November 30, 2010

Lack of posts isnt because I stopped working out, well I did but because I am trying to recover from a stomach bug, throwing up and having the desire to eat only crackers has left me sluggish and blah feeling.  Hopefully I will be back to my regular workout regime in no time.

Free day

Pat Barber

Today was an interesting day, for more than one reason I should have taken a extra rest day.  My back was very sore from the workout on Thursday, and with my history with back injuries I was very aware of it.  Also I was recovering from a fever which I had Thursday night and most of Friday, either way I wanted to try a new exercise.

Rack Jerk - 3, 3, 3, 2, 2.......75, 95, 115, 135, 155

That's it, I'll be doing lots of stretching throughout the day to help my back but that was it for weights.  Rack jerks are like a push jerk but you start on your back as if you were doing a back squat.  Because lowering the weight to my neck was less than comfortable I may do singles of this exercise when I decide to do it again.  The bar moved fast even on the last set, but I could feel my back acting up so I decided to stop there and rest.  The weight was light, I another exercise where if I were to go for max weight I'd need bumper plates.

Conditioning

Graham Holmberg

Today is conditioning day, and special class as I was celebrating one of my clients Birthdays, she turned 54 so the reps were centered around that more or less, it was a great but very hard class.

54 Floor Presses - 16 kg
54 Squat Cleans - 16 kg (27 per side)
5 Turkish Getups per side - 16 kg
54 Strokes on the rower - about 400 metres
450 metre row
54 Push Presses - 16 kg (that one was tough)
54 Goblet Jump Squats - 16 kg
4 Turkish Getups per side - 16 kg
200 metre row, 150 metre row and 2 100 metre row intervals
54 Alternating Swings - 16 kg (27 per side)
54 Russian Twists - 16 kg
54 Through the leg Swing - 16 kg
3 Turkish Getups per side - 20 kg

It was very tough, everything hurt at some point, but the atmosphere was great and it was a lot of fun.

Pulling

Josh Everett performing a 341 lb clean and jerk

Pulling day, not as tired this time

Underhand Pulldowns - 3, 3, 3, 3, 3........190, 200, 210, 220, 230

25 Chest to Bar Chinups

AMRAP in 12 minutes
5 Pullups
10 Inverted Rows
6 Rounds plus 5 pullups

Wall Curls - 3x10........25s on all sets

I don't normally do pulldowns but feel it's an effective assistance exercise to weighted pullups, plus it's nice to not always have to strap heavy dumbbells to me.  My grip and arms were shot during part 3, but overall it all felt good.

Pushing

Matt Chan

Pushing day

Incline Bench Press - 3, 3, 3, 3, 3.....150, 155, 160, 165, 170

Incline Bench Press - 25 total reps at 135

6 Rounds for time
3 Handstand Pushups
10 Pushups
Time: 12:28

Overhead Rope Extensions - 3x10.......80 on all sets

Last rep of last set on incline bench press was close, glad I asked for a spot, didn't need him but for peace of mind.  Part 2 was broken into sets of 6 and 5 mainly, part 3 sucked.  Round 1 went unbroken, from then on I was lucky to get 2 HSPU at a time, plenty of singles, pushups were never broken but make the HSPU a lot harder than they normally would.

Legs

James "OPT" Fitzgerald

Leg day, always a love/hate feeling for this day.

Front Squats - 3, 3, 3, 3, 3........175, 195, 215, 225, 235

10 Rounds for time
3 Front Squats - 135
5 Back Squats - 135
Time: 15:55

For time
50 Travelling Lunges - 50s (25 per leg)
Time: 6:43

Leg Extension (slow negatives) - 3x6......110

I am very happy that I was able to get 235 on the front squats, they are progressing nicely since I switched back to hips below parallel (on ALL squatting exercises), not just to parallel.  Not only that I had no spot, I put the safety bars in the power cage up higher but was still nervous of failing, rep 3 of set 5 was a slow moving rep.  Part 2 felt awesome too, the first few sets felt nice and light on account of it being 100 pounds lighter than part 1, that feeling didn't last.  That is exactly 5 minutes faster than last time, but last time I had done just a little extra prior, still happy with faster time though.  Part 3 was partly interrupted, but still good.

