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Always Be Smashing

That Ronda Rousey vid is cool. I've long warmed up with a bit of PVC pipe, although if I attempted that I'd be face down on the floor in short order.
 
03/09 06:00

Trifecta + rows
30min treadmill run/walk 2.2m

Going to do a little change of direction for this week, maybe more - going to force myself back to the LSD grindstone in the morning, try to rack up a few miles. Gotta get back in the habit.

03/09 17:00

GSQT 2x5 48
Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x8
DL 6x1 415#
KB snatch 10x8 32
KB press 4x1 36
Grip circuit x3

I think that is the first time I've done a DL training session with 400#+. Have done it at TSCs, just not at home with no grip aids. Surprisingly intimidating. But, I figure, if I want to hoist 5 wheels this year, need to spend more time getting comfortable with 4.

First 2 DL where DOH, then went to switch grip. Brother @Antti said something recently that stuck with me: DL is not a grip exercise. Of course, it will challenge the grip, and it's good to let it do so as long as you can... but when it's time to move the big weights, don't let grip be the limiting factor. Hopefully by the next time I cycle up over 400, I'll have a proper rubber gym floor, and a good gym chalk setup to go with it.

Was looking for something to keep doing some press practice, figured I'd give soju & tuba a try. Plus, I like anything with booze in the name.

Pushups: 8x13
Box pistols: 8x4 x side
Pullups: 8x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 29
 
03/10 06:00

Trifecta + rows
20min spin bike

03/10 21:00

33min treadmill run/walk 2.0m
Grip circuit x3

HR just shot up during the evening run. Could have been a combination of things: the morning bike session, high GTG volume, belly full of delicious spaghetti carbonara.

Pushups: 10x13
Box pistols: 10x4 x side
Pullups: 7x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 30
 
Felt like having a mostly-rest day, so opted to sleep in. But, no volleyball tonight due to family stuff, so got in a little evening training.

03/11 21:00

Trifecta + rows
33min treadmill run/walk 2.1m

HR shot up again, just couldn't get it under control at any reasonable pace. Whatever the reason, really shows that I need refocus some effort there. Which, of course, means something else will suffer... I figure it will be mobility work. Hopefully the frequent trifecta work and EOD stretching will keep me at least functional/injury-free... thinking about how I might be able to pepper a little random mobility work into my day.

EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 30
 
03/12 06:00

Trifecta + rows
32min treadmill run/walk 2.0m

I suspect that my recent difficulties with running are a result of tired legs. Somehow the goal of a pistol squat slowly snuck its way back into my training, and it's interfering with running. I'm going to stick with it for a while, but should lighten up on squats ahead of races.

03/12 21:15

GSQT 2x5 48
Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x8
KB1HS 16x7 48
KB press 6x1 36
Grip circuit x1

100+ swings with the beast :cool:

Pushups: 8x13
Box pistols: 8x4 x side
Pullups: 8x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 31
 
03/13 16:00

Trifecta + rows
47min treadmill run/walk 3.1m
Grip circuit x3

For run today, I abandoned trying to increase cadence, and just went at my natural cadence of about 150 steps/minute. That let me settle into a pace where HR stayed steady. I feel like, at the glacial pace I move at, increasing cadence essentially means I'm putting the brakes on more. There must be some speed below which faster cadence doesn't make sense.

Good GTG work today. Squats are tough, but pullups are feeling pretty good. Kinda cool that I got in 400+ pushups this week... should cross 500 tomorrow.

Pushups: 10x13
Box pistols: 10x4 x side
Pullups: 10x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 32

So... today, our local school district closed all the schools as a precautionary measure. My wife went out to do some panic shopping, and excitedly showed me all the things she got that were "the last one left!" Disturbing times. Another great thing about a home gym: all the contaminants there are your own.

Stay well, my strong brothers and sisters.
 
No training on Sunday, just another walk with the family.

03/16 06:00

Trifecta +
45min treadmill run/walk 3.1m

Again just ran at natural cadence. Felt good. I'm fond of joking that nobody actually enjoys running, we just enjoy the sense of accomplishment afterwards. It really feels good to head upstairs for breakfast in the morning and already have 3 miles under my belt for the day - think my joy of LED is returning.

03/16 18:15

GSQT 2x5 48
Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x8
DL 3x5 355#
KB press 10x1 36

... a break for dinner and family time, then...

