The Biggest Person

Sometimes I still let some old feeling affect me without really knowing, or being conscious of what's going on.  I just wrote about how I never saw myself as "that fat person in the mirror", but I couldn't deny that I did see that fat person in the mirror because I was, in fact, fat.  And it felt like no matter where I was, or who I was with, I was the biggest person there....at the family get togethers, in school, in Girl Scouts, at the dance, in the club, in the gym, with my friends, etc.  From the time I could remember this was the case.



At stages in my adult life when I did lose weight I was still larger, or bigger than most of the people close to me.  My sisters, my mother, my cousins, my classmates/coworkers, were all smaller (or skinnier) than me.  I don't think I ever managed to weigh below the 140's and that was large for a woman in my generation during times when 110's and 120's was ideal (I got a little pissed off just now thinking about  it, lol, anyway...)  So, there is a little part of me that may still be triggered, although less and less as time passes, by judging myself based on my bodyweight.  It's kind of trippy to me that I know I'm not fat anymore, but I still can find myself feeling like the biggest person in the room, or maybe it's just a feeling of not belonging....hmnn...I think I'm on to something here....

I have a lot more to write about my feelings on this subject but I think I may have to break it into a couple of posts.

I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to weigh a particular "number".  But I also know my truth to feeling good about myself, and that has nothing to do with a "number".

I don't really care that "muscle weighs more that fat".  My brain knows this, but what does my heart feel?  And how do my jeans fit?

I can want what I want, but you won't hear me bitch about not having it....much.  I find this whole adventure interesting.  The adventure of what I think, how I feel, where I want to go, not worried about how to get there, just knowing the possibilities.  In the mean time doing things I love, and appreciating all that I have.

Letting go of feeling and judgments of being the biggest person or not belonging....maybe there's some anger there....maybe.

Picture above: 40 years ago on my 9th birthday taken with my skinny friends Debbie and my best friend, "Little" Tracy.

Clean and Jerk routine

Thursday mornings I swing for about 1 hour before I either press or snatch, so when I get to the second half of my workout using the heaviest weights is not my purpose or intention.  I practice the overhead lifts a a way of getting and staying relatively strong and mobile in an overhead position.  It's all a fun and playful way of staying strong and fit.  Nothing too serious!




(I used two different size bells for my first and second set)

1 cl/jk R, tr (switch hands), 1 cl/jk L, tr x 4  
1 min work/1min rest x 2 sets = 4 min

5 cl/jk R, tr
5 cl/jk L
1 min work/30 sec rest x 2 sets = 3 min.

3 dbl cl/jk
15 sec work/15 sec rest x 10 sets = 5 min

12 minutes per rotation

I wouldn't want any body to think I only swing and snatch...although there is nothing wrong with doing just those, in fact there's everything right with the both!  That's why nothing comes before my own swing training, everything else is icing on the cake.  My swing and snatch training gives me everything I want, strength, endurance, cardio fitness, muscletone, etc, but I'm lucky enough to have more time to play around, and the motivation and interest to keep moving my body.

I wrote out this workout in super short hand because the jerk and most press workouts are done if you are at a more advanced skill level.  That being the case you probably don't need my little workout, or you can figure it out pretty simply....just thought I'd share.

Go For the GOLD!

Who wants to walk into a gym 100 + pounds overweight?  My husband and I owned a gym for 8 years (World Gym, Campbell CA ), and I when I was overweight I never walked in the front door!  Embarrassed for myself, but also too embarrassed for him to have such a fat wife.  How would my life change, permanently, to that of an athlete in training, and feeling driven to be the best.

Remembering the Olympic Games came one of the biggest athletic memories of my life....along with thousands of other young girls!   1972, Olga Korbut. What little girl doesn’t dream of being the Women’s Gymnastic gold medalist?  The Olympic games, only the best, the top of the top.  The event, Gymnastics, was only an example that reminds us of what lies underneath, and inside of us…..our inner athlete.

At only 9 years old this left an impression of the physical possiblities, the physical potential available to all normal girls, but I wasn't normal.  Being overweight, “chubby”, my entire life was painful.  I felt like the only chubby girl in the world.  I was always the last one picked for team sports, I never was able to do a cartwheel or hang from the monkey bars like other little girls, gymnastics was totally and forever out of the question.

Looking in the mirror and seeing the reflection of a fat girl.  Who was that?  That was not me.  I have never seen myself as that fat person, and it always surprised me to see that reflection knowing I was so much more than what my physical body looked like. I always felt judged and underestimated because of my physical condition....underestimated and judged by everyone, and maybe myself. 

