Plyo Fury

That’s me on the left, doing lateral plyo pushups with the Bosu ball. These were tough—in the reflection, one can see me compensating with my butt too high in air.

Leg Circuit Times

I haven't been blogging, but I have been training.

Today, I finished the leg circuit. It should have been done last Friday, but real life and Wildwood intervened. Despite two tournaments in as many weekends, I was feeling good, and thought it was going to show. Below are all the circuit dates and times:

Week One
6/21, 21'45" and 6/24, 19'42"

Week Two
6/28, 25'02" and 7/1, 24'08"

Week Three
7/5, 26'34" and 7/8, 26'06"

Week Four
7/11, 24'14" and 7/14, 24'25"

Week Five
7/18, 26'33" and 7/21, 23'47"

Week Six
7/26, 17'40" and 8/2, 18'58"

Overall, the times are pretty slow, but I was most disappointed with today's time being slower than last week's penultimate session. Going into today's, I figured that, with the finish line in sight, I would have ripped through it. With only the gym clock to go by, it's difficult to time the individual rounds, but I want to say that after the first two circuits I was on pace to finish in 15 minutes. Perhaps my legs were more tired from two consecutive weekends of tournaments than I knew.

Certainly, this was worthwhile, but the best I have to say about this is that now I have benchmarks to work against for next year.

Yesterday's Pre-Season Sports Conditioning

In case you wanted to see what it looked like. I'm just off camera to Joël's left.

Leg Circuit

I’ve wound up with an inexplicable deltoid strain/sprain to my left shoulder, so I’m giving it a break for a few days, lest I end up with something that’s going to haunt me all season. In search of something to do this week that wouldn’t involve my shoulder, I dove into Vern Gambetta’s leg circuit, which I’d read about on Dusty’s blog.

I figured that 11+ weeks of weight training qualified me as having a “good base” for beginning this program, which meant starting with three circuits at full repetitions.

Warmup: Five minutes on the treadmill at 7’30” pace.

Dynamic warmup (from Coach Dos’s Cardio Strength Training): Knee skips x 2, leg swings x 2, carioca stepovers x 2, Atlas lunges x 2, lateral 180-degree squats x 2, Spiderman lunges x 2, three-quarter speed accelerations x 2 (all movements were done for the length of the room).

Bodyweight squat x 20
45sec. rest
Alternating lunge x 10 each leg
45sec. rest
Alternating stepup x 10 each leg
45sec. rest
Jump squat x 10
3min. rest

Time for three circuits: 21’45”

Cooldown: Three minutes of stretching.

Despite my concerns, the Atlas lunges and Spiderman lunges did not bother my shoulder. As for the actual circuit, it wasn’t easy, but I also felt fairly prepared for the workload. That being said, I was much slower on the bodyweight squats than I expected to be (I guesstimate each of those sets took me ~ 40secs.), and on both the bodyweight squats and jump squats had difficulty breaking parallel. I was pleased with the workout, however, the future of this progression is up in the air depending on how things shake out with my shoulder and wrapping up my power training.

Week Eleven, Day Three

Warmup: Five minutes on treadmill at 7’30” pace, mobility circuit, dumbbell complex.

Squat Jump: 4 x 25/4
Single-leg Romanian Deadlift: 4 x 30/4
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press: 4 x 40/4
Push Press: 4 x 75/4
Medicine Ball 1-2-3 Throw: 4 x 4kg/8
T-Push and Hold: 4 x 45sec.

Cooldown: Child’s pose, upward-facing dog, downward facing dog.

Nothing noteworthy today, other than going up in weight slightly on the push presses. Did everything as super sets.

Week Eleven, Day One

Warmup: Five minutes on treadmill at 7’30” pace, mobility circuit, dumbbell complex.

Squat Jump: 4 x 25/4
Romanian Deadlift, 135/4, 145/4, 155/4, 165/4, 175/4
Bench Press: 4 x 115/4
Dumbbell Alternating Press: 4 x 35/4
Russian Twist: 4 x 25/8
Plank Walkup: 4 x 45sec.

Cooldown: Child’s pose, upward-facing dog, downward-facing dog.

Last Monday, I felt like my form on my deadlifts was suffering due to hamstring flexibility, so I decided to go up in weight with each set today (which meant adding an extra set to average out at 155lbs.). I found that 175lbs. is just about my limit on this move, because my arms barely can support the weight. This means that likely my form faltered on that last set, defeating the point of what I was doing in the first place. So back to four sets at 155lbs. next week.

I tried to speed up the training session by doing everything as super sets: squat jumps and bench presses, Romanian deadlifts and dumbbell alternating presses, and core work. Super-setting the core moves has become a staple over the last few weeks, and even if doing all the exercises in such a fashion didn’t seem to save me any time, it felt more efficient nonetheless.

