"And in those simple beautiful movements I remembered what was really important in training; that consistency trumps intensity; all the time. That intensity is born from consistency. That one cannot force it, one has to lay in wait for it, patiently, instinctively, calmly and be ready to grab it when Grace lays it down in front of you."
Took a relatively easy day today as tomorrow it's wheel's up to Gothenburg Sweden and and SFG level 1 cert with Tommy Blom and I don't want to tweak anything more than I need a little more stimulation in the training.
So I subbed out kb front squat with goblet squats and liked them so much I just might leave it this way! I can get way deeper with the goblets ( although I need to try the elbows inside the knee position with the double bells first) and it just feels great to do! The double fronts tend to make my back a lit grouchy on the next two days after with all the ab stimulation and I don't need that with all sitting, flying and walking I'm going to be doing.
And the goblets were strong and great fun.
Free squat warmup 3 sets of 12
Goblet squat
16 kg x 5 x 2
20 kg x 5
24 kg x 5
32 kg x 3 x 5 sets
24 kg x 5 x 5 sets
definitely a pr since I've never done this workout before but it was cool. Could have easily done the 32 for 5's but the idea was not to push it
Pbar pushups
one single rail.close grip feet on floor( like a decline)
Full reps felt fine on shoulder, like the close grip and the triceps emphasis
4 sets of 5,6,7,8
Belt squats
32 kg x 12 x 4 sets
easy peazy.
Hip sled drag
95 lbs x 4 laps of 250 feet
VERY strong. Left it at four on purpose.
Ring triceps ext
4 x 12, 12, 10, 6
haha hoping for 4 sets of 12,triceps death had other plans. good work though and upper body is coming back too with some mild triceps and pushup work. It's good to have one natural bodypart :)
datsit. Off the grid til I come back but it should be great fun, haven't been to sweden since 1993 as an assistant team coach for Team USA powerlifting
Surprised me today; went faster than normal , earlier than normal. Interesting. Had a solid workout yesterday- was strong but it wasn't "easy" strong. I still had to dig but there was something there to give.
Today I had no idea but the walk to the park and the first lap weren't that sloggy, a good sign. started off with 8:25 laps but then it started to really loosen up and I found a solid groove- loose and fast and could really feel the load on the glutes, not the knees or back. Another great sign.
Lately it's been taking 8 or so laps to get under 8:15 on the lap but today the sixth lap broke and then seven, eight and nine were all at 8:00 or under! Best yet. Lap ten was the same but I could feel fatigue setting in and lap 11 was 8:10 or so. I thought I had bonked but pulled it out for the last lap with a 7:55. Sweet.
When I get back the ruck weight goes up to 17 kg close to the goal of 20 kg. Once I reach that it stays there with a few exceptions once in awhile
Still did squat stretches each lap as well as some shoulder mobility circles and lat stretches. Shoulders feel great now as I write this.
Interesting video by serious powerlifting AND Ultra marathon/triathloner Alex Viada. I agree completely with him and love the logical approach to training he takes. He completely groks the vital importance of recovery in this whole training equation :)
datsit. Legs tomorrow ( probably goblet squats as I prepare for my trip to Sweden and another SFG Level 1 course.
This was not easy. Slept well but still a bit under recovered from this last week. I caught up jet lag wise but then the workouts worked me hard :). No matter, I got them done and they were all a PR.
My old best was 102 reps mostly done in 5's. This was 120 reps in all 6's and much stronger and more powerful to boot.
30 min roll/stretchout.
One arm swings
16 kg x 5/5/ x 2
20 kg x 5/5
24 kg x 3/3
32 kg x 3/3
44 kg x 6/6 x 10 sets
120 reps
116,640
not bad workload at all
Two hand swings
44 kg x 10 x 5 sets
very powerful as well. no problems at all
Crawls
4 laps of 60 feet.
by myself fast turnaround.
strong but hard as well
ring triceps ext
5 sets of 10
wanted to not have such a fall off so I stayed with 10's the entire time. Still, barely made the last two reps ,lol.
solid day. Long ruck tomorrow too. last one for a week. better bring it tomorrow :)
Everything was attached this morning and stayed that way to training time :) Legs still a bit flat from the weekend so I opted for medium heavy weights for double swings, the 24's.
Felt strong from the git.Can't believe this is one of my favorite movements now.
Double swings
2 16s x 5
2 20s x 5
2 24s x 5,6,7,8,9,10 x 2 rounds
this felt very strong and easy.