Over the years I had, in addition to Olga Korbut, one more deep lasting physical impression.  Rachel McLish, bodybuildings 1980 Ms. Olympia . From one Olympian to another!  Talk about the perfect female physique.  Remember, this was 1980.  Bodybuilding in the 80’s set a standard for lean muscular physiques and it still has lasting effects on diet and training. This is the reason I joined Gold’s Gym, San Jose , and where I would meet my future husband Mark.  Fate?  Or part of my dreams coming true?  Mark was a former Olympic level athlete and the one who would unknowingly help me turn my dream of being and living like an athlete into reality. But who knew it would come almost 20 years later!

It had seemed like forever that I wanted to be able to express some physicality and athleticism throughout my life.  As a young adult I dreamt of bodybuilding and things like competing in the Ironman triathalon, and yes, the dream of being Olga Korbut still resonated.  But they were still only dreams, it was way too late for me.

Could I do it?  Would I do it?  Would I ever lose the weight?  Would I ever stop stuffing myself full of food?  I liked overeating food, and it liked me…until I didn’t, and it didn’t.  Change was up to me, and change was possible.

Why not me?  Why not you?

I believe in you the same as I believe in me.  I support, but I don’t commiserate.  I expect the best, the biggest, and the fastest changes.  I’m your biggest cheerleader.  You can do this...go for the GOLD!

No Brainer Snatch-aholics 500 continuous reps

It may seem to a lot of people that I am constantly training but it's not the case.  Sure, I train kettlebells more than most, on the days I do train KB's, but I want to remind that I take 4 entire days away from kettlebells, I even try not to schedule KB work or demos on those days off.

The key is that I never miss my workouts.  That means out of 365 days in a year I show up for over 150 kettlebell workouts.  And on opposite days I train yoga at least 3 days a week, (this year) adding another 150 workouts.  300 workouts out of 365, wow, even I'm impressed!  But even all of these workouts equal approx 8 hours in an entire weeks 168 hours....ok, minus 8 hours sleep per day, it's still only 8 out of 112, not much.


So keeping that in mind this No-Brainer "Snatch-aholics" workout is not a challenge, or something that I think is a good idea for everybody to do, or try, if you haven't been training consistently, it's just what I had time for and all of my consistent training allowed me to do. 


I only had about 25 minutes after my Tuesday morning class and since I've kind of had this 400-500 snatch rep theme going on I was thinking I wanted to try and complete some kind of high volume snatch rep count.  I did not want to snatch heavy, I didn't even want to snatch the 14kg so using the 12kg I started with 10 reps R/L at a time.  While I was snatching I kept thinking about how to break up the sets....100 at a time? Nope, I've been doing that and I was bored.  200?  It doesn't go into 500 evenly.  Damn...should just do it without stopping?  Not really in the mood, but no better alternative.  God counting this is going to be a nightmare!


Of course I'm not going to video tape over 20 minutes of 10/10 snatches...besides, I had already started and I couldn't put the bell down at this point!  So I took a picture afterwards trying to get the Gymboss reading. Almost forty three 30 sec intervals = 21.5 minutes to complete.  It was after I put the bell down that the sweat just started pouring!


I checked my Gymboss after 200 reps (ten sets of 10 both R and L, 20 x 10), and it read 17 intervals, I checked it again after 400 to make sure my counting was near correct, yep, 34 intervals, makes sense it took another 8 to finish the last 100.


I've snatched continuous 40 minutes in the past, not sure of the rep count.  And I know I've done 1000 snatches before that even (I think), so this wasn't my longest snatch workout ever, but it will be for a while! Next time I do 500 continuous reps I'm going to test and challenge myself to do it under 20 minutes!  That means I probably did about 40 snatches after the 20 minute mark and will have to go faster to fit them into the shorter time....now that will be fun!

"The Swing" Facebook fan page

Good-ness! I'm divided between my blog and my facebook fan page!  If you want the "short stories" be sure to check out and "like" "The Swing's" FB fan page.

https://www.facebook.com/TracyReifkindTheSwing

"40 two hand swings" workout

I know I've been posting a lot of workouts lately, and I'm actually backed up with workout videos....but believe it or not, it takes less energy to train than it does to post my thoughts about food, weight loss and diet!  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!  so I'm leading you to water....the drinking part is on you!  (and I'm not trying to call you a horse!)