Kettlebell-TRX Six

Today's workout was a lot like last week's, except that it was twenty minutes straight of one armed kettlebell exercises followed by a much shorter set of TRX exercises. Kettlebell moves were one-armed swings, halos, clean to shoulder press, Turkish getups, high pulls, squats, reverse lunges, a second set of high pulls, and . . . something else, not necessarily in that order. On my second set of high pulls, Ari had me experiment with snatches, which are not easy, but preferable to the high pulls.

TRX circuit was more forgiving, all one-handle stuff: lawnmower, stir the pot, inverted pushups, and one or two more moves. The whole thing was another memory eraser. Warmup was five minutes of alternating 30' of heavy swings with 30' of a TRX move.

Thinking of kettlebell swings as a hip-dominant exercise, and really shooting my hips back while putting the load on my hamstrings, did wonders for my form. At least insofar as Ari wasn't berating me constantly like he usually does. Also, I felt stronger today. This is the six-week mark, so I'd say my body must be responding to the training. (More on that to come in Wednesday's power-training post.)

Week Four, Day One

Hang Jump Shrug: 4 x 50/3
Back Squat: 4 x 115/6
Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift, 4 x 20/6
Bench Press 4 x 95/6
Bent-Over Dumbbell Alternating Row: 4 x 30/6
Push Press: 4 x 55/6
Single-Arm Pulldown: 4 x 35/6
Russian Twist: 4 x 20/8
Plank Walkup: 4 x 45sec.

First day of increased weight with less reps. Actually, I tried 55lbs. on the last set of hang jump shrugs, and 12kg on the first set of deadlifts, and both were too high. Also, I forgot I was doing six reps and not eight on the first couple sets of squats and deadlifts, but it seems to have been fine.

Super-setted everything. Standard warmup including five-minute run at 7'30" pace. Everything still took longer to finish than I would have liked.

Kettlebell-TRX Five

Today's workout was a memory eraser. Quick warmup moving the kettlebell around the body, followed by a twelve-minute set of kettlebell exercises, done twice, and a twelve-minute set of TRX exercises, done once. We moved through so quickly I can't even tell you what we did.

After class, Ari pointed us to Rifs Blog, and we took a minute to talk about form on the kettlebell swings. Looking at the photo at the link above, an hearing what Ari had to say, I don't think I'm putting enough load on my hamstrings during my swings. It's tempting to start practicing these on other days.

Week Three, Day One

This is the final week before ultimate spring league begins, so after the success of last week’s modified workout schedule, I’m trying a full week of the four-day push-pull program.

Hang Jump Shrug, 4 x 45/5
Back Squat, 3 x 95/10 and 1 x 100/10
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press, 4 x 25/10
Dumbbell Alternating Press, 4 x 20/10
Seated Russian Twist, 4 x 14/10
Plank walkup 4 x 45 seconds

Warmup was five minutes of rowing aiming for 4’/1K and 30 s/m @ resistance six, mobility circuit, and dumbbell complex with 20lb. weights. Like many people working out on their own, I probably underestimate how much I can lift on a given day. For me, a big part of these first three weeks has been figuring out my loads for the prescribed exercises. Looking at last week’s logs, I noticed a significant discrepancy between what I was doing on my Romanian deadlifts and my back squats. While I don’t imagine they’d be equal, it looked like I could be doing a lot more weight on my squats than I had been doing. So, today I bumped up my squats from 80lbs. to 95.

I was comfortable enough with these that I did 100lbs. for the last set. Maybe I could have gone 100lbs. the entire time. I’m interested to see how next week will look when I’m supposed to increase weight and decrease repetitions on everything.

Kettlebell-TRX Four

It seems class only will get harder. Today we warmed up by alternating 30 seconds of two-hand swings with 30 seconds of rest, 10 sets. My form and rhythm still are not great on these, and my lower back was screaming at me by the end. Like, I was feeling tension down the back of my legs from it. Dropped down to a lower weight for the last set.

Next, we reviewed and practiced cleans, which was followed by a kettlebell complex of double high pulls, double cleans, windmills, and renegade rows (pushup plus core row). Five reps each, two sets. Wiped out at least once during the renegades.

We finished with a circuit of TRX moves and walking-kettlebell suicides. For example, do one-armed TRX rows with kettlebell presses, followed by walking kettlebell swings half the width of the room and back, then width of the room and back. It took me about six swings and ten swings, respectively, to complete each suicide. TRX exercises were the aforementioned one-armed row with kettlebell press, lawnmower, split lunge with kettlebell in goblet position, scorpion, and vertical pushup. Three reps each (switch sides if necessary) followed by a suicide. Five exercises, five suicides. I finished first, but I'm not sure whether that was good or bad.

