Friday, March 13, 2009

After a hiatus, max thrusters...and if you ever do this, I swear I'll beat you...

So this week really was not a good CF week for me. My schedule was all over the place, my energy was low, and I just was not feeling a bunch of ass kicking workouts. After a horrible night at work on Thursday, I decided to get in at the 0600 class on Friday. I think that may be the solution for me after nights at work. Go to 0600 instead of 0515. But before I jump into the workout, I just want to say a few things.

*Katie gets on soap box* I am a server as one of my part time jobs. Servers do not make minimum wage. We make an hourly wage of a PALTRY $2.18 an hour, and we survive on the money we make in tips. Now, having said that, it has become standard in the serving world to tip 18-20% if the service is good. The standard is NO LONGER 15%. If your server is horrible and screws up repeatedly, by all means, jack their tip. But if your server was polite, brought you your food with no major mistakes (please note that some small mishaps are the result of the kitchen and NOT your server) and in general is pleasant and friendly, take care of them.

Please do not treat them as if they are below you (truth is some of them are just as important as you in their full-time jobs) or that they are not worthy of being treated in a polite manner. They are not your servants, but are there to make your dining experience more pleasant. And if they do that successfully, you should certainly tip them accordingly. IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO TIP A SERVER 10% UNLESS THEY SCREWED UP HORRIBLY. Especially when you can tell that your server is busting their butt to get up and down three flights of stairs to get to your table!

Two more side notes before I end my rant and get to the max thrusters... You should always tip your server on the check before any discounts or coupons. The server's tipout at the end of the night is based on calculated sales, and discounts do not get taken into account. And lastly, be sure that if you are using cash and credit, that you tip your server accordingly. Let me give you an example.

Jill, John, Jack, and Jessica all eat dinner. Their check is $60. Jill and Jessica throw in $40 which includes tax and tip for their part and they ask to take that off the bill and swipe the rest on the credit card. Easy enough. Total on card is $20 and John tips $5. Seems fair right? Wrong. John just tipped their server less than 10%. John took Jill and Jessica's tip out of the total amount he owed, which means therefore that he should then remember to add their tip with his.

Now I'm sure my regular readers already know this because they are brilliant and wonderful, but if there is anyone else out there that's done any of these things, you better shape up, or I will beat you cause it's not nice. *Katie gets off soap box*

Now... max thrusters. Friday morning I made it in at 0600. There were 2 workouts on the board. One was a killer metcon WOD and one was a strength WOD. I wasn't feeling really frisky on either account, but I decided to go with the max thrusters. I'm weak on thrusters because of my hips and it's a good movement for me to work in order to try to get better with speed. I don't honestly remember all my weights, but I started very conservatively. I have learned that for me, working up heavy is about the ramp up. With front squats I have gotten comfortable enough with the weight that I can make larger jumps. With deadlifts, because of my form faults, I need to make small jumps and ensure that my form is good and I feel good before I move. The same is true with my overhead work. If I want to hit the big weights, I need to ramp up well. I need to feel good. If it doesn't feel good, the heavy weights won't go up. I'll doubt myself and try to change something, and I'll mess it up horribly. Ok well maybe not horribly, but I'll still mess it up.

So, last time my max thruster was only 105. I was ramping up slowly to try to get a good feel with the bar. I felt great until I got to 95. It went up, but it didn't feel good. I made the decision to move to 105 and got that up. But again, that didn't feel good either. But I said what the hey and threw on 115. I tried 115 twice but, was doing some funky things and lost it both times. So, for me, I have to remember that the ramp up is important. If it doesn't feel good, REPEAT IT. There's no harm in it, except that you may tire yourself out before your true max. But having viruosity of the movement, is far better than being about to do the movement incorrectly with 140 lbs. Am I right? So, I'm sticking with the idea that I had about a month ago, that I still need to dial back on weight, drive hard on form, and get that down before I can move back up to using lots of weight. It stinks, cause I like heavy weights over my head, but in the long run, it is much more important and will help me to prevent injury and get stronger.

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