The long jumps are a different exercise especially when you love to lift heavy. I certainly didn’t feel muscle tired after doing them, but it is still challenging in its own way - trying to get the body to react explosively all at once. Plus I’ve got my mark on the floor now that I would love to beat.
So yesterday I ran a bunch of cone drills while my friends played beach dodgeball again.
Warm up
200m jog
200m side stepping
200m crossovers
4 cone drill (~10m apart)
-sprint to first cone
-side step to second cone
-run backwards to third cone
-crossover to fourth cone
3 reps x 4 sets with 1-2min rest
Wide slalom
Spaced out five cones in a large slalom course, ran around them and sprinted to the start
5x
3 cone shuttle (3 cones in a line ~ 10m apart) 5x
Run from 1st cone to 2nd cone
run back to 1st cone
run past 2nd cone to 3rd cone
I was trying to work in some good direction changing drills. The final drill was stressing my knee stability a bit when I tried to stop hard and change direction quickly, but it was a good benchmark test to see how I am really coming along.
I finished my workout off with another longboard run.
Later in the evening at my bf’s request we ran through a yoga/stretching vid. It’s a decent one (aside from a few absurd yoga poses that my body will not allow right now) that hits all of the major muscle groups and leaves me feeling pretty relaxed after.
Last nights ME upper body workout was awesome! I don’t know if the improvements are all due to increased strength or just a result of having a better day than last Monday. Probably a combination I’m thinking, but I guess time will tell.
Warm-up
5 min heavy bag
Bench Press
10@60, 5@75, 5@85, 5@90, 5@105, 4@110, 3@115, 1@120
The program doesn’t call for going to 1 rep, but I’m addicted to “let’s try that with just 5 more pounds”
Yeah things are coming along, though I am in a bit of a danger zone for myself. The pain is mostly gone but the stability isn’t back yet. So I have to keep myself away from temptation! If I wasn’t focusing on lifting sadly I probably would have popped it out again by trying to go back too early.
I started the night out with a ~9km longboard ride. I wouldn’t really consider it a workout, though I usually do work up a bit of a sweat. It is my zen ‘me time’.
Warm-up
5 min heavy bag - started trying more left leg roundhouse kicks (injured leg is supporting). They feel much better, though there is still instability. That feeling of the joint slipping just gives me the creeps…
Broad Jumps
3 x 6 sets - increased my max distance by 1" to 79" (no pain on any of the landings this time)
BB reverse lunge with front foot eleveted (using a taped up Yellow Pages)
10@45, 9@50, 8@55
What a hectic night last night! The workout was great, but we were running around before getting all of our camping gear together and testing air matresses etc. for leaks. So I’m off to Drumheller for some camping, hiking and of course the dinosaur museum for the long weekend. We’re going with a great group of friends, so it should be a blast! The only downside - I’m missing my lower body workout tonight. Thought about getting up this morning to do it, but I’m really not a morning workout person - especially when we finished working out at 11:00pm last night.
Those were to failure. I was so close to 22, but needed the spot in the end. This part of the workout requires 3 sets max reps at 55-60% 1RM. It also suggests to leave a couple of reps in the tank on the first two working sets then go all out to failure on the last.
Camping was awesome! We had two good days and one rainy night, but we had a good camp set up to keep us out of the rain. We did some good hiking in the badlands as well as visiting the dinosaur museum and coal mine museum. Lots of walking, but too much eating!
I felt pretty blah on Monday night when I got home so I decided to hit the weights. It certainly wasn’t my best workout, but I slogged through anyway and felt better for it afterward.
Monday - ME upper body
Bench press
10@60, 5@75, 5@85, 5@95, 5@105, 5@110** That last rep didn’t quite touch my chest.
I’m going to play around with my workout schedule a bit this week. Tonight is the first karate class of the year, so I’ll be there teaching. I’ll probably end up shuffling things forward a day to compensate Tues/Thurs karate.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
Are you all done with rehabbing the knee?[/quote]
I’m not quite done yet. I have regained a lot of strength and almost all of my mobility, but I am still regaining stability. I feel like I am in the final stages of healing up. It is a little frustrating though… I don’t feel any pain or instability day-to-day or even when lifting. But when it comes to karate and dodgeball I am not ready to be back because of the lack of stability.
Like at karate last night - I can run around with the kids and hold nice deep stances, but when I go to try a snap kick it puts way too much pressure on the joint and does not feel good at all. I’m just not ready for extreme motions like snap kicks and quick cuts. But I’m sure I’ll get there in time - I just have to be patient I guess.
I talked with my PT and he said to keep doing what I am doing - build strength in my legs and let the knee keep healing. Right now I am quite content to keep lifting and working on mobility while teaching karate twice a week. I think in a month or so I’ll start going to the adult karate class to train - slowly work back into things.
I am so thankful that I can challenge myself with lifting right now! If not, I’d have gone crazy!
Yesterday I had to really change things up. For the past week I’ve been getting pain in my good knee under the knee cap. I really noticed it hiking whenever I stepped down. I figure it kinda sounded like runner’s knee or something along that vein.
So no jumps or reverse lunges with extra ROM last night in an effort to give my right knee a bit of a break. It has been pulling extra weight for a while now, so it doesn’t really surprise me.
Warm-up
5 min heavy bag
Some number of clamshells
Abductor/adductor 35lb plate push back and forth across the floor - never really counted reps, just went until the muscles were tired.
Box Squats just ABOVE parallel - these felt great on the knees!
Never done these before and I haven’t ever tested how much I can squat, so it was an interesting exercise
12@65
10@85
10@100
10@135
10@150
10@165
10@185
10@200
200 seemed like a good place to stop for now. Next week if my “good” knee is feeling like crap I’ll box squat again and I’ll know to start a bit higher! Now I want to build some boxes for box squats so I can go just below parallel.
