ridiculously busy during all those work hours.  I'm also not saying that I don't like working.  I LOVE all my jobs.  What I'm saying, and here's a friendly reminder to everyone, STRESS IS STRESS.  YOUR BODY CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHYSICAL STRESS AND MENTAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL/EMOTIONAL STRESS.

Now after that friendly little reminder I will tell you that my lifting has begun to progress in the wrong damn direction.  I find myself exhausted, weary, and irritable.  I come home at night too tired to cook and when I finally muster the energy I'm too tired to eat.  I try to work on my recovery routine only to fall asleep on the foam roller.  I try to stick to my normal lifting schedule but the physical stress adding to the mental stress is taking its toll on my body and my body is rebelling.

I can be quite stubborn though.  I keep trucking right along, honoring the commitments I made to be working this much.  I keep trying to push the lifting.  Lifting is my stress reliever but I'm too stressed to lift well and not lifting well is stressing me out.  It's a wicked, vicious cycle that often ends in tears of frustration.

Today I was feeling pretty determined to get in some good lifting.  I was hoping to just hit some solid lifts that I could build on next week.  Snatches started off great until I started missing lifts at a weight I've been able to power snatch before.  It started messing with my mind so I decided rather than trying to beat it to death I'd move on.  Push presses actually went very well.  So well in fact that I push pressed for reps more than I actually could snatch today.  Moving onto squats...yeahhhhhh.....I barely hit triple digit weight.....for one grueling painful rep....a weight that I've hit for high reps.  Needless to say I was overly frustrated with it.

All the work I've put into lifting over the last few months feels completely derailed.  I'm exhausted.  I'm aware I've done this to myself.  I'm too stubborn to make a change to my work schedule because that will change in a couple of weeks and I can't help but think I can gut it out.

But I'm still trying to push it all to the limits....

And that's how I found myself pissed off, crying, listening to Mudvayne....

*Note - this might not have actually been the song on the radio at the time but I know a Mudvayne song was playing at some time during lifting.  Ha!

It's Not Every 4 Years, It's Every Day

The London 2012 Olympics are rock-n-rolling along right now.  It's inspiring to see the best athletes in the world competing, their passion and dedication shining through.  It all culminates in a proud moment of triumph or a heart wrenching moment of defeat.  In case you need a visual, check out any of the Olympic commercials narrated by Morgan Freeman.  Those darn things will bring a tear to your eye...

What the average everyday citizen forgets is that the Olympic Games really aren't every four years.  For these athletes it's every day of their life for four years straight.  It's something most people can't even imagine.  Spending hours every day, training, perfecting, planning.  HOURS every DAY for four YEARS straight in quest of the ultimate prize, an Olympic Gold Medal.

There are many sacrifices along the way to achieving even the opportunity to compete at such a high level. These athletes will sacrifice time spent with their family and friends to get one more training session or recovery work in.  They will put career plans on hold, taking lower paying jobs that allow them to train and travel as often as needed.  For many of these athletes there is so little sponsorship, if any, that they have to bank on the good will of others to donate money that goes towards paying rent, buying groceries, paying for travel to events, and all the other basic needs of a high level athlete. 

It's not just the athletes that have to sacrifice things to get to the next level.  Parents will sacrifice their time and money to make sure these athletes succeed.  I imagine the desire to see your child achieve their dreams of getting on that podium is almost as intense as the desire to be the one on the podium.  It's a heart warming experience to see parent truly dedicated to the success of their children.

Coaches will sacrifice time spent with their family and friends to help that athlete get one more rep and just a little bit closer to perfection.  They'll give up weekends and evenings to carefully plan which events to attend and which to pass on to get to the next level.  Wake up early to drive an athlete to an event so the athlete can relax and focus on what they need to do.  Coaching these athletes is a whole different level of stress.  Your knowledge, expertise, and guidance of these individuals is being put to the test.  Together as a coach, athlete, and team you are laying it all on the line. 

All of these individuals will spend those hours every day for years on end making those sacrifices the average individual can't even fathom to achieve a singular moment in time that may only last 30 seconds.  It's every day for four straight years to achieve that brief moment in time where they raise your flag and play your national anthem as you stand on the topmost podium breathing in the glory, crying the tears of success that has been years in the making.  For those athletes it's NOT every four years, it's every...single...day. 

Random Thoughts on a Friday

-The phrase "low rise" does not enter my fashion vocabulary.  Low rise = plumber's crack.  On a recent shopping trip I actually told my friend I'd almost prefer some Mom Jeans with a 9-inch comfort zipper.  She didn't think that was an advisable fashion choice.

-I love lifting heavy things.  That does not translate to mean I would love to lift your couch when you move.  However, since I'm a good person I will do it anyway.....if you feed me.

-I drive a big pick-up truck and love it.  That also does not translate to mean I would love helping you move.  However, I will help you move....if you feed me.  Or maybe buy me some gas at the lovely price of one internal organ per gallon of gas.

-I hate shopping for shorts.  There are only two options: Softball Coach or Denim Thong. 

-I've given up correcting people that call me a powerlifter or a bodybuilder. There's only so many times I can pantomime what I actually do.

-I coach in grunts.  It conveys a clearer message.

-Telling me you don't "work the legs" because you run is like saying you'll get rid of your flabby arms by waving in a parade.  

-People will do anything for a "free" t-shirt.  Even if they already own 14,392 other "free" t-shirts.  

-If the weight you're lifting is pink, it probably weighs less than that Sherpa-pack of a purse you lug around all day.  Try again. 

-Dressed up for me equates to any opportunity I get to wear jeans.  Or at least my "nice pair" of yoga capris. 

-I want to test drive most of the products on this website: As Seen On TV

Beastess: Angiesaurus Rex

The earth trembles and shakes when I walk. Competitors flee before my awesome stature.  I am Angiesaurus Rex!

This is what happens when I walk on the platform:

And this is what I do to the weights and my competitors:

I thrive on PRs!  I have been feeding my hunger with little morsels of big deadlifts and big squats.  Occasionally sampling a tidbit of sweet delicious near max competition lifts.  But Angiesaurus Rex is getting HUNGRY!  It's time to eat some BIG PRs on those competition lifts!!  And the Beastess will ROAR!!

But a word to the warning....never poke an Angiesaurus Rex before her morning coffee otherwise you'll find.....