Bend

My worst diet day in a very long time. A whole mess of greek for lunch and Wendy’s for supper. We eat drive through about once every couple months. This was the night. Back at it tomorrow.

Light jog with the dog today

I bent nine timber ties, three in each style. I need to make sure I am bending the reverse ones far enough. I lose any torch at about 20 degrees. I can flip it around and do a crushdown  from there but I think it may be too soon, I think it may count as a DO. I think I’m actually still weaker in the DO position, for starting, than any position. A little hands on training at Gripmas will hopefully give me the direction I need. Last, DU is still my position of choice, that’s just plain smooth for me. I found an article by Clay Edgin explaining that short stocky guys with short arms prefer and excel at DU while DO and reverse are better for lanky dudes. I think that may have changed some since folding became the method of choice.

I also did some block weights. I was short on time so I went for 1 rep max. I hit my forty pound block weight with my right hand, twice. I was unable to do it lefty. I also went out to my storage space and grabbed one of my blobs. That’s right, I have some blobs, for real, old York blobs. Only a few of them though. I grabbed the 42.5 blob and brought it in. I now understand the hype behind the blob. mine have rust on ’em  so they should be a little easier. Still, those things act like they are made of glass. That should make an interesting challenge.

Anyway, heart rate row tomorrow and some kettlebell holds.

Just one of those days

…where you just need a workout. So I left work a half hour early and got me one. It wasn’t one of my best but it did what I needed it to do, so I’m glad for that.

Concept II
1,000 meters warmup
5,000 meters intervals
1,000 meters cooldown

For the intervals I sprinted 100 meters out of every 500, my distance didn’t start to count until I go under 1:50. During my coast I stayed below 2:15.

Time 20:56
Initial HR 114
Avg HR 163
Max HR 174

Heart Rate Recovery
Start 159
1 minute 124
2 minutes 112
3 minutes 108
4 minutes 106
5 minutes 102

I decided to try a ” fa’ rilz” Secrect Service Snatch Test. I was aiming high too. I was thinking minimum 35/35 with an unatainable ideal of 50/50. For this test, one had switch and no set downs.
23/23
I was annoyed. Actually, I would have been stopped at the first 23 cause number 24 came out of my hand at the bottom. I went to far, I was trying for 25 then some rest then see how far I could go. The 23 on the right side was just pure discomfort and “I don’t wanna” setting in. I keep saying that resting with kettlebells is hard and it is. I think I’m gonna start doing rests for time. It sounds dumb but I think it’s important.

I decided to follow up with some jerks, thinking I might earn back some of my wounded pride. Not so, it was even more disappointing. I didn’t give myself any rest and it showed.
10

I’d just like to point out that for the lowest possible ranking in the American Kettlebell Club, my three numbers (left snatch, right snatches and jerks) have to add up to 199. My number is 56. Ouch.

Avg HR 171
Max HR 177

Another ouch. I have a lot of work to do with kettlebells.

24K kettlbell snatches 3 X 10
24K kettlbell jerks 3 X 10
I had to make up for my poor performances

Pullups 4 X 4 (a little kicking on the last two sets)

Burpees 3 X 10

Monday Morning Weigh in: 232.2

Dropped about half a pound and I’ll take it. My weight seemed to climb the entire first half of the week, no matter what I did, then it dropped off quickly towards the end. I didn’t weigh myself over the weekend so I have no idea how it was behaving. I’m not gonna hit 225 by December and I’m pretty much ok with that at this point in time. I’m still gonna try to hit 230 by then and then 225 by the end of January. Then it’ll be a year of maintenance. I’m starting to itch to lift some heavy weights again so that will be an interesting challenge. Heavy weights and not gaining weight.

My goal for today is to not do anything load bearing. I got myself pretty good on Friday and again Sunday. Between that and screwing around with timber ties, I think a day off is in order.

Pump up the volume

A little volume this weekend.

Saturday, it was raining too much to play tennis. I probably should have done some yoga but didn’t. I did do some bending though. A couple 3/16″ “nails” and 9 timber ties, mostly DO. I made a video and posted it to gripboard, hoping some folks will take pity on my sad techinque. I’ll take whatever anyone has to say here as well:

Today I hit to gym.
Concept II Vent Closed HR Row
10,120 meters in 45 minutes
Avg HR 155
Max HR 163
I had trouble staying focused. They had the TVs on. I’ve resisted saying to before but I’ll say it now. If you watch TV while you workout, unless you have specifically programmed the content, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Frankly, I don’t give a crap about Will, Grace, Jack or Karen and yet I found my eyes drawn to their anctics. That means I’m not watching my pace or my heart rate and I’m not thinking about my form. I end up doing a lot of rowing with my eyes closed, trying to ignore them.

