Wednesday 6/30/10

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 32kg - 5x10 (not timed)

Two handed swings 32kg - 10x16, 2x10 (on the minute) - 180 in 12 min

Swings are getting stronger. I'll add a bit more time next week as I march towards 20 sets of 20 with the 32kg.

Tuesday 6/29/10

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 32kg - 3x10

One handed swings 32kg - 2x5/5

Double bell clean to front squat 2x 24kg - 3x5

Long cycle 2x 24kg - 1x2, 1x4, 1x6

Farmers walk 32kg+28kg bell alternating hands - 2x 100 yards

I've been feeling a bit achy in my right rotator cuff and it looks like the one handed 32kg swings definitely contribute to it.

I got sets of 5 with the double 24kg bells. All were below parallel with a pause at the bottom.

Monday 6/28/10

Afternoon:

TGU 16kg - 5/5

Max VO2 - 16kg bell 15/15 protocol - 52 sets of 7 reps

Taking it a bit easy. I'm definitely feeling a bit of tightness in my lower left back.

Saturday 6/26/10

Morning:

Two handed swings 24kg - 3x10

Snatch 24kg - 2x4/4

Snatch test 24kg 2 min. - 40 reps

I was planning on a 3 minute test, but I had some hot spots with loose skin that I had taped up for the test. Unfortunately the tape tore on my right hand on the 40th rep. It pulled on of the spots and one more rep would have pulled it off. I decided to call it right there to keep my hands in the best shape possible for next week. My cadence was spot on though.

Friday 6/25/10

Afternoon:

Max VO2 - 16kg bell 15/15 protocol - 62 sets of 7 reps

Getting there. I'm still slowing a bit at the end, but I'm slowly feeling stronger and my endurance is picking up.

I'm really trying to concentrate on moving symmetrically. I did note a tendency for my right foot to supinate at times. I worked on keeping my hips and shoulders square and keeping both feet rooted.

Thursday 6/24/10

Afternoon:

TGU 16kg - 5 x 1/1

TGU 20kg - 5 x 1/1

Partial TGU to post 24kg - 1 x 2/2

Goblet squat 32kg - 3x7

Wednesday 6/23/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 3x5

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 32kg - 5x10 (not timed)

Two handed swings 32kg - 9x15, 3x11 (on the minute) - 168 in 12 min

I probably could have hit the 10 sets of 15 but I opted to go down to 11 for the last sets. I did add two sets to make up for it with more total reps. Swings did feel stronger than last week though. I'm really starting to feel the synchronicity of the hips breaking back and just enough lats to keep the bell moving at the correct tempo.

I think I got to the bottom of the lower back fatigue I was feeling the last few days. I was mentally going over my Max VO2 workout on Monday and remembered that each snatch at the start of the sets wasn't really being hiked all the way back. Many of them were just kind of picked up and then snatched up without a proper hike.

My swings today I really focused on hitting the proper parts of the motion - hike back, breath in on the downstroke and tense glutes, lats and abs at the top. It seemed to work well.

Tuesday 6/22/10

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 24kg - 1x20

Two handed swings 32kg - 1x20

One handed swings 32kg - 5x5/5

Two handed swings 32kg - 3x10

Double bell clean to front squat 2x 24kg - 3x4

Long cycle 2x 24kg - 1x2, 1x4, 1x5

Farmers walk 32kg+28kg bell alternating hands - 2x 100 yards, 2x 66 yards

I made some corrections to my front squat form - laced my hands together which brought the bells a bit more up front. This made them feel harder than last week and I'm happy with the sets of 4.

Long cycle feels a bit stronger which is good. My lower back is feeling a bit fatigued. This is most likely due to my form breaking down a bit as I'm most likely doing a bit too much. I'm going to home in on the things I absolutely need - snatches, swings and tgu and dial down the additional stuff a bit.

Monday 6/21/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 5x4

Afternoon:

TGU 16kg - 10/10

Max VO2 - 16kg bell 15/15 protocol - 52 sets of 7 reps

Saturday 6/19/10

Afternoon:

Snatch 24kg - 3x6/6

Snatch 28kg - 3x5/5

I was supposed to do a timed test today, but I had enough margaritas last night to make today feel pretty foggy. I still wanted to snatch a heavier bell though so I did a few sets with the 24kg and the 28kg.

