Retching in the Car

I had the pleasure of getting back into the weight room this morning after two or three weeks away. Intent on working on Danno's muscle-up program, I added a greasing-the-groove workout with pull-ups and bar dips into my regular lifting routine. Maxing at seven pull-ups, my routine would consist of sets of five. In any case, here's the low-down:

5 sets of:
5 clean and jerks (low weight just working on technique.. I believe this was 80lbs)
5 pull-ups
5 low bar-dips
5 squats (low weight, 110lbs.. need to move that up soon)
5 deadlifts (ditto as above, 130lbs)

There was a warm-up consisting of jogging, jumping jacks, lunges, etc. A joint rotation, and a stretch at the end. Nothing too different from normal, nay? Except something must have been different. I was fatigued absurdly toward the end and my stomach started churning. Wheezing and whatnot. The asthma. So I spent my time stretching slowly, trying to slow everything down. That seemed okay, but the motion of driving home was making things worse.

I vomited three times on that drive. All over myself. All over the steering wheel. It was pretty gross. Upon the clean-up, I managed to find a WHOLE fish oil pill. That's right, a WHOLE one. Thinking about it, I have no clue what happened to the other one I took that morning. I took them at the same time, so there's no reason why one should've been processed and the other not, right?

What I wonder is whether this is good dedication or just too much. The asthma is a limitation, I know, and it's something I need to work around. But is what I'm doing just bursting through doors before I'm ready for what's on the other side? Or is it the only way to truly push my boundaries?

I received a message from Josh Deaton, one of the newcomers to my Mason meets, a few days ago. It was a response to my Meridian Hill post, questioning whether I'm cut out for this at all. He politely reminded me that, in some respects, I'm a role model in the community, that people look up to me. I guess I find that really weird, since there's so many people that I personally look up to and look to for guidance. I feel like the new kid. Always have. It's sometimes strange for me to be reminded that, in some ways, I'm not the new kid. To some people, I'm the vet. To some people, I'm a leader.

No, this post isn't going to be another one questioning whether or not I should stay in the game. It's a question of whether or not pushing myself as hard as I do is something I want to pass onto others. Pushing boundaries to self-destruction is probably not the way to go.

After discussing things over with Dan, he reassured "slowly and safely." And maybe the routine up there isn't actually that much.. compared to anyone, and not even myself.. But maybe the problem was the rest period inbetween each set. Maybe I kept thinking, "Intensity, intensity, intensity!!" and so I didn't allow myself adequate rest between sets... the adequate rest required of an ATHSMATIC. And maybe that's what led to the downfall. After all, the weights weren't necessarily heavy. But everything I was doing was explosive-explosive-explosive. Do it quick, do it hard, forget rest. Between sets, I doubt I gave myself more than fifteen seconds at most. And maybe that was the downfall.

I've been recommended to start doing SHORT periods of HIIT four times a week by Dan. I'm hoping I can fit this into my schedule, which shouldn't be TOO difficult... since I don't expect to last more than five minutes under HIIT anymore. We shall see.