Walking lunges
4 laps of 100 feet. These were good but tough, on grass not pavement. Had more than a few wobbles as I could really feel how tired the legs were.
heavy day today and I don't mean just the weight size. It felt heavy,lol. Getting back on track has caught up to me a bit today and the double 28's were a real test. No tweaks though after the heavy swings and long ruck but I was tired and tight.
Especially my calves which ended up hurting me in my depth. But no excuses, just another day at the office and while the reps weren't my best, they were a pr and the job got done.
Double front squats
2 16's x 5 x 2
2 20's x 4
2 24's x 3
2 28's x 3 x 6 sets
Single bell front squats
these were interesting. I was definitely done with double so I thought I'd try this. They worked pretty well and when I was doing them I felt like I was much deeper than I was via the video above :)
Hard to watch depth in the mirror when I have to keep my head up to hold my arch.lol. But it'll get there. Looser calves will help
20 kg x 5/5
24 kg x 5/5
definitely different too being able to do higher reps on each side. Plus the side carrying the load obviously does more work. Interesting movement I likey.
Belt squats
36 kg x 12,14,16. 20
yeow! blow torch on the quads/ Decided not to stand on plates because I always feel a bit off in the knees the next day after I do that. this was plenty of ROM
Hip sled
95 lbs x 250 ft x 5 laps
five is the new four. Not bad at all
Negative only pushups
3 sets of 5
trying these again. no repercussions from Saturday's pushps so maybe if I do these without the overhead work the shoulders will behave and let me build some more upper body mass :)
Ring extensions
1 sets of 12
tri's surprisingly cooked :)
It was just work this morning, as I expected it would be. It doesn't take much to take the cream off the top of my fitness and missing a week of "training", world travel across many time zones and montezuma's revenge didn't help either.
But I knew it wouldn't matter, either. I would just ruck up and do my best. See who was home, as Glenn would say.
It wasn't that bad; the first five laps were around 8:30 seconds and the body just didn't want to go any faster but then on lap six things loosened up and I got to 8:15's then the last three laps were all around 8:00 or less!
Two hours, twelve laps.
Same 15 kg ruck weight. Won't bump that up til I get back from Sweden July 1.
Glenn put on this Army Cadence song above yesterday during our sets and I thought it would be good to listen to as I walked my laps.
It was. But after a few times it started to distract trying to get the next one up on the phone so I ditched it.
Had a visit from Mike Sousa SFG2 and all around strong guy at Stone Gym today. He elected to come and train with us on our "boring" but tough swing day. Glad to see we made him work a little :)
It's not a sexy workout but it ain't easy. It's deceiving at first, just a few swings with a ( semi) moderate weight. But when they just don't stop and your goal is to keep the power and acceleration up, the concept of having a high work capacity sinks right in. Mike kicked it's ass but it left a mark :)
One arm swings
16 kg x 5/5 x 2
20 kg x 5/5
24 kg x 5/5
36 kg x 7/7 x 10 sets
140 reps
11,060 lbs
Glenn wanted to play the US Army Cadence song and it seemed perfectly appropriate
" hard work, work; hard work work "
My sets felt great.Strong and fast. grip held easy. I decided to take this inbetween weight as I missed the 32 kg week last week and didn't want to use the 40. I do the 44 kg next week before I take off for Sweden SFG 1 course. Tactical periodization :)
36 kg Two hand swings
5 sets of 10
No problem either ,strong and fast.
Interestingly, even though we had a fifth man in the mix, we finished the workout 15 minutes earlier than usual. And we weren't even trying, at least I didn't think so. Well maybe trying to impress :)
Crawls
4 sets of 50, 60 70 80 feet
these felt great
Ring Triceps extensions
4 sets of 18, 15, 12, 10
these went well. here's a video from a few years ago when I just revisited them
Negative only pushups
2 sets of 8
REALLY need to be able to do these. Try again and see how shoulder feels. Since I'm not pressing or snatching I should be able to get away with them. It's much more important to me to be able to do pushups than press overhead. For sure
Datsit. Regular Ruck march tomorrow. Can't wait
Neverquit.
What a week! I thought the trip to Italy would go strongly, and perhaps, in one way it did, but it was tough. A short bullet point recap.
Flight over was easy. Flights on time, body okay mind strong.
On arrival at hotel NEW knee acts up for the first freakin' time in ten months!!! Had a weird pain at the insertion of the anterior tib, right under the knee and it didn't want to hold my weight!! GREAT TIMING! Mind- not so good.
