Monday, July 12, 2010

Overhead Squats



 At our gym doing an overhead squat. How about that form?! This shot makes my butt look big--or maybe it just is big. Is that all a girl can think about? Okay, I'll try to be less self-conscious about my body.






This is a difficult lift!! It might not look too tough, but if you've ever tried it, you know what I'm talking about. If you've never tried it, give it a shot. It's kind of crazy. On a lighter attempt than the one pictured here, I actually dropped the bar in front of my feet and fell on my bum.


In this picture, I am lifting 75 pounds, which was my max for the morning, and a PR (of course, since I've never tried this before!) For an overhead squat, you take the bar at shoulder height and lift it overhead. Then keeping the bar overhead, you squat down so your knee angle is beyond 90 degrees and stand back up. It is reeeeeaaaaaally hard to keep the weight steady. I had to concentrate, take a breath, hold my breath, keep my core tight, keep my arms straight, keep my weight on my heels, keep the bar over the mid-mass of my body, and keep my shoulders "active", which means kind of hunched up. So much to think about. It's worse than learning to swing a golf club. 

It's great to be stronger every week. Even though the weight I can lift is much less than what others can do, I get better every week. That gives me a lovely, little feeling of accomplishment and keeps me going. I'm also getting stronger with my one-band pull-ups. After our workout last week, I had done a total of 100.

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