This workouts' goal is to train the two hand swing for 40 continuous reps.  Back in "the day" it was rare that any body trained the swing for more than 10-20 reps...one hand, two hand, hand to hand, whatever.  When I started training the swing, for sure, no one was talking about, posting, or even advocating the swing for more than that.  Well, times have changed, and I hope I've been part of that change.

For years and years my "warm-up" for my workout was not mobility drills, Z-health, whatever, it was swings!  I may be one of the lucky ones, but to this day I warm up my own workouts and my class workouts with swings.  period.  It was not hard for me to do 40 reps of two hand swings, BUT, as I started to teach and lead others through workouts I had to shorten the work intervals to 15-30 sec and once I got out of the habit of training 40 continuous 2 hand swings it all of a sudden became hard again (I use the word "hard" as a term of endearment)

So, here it is.  A workout to help you train the two hand swing for 40 continuous reps.  Why should you want to?  Why not?  But seriously, it increases grip strength as well as strengthening your forearms, and who doesn't want to be as strong as Popeye?  If you already are at the level of training the two hand swing for 40 reps no problem then I give you a problem!  Training into your rest period by up to 75%...try that and let me know how it goes for you!


I smoothed out the bug in the workout I designed for Seattle but never got to....

"40 2 hd sw"

10 2 hd sw x 2
10 tr x 2
1/2 sw ld x 2
5/5 x 2
4 min 80 sw

20 2 hd sw
30 2 hd sw
2.5 min 50 sw

"on the 2 minute"

40 2 h sw
40 2 hd sw (+ 10 tr
40 2 hd sw (+ 10 tr + 1/2 sw ld
40 2 hd sw (+ 10 tr + 1/2 sw ld + 5/5
5/5 + 2/1 sw ld + 10 tr + 10 2 hd sw (+ 30 2 hd sw = 40)
2/1 sw ld + 10 tr + 20 2 hd sw (+20 2 hd sw = 40)
10 tr + 30 2 hd sw (+ 10 2 h sw = 40 )
40 2 hd sw
16 min, 320 sw (120 optional swings = 440)

30 2 hd sw
20 2 hd sw
10 2 hd sw x 2
3.5 min, 70 sw

total workout
26 min, 520 swings, (optional 120 = 640)

Snatch-aholics....bringing another 500 reps!

As usual I had no idea where my training was going to take me this morning so I did not video tape the first part of my workout, and besides that, the gym is always more crowded making it difficult to "produce" a tape with everybody around me.  I did not think about the total rep count, I only started building a base, a foundation, via....what else?  A ladder, uphill and then downhill.  I explain the routine during a rest break, not sure how well you can hear it so I will explain it best I can.



Every 20 reps you have 1 full minute to complete both work AND rest.  Chose a bell weight you can complete 20 reps in less than 40-45 sec giving you 15-20 sec rest periods for each group of 20 snatch reps.

1st set, 20 reps, 1 min
2nd set, 40 reps, 2 min
3rd set, 60 reps, 3 min
4th set 80 reps, 4 min
5th set 100 reps, 5 min (video starts here and follows the remaining downhill ladder)
6th set 80 reps, 4 min
7th set 60 reps, 3 min
8th set 40 reps, 2 min
9th set 20 reps, 1 min.
done!

500 snatch reps, 25 min.



This is the equivalent of 5 snatch tests in a row!  Well, if I were using my snatch testing weight bell it would be!  I used the 12kg, plenty hard!  I already know how I'm going to modify it with a heavier bell....Snatch-aholics, stay tuned!

Even I was surprised that the total was 500 reps!  And in only 25 minutes!  Crazy!  Max Vo2 done at 8 reps per 15 seconds only totals 400 reps!  This is definitely a "Beyond Max" workout!

Originally this workout is based on a routine I posted a few months ago where you snatch 20 reps "On the minute" for however long you want your workout to be.  This version was way more challenging, in a good way!  I started my first set with 10 R/ 10 L, but my hands were too "crispy" and dry from not training all weekend.  I broke out a blister on my left palm and had to switch ever 5 reps....this only added 2 more swings per 20 snathces.  Doesn't seem like that much more work? Well, that equals out to 50 more swings, 1.25 minutes more work!  Try it both ways!  10 at a time and 5 at a time and let me know how it goes for you!

PS  it really blows me away how other people "cross training" (and including trainers) completely ignore the fact that I'm trying to do some serious training while they congregate around the water cooler between sets, having conversations and walking behind me and sometimes right in front of me while I'm swinging or snatching!  Good-ness, catch a clue.