[quote]furo wrote:
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Glad you’ve found a new plan that’s fired your imagination a little bit.
Will continue following along :)[/quote]
Thanks man. I’ve got the ambitious goal of pressing the 40kg, I work best when I have a good goal and my S&S had become a little unfocused.[/quote]
How hard would you say that is? What would you compare it to?
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]furo wrote:
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Glad you’ve found a new plan that’s fired your imagination a little bit.
Will continue following along :)[/quote]
Thanks man. I’ve got the ambitious goal of pressing the 40kg, I work best when I have a good goal and my S&S had become a little unfocused.[/quote]
How hard would you say that is? What would you compare it to?[/quote]
I’m not really sure exactly how hard it is, I just know I’m a way off being able to do it at the moment. Because my kettlebells jump from 28kg to 40kg there isn’t really a clear point where it begins to get tricky. I can press the 28kg with relative ease, but I can’t press the 40kg.
Rite of Passage Week 1 Day 2
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2)x5
One-Arm Swing
40kg: 1x10
These felt especially good.
One-Arm Front Squat
40kg: 1x1
I tried these before and wasn’t sold, but this time they felt better. I think if I persist these could be a great quad-dominant exercise. At the moment I’m limited by stabilising the weight, but less so than with goblet squats - it’s more of a core limitation rather than a biceps one, which I feel is more “functional”.
Bodyweight: 95.4kg
I’m watching The Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition as I type this, and I’m really enjoying it. I think the scenes they’ve added in so far have really added to the film, and they include some of my favourite scenes from the book that were missed in the original film. The character Beorn was always my favourite fictional character and wanting to be big and strong like him played a huge part in my desire to start training.
Variety Day
Turkish Get-Ups
40kg: 2x1
Kettlebell Row (two-handed)
40kg: 3x20
Kettlebell Front Squat
20kg and 28kg: 1x3
I used today to experiment with exercises. The turkish get-ups felt rough and unpolished and my knees clunked a lot. The rows felt really good. The unbalanced front squats just felt difficult to co-ordinate and the inside of my right knee spasmed on the final rep. I’ve leant my second 20kg to my brother but he doesn’t really use it so I think I’ll ask for it back and work on front squats with the two 20kg kettlebells. Obviously not heavy, but should be good for working on technique. Better than nothing.
Rite of Passage Week 1 Day 3
Warm-Up
Goblet squats
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2)x5
One-Arm Swings
40kg: 1x10
Goblet Squats
40kg: 3x5
Mobility Work: 30min
Bodyweight: ? - need a new battery for my scales
The clean and presses felt fine today, on Saturday I add a new rung to the press ladders so it’ll be (1,2,3,4)x5. The swings also felt nice and crisp, I think I’ve almost mastered these 40kg one-arm swings now. The 40kg goblet squats felt cumbersome as predicted.
I feel like this programme is beginning to come together in my head now. I think a good set-up to progress to would be clean and press and pull-ups 3x a week (as in the official routine) with double 20kg front squats and 40kg one-arm swings on the variety day. Obviously for that to work I need to get hold of my other 20kg and I need to come up with a way of doing pull-ups.
Following that I think it might be quite cool to try a simple routine of front squats and one-arm swings on lower body days and pull-ups and handstand push-ups on upper body days. I think having mastered the 40kg press going back to handstand push-ups will be fun.
Variety Day
Warm-Up
Goblet squats
Reverse Lunges
20kg: 2x10
28kg: 2x10
40kg: 2x5
BW: 1x20
I decided to take another variety day this week, as I like training with high frequency. I chose another quad dominant day to help in my quest to find the ultimate quad dominant exercise, as well as because it will be the least damaging to my clean and presses tomorrow.
I did the lunges with the kettlebell in the front squat position, over the reversing leg (if that makes sense). They felt really great - they didn’t hurt my knees (I had a lot of crepitus, but I always do) and also I felt like it allowed me to hit my legs hard rather than being limited by stabilising the weight. So I think I might be onto a winner here, which makes sense given the success I had with barbell reverse lunges.
My hips gave me grief over the last couple of days. I think the issue may be a result of either problems with my feet or lumbar spine, as I’ve come to the conclusion that my ankle, knee and hip mobility is actually pretty decent and I have known issues further up and down the chain (flat feet and a rubbishy lower back). Worth looking into anyway, I’ll try foam rolling my lower back and strengthening my feet (barefoot running might work well).
Rite of Passage Week 2 Day 1
Warm-Up
Goblet squats
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2,3,4)x5
One-Arm Swings
40kg: 1x10
Today felt fine. I’m definitely not a huge fan of this routine, but I’ll ride it out for at least 6 weeks. My legs don’t feel as sore as I thought they might given the volume of lunging I did yesterday, I’m guessing because I was a bit limited by supporting the weight. I’m sure with practice kettlebell reverse lunging will become an effective exercise.
Variety Day
Chest Supported Rows
20kg DBs: 2x10
Dumbbell Rows
30kg: 3x10
Inverted Rows
BW: 4x10
Some of these reps were a little dubious lol.
Dumbbell Shrugs
30kg: 3x10 (supersetted with band face-pulls)
I did this session with Rattlehead and it was great as always.
I’ve been feeling a lot of DOMS in my outer quads today, which is great news. My knees feel really good. I look forward to pushing myself on the KB lunges.
The last couple of days I’ve been doing a lot of foam rolling on my erectors. It’s impossible to say whether it is helping my hips, but so far they haven’t bothered me.
[b] Rite of Passage Week 2 Day 2
Warm-Up [/b]
Goblet Squats
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2,3)x5
I messed this up and did too many reps initially, but averaged it out.
