Stress Relief

No pics for today. It's a dreary, windy, sad day in South Louisiana. I could smell the oil on the wind last night, and I heard on the news the oil slick has touched shore. The leak still hasn't been plugged, and it looks like they will be drilling a relief well. This could take weeks and weeks. I can now say that crude oil smells a bit like a marina in July, when sniffed from a distance. My company is under contract with BP, so I will not publish any thoughts on the subject.

My trailer-mate here in the camp had on The News today, and it got me riled up with the over exposure of news and opinions spun out in a far reaching direction to the right or left, depending on the network of your choice. All the goings on and the current political situation (more accurately the very public reaction to) just had me a smidge out of sorts. I could tell when I was swearing under my breath and getting mad over the touch pad on my computer, and wanting to throw my laptop through my trailer wall, that I was primed for a good "Dance with Helga" workout. I incorporated weighted sprints with a full 5 gallon water jug, and a concrete paver block. The block is roughly 4" x 16" x 16" and I am unsure of the exact weight, but using a standard nominal weight of 150#/cubic foot, or 12.5#/cubic inch, the block weighs around 82 pounds. I guesstimated somewhere between 75# and 100#, so that's about right. I suck at math, so please correct me if I am wrong.

So here is the workout:

Warm-up: (after carrying everything to my workout area)
50 D/U
15 handstand push-ups
sledgehammer swings

Workout -- 5 rounds For Time:
20 Sledgehammer Blows (alternating sides)
10 Heavy Block Presses (concrete block)
1 50yd Sprint with 5gal water jug on shoulder

Cooldown:
50 Crunches
50 Oblique Crunches (25 R/L)
50 Flutter Kicks (4-count)

Dinner: Rock Cornish Game hen stuffed with lemon...

The workout was completed in 12:30. I was fighting pukie at the beginning of round 4, but the beauty of a sledgehammer is you can imagine the face of someone you dislike in your head on your hammer target. Here is where the Stress Relief comes into play. There is a particular face I had on my tire this evening. I picked up the pace at that point, and was back in the game. It was a challenge having to power snatch an odd object over my head to facilitate the shoulder presses in the last two rounds, but the form doesn't change much from using a bar to odd objects. You still need to be centered, and dip under the weight just like in an Olympic lift. Granted, it isn't as pretty as a flawlessly performed Power Clean, but I would have hurt myself if I tried to fight the concrete up with my arms. I only had to break up the presses on the last two rounds, and that was just to insure I didn't drop the thing on my head. I will definitely be incorporating more weighted sprints into the workouts as well. I think a good 400m jug run might be in the future.

All in all, this was good stress relief. Helga dances like a champion.

I'm definitely feeling hammered... nyuk nyuk nyuk.