Posterior Chain

Jason Khalipa

Today was heavy deadlift day, I decided to start from the top for all sets in part 1.  It seems to help me keep good form from the start, once I get up to the weight I want I'll start over and go from the floor.

Deadlifts - 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 3.........135, 185, 205, 225, 245, 265, 285 (PR)

For time
30 Deadlifts - 135
30 Sumo Deadlifts - 135
Time: 5:36

Hamstring Curls - 3x10.......70 on all sets

My hamstrings were pretty toast after this workout.  I`m always cautious on deadlifts because of back problems in the past, but today felt good, I could have gone heavier than 285 but my form would start to slip so I made the decision to stop there.

November 19, 2010

Chris Spealler

Today is a rest, one of the other reasons I love Fridays.  It was a good hard 4 days in a row of training.  My chest, lats, abs (from last Saturday) got pretty sore, oddly my legs were ok I would have thought that leg day would have killed me.  Tomorrow will be heavy deadlifts, that's always fun.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/10_forgotten_muscle_building_foods

This is a great article for people looking to add mass, as long as they aren't afraid to add a little fat.

Conditioning

Dave Lipson

Today is purely conditioning day, which for the moment is me joining in my kettlebell and row class, it's one hour long.  This is roughly what I did, it might be different but I usually can remember what the class was.

AMRAP 4 minutes - 10 KB Swings, 10 KB Tricep extensions (20 kg)
AMRAP 4 minutes - 10 KB Power Cleans, 10 KB Push Presses (16 kg, 2 of them)
Row 10 strokes on rowing machine, once 10 strokes is complete do 12 alternate KB swings (6 per side, 20 kg), continue until 600 metres has been covered.
AMRAP 4 minutes - 10 Legs elevated Floor press (16 kg), 10 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (20 kg)
Row - 3 sets of 150 metre sprints (28, 29, 29 seconds per sprint)
AMRAP 4 minutes - 12 through the leg swing, 12 reverse lunges (20 kg, 6 per side)
3 Rounds - 20 Floor presses (16 kg, classes choice), 10 calories on rower

I believe that is it, it was a tough class, as usual.  The emphasis seemed to be on my arms today for the kettlebell portion, the rower usually gets my quads anyway.  Good class!

After my class I polished off a big bowl of lamb and rice, mmmm!!

Pulling

Rich Froning Jr.

A nice and early 7am pulling day.

Weighted Pullups - 5, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1........45, 50, 60, 65, 75, 75, 75 (little kip on last set)

Pullups - 4x relative max reps......10, 9, 7 6

For time;
60 DB Single Arm Rows - 70 (60 per arm)
Time: 12:00

Preacher Curls - 3x10........50 on all sets

For the weighted pullups I wanted to keep strict form, on the last set the kip sort of came out of no where so technically I wouldn't count that single.  Pullups feel nice and light when removing the weight.  For the rows I decided to break it down to 12 sets of 5, seemed work pretty well.

Pushing

Mikko Salo

Todays workout was all pushing exercises, decided to start with some heavy overheard work.

Dumbbell Military Press - 3, 3, 3, 3, 3.........50s, 55s, 60s, 65s, 65s(2)

Dumbbell Push Jerk - 20 reps with the 65s

AMRAP in 12 minutes;
10 Hammer Strength Bench Press - 90 (45 per side)
10 Pushups
6 Rounds plus 10 HSBP

Reverse Grip Pushdowns - 3x10.........70 on all 3 sets

The dumbbell military press got heavy, I just barely got 2 on the last set, it felt good though.  My stability on the DB push jerk was shakey because I haven't really gone heavier than the 50s (using 2 DB's that is) but I got it down pretty quick and was able to drive the DB's overheard with no lockouts, 20 reps broke down to 4 sets.  The AMRAP started unbroken, that didn't last long at all, I don't usually use the Hammer Strength but sometimes I feel it's ok to throw it in.