Jordan is doing an intro to the CK-FMS tomorrow at Girya. Looking forward to learning something new!

Friday 6/18/10

Afternoon:

Max VO2 - 16kg bell 15/15 protocol - 54 sets of 7 reps

Technique much improved over Monday's session. I was slowing down a bit at the end, but kept my hands free from feeling any hot spots. Part of that is also building up that slight callus on the palm, but I was concentrating on hitting the drop and catch throughout.

Thursday 6/17/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 8x3

Afternoon:

TGU 16kg - 10 x 1/1

Dips are feeling stronger pretty quickly. I'll start sets of 4 next week.

I tried to move slowly and correctly in the tgu always trying to maintain a vertical arm. The weight is light but I can feel some postural muscles in my back that had to work a little harder than usual. My tgu when the bell is in my right hand are a bit harder. My left leg is still a bit weaker in some ranges of motion than my right.

Wednesday 6/16/10

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 32kg - 5x10 (not timed)

Two handed swings 32kg - 10x15 (on the minute) - 150 in 10 min

The timed swings were pretty brutal. I did a lot of stuff yesterday, so I wanted a minimal session but with some intensity. The swings were feeling good, but this is the first time I started pushing up the sets of 15. My swings were all shoulder height except for the last 5 reps of each of the last two sets. I swung those reps to about 45 degrees or so.

I'm also stretching and foam rolling almost every day for about a half hour to hour. It has definitely helped my recovery and my movement feels better all the time.

Tuesday 6/15/10

Afternoon:

One handed swings 32kg - 5x5/5

Two handed swings 32kg - 3x10

Double bell clean to front squat 2x 24kg - 3x5

Long cycle 2x 24kg - 1x2, 1x3, 1x4

Farmers walk 32kg+28kg bell alternating hands - 2x 100 yards, 2x 66 yards

Funny how cocky you can get before you actually do something. I was all thinking that I'd hit 5 sets of 5 with the double 24's but quickly realized that I should do less and make them good reps. I'll add some sets down the road, but this is a good start and my technique still needs some fine tuning.

Monday 6/14/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 8x3

Afternoon:

TGU 16kg - 30 minutes continuous - about 13 or 14 per side

Max VO2 - 16kg bell 15/15 protocol - 50 sets of 7 reps

I lightened up my TGU and want to concentrate on perfect form first. I was having some aches in my right shoulder and realized that I must have allowed my arm to lean at some point and strained it a bit. I'll probably do one day later in the week with the heavier bell, but really focus on perfect get ups and not just try to do as many as I can. I'll keep this one lighter day with more volume and also concentrate on perfect form.

Good to snatch again. I started feeling a hot spot in my left hand because it's been a while since I was snatching and got lazy on my "hop" on the down swing. My bad. It was around set 40 and I should have stopped there but I had it in my head to at least hit 50 sets today. I got it but I should have stopped when I first felt the tug. Good to learn the lesson again this early though. Building up sets is more than just the strength and endurance to do the motions, it's making every part of the movement correct and that includes the little things.

On the plus side I was really getting a good pendulum feel and my hips were loading back nicely. All the swings I've been doing have really helped in that area.

Saturday 6/12/10

Morning:

Snatch test 24kg 3 min. - 55 reps

Snatch 28kg - 1x5/5

My first time testing my 24kg snatches in a while. I was hoping to hit 60 reps but based on his this felt 55 is definitely acceptable with a couple of months to go. I started with slow reps and I started sprinting at the end late. I still had good speed and strength when the beeper went off. I feel that I could have easily gotten the 60 with a couple of tweaks to my cadence to start and my sprint at the end. But it's not about guessing :).

First time ever snatching the 28kg bell. I want to get the feel for the heavier bell.

I think I'll change out one of my swing days to a VWC day. Two days of 32kg swings and VWC should work out well. I think I'll start some real low volume snatching with the 28kg bell during the week just to get used to it and gain some strength.