Long Cycles 24K – I have some video but I haven’t uploaded it nor even seen it yet.
1 minute periods, each period is broken into two even parts, requiring that I rest in the rack in the middle, because I am learning that learning to rest properly is one of the hardest parts of kettlebells. 5 Sets at a given number of reps, one 1 minute period per set, then a minute of rest.
8,6,4,2
That means I did (8 X 5) 40, (6 x 5) 30, (4 X 5) 20, (2 X 5) 10
40 + 30 + 20 + 10 = 100 reps in 25 minutes. ouch

I’m sure all the videos lately have been excessive but I kinda like having the record. Plus they are fun to play with. I’m sure the novelty will wear off soon.

Friday Night Clip Show

I made this:

I did not train like an American

Deadlift
70K X 4
120K X 4
170K X 2
220K X 0
170K X 6

Squat
120K X 20

Standing Press
70K 5, 5, 5, 4

Pull Up
BW 5 X 3

Dumbell Press, Dumbell Row
70lb 4 X 8

Curl Dropset
105 X 7
85 X 6
65 x 5
45 X 5
25 X 5
Overhand
45 X 5

Dips
BW 20, 14

Wrist Curl
95lbs 8, 8, 8

Overhand Wrist Curl (Wrist Extension)
45lbs 12, 12

I ate like an american

I found myself changing my tire yesterday morning, not something that made me incredibly happy. As a result, I took off from work at mid day and went to have it taken care of. While doing that, I ate lunch at Panera, soup in a bread bowl. Because of the tire thing, I didn’t make it to the gym for my heart rate row. I seesawed back and forth on doing a workout at home but I just couldn’t settle on anything. Then for supper, I had restaurant food again, this time a burrito. So I ate like an American. I ate three “square” meals, two of which I did not make.

This comes at the end of a week where I struggled to stay compliant with my diet on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday I was compliant but my weight seemed to rise anyway. I haven’t weighed myself yet today but I’ll be up. I anticipate being up for the week as a whole on this coming Monday.It’s annoying.

ok, whining is over, persevere.

Hamburger Patties

For cardio today, just a light jog with the dog. Today and tomorrow are all about light cardio. 

Three days of kettlebells left my body feeling beaten and my hands feeling like hamburger. In an effort to be more like Scott and Stephen, I actually made an attempt at some recovery. Hot soaks (not quite as good as a contrast bath but easier to wrangle while doing dishes) and lotion. They feel better.

In that spirit, I made an attempt at a grip workout tonight, it wasn’t very successful. I figured I’d hit block weights, maybe some timber ties and grippers. The block weights wiped me out, bending hasn’t felt right for a week now and grippers were ok, for me.

35lb block
A couple warmups to each side then 10 deadlift reps. Floor to lockout, down, release, repeat. I even pulled off a clean on the right side. The left side got to about three and quite so I finished it up with 3 tens for a total of ten reps.I think that was enough to wear my hands out for the night.

Bending
Just not in the cards. I got a tie started and that was it.

Gripper
T – ten clicks per side
1 – a couple closes per side then a couple holds for time (not much)

so, I suck at grip. Maybe I can actually string a few of these together some day and get a grip.

Opposite

Pretty much the opposite of a heart rate row:

1,000 meters warmup

1,000 meters 2:00/500
10 2 X 24K kettlbell jerks
Repeat a total of 6 times

Time: 33:19
Avg Hr 168
Max Hr 179

I was trying to go for 10 sets but I could not get myself to pick up the handle and start rowing for the seventh set, I couldn’t even convince myself to do 1,000 meter cooldown. Half an hour later, I felt as good as new, I’m not sure what is up with that.

I’m having trouble getting back into the diet this week but I am persevering.

Snatch

10 minute snatch test, not pushing too hard.
20/20
20/20
20/20
10/10
5/5
5/4

159

Somehow it came out to 179 in my head but 159 seems more reasonable.

I also heard back from the American Kettlebell Club, the competition and ranking rules are due out today or tomorrow. You only have to do one event or the other to the numbers defined on their rankings page to achieve a rank. I think it should be both for the higher ranks but that could be because I can’t.