Date: 2/9/22
Training Day: 66
Activity: Strength – Strength Capacity

How It Felt: The workout started off decent, but between stress and running low on energy due to lack of calories, I felt like crap at the end.

Commentary: My new bar arrived! The plates I bought actually fit on it, and it has a 350-lb capacity. Confetti! I pretty stoked to do my workout with my new bar. Until I wasn’t.

The bar didn’t come with collars, and I didn’t both buying any because I assumed one of the three pairs of collars I had for my other 1-ish inch bars would work. Wrong, bitch! All of them slid right off. Fuuuck. And of course I figure this out in the middle of workout right before I’m supposed to start deadlifts. Stressful!

My husband tells me I should be fine for my deadlifts, and he was right. Yay! The other exercise in this group was the dumbbell one-arm row. Before I started the workout, the app said I’d be using a 35-lb dumbbell the whole time, which was perfect because that’s the heaviest one I own.

The Volt Athletics app is cool in that it automatically adjusts your workout based on your feedback. If a set was super easy it either adds more weight or more reps. Usually, it adds more weight. After my second set of one-arm rows, the app says I should use 40 lbs for the next set. Fuck.

While it wasn’t the end of the world to keep using my 35-lb dumbbell, I really wanted to do something more challenging so I can keep progressing. The alternative exercises in the mostly involved bands, which I didn’t feel like dealing with. This added to my stress.

Around this time the workout started to feel hard. Not hard as in I’m getting a great workout, hard as in my body feeling abnormally noodley and I’m about to either cry, throw a temper tantrum, or both. The next group of exercises went alright, but I could tell I was off.

The fourth group of exercises includes the lateral walk with a band around your ankles. I had yet to unpack my stuff from the Moab trip, so the bands were in my small backpack. The rest timer on my watch started beeping, letting me know that I should be starting the lateral walk in seconds, and I could not find my fucking bands! After dumping out the entire backpack and spreading its contents on the floor I finally found them. More stress.

I thought the handfuls of almonds and protein shake I had before leaving work would be enough to sustain me through my workout, but I was wrong. By the end of the workout I was almost shaking because I needed calories. I went straight for the fruit snacks before making avocado toast and salad for dinner.

Now I have collars on order for my bar that will hopefully fit. I still need to buy a 40-lb dumbbell and decide how to proceed if I’m going to keep needing heavier dumbbells. And now I know to bring extra food to work with me. Fingers crossed the next strength training day goes better.

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