Strength training is a skill

Back to the gym today. I know I should just accept thew weights and move on. I’ve been off of gym training for a bit but I can’t quite do it that well but I’m trying. Either way, in a few sessions, I’m sure it will shape up.

Warm up with jumping rope. Something I hope to work with. 

Squat, I was trying to find out where I was.
135 X 5
185 X 5
225 X 5
275 X 5
315 X 5
365 X 1
400 X pinned
I don’t know that it was too much, I just wasn’t feeling my groove.

Deadlift was out on account of sore and exhausted hands.
Straight legged deadlift
135 X 5
185 X 5
225 X 5
easy, hands were starting to fight so I moved on. This will be fun to play with and I need to go back and see where I was at before I moved outside. This may be the only gym lift with some benefits from that.

Dumbell Press
75 X 3 X 5
Easy walk in the park

dips
BW X 3 X 5
I was surprised how much I have dropped in strength here.

hammer curls (rehab)
15lbs X 50reps

Headed home in hopes to catch Dan and Luke’s Halloween production but traffic and what not didn’t help. So, I missed it. Hope you guys taped it.
I was supposed to do kettlebells after this workout but forget tograb them before I left. I will try to cover those tomorrow eve and possibly a light jog.

I haven’t yet posted the big plan for this go round. I’m holding out for Friday’s training. I want to get more of a feel where I’m at so I can put some numbers on it.

Just climbed in….

and boy are my arms tired (laugh track)

Seriously, they are. That longer climbing on Sunday smoked my forearms. I was gonna do deadlifts today but I think that is right out. So I guess it’s squats today. No big loss there. As it’s my first day back in the gym in a long time, I’ll simply be testing myself today. I’ll be limited on the amount of pulling I can do but I’ll try to work in some straight legged type stuff. I’ll also be testing myself on my pressing movements. Last I’m gonna work in a couple areas that need so rehab or have been neglected in past gym routines. Afterward a kettlebell workout is on the list but that is gonna hurt big time. So we will see how that goes. I can tell you I will be sticking with the 16K bell.

Tomorrow I fill in the details of what I did and more importantly, what I am gonna do between now and about February or March..

Back at it

First, I want to say that this last week has been really good for me. I obviously took things a little too far, I was overtrained. I wasn’t sleeping or waking up well. I wasn’t becoming rested and there were other signs. Toward the end of this week, I got comments from multiple people that I seemed more awake and on top of things. It just doesn’t pay to keep pushing sometimes.

That said, I’m glad to be back at things again.

Today I went to the climbing gym. I met with someone I have climbed with before and got to meet a few more. Before they showed up, I played about in the bouldering area just to get warm. It was a bit more than I should have been doing. By the time I got around to climbing I had already started to tax my arms. I stil got five or six climbs in but only one was clean (no falls). I was working with only 5.5 and eventualy 5.4s. Fortunately the guys  I climb with are very understanding about letting me hang out (literally) and refresh the arms.

In other news, during the break I have been trying to rework my program. I’m looking forward to some heavy gym lifts. I still want to keep climbing but I would also like some element of aerobic workout in my training. It is a weakness of mine that I think takes from my overall fitness. Through the help of some very smart guys I have ended up with a program that encorporates two days of lifting, one day of climbing, one day that is either climbing or strongman, one day of jogging and two days of down time. Probably the most important thing is to be more attentive to my body than I was for the last round of training.

Last, you may notice Ihave workedthe blog around a bit. I like this theme but had to spend some time in the code to get it validated. So it is now “technically” correct. Which doesn’t neccessarily do what I want, that part will remain to be seen. So if anyone sees a flaw or annoyance, let me know. Just pop in a comment to any post, I’ll be notfied. I also added feed blitz. This is supposed to allow you to recieve and email when I update, that way you don’t have to come back and check every day. Also, feedburner is up and running so if you use a blog aggregator, use the link on the left above my validations.

cruising to the end

So, as I mentioned, I took this week off. That was pretty different. I have been taking daily walks and did a 5 minute abs and a 30minute pilates routine with Laura but that’s it.

In the mean time I moved my blog and set it up properly on its domain. I don’t really like the themes I have found so far. I’m gonna keep looking. I want something very simple. I’d like to come up with four or five winners and allow users to pick their theme of choice.

I have been thinking about my upcoming program and soliciting feedback and have gotten great feedback. I appreciate it from everyone who has helped. I’m about 90% certain/done.

More later…..

The coming week in review

Yeah, that’s right, review.

This week, I am taking off from training. I don’t know that I can recall having done that before but I feel it is needed. I have been training pretty hard lately. I was getting to the point that my spinal erectors were never relaxed and even spasming on occasion. My strength was decreasing and I was starting to feel like crud after each workout. So this week I have banned myself from any gyms or the park. I am taking walks and will do a little yoga but even that will be in total moderation.
So I won’t be posting workouts this week. I will be messing with the site a bit, again, and I will be working up my plan for the coming months which I will post. Beyond that, this is a week of R&R and I’m kinda looking forward to it.

Strong man

Headed over to Luke’s for a little strongman training yesterday.

log deadlifts – worked on Lukes wooden log that runs, I believe it was, 150ish, something like 8 or 10 inches. Added a pair of 25s after some warm ups. I worked a little dealift and clean and press. Then it was on to play with the 240lb 14″ steel log he has. That thing is daunting to say the least. Deadlifted it and attempted to clean it several times, somewhere between 5 and 10. I could only pull it as high at the top of my stomch/bottom of my breast bone. No chance of a full clean, never mind the press.

