my posterior chain is uncomfortable.

Technically I think this means I have a pain in my ass, though it’s actually my hamstrings giving me grief this week.  For years my quads and hams and bum have been woefully underdeveloped.  I had a very real problem growing up, that being one of my knees would dislocate with very particular movements and angles, and would sublux with others.  Specifically, it would dislocate with certain squat/push motions, and would sublux oddly with leg curls and similar.  What this means practically is, even being a catcher when I played softball, that I did a lot of very careful transitions in ranges of motion that were comfortable/safe for me, leaving many of my muscles sadly underdeveloped.

Thus, my sad little deadlifts and nearly non-existent hamstrings.    Enter Strongman.

Two weeks ago, at my first real Strongman class, I learned to lift and elevate kegs, the lighter of which I can even motivate to my shoulder and beyond.  The heaviest was a bear, but I enjoyed chucking up into the air as far as I could via forceful hip extension.  At least, I enjoyed it until the next day, when I could barely walk for the stretch in my hammies, who wondered in tandem what had just happened.  Last week with Keg Carry and Farmer Walk wasn’t as bad, but I followed it up this weekend with consecutive days of heck.   Allow me to elaborate.

Saturday I did GymNasty, one of my favorites, and Kia always leads me through bad bad things that I willingly do to myself.  This included ring pull-ups (3×5) with weighted abmat situps (3×10 with 45 lbs),  crab walks, bear walks,  and DUs.  The WOD at the end was horrible and left me feeling terribly sluggish, what with more DUs, burpee boxjumps (because burpees aren’t bad enough), and T2B.  Cat showed up exactly on time to teach me Atlas Stones in a little one-on-one, and it was awesome, but really really hard.  See aforementioned statements about posterior chain, which was already toasted after rounds of heavy squats, heavy deads, heavy KB swings, and boxjumps earlier in the week.   I also removed the skin from the inside of both forearms, an apparent normal consequence of lifting concrete orbs.  I got the 115 up to my shoulder and 130 up to nearly chest.   Awesome.    One-on-one lessons are wearing because you’re not waiting for everybody else to cycle through the generally large class; it’s just you standing there while Cat stares at you.  Extra fun.   Special thanks to Cat, though, for showing up and teaching me the fine art of lifting odd things.   I’m hooked.  I am.  Can’t keep me away.

I’m not going to go into my Food experience over the weekend, except to say that I stayed strict except during the game.  Saturday included Eggs, bacon, steak, pineapple, broccoli, protein, and coconut water.   Sunder looked much the same except during the game, when we opted for iffy  veggie chips (baked, but with “natural flavors”), salsa, and guacamole.  And Mountain Dew.  Not as much as I thought I would, which is good, and I hadn’t planned on a lot, which is better.   And I felt fine today, which is also great.  I drank a decent amount of water and coconut water post-game in hopes of washing out the Dew.  It was fine.  and completely worth it.