AndiMorris

That cronometer site looks really interesting, I might do a trial week just to see if I'm missing out, or going overboard on any vitamins or minerals. I enjoy some olympic lifting too, although I'm nowhere near your standard. I'll keep an eye on this journal for inspiration.

Warm Up: 3 rounds of 7 burpees 7 box jumps 5 bar hang with 90 degree rotation 30 seconds partner push pull Skills practise: Muscle up practise Pistol practise WOD: 16 min AMRAP 200m run 30 DUs 400m run 50 DUs Another great session, although there was only two of us in the class today. Perhaps the cold dark mornings are getting to people. I'm still no further on with my muscle ups, although admittedly I've not tried in several weeks. I think the key thing I need to master for the next stage is consistent chest-to-bar pull ups. I really do struggle here though, I cannot seem to get my chest to connect with the bar at all. I don't know whether it's a strength or mobility issue, likely both. When doing them on the rings I find it a lot easier, and I can get my chest to the rings much more often, but the pull is in a different position on the rings than it is with the bar, and is more of a row. Perhaps this is key to me understanding my difficulty here. Pistol practise is coming along. I'm now using a plate as a counter balance for my right-leg, and they're coming along well. My left leg is some way behind, but I'm working through the progressions to get there. The WOD was a good lung burner. I started off flying, with 30 chained DUs, for the first time in ages. This wasn't to be repeated, and I was mostly getting chains of around 10, occasionally 20ish. Still enough to chip through the WOD though. I ended 40 DUs short of completing my 3rd round. As of today I've changed up my eating habits, incorporating easier to make recovery and mass gainer shakes. I'm hoping that this helps me to continue to make them, as the other ones were getting very tedious to make every evening, and I'd found myself skipping them because of that, instantly losing myself 500 calories per time. I guess it's part of working out as a vegan that I just need to get used to, if I was still taking whey it would be much easier to add this to some milk/water and the shake is made. I'm looking to get at least 2500 calories on rest days, and 3000 on training days. Hopefully I'll start to see some weight gains, and hopefully not too much fat gain. I'll keep a close eye on this as it's shot up before when I tried to gain quickly.

Haha, yeah probably. I used a standard cup size a measuring set, perhaps you used a megamug

I've just made one of these and weighed it out. I get: 819 kcal - 39g protein / 13g carbs / 6g fat 1 cup oats (80g) - 304kcal - 9g protein / 48g carbs / 6g fats 3 bananas - 315kcal - 3g / 81g / 0g 1 teaspoon pbutter 15g - 87kcal / 4g / 2g / 7g 1 scoop vegan blend 30g - 113g - 23g / 4g / 1g I can't wait to try it out tomorrow.

Warm Up: 2 lengths bear crawl 30 second handstand hold 2 lengths bear crawl 10 push ups Repeat twice Lift: Floor press (9x3 dynamic effort) - 40kg 4 x Max effort strict handstand push ups into kipping HSPU 4 x Max effort strict ring dips into kipping ring dips WOD: Tabata - bear crawl Tabata - plate twists Third session back after a long absence, and it feels good to be back at Dawn Patrol! A bit of an odd one today, I've never done floor press before, and wasn't sure how heavy to go, but seeing as my bench 1RM is only 60kg I did this at 40kg. I did do a set at 50kg, but I couldn't move the weight fast enough to qualify it for dynamic effort, so knocked it back down. I tried to get a strict handstand push up out, but nothing was budging, no surprise there. I quickly bust out 10 kipping handstand push ups however, and so for the remaining 3 sets did these the recommended way, of having two plates either side of the abmat, to increase the range of motion, which made a significant difference! I only managed 1 rep, 2 reps and then another 1 rep like this, mainly because I kept coming away from the wall. I think this is just some technique work though really. Ring dips I did all as strict, but only managed 4,3,3,4 for the sets. What an odd workout! On paper it looked to be easy, but the bear crawls and plate twists quickly mounted up to be really strenuous, especially on around the 4th or 5th sets. Finished up with some couch stretch, and then onto work. Back again tomorrow

Welcome!!

Nice, ok thanks. I tend to try and avoid soy, so I have the vegan blend, also from myprotein. I'll get some soy milk though and do that instead of my other shake, and give that a good go.

Houmous is a gift from the vegan gods. Eat it as you please

Woah, awesome! That looks like just the ticket to up my calorie total.

