Training Week in Review

Work Summary

Monday: Convict Conditioning New Fish: Wall Pushups (3x20) & Knee Pulls (4x10), Swings 1x15, C&P 1x(1;2;3) & Swings again 1x20. Cycling: 10.8 miles.

Tuesday: Pumps, Halos, C&P 3x(1;2;3).

Wednesday: Rest, though cycled about 8 miles

Thursday: Halos, C&P 4x(1;2;3), Swings 2x20, Snatches 5 each hand, Swings 1x10. Grip work: 3 attempts to close my CoC "Trainer". none successful. Dangit.

Friday: CC New Fish: Vertical Pulls 5x20, Shoulder-stand Squats: 1x10.

Saturday: TGUs 5 minutes. Snatches 10 each hand. C&P 5x(1;2;3) (maybe 6 sets, I wasn't sure), Swings 3x25.

Sunday: Rest. Cycled 12.4 miles at a fairly lazy 11 mph pace.

Salient Commentary

Halos are fun, but I like TGUs to warm up my shoulders better. I can't always get to them though, so when I can't, I can just do 4 per side, since that's about how many I can get in within 5 minutes.

Shoulder-stand squats will be the bane of my existence. I know this because I have to hold my gut up in the air, and it sucks. I'll work on it better next week, damnit.

Working out later in the day means that I sleep better, but I think that working out first thing in the morning means that I feel better throughout the day. Not sure which is better.

Kelly pointed out that my feet were more splayed out than I thought (closer to a 60° angle than <45° like it should be). Will have to work on that.

I thought early in the week that I'd lost a lot of the conditioning & strength that I had built up in the past. By the end of the week I think I didn't quite loose as much as I thought I had, but sure as shit my Snatches needed work early in the week. We'll see how it feels next week. I plan to Grease the Groove those pesky Snatches until they feel better. Goes back to something that Dan John said: "If it's important: do it every day." Snatches are important to my progress, so I'll be continuing to work on them. Plan on earning a new Kettlebell within the next 4 weeks, and getting up to the standard 24kg (probably going to order it the first week of February, if not before...

Programming through March and long term naval gazing

I just spent most of the morning doing my workout programming through the first week of March. I'd go further, but that's when I expect the weather will start getting warm enough for me to begin adding in cycling to the mix, and that's likely going to cause re-structuring everything again. Note that I haven't stopped cycling per se, I've just reduced my mileage to "back and forth to work with fun rides thrown in when it's warm enough". Once the weather hits in the upper 30s lower 40s I can start adding in 10-ish miles per day until it actually gets warm out. Then the milage will increase, and we'll see what happens with weights.

Basically my plan is to basically restart my training program moving Kettlebells to a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday plan with Monday and Friday as Bodyweight days. I'll be keeping to those days for bodyweight stuff until I complete the New Fish requirements from Convict Conditioning.

New Fish basically takes you to being able to do up to "Step 6" in Pushups, Pullups, Squats, and Leg Raises. My pushups need work. I've never been able to do a pullup. I can squat thanks to years of martial arts, but I figured I may as well "put it in the bank", as they say. My lower abs are weak thanks to years of carrying around extra weight in that region so I'll be starting from square one in all four of those calisthenics exercises. I'd like to get to "master level" on at least one of the "Big 6" from the book by the end of the year (my money is on the Pistol, a.k.a. one-legged squat, but we'll see), though I'm not in any rush.

Fun things that will be worked up to in the program: Graduating from 16kg to a 24kg Kettlebell (which should happen mid January), 200 two-handed Swings (end of January), 100 16kg Snatches in 5 minutes (end of February), 100 1-handed Swings per hand, and maybe if I'm strong enough, getting up to 5x(1;2;3) Clean & Press with the 24kg Kettlebell by the first week of March. Then I'll likely re-program for finishing the "RKC-Rite of Passage" by the end of May. I'll probably re-evaluate my progress and see what I've accomplished and what continuing goals I've yet to achieve.

I'll also be summarizing my weekly training, and also putting in a weigh in once per week along with everything else. Stick around. I'm going to make 2010 my best year ever.

Feels like forever

It feels like forever since I've both worked out and since I've had a chance to update the blog. I've got some really cool things coming down the pipe for 2010, and I'm excited about them. I'm not sure how much of them I can divulge yet, but I'll be a busy boy that's for sure. So what can I talk about?

I've got 3 planned 100 mile bike rides on the calendar (100 Miles of Nowhere, the Philly Livestrong Challenge, and the 2010 AIDS Ride for Life. That's going to be a lot of biking to train up for, but I think I'll be able to do it, considering I haven't really stopped biking this year, but I'll have to look at my schedule and when these three rides are to make sure that I don't totally burn out between them all (shouldn't really be an issue).

Fitness Goals for 2010

I thought it would be a good idea, since this is my fitness blog, to put down some quantifiable goals for this coming year:

• Drop to 15% body fat. — last time I checked I was still around 30% so this would be a good thing, as heart disease runs pretty rampant in my family
• Complete the RKC-RoP with a 24kg Kettlebell
• 1 strict tactical pull up
• 1 pistol, each leg
• RKC Snatch Test with a 16kg Kettlebell
• Bike all three 100 mile routes on my calendar
• Bike 3000 miles in 2010

Looks like I've got my work cut-out for me! This is gonna be a treat!

Two weeks in Review

Man, it feels like ages since I've actually done anything beyond going to class and teaching at Wells. According to my records it's now been almost 2 weeks since I've really done anything with my Kettlebell, and it's really frustrating me. The good news is that I found a chiropractor who gave me an hour or his time to adjust my back and fix (likely for now) and address some of the imbalances and oddities in my body. He suggested coming back into the office in 2 weeks for another adjustment and "as needed" or "6-8 weeks to make sure you're still in the right spots" for future follow-ups.

The man is built like a tank, which is quite the change from my last chiropractor who is quite skinny, though highly skilled. Dr. Alise spent about an hour with me, going over everything he was going to do and really took the time to understand what I needed. I would highly recommend his services to anyone who is thinking about needing an adjustment in the Ithaca area.

So, onto the plan. Since it's been a few weeks since I've been active with my weights, I think I'm going to join a few other folks on these interwebs with the December project of Turkish Getups and Swings. I think scaling back my workouts and concentrating on working through some of my body's issues will allow me to get back into it this month. Next month I'll restart my Clean & Press work and gradually try to get back on track again. I'm thinking about taking whatever moneies I get for Hannuka this year and put it towards a 24kg Kettlebell...either that or a hand-full of books from DragonDoor. If I get enough monies though, I'll probably do both!