One-Arm Swings
40kg: 1x12
Crunches (max in 2 min)
BW: 40
The clean and presses felt fine. I decided to go above 10 reps on the swings for the first time - the danger with this is losing power without realising it. The key will be increasing the reps without decreasing the power, in order to progress .
My friends and are thinking about having a competition amongst ourselves to do the US Marine fitness test. It consists of max crunches in 2 min, max dead-hang pull-ups and time to run 3 miles and it’s all graded out of a maximum 300 points. Unfortunately I haven’t trained any of the three with consistency for some time, and was humbled when I tried the crunches today and got bang on the minimum.
Also my eating has gotten a bit out of control, I plan on taking a low calorie day today and try to reset my appetite. We’ll see how that goes.
[b] Variety Day
Warm-Up [/b]
Goblet squats
Reverse Lunges
BW: 10
28kg: 10
40kg: 5x5
These felt good.
Kettlebell Rows
40kg: 5x5
Really controlled and focusing on technique. Felt really good.
Crunches (max in 2min)
BW: 49
So close!
I think this is a great selection of exercises for my variety days - it really fills in the gaps. Progression for lunges will be rep scheme (5x5 - 4x8 - 3x10). Progression for rows will just be technique and TUT until really comfortable.
My right knee has been hurting today. I think it is unrelated to the lunges, as it was fine yesterday. I’ll just take ibuprofen today. Not a good longterm strategy but screw it.
My diet has been really on point the last 3 days. Not sure what my bodyweight is though - still haven’t bought a new battery for my scales.
Rite of Passage Week 2 Day 3
Warm-Up
Goblet squats
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2)x5
One-Arm Swings
40kg: 1x10
Crunches (max in 2min)
BW: 50
This was a nice quick session. My entire back feels really nicely sore after the rows yesterday. I did them while actively depressing my scapula and I think that shifted focus from my upper traps (which are quite dominant) to my lower traps and lats. My quads also have a degree of DOMS, which is good, and my knees feel much better. I feel like sometimes the best thing for a sore joint is just to train it and strengthen the surrounding muscles/get it moving in the right way.
I finally got the minimum number of crunches! Will do some mobility work in a bit.
I think the rite of passage idea is brilliant, my friend. I agree with you on joint health and would add that the strength of the connective tissue is also important (not that you were insinuating that it isn’t).
I second the joint thing.
I have had heaps of success with slow eccentric loading to help with tendon issues, and sometimes just some high rep stuff also helps issues with tendons such as sore shoulders.
Fish oil is also a life-saver. Do you take fish oil??
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[quote]spar4tee wrote:
I think the rite of passage idea is brilliant, my friend. I agree with you on joint health and would add that the strength of the connective tissue is also important (not that you were insinuating that it isn’t).[/quote]
Thanks a lot brother! Yeah good point about the connective tissue! I also feel like training a injured joint can teach it to move correctly, if that makes sense? If you force yourself to be controlled and move in the correct alignment.
[quote]theBird wrote:
I second the joint thing.
I have had heaps of success with slow eccentric loading to help with tendon issues, and sometimes just some high rep stuff also helps issues with tendons such as sore shoulders.
Fish oil is also a life-saver. Do you take fish oil??
tweet[/quote]
Thanks a lot man! Oh cool, could you tell me more about how you do your eccentric stuff? Ah yeah I’m really non-compliant with my fish oil lol. Need to get on that.
Active Recovery Day
Goblet Squats
10kg: 20-20-20
Kettlebell Rows
10kg: 20-20-20
Push-Ups
BW: 10-10-10
I’ve had a rough week and I feel quite rundown, but I wanted to do something so I just did a light active recovery day. It should hopefully get me feeling good for my presses tomorrow. I had to do a 15min presentation to 15 consultants today - was nerve-wracking but went well.
[quote]furo wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
I think the rite of passage idea is brilliant, my friend. I agree with you on joint health and would add that the strength of the connective tissue is also important (not that you were insinuating that it isn’t).[/quote]
Thanks a lot brother! Yeah good point about the connective tissue! I also feel like training a injured joint can teach it to move correctly, if that makes sense? If you force yourself to be controlled and move in the correct alignment. [/quote]
True. Getting the ROM back as well as strengthen integrity. I get what you’re saying.
[b] Rite of Passage Week 3 Day 1
Warm-Up [/b]
Goblet squats
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2,3,4,5)x5
One-Arm Swings
40kg: 1x5
Crunches
BW: 1x20
This was without a doubt one of the most pathetic sessions I’ve ever done lol. I feel generally really exhausted and have a splitting headache and the presses just took ages. In terms of musculoskeletal pain I feel great today though. I halved the swing and crunch volume because of how I felt. I’m glad I stuck with it and got everything done.
[quote]furo wrote:
Oh cool, could you tell me more about how you do your eccentric stuff? Ah yeah I’m really non-compliant with my fish oil lol. Need to get on that.[/quote]
Im no expert on it, but I used to loads of eccentric heal lifts which pretty much cured my achilles pain which I had suffered from for years.
I also find that riding my bike (high rep movement) makes my knees feel better and “cuban rotations” for high reps makes my shoulders feel good.
I would definitely get on to the fish oil. Its probably the only supp that I can actually tell a difference from. I also find it helps mentally. Just feel less moody and calm in general.
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Nice, thanks!
Rite of Passage Week 3 Day 2
Warm-Up
Goblet squats
Clean and Press
20kg: (1,2,3,4)x5
One-Arm Swings
40kg: 1x10
Crunches (max in 2min)
BW: 49 (again!)
This was a decent session. The presses felt good, the swings felt a bit off and the crunches felt average.