11/16/07

Today was one of those 20% days in the weight room. (Pareto's law: 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. If you can't figure out how this relates to training you need to read more articles by Dan John) I cranked out some nasty overhead squats, and the weight I chose for weighted pull-ups felt ridiculously easy.

PTP:
Deadlift 5-5
245-220

One arm press:
3-5
75-65

5-5-5-5-5 Overhead squats (each set starts with a full squat snatch)
135-135-135-135-135

1-1-1-1-1-1-1 Weighted pull-ups
70-70-70-70-70-70-70

5 rds:
10 sit-ups
3 ground base jammer w/ 2 plates per side

Overall a great day today. I wish they were all like this.

Conditioning:
After dinner I warmed up with 20 deadhangs and 50 push-ups split into two sets. See the post above for a detailed explanation.

Long cycle: 5 minutes, 70 reps. Nothing really went right here. I accidentally set the timer for 5 minutes instead of 6, my pacing was off by 1rpm, and I felt like I might throw up my lasagna the entire time.

Swings: Decided to roll three dice to see how many sets of 10 swings to do. Came up with 13, so I did 130 swings in sets of 10 with almost full recovery between sets. Again, I felt like I might lose my lasagna, but the swings felt snappy and smooth.

11/14/07

Today I lucked out on my dice roll and only had to do 3 minutes of swings. I set a PR with the 35# kettlebell by doing about 76 consecutive swings without stopping. The rest of the workout went well also. If I had been working out at Wabash rather than at home I might have been a tad more aggressive with the heavy o-lifting, but I still felt pretty good about the weights I put up. Annie is sick of hearing this from me, but there are few things more satisfying than picking up a heavy object and putting it overhead.

PTP:
5-5 Deads
240-215

5-5 One arm db press
68-58

Snatch:
1-1-1-1-1-1-1
135-135-135-135-135-135-135

Bear complex: (where 1 rep equals 1 full squat clean + 1 front squat + 1 split jerk + 1 back squat + 1 behind the neck jerk)
1-1-1-1-1-1
155-165-175-185-185-185

Swings:
100 in 3 minutes, put the bell down twice

11/13/07

Well, after a brief hiatus brought about by the birth of my daughter, it is time to hit the weights again. Today I took it fairly easy on the back squats, but upped the total load on my 5x5 power cleans and added a minute to my long cycle clean and jerks.

To warm up I did-
5 rds:
10 jumping jacks
10 push-ups
10 sit-ups

And added 10 pull-ups on rounds 1,3 and 5

For the workout I started with the PTP deadlifts:
5-5
235-210

Back squat:
Took a few singles to warm up, then
3-3-3
225-225-225

Power clean
5-5-5-5-5
155-165-175-175-175

Note that on multiple rep deadlifts it is actually just a string of singles with virtually no rest between reps. I stand up and completely reset after each rep, because the deadlift actually has no eccentric, or lowering, portion.

After dinner I finished things off with long cycle clean and jerks with the 35# kettlebell.
I got 74 total reps in 5 minutes, so about 15 rpm.
I ended with 25 snatches on each side with the 35# bell. This was nowhere near a max effort, but it does give me some idea what I might be able to approach in a true max attempt, especially since this came after a good hard workout.

Final note: While waiting for Annie and Anja Louise to be ready for bed, I was reading some stuff by Eugen Sandow and got inspired to knock out some one arm dumbbell presses. I did two sets of 5 on each arm. The first set was at 68# and the second set was with 58#.

11/7/07

In the hotel "gym" I did 5 rounds of the following complex:
5 dumbbell deadlifts
5 db hang power cleans
5 db front squats
5 db push press

I used the 45# dbs, and it was a fairly good workout considering the light weights

Later in the hotel room I did long cycle clean and jerks with the 1 pood kb. I counted 63 reps in 4 minutes, switching hands every 5 reps, so this is just under 16 rpm. I had not meant to increase rpm, so I will have to watch that. I also did 3 sets of 30 swings.

11/6/07

Another day working out in the hotel room. In the morning I did a brief PT session consisting of 3 rounds:
20 jumping jacks
10 wall facing squats (stretch, very difficult to describe)
20 sit-ups
20 push-ups (diamond, feet elevated and regular)

In the evening I warmed up with 2 rounds:
5 wall facing squats picking up 1 pood kb
5 halos left, 5 halos right with 1 pood kb
5 dive bomber push-ups

then a workout of:
3 minutes of long cycle clean and jerks (1 pood kb)

got 44 reps, so about 15 rpm

3 sets of 10 snatches

I have more or less decided to make the kb my primary conditioning tool for the time being, as the main concern currently is with developing strength. As anyone can tell you, developing world class conditioning is far easier to do than building real strength. Strength takes far more time to build and building strength requires more discipline than conditioning. With this in mind, I will not pay much attention to conditioning. Rather, my strength workouts will potentiate conditioning gains by making bodyweight and weights for conditioning workouts that much easier to move.

11/5/07

Today was a deviation from the plan in that I was working out in a hotel "exercise room" and was limited by equipment. They had dumbbells up to 45 pounds, so that's what I used.
I did 3-3-3-3-3-3-3 step-ups with 2x45# dbs, as well as 5-5-5-5-5 one arm snatches with the 45# db and clean and jerks with the 45# dbs. For conditioning I did 8 minutes of swings with the 1 pood kb. Total was 170 swings in 8 minutes, or about 21 swings per minute.

11/3/07

Following the usual Saturday program, I did 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 front squats and presses. The front squats were done with 235 and the presses were done with 140. After every 3rd set of presses I did 11 dead hang pull-ups. My PTP deadlifts were done with 225 and 205, and I completed 103 snatches in 5 minutes with the 1 pood kettle bell. The weight will move up for next week. Overall this was a good day. The snatches were a PR. I switched hands every 5 reps, which has been working well lately.