Dead

I can't decide if I feel great or awful right now.

Deadlift 3-3-3-3-3

So off to the gym I go, do the warmup. Good news there. Though my pushups are still mightily ugly, they are less ugly than they used to be. We're all about the less-ugly round here. Everything else went fine. Got bored with the back extensions so instead of having my arms at cross-your-heart I went up to hands-behind-head. The goal is to work up to the full superman.

While I was doing the matwork portion of working out there was a woman getting a training consult from a guy and she never stopped talking. Never. Not once. I was in awe. She also prefaced all exercise with either 'I can't do that' or 'Can I really do that?". Now I'm all in favor of modesty and trying to be reasonable up front about anticipated limits, but I hope like heck I've never done *that*. Dude was being great with her though and saying awesome things to her like "Yeah you can do that", "See, you've got muscles!".

So I pop next door in buffdude central, the room with all the big weights and bigger fellas.

Fwaw.

There are two barbell stations where you can do deadlifts, and one of them has three big gorgeous fellas at it. They're doing big lifting.

Chin high, trying to look cool but not bitchy, I go over to the other station and I've got to set up the barbell. Last time I did this, my brother helped me. This time, I've got to solo it because there's NO WAY IN HECK that I am asking for help. Unless I crush a toe.

Okay, first things first, the 45# bar. Good, it's already there.

Next I need the lever bar thing for holding it up. Check.

Okay, I'm aiming for 135# for the first lift, so I find the 45# doughnuts, grab one and lever up the bar. Stabilizing it with my foot, I put on one doughnut, then the other. So far so good.

Get all lined up. I'd watched the instructional video today, so I knew in theory what to do. Feet under bar, shins 2" away, bend, grab, arch back for the duck butt, deep breath, look up...

and they're all looking at me.

Great. Let's hope that I can lift this, that I look tidy doing so, and that I don't break wind or similar.

135 135 135

Ok. Not so bad. Put it down. They're all off doing their own things now, so am much less self-conscious.

135 135 135

Starting to feel it in my back a bit. Still, going to step it up a touch.

145 145 145

Okay, that's feeling like exercise.

145 145 145 145

Got a little back rounding on the third one, so aborted the put down. Stood back up, then did it properly. Then lost count and did it all again. Whoops. Are we seeing a theme here?

Last one now

155 155 155

Back is on the verge of failure, arms have a bit of a tremor, and a forgotten hamstring injury just woke up.

Okay, I admit it. I feel great.

:)

I managed to put the bar away without embarrassing myself and then got to enjoy the walk to the locker room with the feeling like my back has just relaxed from a huge cramp. Hard to describe the feeling. I felt great, but awful. Mostly great though.