Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Back to training.

As much fun as I had at the Hungarian RKC these last days my training, as it always does when one travels, takes a hit. It has to. One can only deal with so much stress and recover and traveling is stressful.
This is true for anyone but for someone like me who craves stability and control it is even more stressful. Add in my jacked up knee and trying to train while traveling and teaching is out of the question.

Add to that the weeks before where I have to play it safe to ensure I am ready and fit for duty as an instructor and I have a few months where my training is focused on not getting hurt, not making progress.

But thats over now and it looks like the next biggest trip I have to take won't be until Oct when Tracy and I go to Phoenix for another HKC with Keats Snideman. That gives me plenty of time to get some momentum going.

I did walk my ass off this weekend and got to demo quite a bit as well as getting to teach the snatch section and doing lots of snatches and snatch holds during that segment, as well as some cleans with double 24's and presses as well but it's not the same.

It's also interesting to see just how little, instead of how much, training I can do and still maintain my strength and muscle size. "Hi, my name is Rif and I'm a trainingvolume-a-holic." But I'm working on it and this weeks schedule is proof.

I didn't have this problem when I was a powerlifter because the heavier you go the less you want to do; it's just that simple and that true, for almost everybody.

I also want to experiement a bit now, with two hand swings, two kettlebell swings, cleans and presses,push presses and, dare I say it?, perhaps, jerks. with both one and two arms.

I've been relegated to just one arm swings, snatches, and just lately, presses for so long( not to say I'm not grateful I could do those) that I am itching to try these other movements that I haven't been able to tolerate forever.

So today was wade into training itself as well as these new movements slowly. Very slowly. My back feels great now and I plan on keeping it that way.

Training:

KB sumo deadlift
24 kg x10
32 kg x10
40 kg x10
48 kg x10

these felt great and I took bigger jumps than last time. One , just to do less overall work and two , to see if I could. No problem.

Two Kettlebell clean and press, long cycle
2/14 kg x5/5
2/16 kg x4/4
2/20 kg x3/3
2/24 kg x2/2 x 2

these went great as well. low volume but that was the plan. Want to train again tomorrow as well. More focusing on greasing the groove I think that beating any one move to death, as per my usual M.O.

Snatch
16 kg x10/10 ( 2 sec hold at top of each rep)
20 kg x10/10 ( same as above)

these felt great.

two hand swing
24 kg x 10 sets of 5 10 sec rest/sets.

these felt great as well. really wanted to keep reps and sets low to see how the back copes.can't wait to train this greatest of all kb movements. A nice way to start my journey back into a serious and progressive training cycle with new moves and new challenges. Can't wait.

Mini band TKE's
2x20/15

red and black bands. Nice, these really hit the VMO strongly which my left knee sorely needs.


Stretching

about 10 minutes. I need more. A lot more as my legs are serious tight from all the walking and standing but I only had an hour and my head needed to train more than I needed to stretch.will stretch and foam roll later today.

datsit


5 comments:

Roland Denzel said...

You know, I always sorta rolled my eyes at people with travel issue like this, but not anymore.

I recently returned from two and half weeks in Bulgaria. No jetlag on the way there - I trained and felt great - but for a week after I got back, I felt horrible, tired, and weak. I'm back to normal now, but that was quite the experience.

You're Hungaria trip sounds great. I'm glad it went well, and welcome back.

Roland Denzel said...

Is it still considered a typo when you just use the wrong word? Jeez... Your Hungaria, not you're Hungaria. I know you're Mark. ;)

Mark Reifkind said...

roland

Peter Lakatos put it best: traveling makes you feel like you are overtrained. That is a perfect description imo.

so far I'm recovering very well except I'm hungry at the wrong times of the day,lol. sleeping is ok I just want to eat first thing in the AM, not used to that.
what were you doing in bulgaria,training?

Roland Denzel said...

I don't eat in the morning, either, but I sure wanted to the last week or so. I resisted and it went away, luckily.

I did do some training in Bulgaria, but I wasn't going there to actually get any training. My girlfriend is from Bulgaria, so I was there to meet family and friends of hers, see the country, and eat the food (which was awesome, btw).

I did get to play with some 100-200 year old kettlebells while I was there, though! That was a treat.

Mark Reifkind said...

roland

I haven't been resisting it,lol. It is slowly sorting itself out though. I have heard great things about bulgaria too, plenty of serious lifters of all sorts there.

205, 215, 217.5,205 x 1 x 6, 190 x 1 x 3, laterals, rear delts bw pushups

 Well this went great. not perfect but the basic premise worked and I'm happy. I was not optimistic at all about this at all given recen...