ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL TIME PR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm feeling a little sheepish. I've been so preoccupied. I think often about blogging, but, it's always when I'm out and about. Then when I get home I have a slew of things I need to get done and blogging is never one that comes to mind. I went to Cincinnati for about a 36 hr visit the end of August. Laura Phelps-Sweatt was in a meet and I really wanted to go see it. I've never had the opportunity to see her in the competition arena. She didn't have her best meet, but I was so grateful to be there for it. She handled it beautifully. She definitely has a world-class attitude. It taught me so much about learning from your experiences and moving on to put those lessons into practice instead of dwelling on what should've been. At that meet, I also got to see the Sweattshop's sponsored lifter, Derek Wade. He put on an absolutely amazing performance. He missed his first squat attempt, and submitted a second attempt that was 30 lbs. heavier. He missed his second attempt and submitted a third attempt that was 20 lbs. heavier. Derek has been chasing a 1,000 lb. squat for a while. And he finally got it. I can't believe the confident attitude and guts that I witnessed to take such jumps when it just very obviously doesn't look to be your day. But, Derek knew what he wanted. And there was nothing that was going to stop him. With nothing to lose and everything to gain he went after it and he got it. This meet was 3 weeks ago and I still think about it like it was yesterday. I learned some valuable lessons. It was an amazing trip. The Paralympics was on!!! It ran for 10 days, the beginning of September and I suppose that's where my preoccupation really took off. I spent every spare minute I could find watching them on the livestream on the Paralympic website. It was so awesome. I cried much. I can't wait to get there. It's such an honor to be a part of something like that. My teammates Mary and Ahmed were able to get many of their lifts up. However, the judging at the international level is extremely strict. All of Ahmed's lifts were DQ'd on technical issues. Mary got a good lift of 283 lbs. and ranked fourth in the world. I didn't get to watch either of them on the livestream. But, I did catch my buddy from Greece, who won a bronze medal in his class. I met him when I was in Malaysia for World's. MY lifting is also going VERY well. I lifted an All-Time PR of 190 lbs. this week!!!!! It's been a while since I hit an All-Time PR on my competition bench. It was VERY exciting. Brian did say that the pause might have been a little short according to Paralympic standards. But, I definitely paused it. It was just not quite long enough to ensure that the subjective opinions of every judge would have given it to me. Walking is going very well. It still makes me tired, but, I'm doing well with it. I very much like to just stand. Brian and I have started some extra recovery methods with the medball. That should help with the stress of walking. So! I THINK that's about all I should catch you up on. I am about 6 weeks out from my competition in Florida. Very excited for that. And then I'll be back in Cincinnati in December.

Continuity

Well! It seems I be slackin' a little bit on my blogging! You'd think with a commitment of once a week I'd be able to keep up! My sister's home!!!!!!!!! She's been home since last Tuesday with Matias and she leaves tomorrow. That's been a really fun visit. Walking is going excellent. I'm a little less tired each time and I've also increased my distance quite a bit. I'm at a lull with PT and deciding what to do next. School starts today, so, I'm gonna have a full plate again for a while. Lifting doesn't seem to have been affected a whole lot. Last Monday I got 180 for a pretty easy single. I was supposed to max out again on Friday but I've been just a touch under the weather so Brian suggested I take the weekend off. I suppose that my lack of blogging is partially due to not really knowing what to blog about. I used to attach a story with my lifting updates. But, it's just so hard to explain exactly what I'm experiencing that I got a touch frustrated with myself for not being able to express in a way that people understood properly. I have really been noticing a great deal of changes in myself lately. A lot of maturing and answers to prayers that have been prayed for years upon years. A great deal of it being that my mindset has changed and improved towards how I perceive others view me and how I view myself. I attribute a very large portion of this to Brian hanging around to continue to train me and be in my life on a very frequent basis (due to my training schedule and details of training). His continuous presence in my life has taught me so many things that they are just too innumerable to even begin mentioning. I would say it's hard for me to believe, however, that would only partially be true. The details of my dream that I had as a little girl continue to unfold on a daily basis. It's no longer just the big picture of a Paralympian Hopeful and her trainer. It's much more intricately woven than that and would only be possible by the hands of a very caring God that looks out for me on a daily basis as well. So, while it IS hard for me to believe at times, I also think I knew all along that some day it would come true. Continuity is a very important thing. There are a great many difficulties that we endure in our lives. There are also many negative things that we hear in our lives. It takes a very continuous good thing to overcome all those other life things in order to be able to believe in the good things again. It takes a long time and many repeats. But, one day you wake up and you realize, it's lasted longer than the bad stuff and it's still good and going strong.

