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.