Grip circuit x3

First day of kettlebells and deadlifts program, plus continuing soju & tuba. Nice minimalistic session. 3x5 on DL was very taxing, wasn't much left for grip circuit. This should carry me up to the TSC... if it happens.

The gym where I'm planning to go for the TSC has closed temporarily. My first 10k of the year was going to be in May also, but has been postponed till the fall. Most folks are guessing the schools won't reopen this school year.

Guess there's nothing left to do but go down to the basement and get freakishly strong.

Pushups: 8x13
Box pistols: 8x4
Pullups: 8x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 33
 
No training on Wednesday. Like everything else, volleyball had been cancelled.

03/19 06:00

Trifecta +
45min treadmill run/walk 3.2m

Woke up feeling brittle - soreness in shoulders and elbow, tightness in hamstrings, pulling on lower back. First set of pushups felt like it was near max- but partly because my brain shut off and I did a set of 17. But after all that, it was a pretty good run. I suspect I might be feeling the effect of ramping up the LED volume too quickly.

03/19 18:00

GSQT 2x5 48
Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x8
KB1HS 20x5 48
KB press 12x1 36

Good settings today - powerful right to the end. Which left me wondering, did I go too easy? Did I leave something on the table? The answer, of course, is no, you dummy- training is supposed to feel good, enjoy it. Do more if it feels easy. Today was good, not easy.

03/18 21:30

Grip circuit x3

Pushups: 8x13
Box pistols: 8x4
Pullups: 8x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 35
 
03/20 06:00

Trifecta +
45min treadmill run/walk 3.1m

03/20 17:00

FSPM 2 rounds

This felt really good. The trifecta work has been good, and I actually feel like I've gained some ROM in the spine, but I am missing my longer mobility sessions. But, I want to keep ramping the LED back up to a couple of hour-long sessions per week. So, will stick with the LED focus for a bit longer.

Two straight weeks where the coins called for max GTG volume - oof, feeling it. Taking tomorrow off from GTG work, maybe retest on Sunday.

Pushups: 10x13
Box pistols: 10x4
Pullups: 10x3
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 35
 
03/21 11:00

GSQT 2x5 48
Cossack shoulder dislocates 2x8
DL 2x5 370#
KB press 14x1 36
Grip circuit x3
Foam rolling

Not a good DL session, did not feel sharp. All reps were DOH grip until the very last, then went to switch grip because I could feel everything starting to fade. Felt OK afterwards, but not "energized ". Hopefully it's just a one day thing, or some consequence of GTG fatigue. Can't have a lot of sessions feeling like today.

EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 36
 
03/22 11:30

GTG tests
- Pushups x26
- Box pistols
-- Left x9
-- Right x11
- Pullups x8

Trifecta +
39min outdoor run/walk 3.3m
- Ave HR 145 max 154

Good testing day. No increase in pushups, but that was definitely an easier 26 than last time. Pullups felt comfortable - might have had another rep in the tank, but I don't want to add more than one rep to my sets at this point anyway - +1 rep is 33% as it is.

Run was too fast - felt comfortable at the time, but had an energy crash later on.

Occurred to me today that I might be trying to ramp too many things at once - DL, LED, GTG, other fun acronyms... maybe not smart, maybe better to pick a smaller set to ramp, and maintain elsewhere. I already feel like the squat work is interfering with the DL. Something to keep an eye on.

Pushups: 4x13
Box pistols: 4x5
Pullups: 4x4
EOD stretching sequence x1
RAGS: 36
 
I think it's possible to 'do a lot of things at once' but it's something that needs to be eased into at a very gradual rate.
With karate and volleyball on hiatus for a while, this may actually be a good opportunity for you...
 
offwidth said:
I think it's possible to 'do a lot of things at once' but it's something that needs to be eased into at a very gradual rate.
With karate and volleyball on hiatus for a while, this may actually be a good opportunity for you...
Click to expand...

Fair point, and I think it's the rate exactly that I need to be cognizant of. Plan is to flatten out the LED work once I'm back up to 16 miles or so and a couple of hour-long sessions a week, which ought to be in a couple weeks. And I've been wondering if it might be smarter to flatten out the squat or DL work a little until that happens. Go by feel, I suppose.

Amusingly, at the same time that I had the thought that I might doing too much, I also had the though that I haven't done anything "high-intensity" in quite a while (i.e. karate or volleyball). So many rabbits, so few arrows...
 
It is an interesting conundrum.

