It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I ordered a pair of 24kg kettlebells last night as a Christmas present to myself. The 24kg was the standard issue size in Soviet military gyms, or "courage corners." I can now train like a man among men, doing weighted pistols, two handed snatches, swings and c&j for my conditioning, and just generally have a lot of fun. Can't wait!

Progress and Lessons Learned

Dan John says all training is complementary, and I've lately been noticing this in my own training. Recently I've been blowing my old marks out of the water in both overhead squat and the full squat snatch. It seems that when I started drilling the snatch more and getting better I got stronger in the OHS, and now as I OHS more and more I'm able to stay together better in my snatches. The lift just keeps getting easier.
Another "tip" that I've picked up is that my OHS sets go much better when I start each set with a full squat snatch as opposed to starting out of the rack. This is a bit counterintuitive because one might think that starting out of the rack would make me fresher for my set, but whether it's just being in the most natural position for having snatched the weight first or what, it just works for me.
A hard lesson to learn was that I need an extremely long warm-up before I snatch. It's tough, because I like to aggressivley squeeze a lot of work into my hour of gym time, but I've realized that without extensive drilling at 89# to warm up I just don't make my attempts. I suspect the reason is that I'm lifting 5 days a week right now and lifting in the morning when I haven't had a day's activity to limber me up.

11/30/07

I love doing overhead squats and powercleans, so Fridays are about guaranteed to be good days for lifting. Today, however, was even better than usual. I put up PR numbers in both lifts.

Warm-up:
Snatch 89# for 5 singles
3 reps of snatch drill where one rep = 1 snatch + 1 hang snatch + 1 overhead squat
all with 89#

OHS:
3-3-3-3-3 (1 snatch to start each set)
143-143-143-143-143

Powerclean:
5-5-5-5-5
177-187-187-197-197

PTP deads:
5-4-3-2-1
223-253-263-273-288

Didn't really have the side presses after the OHS

11/28/07

I started an experiment today with the deads. I was re-reading PTP last night and got to thinking about Pavel's recommendation that reps be kept to a total of no more than 10 on the work sets. From here on out I will keep the first set of 5 low and will not increase that weight during cycles. The set of 4 will increase and will be the first work set.
Deads:
5-4-3-2-1
223-243-253-263-273

Back squat w/ chains:
5-5-5-5-5
185-185-185-185-185

The chains might add 40# to the top of the lift. I need to weigh them, because really that's just a swag.

Press: (one powerclean precedes each set of presses)
2-2-2-2-2
153-153-153-153-153

Weighted pull-ups:
2-2-2-2-2
70-70-70-70-70

Presses and Pull-ups were supersetted.

I will keep the weight constant on squats, presses and pull-ups for at least the next two weeks. My goal is to perform all reps perfectly. Today was fine, but not every rep was as strict as I'd like. In particular, I want to work on constant tension in all three lifts. I have to work on pulling myself down in the squat, and ensuring that each pull-up is with shoulders back and down and a TSC strict throat or chest touch to the bar, and in the press I need to focus on squeezing the hell out of the bar and actively pulling it down to chest level.

I finished out the workout with farmer carries using 80# dbs. This lasted about 3 minutes and covered about 100-150 meters.

Later in the day I did my conditioning workout. I warmed up with 23 minutes of kettlebell and bodyweight drills. First I did the 20/50 pull-ups/push-ups program as described in an earlier post. Then I did wall facing squats, tactical lunges, figure eight to a hold, maxercist rows, windmills, etc.

The dice roll came up a 7, so I did one arm swings 10L/10R for a total of 120 in the first 6 minutes, taking it pretty easy. During the last minute I went all out and got a total of 40 more swings by switching arms every 2 reps.

11/27/07

Not my greatest day in the weightroom from a weightlifting standpoint. I'm kind of proud of myself though, because I gutted this one out. I had planned to warm up a bit, do my deadlifts, take a few practice reps and start going heavy on my snatch. However, my plan started to fall apart when I repeatedly missed my attempt at 138. After only minimal fuming and cursing, I put 89 on the bar and started drilling. I did 5 doubles in the full squat snatch, then did 3 reps of the following dill that I got from a Dan John article- 1 full squat snatch + 1 hang snatch + 1 overhead squat = 1 rep.
Eventually I got back under a little bit heavier weight and snatched 148 for a single.
It would have been easy today to just skip the snatches, hit some heavy clean and jerks and then knock out a bunch of pull-ups or something so I could walk away feeling good about the weights put up and the volume put under my belt, (figuratively only, I lift completely raw). Rather, I stuck with the lift, fixed my form issues. (I wasn't aggressively settling under the bar, as I realized when I started the OHS portion of the drill.) I didn't have time to really work any C&J, and I missed out on my conditioning work, but I'm glad I stuck with the snatch. I attacked my weakness, always a good strategy, and I'll get plenty more opportunites to clean and jerk.

