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Pursuit of My Happiness

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Start of the new year!!! After a somewhat depressing 2016 - training wise, it's time to schedule the new year. The year was broken up to prepare for an elk hunting trip in November. I performed well for the trip but wasn't happy with my relative performance to my historical fitness levels. 2016 I tried to reduce my movement selection down to just a handful of movements in a few phases. It was successful but a little aimless. After minimizing, I was seeing I needed more accessory work to strengthen specific areas of my lifts and planes of movement.

I had planned to make 2017 a strength focused year to bring my power lifts up but my wife would like to see if we can get back into climbing! Would much rather be training for spending better time as a family than just some arbitrary strength numbers. Some things I identified I needed to work on this year:
  1. Grip Strength (Is this ever bad to have as a priority...)
  2. Upper back & shoulder strength/stamina
  3. Core stability & stamina
  4. Relative strength (less work and able to climb longer if I weigh less)
  5. Unilateral leg strength (did quite a bit of lunges last year so this isn't as high of a priority as the others but legs get you where you want to go)
Will spend a few months working on a broad brush of GPP then progress into more specific goals later in the year.

Today:
50x 2H Swing @ 32kg
25/25x Renegade Row @ 2x24kg (5-5-5-5-5)
5/5x TGU @ 32kg
25/25x Single Leg Deadlift @ 2x24kg (5-5-5-5-5)
50x Ring Push-Up (10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1)
50x Goblet Squat @ 32kg (20-15-15)
 
3 Rounds
2x Pull-Up
1/1x TGU
6x Goblet Squat @ 32kg

3 Rounds
2/2x Pistol
5x Ring Dip
5x Ring Row

15min Run @ ~150 bpm

Gave blood yesterday so made today a recovery day. Focused on deep nasal breathing to keep my HR <150 on the run.
 
5 Rounds
10x 2H Swing @ 32kg
1/1x TGU @ 32kg

5 Rounds
5/5x Renegade Row @ 2x24kg
10x Pause Goblet Squat @ 32kg

5 Rounds
10x Ring Push-up
10cal Elliptical Sprint

Liked the accumulation of these short circuits with a long rest between. Did the swings with a triple extension to absorb the energy away from the knee.
 
OTM (30min)
3x Clean + Squat Thrust @ 32kg

Started with longcycle clean and jerk but felt it was too slow/short range of motion. Almost too efficient to get my heart rate up without local fatigue in the lockout.
 
OTM (18min)
4x Snatch @ 32kg

This month is all variety for me so I've been experimenting with some ideas I want to incorporate during different periods of my year. Right now my year is looking like it will hold quite a bit of A+A (different months using different movements) and S&S.
 
OTM (16 min)
8x Swing @ 32kg

Cut the session x short today - grip got really weak pretty fast today. I liked the simplicity of the sessions this week. It's easy to maintain variety by doing something different each day but also easy to program progression and know when to go harder or when to go less by feel.
 
OTM (18min) @ 2x24kg
2x Clean
1/1x Lunge
2x Press

Been coming back around to OTM work more. So easy to adjust volume and intensity while under time constraints.
 
I love the Idea of your OTM workouts. Is this is some kind of structured program or you pick exercises and volume on-the-fly?
 
A little of both. I've done OTM stuff sporadically in the past; I'm considering making it the foundation of my year this year though. I intend to use a time progression for volume and adjust the rpms for different training objectives throughout the year.
 
60min Run

New month starting this week - working aerobic endurance; will be 4 runs and 2 long KB sessions each week.

As of now, the rest of my year will look like:

Feb - Aerobic Endurance
Mar - Power Endurance
Apr - Recovery
May - Power Endurance
Jun (Train to Hunt Challenge) - Recovery
Jul - Aerobic Endurance
Aug - Power Endurance
Sep (Hunt) - Recovery
Oct - Power Endurance
Nov (Hunt) - Recovery
Dec - Strength
 
Wednesday
45min Run

Thursday
40min Ruck

Friday
34 OTM
8x Swing @ 32kg
 
Monday
50min Run

Tuesday
12 OTM
10x 2H Swing

Schedule was for 32 OTM swings but some life events are just weighing me down this week and more would have been worse than good. Sometimes the only thing that helps on days like today are going to a dark place and putting my body through something terrible to reset things a bit. I might have to make a journey to my pain cave tomorrow.
 
6 OTM @ 32kg
  1. 8L Snatch
  2. 8R Snatch
  3. 4L Clean & Press
  4. 4R Clean & Press
  5. 6L Clean & Jerk
  6. 6R Clean & Jerk

Still have a little DOMS in my hamstrings from the swings on the 3rd! My body has been behaving kind of strange the last couple years - not recovering, low energy, poor strength, reduced mobility, lots of fat gain, simple partial seizures. Some doctors say T is really low, others say it is fine - the acceptable range is so broad it's hard to confirm anything. I have been focusing on increasing my rest and reducing my total volume in training which isn't going very well. Best successes in the last year have been MAF runs. Have seen my pace steadily improve at the same heart rates. Second best success has been with low volume high intensity barbell work followed by some low volume high intensity intervals. Each 4 week program has been leaving me worse than when I started it. Almost all the programs I've had success with in the past have resulted in declines as well in the last year. Diet wise, low carb helped, Zone did not, IF did not. I know keto diets are used for epilepsy and my seizures are in the same region of the brain as the pituitary and hypothalamus so I think that is why keto has helped.

The last month or two I have been exploring some ideas with work, rest, frequency, movements, etc. For frequency, 3-4 days per week is the cut-off; less than 3 is a waste of time and doesn't produce results for me and more is too much and makes me feel worse. So far, OTM work is the most promising. Low volume snatches, clean & jerks, TGUs and MAF running. My experimenting has been exploring more of the A+A oriented stuff. I hope to be able to get in on some of the actual protocols this year to better understand them. For diet, keto seems to be the most promising though difficult to maintain. This month is scheduled to be an endurance month for me, so I think I will stick with running and sprinkle in some low volume OTM snatches, clean & jerks and TGUs rather than higher volume swings.
 
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