Power Training, Pull

Second day of this week's modified workouts. Again, I choose all bilateral movements. (Except for, I guess, the core rows.)

Hang Jump Shrug w/ dumbells, 4 x 45/5 (link has the wrong exercise pictured)
Romanian Deadlift, 4 x 115/10
Cable Face Pull, 4 x 50/10
Lat Pulldown, 2 x 60/10, 2 x 65/10
Windshield Wiper w/ knees bent, 4 x -/10
Core Row, 4 x 15/10

Someone at the gym took away my clock, so I did the core rows for reps instead of time. Supersetted the jump shrugs and windshield wipers, and the deadlifts and core rows. I found that's it's easy to cheat on the core row by sticking my butt in the air, so I tried to watch out for that.

I substituted the face pulls for horizontal pullups because my shoulders were feeling wonky this week. I wasn't blown away by these; the variability in cable height significantly changes how the exercise feels. The book recommends changing position from workout to workout, but if I did them again I'd start with the cable at waist height and experiment from there.

Warmup was five minutes on the rowing machine at resistance six, aming for 1K/4' pace and 30 s/m, followed by mobility circuit and dumbell circuit. I was definitely under pace while warming up, but I'm still feeling pretty out of it this week due to all the recent illness in the household.

Loads seemed good. Deadlifts were tough; I went with a mixed grip for the last two sets, which I really liked.

Power Training, Push

Spending yesterday in the ER with C. threw off my schedule for this week, so I tried something new to get in two workouts before the weekend. Instead of two total-body days, I decided to have a push day and a pull day that I could do back to back.

Today was push (and knee) day. All exercises were bilateral.

Squat Jump, 4 x -/5
Back Squat, 2 x 75/10, 2 x 80/10
Bench Press, 4 x 65/10
Push Press, 4 x 45/10
Seated Russian Twist, 4 x 14/10
Plank Walkup, 4 x 45 seconds

Warmup was five minutes on the treadmill at 7'30" pace, dumbell complex with 20lb. dumbells, and mobility circuit. I did supersets of the squat jumps and walkups, and of the back squats and twists. Loads seemed about right except for the back squats, which felt easier this week than last, maybe because I was wearing different shoes. I was struggling by the end of the presses and core exercises.

Kettlebell-TRX Gets Real

As the person new to class, Ari had been warning me for the past two weeks that today things would start getting real and we'd keep that up for the last six weeks. What might this mean? I was apprehensive to find out.

Today's workout was Kettlebell-TRX-Rope-TRX circuit. One minute per exercise, ten seconds to switch stations, and maybe a minute in between sets.

Set 1: kettlebell thrusters, TRX rows, vertical battling ropes, TRX rollouts
Set 2: double-kettlebell swings, TRX alternating pistol squats, horizontal battling ropes, TRX supine hip extensions
Set 3: alternating Turkish getups, TRX alligators, two-handed vertical rope, TRX corkscrews
Set 4: kettlebell V-ups into Russian twists, TRX tricep skullcrushers, side-to-side rope waves, TRX muscleups
Set 5: double kettlebell cleans, TRX bicep curls, battling ropes while in V-sit, TRX vertical pushups
Set 6: single-kettlebell swing, TRX alternating T-pull and Y-pull, side plank with battling rope, TRX one-handed rows with twist

I swear there was a seventh set, but I can't for the life of me recall the exercises. At any given moment, class looked something like this.

We cashed out walking kettlebell swings up and back the length of the room and one minute of four-point plank. Two sets. Everyone else was doing three-point planks. Egads.

(Those links aren't people in my class; they're other hard-working Army recruits and are included for demonstrative purposes only.)

Kettlebell-TRX Monday

Second kettlebell-TRX small group. We started with practicing kettlebell high pulls and cleans. My crossfitting seems to have made me decent at cleans. Warm up was 1-1-1-1 one-arm swing, high pull, clean, squat. Perform five repetitions then switch sides.

TRX circuit was sprinter start, alternating chest press and chest fly, bus driver and kneeling roll-out. One minute per exercise, two sets. Kettlebell circuit was swing, goblet squat, renegade rows, and Turkish get ups. One minute per exercise, two sets.

We cashed out with walking kettlebell swings and towel crawls the length of the studio, three times up and back of each. These were killer; as if my form on my swing wasn’t suffering enough on today’s KB circuit, I was done in by trying to do them while walking. Supposedly, there’s video of my floundering to be posted to YouTube.

Daylight Saving Time

The goal: when I set back my watch in eight months, to be doing it at the USAU Club Championships.

What's that? These things don't coincide anymore? I've been gone longer than I thought . . .