This One's For You Em

Anyone who has ever seen me, in person or in pictures, knows that I stay carrying a little junk in my trunk (if you're stupid- that means I have a booty- even when I'm skinny). However, my room-mate... not so much. She has very low body fat, and very low booty-mass. It doesn't really make sense to me, because she has really defined legs, arms, and abs- just not so much butt. Enough about her anatomy. She doesn't like talking about it anyway. In my quest to lure her into kettlebell workouts, I promised her I would make a "booty builder" workout. I am basing this on the assumption that no one has already done this, and if they have, then this is Renee's booty-building workout. The problem with strengthening her glutes (getting her a butt) is not that she has too get rid of fat back there. Like I mentioned, she has very low body fat, so its all about building muscle and fighting her genetic predisposition the best we can. So, here's my workout for the evening, and the booty builder workout for effective derriere definition.

warm-up:
20 2-hand swings
1L/1R pistol squat
*5 sets*

workout:
10 deck squats (w/16k)
3-5L/3-5R TGU's (w/12 or 16k)
10L/10R reverse lunges (w/2 16k's racked)
20 double 16k swings
5L/5R front squats (wide stance)
10 squat/thrust/push-ups (w/24ks)
25 hindu squats
5L/5R ariel squats
10 straight-leg deadlifts
*3 sets*
(30 sec rest between exercises)

My workout included guard presses and clean/presses, because my upper body needed a little play, but did not include the deadlifts, because I prefer to do these with a bar (didn't have access to that at 11:30pm in my living room). I also finished off with 15 min of abs (weighted sit-ups, get-up sit-ups, jandas, stomach vacuuming, etc.) I wanted to hit the 36:36 tonight, but my shoulders were smoked from boxing before class. I love boxing and jiu jitsu. I have a great coaches who push me and are hard on me to make me better at their respective sports every single time I hit the mat or jump in the ring. I consider myself extremely lucky to be blessed with such awesome people in my life.

** Oh yeah, If anyone knows where I can find a video of the proper way (if there is one) of doing full-contact twists with kettlebells, I would be very grateful**

No Kettlbells Yesterday

Usually, every day, no matter what, I pick up the kettlebells to do a short little "heavy" workout, or just mess around doing windmills, weighted pistols, squats, and then some bodyweight stuff. But yesterday, I was at jiu jitsu for a little over an hour, taught a KB class, then rushed off to school and home for a run. Even though we ran for an hour- I still felt like something was missing. No shit huh, I hadn't touched a kettlbell all day except for during the class I taught. Not what I need to be doing the week before the TSC. But, yesterday was a really frustrating day for me and I needed to run to keep my sanity I suppose. But today, all I have is boxing this evening, so I am gonna get a good, long, hard KB workout in since it is gorgeous and sunny and I can tell my puppy wants to go to the park anyways (he swims and scares small children while I workout- yeah, he's a menace). We'll see how it goes.

Checking My Ego At The Door

Yesterday I decided to make my dead-lift day. I am very picky about who I take advice from. There is only one person I call when I need advice on something nutrition wise- Katy. She's also the one who "taught" me how to dead-lift. She is a fitness model and subject matter experton all things pertaining to nutrition and gym training. Well, a meat-head friend of mine showed up at my house yesterday, in from out of town, and dragged me to the gym (hence my decision to make it my deal-lift day). However, when I got there and asked for his tips/opinion about the whole belt thing, he went through and gave me some pointers on little ways to tweak my form and make the most out of using a belt. Two things came out of this- frustration and an apparent plateau.

sumo dead-lift
150 x3 (critiquing my form)
220 x3
150 x3 (re-correcting my form)
220 x2

Then, I tried to pull 270- like I did last week, hoping that I may be able to add some weight this week. This is when the irrational frustration set in. I couldn't do it. I got angry, took a break and tried again. Still- no dice. I tried it with and without the belt. Nothing worked. My buddy tried to tell me it was because I was "tired," but I am really stubborn and not the person who likes to walk out of somewhere not accomplishing what I came to do. Trying to be positive about the experience, I did work on my form a lot and felt what it feels like to pull with a belt on (not sure how I feel about that yet- the only difference is that my lower back doesn't ache today like it normally would).

It was a good thing that I had to leave to meet my boxing coach, because that's exactly what I needed- to pound out my frustrations (literally). Coach Michaels is really the greatest. He was the coach of the All-Marine boxing team before Coach Simmons took over last year. He's an awesome coach and a very generous person for taking me on- and extremely patient and positive. So my last workout of the day was boxing for an hour and 1/2. After that I was toast.