First of all, if we consider what we do as training, everything should be planned, and dare I say, periodized. I remember Ed Coan saying how he planned his bicep curls for the 12 week cycle beforehand. Or close to it. Every exercise in the program was expected to progress. I guess the case in point is that if an exercise is worth doing, it's worth doing up to the standard.

However, I do agree that it's worthwhile to concentrate on different things in different times. How to exactly go at it is the question.

The conventional wisdom has typically been that athletes who see the weightroom as accessory to a sport typically focus on it in the off season and then maintain through the season. However, from what I've read lately it seems that the most successful strength coaches go at it differently. The weights go heavier and heavier as the season gets tougher and tougher, only the volume of the lifting is cut down. One could almost consider it a very long linear powerlifting cycle.

Continuing on that track, I have also always felt that volume is the factor that drives me down, not intensity. That's also typically against the popular thought.
 
Antti said:
First of all, if we consider what we do as training, everything should be planned, and dare I say, periodized. I remember Ed Coan saying how he planned his bicep curls for the 12 week cycle beforehand. Or close to it. Every exercise in the program was expected to progress. I guess the case in point is that if an exercise is worth doing, it's worth doing up to the standard.
Click to expand...

Very good point - periodization works, that's what the guys who are real students of this stuff do. And this is something that I'm not very good at planning.

Lately I've just been relying on randomization to do the periodization for me - a lot of what I do is determined by coin flips and dice rolls. Which I think works well enough if you're not peaking for something, but it's seems that it's largely about accumulating volume - it doesn't have the same aspect of progressive overload and deload as a more traditional lifting cycle. Perhaps I need to think more about adding those aspects in some form.

Antti said:
However, I do agree that it's worthwhile to concentrate on different things in different times. How to exactly go at it is the question.

The conventional wisdom has typically been that athletes who see the weightroom as accessory to a sport typically focus on it in the off season and then maintain through the season. However, from what I've read lately it seems that the most successful strength coaches go at it differently. The weights go heavier and heavier as the season gets tougher and tougher, only the volume of the lifting is cut down. One could almost consider it a very long linear powerlifting cycle.

Continuing on that track, I have also always felt that volume is the factor that drives me down, not intensity. That's also typically against the popular thought.
Click to expand...

That's definitely what we did when I was throwing the discus back in college. A lot of volume during the off season, and the volume would drop off when the season started, but we'd still push intensity. We had two scheduled 1RM testing times; once at the end of off-season training and once maybe a month or so before the end of the season - after which we'd be tapering ahead of the final meets. The in-season test was consistently higher than the off-season test. And we didn't feel "beat up" - always felt pretty fresh for the final meets.

That seems consistent with your observation - volume might be more taxing than intensity.
 
WhatWouldHulkDo said:
Very good point - periodization works, that's what the guys who are real students of this stuff do. And this is something that I'm not very good at planning.

Lately I've just been relying on randomization to do the periodization for me - a lot of what I do is determined by coin flips and dice rolls. Which I think works well enough if you're not peaking for something, but it's seems that it's largely about accumulating volume - it doesn't have the same aspect of progressive overload and deload as a more traditional lifting cycle. Perhaps I need to think more about adding those aspects in some form.



That's definitely what we did when I was throwing the discus back in college. A lot of volume during the off season, and the volume would drop off when the season started, but we'd still push intensity. We had two scheduled 1RM testing times; once at the end of off-season training and once maybe a month or so before the end of the season - after which we'd be tapering ahead of the final meets. The in-season test was consistently higher than the off-season test. And we didn't feel "beat up" - always felt pretty fresh for the final meets.

That seems consistent with your observation - volume might be more taxing than intensity.
Click to expand...

I think randomisation is a good idea but it must be controlled somehow. Like program an app that randomly assigns different volume parameters but with certain rules, so that we get a certain amount of heavy days and light days and days in between.

Also, it is clear to me that in order to progress we must stress the system somehow. There is no need for adaptation without stress. And if the stress doesn't increase the adaptation stops after a certain time.

Periodizing by adding volume is a fine idea. I would switch it up every now and then, though.

Your discus experience sounds great. I hope it becomes common knowledge in every sport.
 
Antti said:
Your discus experience sounds great. I hope it becomes common knowledge in every sport.
Click to expand...

It's interesting, now that I'm trying to pay attention to this stuff, how frequently I discover that my old coaches knew a lot more than I ever thought. At the time I just did what they said to do, didn't ever think about it. I was definitely fortunate to have them.
 
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