Baby Steps

It seems like the combination of physio, massage, mobility work and various core and glute exercises are finally doing some good.  Today we had a repeat of the Open workout 14.2 which is the one where I got a big, fat 0 ... 3 attempts at this workout last year for a score of zero, zip, zilch, nada.  The thing I learnt about myself last year was that I despite failing over and over I don't give up easily.

When I saw this WOD posted yesterday my heart sank.  I haven't done overhead squats in awhile as it puts a lot of pressure on my thoracic and lumbar region.  The OHS is an amazing exercise as it uses so many muscles but it's a bitch when you lack mobility.

I decided that today was the day to attempt overhead squats again.  I need to attempt these exercises at a low weight to gauge how my back is feeling and to start building strength again.  My scaling was going to be just the 10 kg bar and try and get through to at least the 3rd round.

I also chose to do ring rows as it is time consuming getting in and out of the bands for the pull ups.  It also made it faster as I set up right next to the rings.  There is also a belief that banded pull ups can be counterproductive with building strength for unassisted pull ups and that we should be doing ring rows.

I was happy with how today went.  I got into the third round with a final result of 120 reps which equates to 62 squats (and I only had to repeat 1 due to lack of depth).  This is what my body and mind needed, I needed to do this at a low weight and do lots of reps - don't get me wrong, it was really tough ... I wanted to quit, it was exhausting both mentally and physically as I focused on getting the correct depth and staying on my heels, my shoulders were burning as I went from squats to ring rows ... it wasn't easy but I did it!

Date	OHS	Pull Ups	Reps
10/03/2014	30	Unassisted	0
9/02/2015	10	Ring Rows	120