Unleashing my Inner Cassian

I woke up filled with a need for sweat today.

I mean it's 85 and 100% humidity due to the storm building overhead, but I mean I need my muscles to be hot and burning. On Fire. The testosterone is on high right now, and I love ovulation time specifically for the Beast Mode that gets activated.

Enter the Lord of Bloodshed's Workout with Sam.

I'm not under any illusions that this workout would be easy by any means. It's named after Cassian, Sam does her best to embody Cassian through Valkyrie Squad anyway, and there's no warm-up included in the timeline. Which means this 35 minute workout is 35 minutes of sweaty innuendo and brutality against my muscles.

Game On.

Because I'm a Smarty Pants, and I know the importance of mobility work and warming up, I went ahead and spent 15 minutes going through my favorite mobility work for my whole body, because I had no clue what Sam had in store for this workout, just that it was gonna be hard.

We started with some hip flexor work, which we should all know by now is some of my most hated work. I've spent a lot of years sitting, so my hip flexors are weak and incredibly tight, so the seated leg lifts we did were absolute hell. I think I'd rather have been fed to the Middengard wyrm than do these repeatedly.

I was already sweating, partially due to the temperature, and more so because we did 3 sets of these stupid things, on each side, doing rep increases each round.

I hated her a little bit already and I just freaking knew it was going to get so much harder.

We did some compound movements next, combining lunges and outer bicep curls. These weren't bad. I've spent a lot of time on my upper body strength lately and my quads laugh in Lunges on the daily, being dominant and all. So I didn't mind this set. It actually felt a little like a warm up after my warm up, kwim?

That is, until we got to the third round of reps, those lunges were burny by then.

Two moves in and my legs were starting to shake.

At some point while Sam was showing us the next move I started swearing at her.

The woman devised the next phase of my torment to include a narrow squat and tricep extension, which is already screaming uncomfy. Throw in a weak deep core like mine, and it was all I could do to keep my ribs from flaring out with every extension. All I could do to not fold my upper body over my knees because my boobs are too freakin heavy. To keep my pelvis neutral instead of letting it slip forward and create that unwanted arch in my back.

I mean clearly this is work I needed to do. but fuck, it suuuuuucked.

I continued swearing.

Some part of my brain recognized that just because we got into a table top position next, did not mean it was going to be easier. But a good portion of my brain was lying to me and was set on convincing me that it was going to be perfectly fine.

I hate my brain sometimes. It's a liar.

The balancing act that my core was forced into roped in my glutes and my shoulders too, so needless to say I was shaking through these reps. She had me do 12 freaking reps. TWELVE. Brutality.

But it didn't stop. We had 2 more rounds to go. On each side.

I stopped for water here because I was dying. I was shaking everywhere, and a good part of me wondered at the idea of doing this workout at 85F and such high humidity because it was really making this workout harder than it needed to be.

But at least I was getting what I wanted. I was getting the workout I craved, so I kept going.

Compound moves are so freaking efficient. I hate them but holy shit batman, they make you do some work. So far every move Sam instructed in the Lord of Bloodshed's workout has been compound and it definitely rocked my shit.

Heavy Weight Time. It's been a minute since I used my 20s, so I stuck with my 15lb weight to start. Sam had us doing Sumo Squats next, my least favorite of the squat variations. Probably because my glute medius is forever the weakest link. As are my inner thighs. I hate training them, I hate doing sumo squats because they burn from the first rep. And today, we're using a heavy weight.

If you're wondering if I had any regrets about those 15lb weights, the answer is Immediately Yes. All the regret. I made it through the first round and downsized so I wasn't a complete puddle on the mat afterwards.

I had to consciously focus on keeping my shoulders rolled back and my pelvis tucked under me for these moves. Between my oversized mammaries and my hip dysfunction, it's so easy for me to fall out of form in this set. Each rep required thought.

Which is an added challenge all on it's own simply because then I'm thinking about every part of the moves I'm doing, while everything is on fire and sweaty and there's a tiny voice in my head asking me WHY THE HELL I SIGNED UP FOR THIS.

We did finish with some cooldown stretches, which was nice. Except that I had to push pause between finishing the sumo squats and the cooldown stretches and mop my face off thoroughly. I was Sweaty with a capital S.

It did help that Sam was just as out of breath as I was by the end of this workout. I always find some small satisfaction in knowing that these workouts kick her ass as much as they kick mine. Call it sadistic if you want, but she's the one writing these workouts. I know that I'm a little twisted, I'm a Professional Valkyrie. Duh.

Now. excuse me while I devour whatever the hell is in the fridge and drink a swimming pool worth of water.