Birthday Surprise

Not very often will I do this, but, I'm going to link the log entry of my training log on the women's training site, and I'd appreciate it if all my blogger followers would follow the link to read about my weekly update this time. It's a rather long entry and I don't want to forget anything by having to re-type it here. I hope you all enjoy. It's been a very awesome week. http://www.womenslifting.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=411#p3832

PR City!

Well! This is more like it! Monday I hit a 20# PR and today I hit a 10# PR! Monday we used a 1-board. It's a wood board, couple inches thick, that lays on the chest and you bench from it instead of clear to the chest. It helps with sticking points. I did 190 for 3 and last time we did it, I did 170 for 3! Today we did 3131 Tempo and I did 170 for 2 and last time we did it, I did 160 for 2! Wednesday Seated Low Rows were up to 90 lbs. I've learned a lot of lessons through all of this. Just in time for the Olympics to start. :) One is be patient. Things will happen if you just hang in there. Two is you don't always have to do everything everyone else does. It's not a bad thing to be different. And Three is never ever ever ever forget to be thankful every single day for the trainer that's still around after everything you've been through. It was a long hard year. There were times when we both just looked at each other cuz we just didn't know what to do. But, I think Brian's learning he knows a lot more than he ever thought he did. And he's learning to trust his instincts. He has fought through a lot to keep my dreams alive. It's funny....everyone says it'll never mean as much to anyone else as it does to you cuz it's your dream. But, it's gotta mean something to him for him to keep plugging away at all of this. Last Friday, when he was loading my bar for tempo bench he said "You know, this goes against everything I believe in." My response? "Yes, I know, but you're willing to do it and believe in it, and that's why you're my trainer and the others aren't." The proof is in the pudding. Everyone can tell you until the cows come home that you're doing it all wrong. but he has every number I've ever done to back us up on exactly why we do what we do. And he's even figured out the mechanical theories behind it. It's a completely different ball game to lift without any feeling from your hips down. Ya just have to learn to flow with it. We're working on it. He's better at flowing than I am. But, that's why I leave him in charge! haha. Stay tuned. More big numbers coming soon!

Repeat

Well, the main advice from Cincinnati at the meet a few weeks ago was to repeat exactly what I had done for the cycle before the meet. Don't mind it we do! So, this week we did touch-and-go bench on Monday and 3131 Tempo bench on Friday. I did 160 for triples for both of them with a dropset or two. Friday I did 135 with Cambered Bar Shrugs which I was very happy about! Never did that before! Workin' quite a bit on some thoracic extension and movement on Wednesdays at the end of the workout. It's not moving along very quickly. At all. However, I'm sure it's helping and all of a sudden the progress will just show up one day. That seems to be my pattern. I didn't work out today, just hittin' it again tomorrow. Been doing some different stretching, trying to find something that works best for my legs and back. I've had a lot of changes. I don't have near as much pain as I used to have and the pain that I do have is in a different place than it used to be. I also don't have near as many spasms. Which is awesome. But when it changes it's hard to catch up to it to figure out what works so that the spasms and pain don't start back up again. Anyway, we're learnin' a lot about my balance and stability issues and my neurological patterns for my technique. I'm extremely blessed that Brian is my trainer. I'm convinced I wouldn't do near as well with anyone else. He's been absolutely perfect for the job. So, here we go again....another cycle of technique and deliberate placement of the bar. Let's see what we can hit come September!