Legs

Jeff Leonard on an Overhead Lunge

Today was leg day, and conditioning leg day, which means very challenging but still fun.

90 Travelling Lunges - 50 pound dumbbells (90 total steps, 45 per leg)

30 Front Squats - 135

Everytime you have to re-rack the bar, perform 10 air squats
4 breaks (40 squats)

2 Rounds for time
10 Squat Cleans - 135
20 Back Squats - 135
30 Jump Squats
Time: 21:22 (forgot to start timer till 5 Squat cleans were complete)


Part one averaged about 14 or 16 steps per set, so about 6 sets to get to 90 reps, not too bad, next time I'll do 100.  The front squats got hard on part 2, but the air squats didn't really slow me down much, sets went 8-7-6-5-4.  Part 3 was hard, squat cleans take your wind out and fire up your legs (in my case already hurting).  The rest was just time consuming and hard to do while I was trying to breathe and ignore my burning legs.  Felt great to get it done, all squatting exercises were hamstrings to calf, back knee touches ground on lunges.

November 14, 2010

Butter, Ya Know, Nother Tastes Better!

http://getliftedgym.com/blog/?p=1143

Not as bad as you'd think.

Olympic Lifting and core

Tommy Hackenbruck

I was going to wait till Monday to start posting my workouts, but why not start today.  Saturdays are typically my lighter days, when I say lighter I simply mean shorter, the intensity doesn't really change.

50 Back Extensions

Clean and Jerk - 135
10 sets of 3

15 leg drops

Very short and sweet.  The 50 back extensions was more to get warmed up, my back was sore from a previous few workouts.  Also I had planned on doing heavy deadlifts today, but didn't want to risk the back any further so switched to clean and jerk.  I kept the load light and focused on form, moving that bar as fast as possible, I used a split jerk.  I also kept the rests short so my heart rate got up too.  Not a bad workout for a Saturday.

Leg drops are where you hang from a bar, swing your legs so your shins are against the bar, straighten your legs and as slow as possible lower your legs back to the hanging position.  The last few they felt like they were dropping, it's a tough exercise for me.

Current stats

One of my inspirations to be a better athlete, Rob Orlando on a rope climb!

I figure I might as well post what some of my current best lifts are to date, then in a few months time I can go back and see how I have progressed.  Come the start of the new year I will create a list of goals I want to achieve by the end of 2011.

Age - 22
Height - 6'3
Weight - 180, my weight fluctuates, I am actually closer to 185 when I workout (shoes and clothes) but figure this is a more real number.

Best lifts;
Decline Bench Press - 235 for 3 reps (I hate flat barbell bench, so I either do incline or this)
Cable Row - 200 for 2 reps (very close to pulling in 3, absolutely no momentum allowed)
Military Press - 145 for 2 reps
Push Press - 220 for 1 rep (haven't worked on this in a while)
Weighted Chin up - BW plus 80 pounds for 3 reps
Weighted Pull up - BW plus 75 pounds for 1 rep
Front Squat - 225 for 3 reps
Deadlift - 245 for 5 reps (this lift sucks because I am just now working on going heavy again, this particular lift was sumo style)
Clean and Jerk - 205 for 1 rep (but I've cleaned 215)
Snatch - 135 (I rarely work on this lift)
50 Pullups and 100 pushups in 9:25 (nice little upper body bodyweight test)

First Blog Post

Myself in the midst of a backyard kettlebell workout

This blog is first and foremost for myself, to track my progress and training.  Anyone else who wants to do the same is more than welcome, hopefully I can make weekly updates.