Got it untwisted- I think popliteus was locked tight as I felt so good I hadn't stretched out much and may have been more dehydrated than I thought. Thursday AM it was better but not perfect.
Thursday- lots of sitting around, talking business and no stretching. Knee ok back ok. Late dinner out and then NO SLEEP. Zero. :) AND
Back locks up. Obviously the no stretching part is seriously kicking my ass. I thought the bed was great, solid and firm but Friday at 5:30 am can barely move. More great :) Full stretchout. Back is slowly unlocking. Hydrating like crazy.
Friday at cert. Taught the swing and the clean and led my Team ( my favorite part of all :) ) from 8-3 or so. Back was feeling better than on awakeing but all the loading was not helping. Plus no time to really stretch fully out. It was 100 degrees too. Did not help trying to stay hydrated.
Also, the no sleep was catching up quickly as well. Knee was fine :)
Friday night. Come back from cert and pass out.Slept well except for the stomach cramps I started getting. :) Hello stomach flu :)
Saturday all day. SEVERE stomach flu and diarrhea. Hey, more fun! I got to teach and demonstrate the squat for the first time ever! It ROCKED
Luckily didn't have teach as much in front of group. Long hot day. Not sure I was going to live BUT some of my best teaching and lecturing ever ? Go figure. My team was melding into one solid group of Instructor candidates.My favorite part- to watch the transformation.
Sunday- things began to ease and I finally caught up with hydration. Intense day with all the testing but less work in teaching. Starting to feel more normal. Got some Italian Imodium which didn't seem to help.
Note to self for travel kit : add pepto bismol and imodium tablets as well as some high potency anti biotics. Be Prepared.
Training:
Double bell swings
2 16's x 5 x 2
2 20's x 5
2 24's x 8,8,10, 12, 14, 16
decided to give Glenn some suffering support as he was doing high rep snatches and I started out with low rep swings. Felt VERY strong despite losing five pounds over the weekend
Double front squats
2 16's x 5
2 24's x 5 x 5
this was as strong as could be. double 32's will be there no problem Surprised how strong I feel
Walking lunges
four passes of 36 lunge steps. Getting tired now, VERY hot and sun is intense.
Shoulder sled drags
95 lbs x 3 laps of 250 feet.
could have done four but that would have pushed it too much. need sleep and food.
These were probably the best squats I have ever done. Definitely the most symmetrical and deepest. It was only 20 kg bells but for the first time, perhaps ever, felt like I had TWO legs under me when I was squatting.
And man, let me tell you after squatting on basically one leg for all these years, two is a LOT easier. And stronger. And more balanced, lol.
Had some big improvement in my supported static squat stretch yesterday during the walk. Yesterday was just a great hike day overall, in many ways and the squat depth improvement was a big part of it.
I stopped alternating stances each laps and just stayed with my optimal squat stance- which is on the medium side of medium wide and I just kinda "dropped" in another inch or so and it felt great. And it seems to carry over to todays squat.
As usual more free squatting than sitting on stability ball today. Knees felt good. A bit tired from the weekend but definitely better than normal- less stiff - more recovered.
Goblet squat
16 kg x 3 x 2
20 kg x 3 x 2
this is turning out to be a great warmup
Double front squat
2 16s x 5 x 2
2 20s x 5 x 10 sets
50 reps
4400 lbs work
that's not a half bad workload either
Belt squat ( on 10 kg plates)
36 kg x 10 x 4 sets
ALL touch floor,strong and deeper here too.
Hip sled
95 lbs x 250 ft x 5 sets
Five is the new four.
Ring tricep extensions
3 x 18, 13, 8 :)
tricep death. perfect.shoulders are excellent
datsit. Wheels up tomorrow and a week of beautiful Italy and kettlebell teaching and coaching. Can't wait.
Perhaps the strongest yet even though I had a bit too much vino last night and was a touch slow getting up :)
And, as keeping with my nature I was slow getting started but finished fast.
First lap was 8:25. Last lap was 7:55 :)
Each lap got faster as I warmed up and got looser.
Same pack weight, 15 kg and same number of laps : twelve.
Shoulders were sore when I woke up making me re think the crawls but loosened up very quickly. not the same as before when they didn't loosen up for days so they will probably stay in for now.
When I get back from Italy the pack weight goes up another 2.5 pounds to an even 35. Once I hit 40 lbs it will stay there for the duration.
Each lap had a 30-45 second supported squat stretch and they were the deepest I've gone yet. Stayed with one width this time and it really worked well.
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