Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Back on schedule



Man, I love routine.I love training routines and used to write them obsessively.
When I was in high school I would always have the top six finalists at each of the six gymnastics event at NCAA Gymnastics Champions ships memorized as soon as they came out in Modern Gymnast magazine.

I would create "dream" routines all day long, imagining, to the smallest detail ,what would be the absolute best moves and how they could be put together into a routine. One that I could actually do, possibly, in the near future, and one that I was going to do, at some point in my life.
And how I would train them.

I could visualize the moves from all angles, from the inside, as if I were doing it, as well as a spectator, watching myself do the movement from the audience.

I also learned to "feel" the moves as I visualized them. How they would feel, in my body, as I did them in real life, but as I was just imagining them. I still use this and do this to this day.

Nothing has helped my training more than this except for the stability of my day to day routine. For many, many many years I sacrificed most of everything to gain the 'secrets' of high performance in whatever sport I was competing in at the time.

I had "jobs" not careers, as a gymnastics coach, a short order breakfast cook, or working behind the desk at a gym so I could put my training at the top of the list.Even when I had my son and I had to really "grow up" I stilled stayed close buying the gym I worked in and became my own boss instead of someone else's employee.

Yet my life still revolved around my training and recovery; especially that because it is the limiting factor in your training progress. So I had to monitor and control that as much as possible.

From work loads, to resting, both active and passive, nutrition, supplementation, visualization and the overall stress of my environment I knew for sure that the more stable, and less stressful my life environment was the more stressful my training environment could be.

And that meant better gains. Way better.

But I no longer compete and training is not on the front burner like it was but it still is close, as it's critical now that I maintain my symmetry and balance in my body, as well as my work capacity and useable functionality for real life. And that''s real training too, and the same rules apply.
The more stable your life the easier it is to make progress.
The stability and momentum that stability creates in my life as much as possible. And we've been traveling and on the go a lot and now it looks like a bit of a break, starting this week.

So I had to go medium hard last week to prep for HSV and medium hard again today as I haven't fully recovered and really didn't know where my strength would be.

It was good.

6-7 am stretching with emphasis on overhead work. Feel surprisingly loose and stable,lol. How is that possible?

8:30 am
warmup

swings: 16 kg x 10 2 hand, 5/5 one arm then 5 transfers 3 sets

KB Mil Press(short cycle)
16 kg x8/8x2
20 kg x8/8

24 kg x 8/8
x7/7
x6/6
20 kg x 8/8
x7/7
x6/6

This was excellent and the 24 felt very light again and the reps were very good. the groove one gets from doing higher reps with lighter weight translates very well into what heavy weights feel like from the start.
I thought about, briefly, just doing 8's on all the sets, but my shoulders got tons of work Saturday and even if I felt strong this is just the first day back and I can't get greedy.

Tracy was pressing doubles and did the same number of reps as I did on both arms with double bells.Way harder to me, even though a 16 rep set split between arms seems like way too many reps for me,lol.

Snatch

20 kg x5/5
x6/6
x7/7
x8/8

this was good for stabilizing my shoulder after all those presses as well as making up a little for missing my snatch workout on saturday.again.I can't wait til I have 3 months or so of NO travel and just consistent training, sleeping, recovery.

Great speed power and form on the snatches.nice.

Two hand Clubbell Arm casts

15 lb x8/8
20 lb x8/8
25 lb x10/10( shown in video above)
Shield cast
20 lbs x 10/10

these went great and were as strong as I can be lately. completely digging the two hand work as opposed to all the single arm work I did in the last two years. These feel very strong and powerful and I can see doing almost all of my work with the 25lb'er soon and purchasing a 30 or a 35lber as well!

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