Great stuff, thanks guys. I'll give this a go. I think I'd get less annoyed with making the shakes every day if I was to just make them in bulk. Perhaps if I get enough containers to last me the week, and I prepare them all at once on a Sunday afternoon it would be less tedious. I'm going to spend some time looking at things on myfitnesspal in the coming days. I don't want to get back into the habit of logging everything I eat on there, but as long as I know I'm getting something like 2500 good calories on rest days, and 3000 on training days I'll eat least start to see some gains. I just need to stick at it! What do people do as a recovery style shake? I've been using the Thrive lemon-lime recipe, and although it's delicious, it's a little bit of a pain to make up every night. I'm tempted to just go with a scoop of protein powder and 500ml of chocolate soy milk or something. What protein powders do you both use too? Seeing as you're also UK based?

Yeah we have them, I get my peanut butter and flaxseed from there, I'll have a look what they have that I can grab for work snacks next time I go in. I usually take two smoothies to work, one green ish one, with spinach, banana, mixed fruit flaxseed and protein powder, and the other one is oats, almond milk, protein powder and peanut butter. Cheers for the advice.

Any idea what the calorie count for that is?

Finally managed to get back to the gym last week for two sessions. I'm going to try my very best to get there for at least 4 sessions per week for the foreseeable future. I'm still remaining steady in my weight too, at around 67kg, far too light for someone my height, 5'11". Calories are still only around the 2000 per day mark though, so I can see where this needs to increase, I just wish there was a more convenient way of doing it. I'm sick of making 3 smoothies per day, and I'm thinking of looking into doing something like a 1000 calories brutal breakfast that I can take to work. Any tips?

Still haven't been able to move back home, and so haven't made a crossfit class for coming up to 4 weeks!! Instead, I've been spending at least 20 minutes per night, over the past 4 nights, on mobility work. I've never ever stretched properly, and spend most of my time sitting at a desk, so I think every joint and muscle has less range of motion than it should. I have trouble even getting into the start position for a lot of the stretches in the "becoming a supple leopard" book, let alone actually putting any of the movements into practise. I've realised that my main issues are tight adductors and hip flexors, so I've been working hard on these with the couch stretch, and also something that resembles yoga's lotus position, not that I can fully get into it yet. I've been seeing a noticable improvement every evening, and so hopefully next time I squat I'll be able to keep my torso upright and my knees out with more ease than I have been able to previously.

Yeah it is, FOAD fest. Both my bands are playing that, so it'll be a busy night.

I've been to Wacken several times. It's such an amazing festival, although I stopped going as it became too big. It was often a good 45 minute walk from the tent to the arena. I'll probably go back one day. Hellfest is currently my favourite big European festival, and Obscene Extreme for the smaller, more extreme bands.

You look strong in that last pic. Your job seems amazing too, excellent that you spend your time helping people and animals.

I have severe beard jealousy right now.

Still struggling to get to the gym, but hopefully should be back in my own house next week and so can get back on the horse. I've been reading a lot of Kelly Starrett's Becoming a Supple Leopard book, and really want to get some mobility work into my regime as I think this might be the key to my squat form problems, which in turn is stopping me from progressing with the weight. Does anyone else have a good mobility program? Also, I need to find another 500 calories per day from somewhere....

Ooh I need to try that Dirty Weeds beer then!

Thanks buddy.

Yeah of course. I've not managed to get to the gym for two weeks now! It's really pissing me off actually. Hopefully I'll be able to get a stronglifts session in on Saturday morning, but I have a gig in Corby in the afternoon so I'm not sure there will be time. Once I move back into my own house, when I have a bathroom again, I'll be able to get back to the regular sessions.

Good bottle Co sounds great. I'm really into my craft beer at the moment. On the second part....

Post of the day

These are the three main shakes I do, but I'm going to give some of yours a go too MF. Green smoothie Blend up: 300ml water 1 banana 2 tbsp ground flaxseed 80g mixed frozen fruit 1 scoop unflavoured vegan protein 1 tsp maca powder 0.5 tsp chlorella powder 5g creatine handful of spinach or kale Mass gainer (recipe taken from this forum) Blend up: 300ml almond milk 50g oats 1 tbsp agave nectar 1 scoop unflavoured protein 1 large spoon of 100% peanut butter 1 banana Recovery Shake (Lemon-lime recovery drink - from Brendan Brazier's Thrive recipes) Blend up: 500ml water Juice of 0.5 lemon Zest of 0.5 lemon juice of 0.25 lime 1 tsp hemp oil 0.5 tsp dulse (I've been using chlorella as I'm struggling to get dulse over here) 1 tbsp unflavoured protein powder 1 tbsp agave nectar 4 dates 5g creatine