March is Overhead Press Month!

One of the drills we will practice this month

We had an amazing Pullup month in February! So many of you progressed rapidly and either got better at your technique, stronger at your vertical pulling, or both. I am really excited to post just some of these amazing accomplishments:

Bruce T. 24kg chinup
Dana V. 16kg chinup, 9 bw neutral grip pullups, 7 overhand
Annie M. 5 bw chinups, 2 neutral grip pullups
Peggy B.C. 2 bw chinups, almost 3!
Will R. 5 neutral grip pullups
Matt W. multiple 16kg chinups
Phyllis S. first bw chinup
Christine N. (our beautiful new instructor!) 12kg chinup

I’m sure I missed someone, so please feel free to remind me! Plus, so many of you reduced your assistance on the bands significantly. I am incredibly impressed with the diligence and quality of performance from the group. You all continue to inspire me and remind me why I love my job so much.

We will continue to work on our pullups, but this month we are putting a heavy focus on overhead pressing. You will often see me abbreviate “Overhead Press” as “OHP” so please be aware of that. (My military background demands an overuse of acronyms!) We will be learning some new drills to improve our technique and will aim to increase our pressing strength as well. We will fine tune our double and single overhead pressing, as well as address mobility and patterning restrictions. I have recently made some strides in my pressing strength, and I will be using some of the same strategies to help all of you take your pressing strength to the next level.

As always, your progress is only as steady as your consistency. Please do your best to get to class regularly, because we miss you when you’re gone!

On an unrelated note, I have finished my finals and officially completed my first two classes! So, to celebrate I went to dinner with a good friend who is also a veteran, a mother and pursuing a degree at UMUC. Against my better judgement, I ate A LOT of extremely delicious bread and I am paying for it today. I feel soft and squishy and absolutely sick to my stomach. I don’t normally eat grains to avoid this very consequence, so I wanted to share with you all a few great resources to learn about grains and why or how you can take them out of your diet: