Old Forum My 3 year kettlebell anniversary and training log

[FlyingPig]

I'm approaching 3 years of training with kettlebells and it has been a fantastic and life transforming journey. I strongly believe in tracking yourself and making yourself accountable, so I though to share a summary of my training logs of the last few years. (credit to Faisal for coming up with this idea)

If embedding the image doesn't work, here is the link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6599761/health/3year-training-log.JPG



(dates are European format. Also, there are a few gaps here and there where I took a week off)

As you see I went from an overweight and physically weak person to a fairly strong and conditioned guy who put on quite a bit of muscle. You'll see my weight has crept up again lately and I'm not fooling myself that "it is all muscle" (still working on food quantities). Next goals: press the 32 kg comfortably for reps and stay below 90 kg body weight (I'm 183cm, 6 ft tall). At some point I guess I'll have to do a certification too.

 

 

 

 

[Anna C]

FP, I can't see the link at the moment -- looking forward to checking it out tonight when I can -- but I wanted to say how much I love the idea of a Before and After "what I can do" and "what I'm made of" .... instead of a Before and After "what I look like" which is what we see so often.  Thanks for that, and good job!!

 

[Abdul-Rasheed]

FlyingPig, it is impressive. It demonstrates your perseverance and focus. I wish there was a note about 'changes' that can been seen or feel in each row of your log. Anywa, my question to you is, how would you describe your physical changes from when you started and until now? How were you before you started? What progress you have made?

 

[FlyingPig]

Abdul, in my log pages I did write more in detail about how I felt and looked. I also kept track of how I looked in the mirror and documented it in pictures. I don't feel like sharing those on a public forum but I can show this picture as it gives you a good idea of when I was at my fattest (May 2012) and my leanest (June 2013). My forearms are bigger now as my grip strength is so much better.

One thing I found was that after I got to my lowest weight and looked the leanest, I did get fatter again as I started to lift some serious weights (32 kg and 40 kg), simply because I felt like my body needed the food. But at the end of the day what is often said on this forum is true: it is 90% about your diet and you can't out-train your diet (yeah, I tried). However, I do intend to get the leanest I've ever been by this summer, but this time on the basis of some more respectable strength. "Strong first" is like the ABC, but there are other letters after ABC and being lean and moving well are worthy goals too.

I always felt good during my training as I always followed StrongFirst principles and never went to failure. The only time I disliked training was doing those double complexes, which came as a shock to my system, but I am glad I persisted. Even now swinging double 24's for 23 consecutive reps per minute for 10 minutes, towards the end you really start hating it, but it does create a certain mental strength to keep going and now I just do it, punching that clock. When I almost got injured during the ROP I stopped and moved onto swinging high volume. The information is out there and I just listened to and implemented what Pavel, Dan John, Neupert and others are saying.

 

[DM 1234]

FP, brilliant progress. Congrats mate and keep it up.

(Glad my training journal format was of use)

 

[Abdul-Rasheed]

FlyingPig: Wow, that is excellent progress! Thanks for sharing the before/after pic (i love them, they are so motivational);  that said it all 

 

[MikeMoran]

Awesome man!!! Yeah I am so happy I found Pavel/RKC and later STRONG FIRST as it has really helped me to train to be stronger and not just "work out".