Go With Your Gut

Hello to all my Blogger friends. Well, it's been a whirlwind since I got back from my meet last weekend, but, I have lots of news. It's always very wise to keep an open mind and be ready for constructive criticism and to follow the advice of your predecessors. However. Sometimes. You just know. And you have to go with it. After 6 months of following the Westside training method, after having much trouble in training and not seeing improvement in any numbers, after the April meet, we switched back to benching 2-3 times a week. Suddenly, I wasn't getting buried by 160 anymore. Now, don't get me wrong. Westside is an awesome training method. Most of the people I compete with in able-bodied meets are on the Westside template. However, none of them are in a wheelchair, unable to use any leg drive. Almost all of them use equipment, as well as some other various differences in our training preferences. Brian describes it more as a neurological issue for me. When I do speed work, we use bands or chains and I get used to compensating for the extra imbalance that those items cause, but, when I go back to benching regular, it takes me a great deal of time to stop trying to compensate for that imbalance that is no longer there! So, even though it goes against every theory of speed making you stronger because of force, I bench slow and methodical. And often. So, we have stuck with simple. Waving my bench in and out 2 or 3 times a week, and mostly following the Reactive Training Systems program by Mike Tuchscherer. And I slowed down my lowering of the bar. Last week at my meet I went 3 for 3, hitting 180 as my last lift, which matched my PR. Then, in a rather unusual decision, Brian decided to 'ride out' my peak that I was on, instead of letting it drop by having me take the week after a meet off and yesterday I hit 185 in the gym with Brian to set a new PR!!!!! I have no words to describe how thankful I am that Brian never gave up and had the perseverance to stick with me until we figured out what would be the right combination for me, no matter how frustrated either one of us got. I'm sure it'll change again. But, we have lots of experimentation under our belts now and I'm sure it won't take as long for us to find the right combo next time.

Forever different

Sorry I'm a touch behind. Things get so crazy before I leave for a meet and one of my summer classes is wrapping up this same week that I'm leaving for my meet. So, it's been like double crazy. Anyway, Last Thursday I told my massotherapist about some issues with my arm, same issues, but, had a couple new exercise references to give to him so he could maybe trace it a bit better. Instead of laying me on my back, I flipped over and low and behold, he found it right away, in my triceps. He said, "Wow, I don't believe I've ever seen that referral pattern for the triceps." I laughed and said "That would be me! Whatever you don't see in anyone else, you'll find in me!" Then he laughed :-) Last Monday I did more on Cambered Bar Shrugs than I think I ever have! That was the highlight of that day. I didn't sleep much over the weekend, due to spasms. So, Monday wasn't the greatest workout in the world. Wednesday I used chains for the first time in a while. I like usin' them. Did pretty good for not having used them for a while. I also used my new bamboo bar. I love it. It's fun! And I think it's gonna help my form. Friday I hit 170 for a single with one left over. Yesterday we worked up to my opener. I said "I HAVE to bring this bar down slower." He said "Do it. It's pretty obvious in your numbers that you handle it better." In THEORY, you're supposed to be stronger the faster the bar moves. It's 'supposed' to save energy and give you more power. But I can do a tempo of taking 3 seconds to get the bar down and again back up and do better at that than my regular bench press when I try to rush my bench press. It throws my balance off very badly. Just one more way my body doesn't follow the rules that everyone else does! I leave Thursday, compete Saturday and come back home Sunday. I'm staying with some friends which I'm extremely thankful for and looking forward to. Will be a lot of fun. I'll write with an update on Monday. Happy Fourth of July and have a great weekend everybody!

New Toy!!!!!

Hey there everyone! It's been a GREAT week! I got my first equipment sponsor! Jim Seitzer and the Bandbell Company graciously sponsored me with one of their bamboo barbells that helps with rehab and prehab of shoulders, rotator cuffs, and a lot of other various injuries. It came already yesterday and I used it for the first time today! Got up to 55 lbs. on it, but, it's quite a chore! It's made out of bamboo so it's very light. The weight is hung on it by bands and it shakes when you go to press it. It's to involve all the little stabilizer muscles and such that don't usually get too much work but can have a great effect on your strength. This was sport form week, which means I did competition benching all 3 days that I lifted. Monday I hit 160, which was pretty disappointing to me, however, I was just recovering from a kidney infection, so, I guess I was probably not in a very good position to expect very much of myself. Both Wednesday and today I hit 175. Technique left a lot to be desired, but, I still got it up and it never came back down at me or stopped. So, as long as I can get it up, I can continue working on technique. It's been a very long time since I hit 175 and it's been even longer since I hit 175 twice in the same week. So, I'm pretty thrilled. There wasn't too much accessory work, because the sport form week focuses more on competition lifts. I'm feeling much better as the week progresses, recovering rather well from my sickness last week. Just 2 short weeks and I'll be back in Cincinnati competing!! Pretty excited!!!