Friday 6/11/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 7x3

Afternoon:

TGU 20kg - 10x1/1

TGU to post, down and up to elbow 24kg - 1/1

Farmers walk 32kg+28kg bell alternating hands - 2x 100 yards

The weight vest wasn't doing anything for my farmers walk the other day. Heavier bells now...that did something.

Wednesday 6/9/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 8x2

Afternoon:

One handed handed swings 32kg - 1x8/8, 2x5/5

Long cycle 2x 24kg - 3x2

Loaded cleans 2x 24kg - 2x1 with 5 second hold

Double c&p 2x 24kg - 2x1

Loaded cleans 32kg - 2x1/1 with 5 second hold

Two handed swings 32kg - 2x20, 4x15, 14x10 (on the minute) - 240 in 20 min

Definitely getting stronger fast. I'm getting smoked by these swing sessions, but the reps are coming steadily. My cadence is pretty good even though I slow a bit at the later sets. My first sets of 20 looked spot on at about 30 seconds of work.

Some technique work with the double bells for a warmup. These helped the 32kg feel lighter.

Tuesday 6/8/10

Afternoon:

Snatch 16kg - 7/7

Snatch 20kg - 7/7

Snatch 24kg - 5/5

TGU 24kg - 11x1/1

Farmers walk 24kg bell each hand and 40lb weight vest - 3x 100 yards

Just getting a bit of snatching practice. They felt good and the 24kg bell didn't feel heavy. I definitely need to work on my snatching, but the heavy swings are definitely doing something good.

The farmers walk was a real smoker. I'll do this weight for a few times and bump up one bell to the 28kg and see how it goes.

Monday 6/7/10

Morning:

Ring dips - 8x2

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 32kg - 10x20 (not timed)

I'm starting dips back up again as I felt that some of the increase in my pressing strength after my hip surgery was from all of the dips I was doing.

I need to work up my swing strength for the higher rep sets if I'm going to get the 20 sets of 20 I'd like with the 32kg bell. These swings felt good and I'm definitely feeling stronger in them.

Saturday 6/5/10

Morning:

Pullups max effort sets - 1x9, 2x7

Afternoon:

Two handed swings 32kg - 3x15 (warmup - not timed)

Two handed swings 32kg - 6x15, 10x10 (on the minute) - 190 in 16 min

Car push (Honda Civic :) ) - 100 feet x 4

Pullups were not as strong as last week. I tried for a 10th rep on my first set and got my chin over the bar, but didn't touch my neck or chest to the bar so...no rep! I also ate pretty terribly last night at a very mediocre hamburger joint which didn't help at all.

Swings are definitely coming along. I'm slowly adding volume and total time with the goal of hitting 400 32kg swings in 20 minutes eventually (hopefully before the RKC).

The car push seems like it would be something interesting to add. The parking lot I picked had a very slight grade and pushed easily one direction while the other was difficult. Today was just messing around to see what it was like. I want to get a Prowler eventually, but pushing my car is a free way to get this in for now.

Friday 6/4/10

Afternoon:

TGU 24kg - 10x1/1

Hand is working better each day. Back pull is still there, but better to the point that I can do TGU again.

I got some new DD bells from Nate Flores at Park Road Fitness. I picked up a 16kg and a 24kg for now. I'm going to get another 20kg bell also so I have doubles in those three bell sizes.

Thursday 6/3/10

Afternoon:

Ring dips - 4x2

Two handed swings 32kg - 3x10 - not timed

Two handed swings 32kg - 5x20 - not timed

Air squats - 3x20

I wasn't really going to train today, but I felt I needed to do something. My finger is now out of the splint. It's pretty sore and stiff. I need to be careful to get the tendon flexible again but I'm not anticipating that to be a long term thing. Hopefully within one or two weeks it will be in pretty good shape.

I'm dying to do some snatches and deadlifts but it won't do me any good just to pop the tendon off before it heals enough.

Tuesday 6/1/10

Afternoon:

Chinups throughout the day gtg - 10x6

Pushups - 3x10

Goblet squats 28kg - 3x10

My back is still really sore from pulling some postural muscle or another last week. I wanted to do TGU today but it was too sore. Just have to be smart.