too tired to care

I got into the gym a bit last week. Hit it real hard on Monday. Then Tuesday I did Z health. I also managed to call up an old back injury, not the big one, a smaller reoccurring one. One that I often has supiscions about. The chairs in the business school only flex in one place, right were the mid and lower back meet. They hyper extend about 45 degrees there. If I sit back all the way, for most of class, I end up over stretching some deep muscles and it leads to discomfort, weakness and spasms. Fortunately it also only takes a couple days to recover.
Today, today I just didn’t feel like playing ball, with anything. The semester’s all but over and I couldn’t be happier counting this week three weeks remain. I’ve got a pair of speeches to give a write up on Under Armour to do and a pair of test to take. Then the fun is all over for about 6 weeks. This fall won’t be quite a hectic.
I haven’t done a particularly good job in the gym or the kitchen this semster but I’ve learned a lot.

try to recall

interesting workout yesterday
front squat 135 lbs 5X 12
suitcase deadlift 90lbs 3 X 5
Step ups 3 X 10
barbell get up 45lbs X 4
I think that covers it all. My obliques are up…set today

Paralysis Analysis

Half way through the semester, classes are going well, Laura’s easily picked up my slack at home, work is going well.

Training
Plan – I had a decent plan which was to alternate Strength in Motion and Concept II, it was decent but failed to account for the biggest factor, me. After three days of pretty hard training, I don’t want to do it again. I especially grow tired of the hassel of the gym. Next time I plan I need to account for my wishy-washy-ness much better. I need to account for days when class is cancelled and I need to build in training days that are light. I achieved this recently but as an afterthought by taking some days and just doing z-health.
Execution – poor. As I mentioned before. I burned our with the Art of Strength fast. I didn’t want to train most Thursdays. I took a couple five day weekends from training and felt like crap as a result. I totally failed on this. The one thing I did handle well was adapting to days at home. I was happy for the opportunity to get home and just go with one kettlebell. I guess I like my little home routines better than most.
Mental/Emotional – Pretty good. The classes eventually add up and get me down on occasion but it was primarily the two weekends where I took days off, I felt really crumby and grumpy. I cut back on caffeine too, to try and avoid the bad feelings. I’m still excited for things that are happening and will happen but I do see dips occasionally where there is none. That either means train less or train more, do the opposite of what I’m doing at the moment.
Other – I’m not blogging much, I’ve just not felt like it at 8 or 8:30 when I get home. I need to do that. I still need to get that new contest out there. I have made a point of visiting three forums on a weekly basis, straighttothebar, farmstrength and virtualmeets. I’m happy with that level of interaction.

Going forward – I’m off to the gym in a bit. My focus right now is on just doing stuff and keep doing it. I don’t have a specific goal. I’ve been doing some z-health and plan to continue. I’m using just enough barbell stuff to keep me interested, some light bag work and a good bit of kettlebels. I’m focusing on movement more than on weight.

I tried to buy a new kettlebell

When I visited Chris Rice recently he showed off his latest second hand acquisition, a pink, 8K, competition style kettlebell. It may sounds silly but the smaller kettlebells can be incredibly brutal, a few sets of clean or snatches and they are disproportionately hard on the trainees forearms. A competition style bell is much larger surface area, easier on the forearms.
I decided to buy one of these for home, I don’t use an 8K much but I’d be grateful and Laura would enjoy the relief from the beating of the smaller 8K bell. I decided not to wait from one to come up second hand but just get one. This meant going to the American Kettlebell Club (AKC) website and finding the page where to order from. I sent them $70 via paypal and I waited.
Ten days passed and I heard nothing. I sent them an emailing asking if they normally send any kind of confirmation email and what was the timeframe for my kettlebell. They told me it would be three weeks and they would ship it. I waited five weeks and after hearing nothing I emailed again. They promised me that they were waiting for their shipment but I’d have it soon enough. At this point Laura said she was tired of waiting and I was too, we canceled our order.

At this point, I’ll buy all my kettlebells on the second hand market or from the Art of Strength collection.

Slacking on posting

I’ve been poor about posting. Some of it is just that I don’t have access to a computer for several hours after I workout and some of it is me slacking. This weekend was good but the two preceding, I took too many days from lifting and would feel crappy after too many days off. This weekend, on the other hand, I took Friday off but I did 7 chapters of the 8 chapters of Freeport. Then on Sunday I worked through the basic Z-health routine.
anyway, here’s to posting more in the upcoming weeks.
I’m half way through my semester.

Freestyle

So, a bit of a weird one, an experiment. I had 30 minutes and only 30 minutes. I wanted to do kettlebell stuff but wasn’t quite sure what. So I just started doing stuff. When I got done with something I did something else. There wasn’t a real plan, a couple exercises I wanted to hit in the process but that was all. As I went through it, a pattern did emerge: medicine ball, kettlebell, abs, something odd. The odd movements were like a low bear crawl or duck walk. I don’t have a rep count or anything but it was a good workout and kinda neat. I’m sure I’ll do it again.

I have nothing to add, it’s all said by Anthony

Round 6

I did Newport again, stopped at round 6 this time. I ran out of time for one thing but I was beginning to fail too. that’s a heck of a training program.

Cancelled Class

Woo Hoo!
I didn’t think I was going to get a workout at all today but I managed to get one in. Then the party bonus came, no class.

50lb dumbbell
Suitcase deadlift X 10
Standing Press X 7
Goblet Squat X 10
Unilateral Snatches 5/5
5 sets
then I did 2,500 meters rowing at just under a 2:30 pace.

Newport

I ordered a copy  of Art of StrengthNewport recently, they were havbing a sale. I watched a couple of rounds when I first got it but hadn’t gottent to try it yet. It was clear from the first 5 mintues that this is a very different animal from Providence. I love Providence so I thought that might make it a dissapointment for me. Today I finally gave it a try.

I had limited time so I was just going to do how ever much I could do in 30 minutes. The rounds run about 5 minutes withe a minute break so that means 5 of the eight rounds, not counting the the TWO bonus rounds. I knew something was up in round 1 when I had to put the kettlebell down just to finish. In round 3 I opted for the 12K kettlebell that rarely gets used, well, it got used today. In round 5 I said I was done, this is halfway through the entire workout.

The workout is tough, good but tough. It isn’t anything like Providence but not in a bad way, it’s requires far more endurance, it’s far more core-centric. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other but I would say that at this point I still prefer Providence.The fact that I can complete Providence almo certainly plays into it, not to mention my familiarity with it. There is one thing I don’t like about Newport, not a deal breaker but not my favorite, I don’t like the complexity of some of the rounds. I’m all for simple so rounds with a snatch – burpee combo push the boundries of what I like the rounds with more complex things like a lateral snatch to an overhead lunge kinda bug me. The problem for me is that this is a really complex pattern that interferes with the ability to just exercise. Practice the movement with no weight will do more to improve you skills than reps with weight.

All that said, I’m looking forward to trying it again on Tuesday, when I have class that is canceled.