Stones – rolled out the 245 lb stone. I was expecting to see some cross over from sandbags. Honestly, any crossover was limited.  More than anything, I haven’t touched stones in a while and I forgot how to do it. They are very technique intensive in my opinion. After a bit of playing and mucking around, I got it up. I found that once it was in my lap, I was very comfortable. The clean was difficult but I got it to about head height. I played with that stone for a while longer and got about 4 lifts in. I went on to Luke’s next stone, 265, I think. I almost got it to my lap a couple times but never quite made it.

Log Deadlift- we went back to log deadlifts but my back was getting tired and I was totally unable to keep up with Luke here.

Steinborn lift – Luke’s been working the steinborn lift. I saw him move some very nice weights in this lift. I haven’t really worked before so we stripped the bar down to 135 and I worked on the technique. By the end I was getting the feel a bit.  Although I found I was cheating a lot. If I ever put real weight on there I won’t be able to get away with some of what I was doing. For me, it’s as much of a flexability exercise as anything.

Sandbags on review

I’m looking back at my snadbag training, trying to make sure I derived some value from it. My notes aren’t quite as tight as Scotts, that man can document. Ijust read through blog postings and took a little informal poll of them.

In my first work, I used 100lb and 150 lb sand bags for carry of a guestimated 25 yrds. That was on July 21. I actually got into playing with the 200lb sandbag much earlier on tha I thought, July 29. Then I started to get into longer carries more than weight, so I worked with 100 and 150 lbs a lot for greater distance. I have to admit the distance was  nice change from gym lifting. So, it’s not terribly easy for me to measure because my workout wasn’t terribly strctured. For an intro to sandbags, I had a good time, I do believe I got better at it. The fact that I was taking the 150 lb sand bag for a a rde of 110 yards x 2 quite a few times and my final clean of the 200lb bag show some progress. 

Going Up

Made it to theclimbing gym yesterday. Climbed 2 5.5s, then the 5.6 that smoked me last time, smoked me again. After a while I wrapped up with a 5.4.

It’s pretty amazing how tired my arms can get. This time I barely felt the pump, but my arms quit anyway. They were strong during the first time, I think my technique was real strong too. In the second climb I felt myself getting a little tired and I think that’s when I started puting the weight on my hands. By the third, I had increased difficulty, was getting tired and was losing technique. There were times on that third that I would question getting to the top. I could see what needed to be done, my hands were so blasted though that anyweight bearing would throw me off the wall.

Last hoorah

Today’s workout started a little rough, I didn’t really feel the intense desire to get out there and do it. At the same time, as I had been thinking about training earlier in the day, I began to get a little big headed. I began think, ah I can lift 100lbs too easy, I’ll just start with 150. Those two together are not terribly productive.

The 150 bag thwarted me a couple times before I decided I needed to humble myself a bit and go for the 100 lb bag. That was the right decision. I used that and a little kettlebell juggling to get warmed up and excited to lift. I decide today was the day for 200. First I did a few more clean and presses with the 150. Then up to 200.
200 beat me a few times but not by much. I could lap it and get it to the zercher but got stuck there. One time I got it to the press and the bag settled in on my face. The moment I exhaled and couldn’t get any air back, I was sunk. I dropped back to 150 for some more warmups.
Eventually I felt that any more playing around and the time would be past where I would get 200. So I went for the 200. Once again it settled in, in front of me. No air and not much to do, this time I took it up and over. Sure enough, I completed the lift. After setting the bag down, I was all twitchy with exertion. It took me five or so minute to recover enough to try it again. I did manage to clean it and press it five times total at 200. Some looked better than others. Oh,and when I say clean,don’t think of a fluid one or two pull motion. I would deadlift it to my lap, sit back and settle it in, high pull it to a zercher postion, kinda jerk it onto my hands, then over the head. Some of the presses, jerks, etc over my head were clean, some barely made it and some I actually steped under rather than pressing over.
By the end I thought about going for more but even trying to lift the bag was useless. So I did my usual thing, put the bag and kettlebells back in the car and drove home. When I got home, I put the bag away. Yep put it away. I have been driving around with it in the back of my car. This time it’s locked up in the storage space. Next week, I’m going to rest. Yoga, walks and whatever else will be the program for the week. No heavy lifting or hard running. The week after, I start a new program based around gym training for a few months. Next spring, the bag will return.

Climbing, climb on

Made it into the climbing gym today. What’s more, I made it onto the climbing wall finally. Got to climb with a guy I have seen there many times, Wayne, I think, was his name. Middle aged, probably 180ish lbs, very good climber by my eyes. He reminds me of Chris, sticks to routes that are a workout but doesn’t feel the need to prove himself. It was good having someone who knew more than me helping out.

Climbed a 5.5, no problem
5.6 no problem, starting to feel a bit of fatigue.
I decided to stick with 5.6 since I could already feel fatigue setting in
5.6, quit 1/3 of th eay up. My arms wouldn’t work.

took a break, drank water
back to 5.6. About halfway I started failing again. My hands wouldn’t work and the pump was killing me. I hung out on the rope a little, tried to get blood flowing. It seemed like every hold or two I would fall again. I eventually made it.
I called it a day there. three climbs