Layin' Low

Well, little did I know, it wasn't going to be the most optimal week to start updating you all again. Did pretty well on Monday, 165 with a 3 second pause on my chest for 2 with 1 left over. Then Tuesday I woke up with a kidney infection. Well, I'm sure I had it before then, but, that's when it decided to show itself. Brian did some stuff with me to appease me on Wednesday but it was pretty light and I think I was at the gym for maybe 20 minutes. Today he kept it backed off a little today too but I did get to bench. 160 for 2 with a 2121 tempo. Pretty decent considering I've been in bed since I left the gym on Wednesday. And a month ago 160 buried me. My form has been off this week, but, I haven't been stretching cuz I've just been in bed pretty much all the time. Hoping to do a little more of the stretching business this weekend. No workout on Sunday. Hoping to be recovered and ready for Monday's bench. :)

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, It's been a while, for my blog followers. I'm gonna try to get back to at least once a week. Let me catch you up a bit. February was last qualification for this quad for Paralympics. I qualified to apply for a wild-card spot, but, didn't win it. The lady that DID win it was only 2 slots ahead of me in ranking, so, I really came pretty close. I did a meet in Cincinnati in April and by this time was having a great deal of trouble with my shoulder/pec area. I got buried by 160 3 weeks before I left. But I did end up lifting 170 at the meet. I missed 180. I came back and my shoulder finally let loose. My numbers still weren't doing much though. So, after about a 6 mth stab at the Westside method, we decided it must not be the right thing for me. We're doing RPE's again, which I've blogged about before. Right now I'm benching twice a week. I believe that as I get closer to a meet, it will increase to 3 times a week. My numbers seem to be coming back. And I seem to have the pec issue and the shoulder issue under control. Have some other hurty-spots, but, I'm mobile and that's all I need. Everything was so tight for a while that I actually couldn't get my elbow to stay under the bar. I've got a meet coming up in Cincinnati next month. One in Salem, about 15 minutes from me in September. One in Orlando (with the Pickle!! ) in October (the weekend before my 30th birthday!!). And the last one of the year in December back in Cincinnati. So, I'm keeping myself busy and we're experimenting with some jumps and I'll be experimenting with warmups and such when I head to the meets, so, I can be ready for Nationals to pick up again next year. I had 2 teammates that made the London Team, Mary & Ahmed. They will both retire after this Paralympics, so, Jake and I will be the "veterans" on the team! haha. Things are actually pretty great. It's actually been a bit relaxing to have this year without anything major (Not that I would have complained about going to the Paralympics). I'm moving up a weight class. I should have a better chance at qualifying in 4 years. And Brian's still my trainer. We're sneakin' up on 3 years now and I just can't even describe how blessed I am that he's stuck with me all this time. He's the best and I know I'm right where I need to be for things to work out for the best.

Cycle of NO one else

Well, since I got to talk to Louie Simmons last month, it's turned into quite an interesting cycle. We did a dumbbell drop....Brian dropped a dumbbell on me & I had to catch it. It's for explosion. I was explaining it to a lifting buddy & he said "That would be scary!" And I said "There's no one else on the PLANET I will do it with." We've done front raises, which I hate & I don't do with others cuz they pull me forward. I did get Brian to let me do them with my chest in the back of a seat which wasn't near as bad...but we only did them that way one time. Today we apparently started a new portion of the cycle. That normally means everything is switch around....well, it was, however, it partially was not. Apparently it's time to test Chelsi's limits...in strength and in trust...again. This always turns out to be a really good gain...however, it's quite a chore going through it. We're STILL doing front raises...that was not switched. BUT! Brian decided to have me do Plate Front Raises, instead of using dumbbells. Which means my arms are both busy at the same time on the same piece of iron. THAT's not fun unless I'm pushing!(aka, benching). Brian is funny though...right in his explanation he said "And I'm gonna be holding you back." Good to know! Good to know! Haha. I REALLY need them, cuz I was REALLY weak, which also means that I didn't mcuh like them. But, we had a small audience today, & Brian distracted me with some comedy comments, so, I made it through. Of course I did. I always do. Especially now. I've learned that if I don't like it, it's prolly gonna do a lot of good for me. I've also learned if I have to trust a lot, it's prolly gonna do a lot of good for me. HOWEVER, we can definitely add to the list of things I will NOT do with ANYONE else. ;-) Brian summed it up very well when I was done. "Oh, next week you'll be used to them & in a groove." He's right...by the end of the cycle, I'll probably love them.

What a way to begin the new year. Can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store. (I mean that!!!)