Saturday 8/15/09

Afternoon:

C&P ladders - 20kg - 5 sets of 4 rungs

24kg swings - 6 sets of 20 on the minute, 6 sets of 13 on the minute - 198 reps in 12 minutes

I had my pressing ladders all screwed up this week :). I should have gone to 5 sets of 2 rungs on Monday and 3 rungs on Wednesday. Oh well. Pressing was great today. In my later sets I was really feeling the groove on the way up and down. Very solid feeling - my lat was feeling more engaged than ever sucking my shoulder down. I'm still not second nature on everything zipping up as I still have to consciously squeeze my glutes and abs. I'm getting better control all the time. That's why I practice!

Swings are coming along. I'm going to have to get some kind of variation in intensity during the week to go with the ROP style light, medium and heavy days. I'm thinking something like 12 minutes on Monday, 15 on Wednesday and 20 on Saturday. I need to push the sets of 20 to at least 8 minutes soon. It is a matter of mentally driving yourself at that point as my heart is beating like a jackhammer and it's hard to commit to another set of 20 swings and control every breath during the set.

But that is part of the practice...the mental control over how much suffering you can endure. Not suffering in the sense that you are damaging yourself, but in the sense that you can push the limit of discomfort that can be endured. Trying to study it objectively almost in a meditative state seems to help. Observe what is happening and learn to control the fear reaction or whatever it is that holds us back when things become difficult.

Good workout today. I feel great. Weight is around 197 today. I've been back on the warrior diet since school ended and been fairly strict on it. I try not to eat anything at all until my overeating period starts, but I will have an apple before my workout, a carb mixture (that I'm almost out of and won't be using for a while) and a post workout shake of milk and protein powder. I also sometimes will have a handful of nuts or something very small. Tons of water constantly.

It's been hard to drop weight though I've been working hard and I'm getting leaner. I need to take a few hundred calories out consistently and I bet things start going down again. It's a fine line since I really want to keep all the strength possible.