PTP deads:
5-4-3-2-1
233-238-248-253-258

Snatch:
1-1-1
138-143-148

C&J:
1-1
148-177

11/26/07

First day on the new programming. I did the pistols and TGUs. I think this workout will become a progression where I work up to 5 heavy singles at a weight on the TGUs, then move those up to doubles, then move the weight up for more singles. As far as the pistols, I need to start adding more volume on them to get better. I will try to add them to my warmups, and eventually I will probably use ladders in this workout.

Warmup:
5 minutes kb practice

PTP:
Deads- 5-4-3-2-1
230-235-240-245-250

Side press- 5-4-3-2-1
55-60-65-70-75

TGUs and pistols: 6 of each on each side, TGUs with just the bar

Conditioning: swings and deadhangs- 5 pull-ups after every 40 one hand swings (total time 5 minutes)
81 swings, 10 pull-ups

Not a terrible first day. I want to go heavy tomorrow.

The Become a Beast Program

I had thought I would stick with the strength program of the past few weeks a bit longer, but some changes in my schedule led me to dream up a new format. It will look a lot like what I've been doing, but the exercise pairings, set and rep schemes, etc. have been altered by necessity. The main force behind this change is the fact that I will now be working out at home on Mondays as well as Saturdays. I will still be training in the morning on the days I train at home, so I have to do things that are relatively quiet so as not to wake the wife and daughter. I have also given up the illusion of reserving a day for conditioning only. Only one thing really matters to me right now, and that is getting strong. For that reason the conditioning will be kept quite short, and if the lifting portion of a workout runs the whole hour, there will be no conditioning that day. Other than that, the schedule is- as Pavel puts it- "same but different." I plan to maintain this for 3 weeks at a time, then drop volume and intensity and come back for another 3 weeks for as many cycles as it yields gains. Gains will be measured by a testing day on the Saturday following the easy week. The test is still being formulated, but will probably involve max deadlift (or maybe 2RM), a pressing test, and maybe max dead hang pull-ups. I have also kicked around the idea of a standing broad jump. We'll see in 3 weeks.

Anyway, here's the new plan:
Every Day: Deadlifts using 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 set and rep scheme
Days 1 and 4: One arm press using 5,4,3,2,1 set and rep scheme

Day 1: (Monday)
TGU
Pistols
This will be a relatively high volume day. I'm contemplating warming up with 10 minutes of kettlebell and bodyweight practice, then going for 30-40 minutes alternating between one TGU on each arm and two pistols on each leg, increasing the weight as I am able. The TGUs will be with the Olympic bar, so that's already relatively hard to maintain for a long time. I may back off and use the kb if this turns out to be too much. I will then take a 5 minute break before the conditioning portion.
Conditioning: swings

Day 2: (Tuesday)
Snatch
C&J
The O-lifts will take on many different forms. I may go for heavy singles, ladders, complexes, etc. as I had been doing previously.
Conditioning: bodyweight ladders, EDT, etc.

Day 3: (Wednesday)
Back squats w/ chains or box squats
Weighted pull-up/ Press supersets
This should be a relatively slow and heavy day. Mainly upper body to reflect the fact that if all goes according to plan I will be about half dead from Monday and Tuesday. Hence the optional conditioning.
Conditioning: either do swings as a second workout of the day or let it go

Day 4: (Friday)
OHS
Powerclean
The OHS will be working toward a goal of 15 reps at bodyweight, but I have a long way to go before then. The powercleans are working up to a goal of 225 for reps.
Conditioning: Tabatas

Day 5: (Saturday)
Front squat
HSPU
Sets and reps will vary. Probably a lot of medium singles in the Front squat to work on proper recruitment. HSPUs are likely to be a lot of ladders.
Conditioning: kb snatches