Leg curl
10@40, 9@45, 8@50
Weighted spread eagle situps
12@35 X 4 sets
Had a good stretch after - did some sun salutations and stretched out the legs really good. Finished up by rolling out my quads, IT band and hammies.
Edit: I found out I wasn’t really squatting to parallel once I did a video - gotta come clean. lol!
Nice video on the bench. You can push a lot more weight if you tighten up. Treat it like a full body lift and stay tight from your butt through your shoulders. I’m crap at describing what to do but you looked kind of soft and appeared to be pushing just with your chest. I could be wrong though. Try to drive your shoulders into the bench and retract your shoulder blades.
Drive with your legs. I’ve attached a link to a recent video of my bench. It’s in a shirt but gives you the idea of having everything tight. When I’m done, my erectors, lats and ass are tight. bench to 165lbs - YouTube
Bench is my weakest lift due to having orangutan arms so I spend a lot of time on technique trying to wring everything I can out of form. Your lifts looked really easy and I bet it will leap forward it you tweak things a bit.
What are weighted spread eagle sit ups? I’m always looking for new ab stuff because I generally hate it and cycle through different things just to make it suck a bit less
O - thanks for the advice! I think you are 100% right in that I am not using my whole body. When I failed that last lift I just lost all tension in my upper body. All of this heavy lifting is pretty new to me so the pointers are much appreciated! I actually started watching the “So you think you can bench” series over at eliteFTS yesterday in hopes of finding the proper form. I’m super stoked to make some changes now!
And the weighted spread eagle sit ups go like this: Start lying down on the floor holding on to your desired weight with legs spread and sit up while trying to keep your legs pressed to the floor. I’ve been using a 35 lb plate. Hopefully that is a decent explanation!
I hope my video helped a little bit. I don’t learn well from reading. I need to see things or be shown them. Much of what I learned is from the guy in my video who is a decent bencher. At one point, he literally picked my feet up and moved them back to show me what he meant by feet farther back. I’m a bit slow
You look like you will do well. We are about the same height/weight and you pretty much bench what I do raw with all my effort put into getting better at it.
Regarding the sit ups, it turns out I do a variation of them with a plate behind my head. I kind of like them. Generally abs stuff bores me.
Wait a sec. You’re rehabbing a bad knee. Have never squatted to max before. And did 10 reps at 200 lb. WTF? All with tons of “warmup” weights that should have had you pretty fatigued? Oh my. I need to retire.
O - The video was great! I need to see things to learn as well. I agree with you on the ab work. I’ve always been good at it, but yeah it can get pretty boring.
Snap - I did the same WTF thing in my head. I was a little perplexed and wondering if I was doing this right. It seemed pretty simple. Unrack (seemed to be the hardest part!), sit down, stand up, repeat. I even double checked my math - made sure I wasn’t lying and cheating! I’ll have to make up a video next time I think.
Btw - nice new avi!
Last night was repetition upper body. I ended up skipping the off day that was scheduled in between DE lower and this workout in favour of having a rest day today. Boy did I miss that rest day! My breaks between sets were too long between sets last night, but I still managed to drag myself through the workout with some improvements.
Bench press
10@55, 10@55, 19@75, 19@75, 22@75
I tried tightening up my body and ended up squeezing out a few more reps than I did last time.
Chin-ups / read delt flyes (chins listed as unassisted/chair assisted)
4/8 10@10s
4/6 10@10s
3/7 10@10s
3/7 10@10s
Got in one extra unassisted rep last night!
Military press - fatigue was really starting to set in here
8@35s, 8@35s, 8@35s, 8@30s
So I took out my video camera for this workout. And I learned a few things.
First I’m a big fat (well, not too sure about the fat part) LIAR! Liar, liar, liar! lol!
Turns out the bench I was squatting to was NOT to parallel (despite what my bf said that night… and he has an artistic eye too) but it was about an inch and a half above parallel. So I found myself a chair that I can squat parallel to. I’m glad somebody said something or I would have kept doing the same thing for a while. Thanks PW for keeping me honest!
But wow, what a difference an inch and a half makes!
Snap - you don’t have to retire! I only got 2 reps at 200 before it didn’t feel safe (no spotter today)
Warm-up
5 min heavy bag
Side steps with heavy band around ankles
Plate push
Box squat
10@95,
10@115
10@135
10@155
5@175
2@200
Then I pulled the bench I was squatting to before to be scientific and did 10@200.
DL
6@95
5@115
4@155
3@165
2@170 PR!
Exercise ball hamstring curls
15 x 3
3 Circuits of high rep abs (10-20 reps sprinter situps, v-ups, toe touches and hip thrusts)
I also took vids of my DL seeing as I had the camera up. I’ll probably end up posting them later in the week when I edit them all together.
Bench Press - I’m trying to change my form, but man there is so much to think about! I did see an improvement, but I think it could be better once my body starts learning what to do without me having to think about it. I start squeezing the bar and my shoulder blades then the leg drive dies. I like having something to work on though!
10@65
5@75
5@85
5@95
5@105
5@115
2@120 (tried a 3rd rep, but I lost all tension at the bottom)
DB floor press
20@20s, 10@30s
Bent over rows / rear delt flyes
8@95 / 10@10s
8@100 / 10@10s
8@100 / 10@10s
8@100 / 10@10s
Shrugs
10@135
9@140
8@145
8@145
Hammer curl
10@20s x 4 sets
FInished it off with a barbell complex consisting of DL, RDL, bent over rows, power cleans, front squat, push press, back squats and good mornings. 6 reps each, rest 90s, 5 reps each, rest 90s all the way down to 1 rep. I did this with 45lbs and will certainly up the weight next time as it was a little too easy.
