This was a nice one hour session, I think I’ll start doing it regularly to improve pressing strength and balance out my back. I didn’t do any lower body work because I’ve done quite a lot this week and the football yesterday has messed up my left calf (which I think was already on edge due to the issues further up the chain in my glute/hamstring). Having said that my hamstrings do feel a bit better now.
I’m also thinking about getting a bicycle and starting cycling to work. It’s only 3 miles (although all up hill). It would really help with 3 big weak points: cardio, bodyfat and conditioning the calves to not be completely feeble lol.
A pretty good week in terms of volume: got a couple of whole body days in, an upper body day and two lower body days as well as a good cardio session. Diet has not been on point but weight loss has been steady.
Cutting Week 11: Light Day
Nothing really worth logging today - just hip circles and a bunch of work with the 10kg and 20kg. I was feeling a little stiff and I want to train hard tomorrow.
My knees hurt today, I think because when my calves tired during football I started landing heel-first as I ran.
The pull-ups and presses have given me a fair bit of DOMS, particularly abs and lats. I will incorporate a barbell press and pull-up day regularly. I think a good 3-day repeating pattern might be:
Kettlebell press, row, two-handed swing and goblet squat
Barbell press, pull-ups, reverse lunge
Kettlebell clean and press
I think this would make for a good whole-body routine, with plenty of pressing to get me ready for this challenge. After the challenge I think it would be a good template for the long-term, substituting the barbell press for the bench press so I don’t neglect my chest. In fact it would be better to drop the clean and press day and just repeat sessions one and two, for either two or three sessions per week.
Kettlebell Cleans
40kg: 20x1 Every minute on the minute.
Two-Handed Swings
40kg: 20
Bodyweight: 94.7kg Terrible!
This was a great session, the cleans are much more difficult from a dead-stop compared to continuous reps. I think this session is good preparation for the challenge with ActivitiesGuy and I think I’ll make it a regular part of my routine. I will just press twice a week, because my shoulders don’t feel great with them (nothing specific).
The bodyweight was disappointing but I have to admit I haven’t been trying that hard with my nutrition. I need to sort that out.
My 40kg clean and press challenge with ActivitiesGuy has really boosted my motivation for the short term, but I still lack an over-arching specific ambition. It’s not that I am unmotivated - far from it - I just feel like an overall goal would give my training more direction. Strength sports don’t appeal to me because of my injury history and I’m definitely not interested in endurance. Combat sports, specifically grappling (judo/BJJ/submission wrestling), would be best. But I’ve waffled a lot in this log about doing things and more often than not I haven’t followed through so who knows.
[quote]furo wrote:
My 40kg clean and press challenge with ActivitiesGuy has really boosted my motivation for the short term, but I still lack an over-arching specific ambition. It’s not that I am unmotivated - far from it - I just feel like an overall goal would give my training more direction. Strength sports don’t appeal to me because of my injury history and I’m definitely not interested in endurance.[/quote]
Any consideration to competing in a kettlebell sport competition?
You may recall this from my log: I played college football (American football), and then was into competitive distance running for awhile before moving back to more of a strength focus, but I really drifted for awhile in 2013-2014. The recent focus on KB’s has been great and I’m giving serious consideration to a KB competition. I, also, am a bit nervy about training for max-effort strength required for PL, OL, Strongman, but the thought of working towards high-rep KB snatches or clean-and-jerks for 5 minute sets strikes a great balance to me between “strength” and “endurance” and I feel like I can train fairly well for that with modest overall volume.
This was a good session, although I was pressed for time (no pun intended lol). My left leg still isn’t 100%, my calf is weaker than my right and I’m getting occasional pain in my hamstring/glute. But I’m not too bothered.
ActivitiesGuy: I hadn’t given kettlebell sport much thought tbh, all I really know about it is that it sounds like brutal cardio and that it rips the skin off your hands! I’ll definitely look into it further. What are your thoughts on it? I read your conversation with jblues.
One thing I have noticed is that since I re-introduced two-handed swings I have not once been bothered by tight painful hips. I think they are much better than one-handed swings from a glute and hip health point of view. It’s difficult to articulate but I think that because it is a more straightforward movement and is balanced equally it keeps my glutes moving well, whereas the imbalanced one-handed swing causes my glutes to seize up a bit. I’m not really sure, I’m just waffling. I think there is definitely a place for both movements, but I should do the two-handed swing more often.
I didn’t feel up to much today but I wanted to try out an exercise that LoRez suggested called around the world, where you basically pass the kettlebell around your waist. I decided to do a high volume of them to see how they hit my core, as I don’t do any direct core work and it would be good to change that. For each set I did the written reps in both directions. The 40kg was too cumbersome to be effective, but the 28kg and 20kg sets felt good. I’ll be interested to see how much DOMS I have tomorrow, and where it is.
Bodyweight this week was a regression for the first time, but that was just because of one bad day. Excluding the day I weighed 94.7kg the average weight would have been 93.3kg.
Training this week was pretty good: I did a whole body day, an upper body day, a clean day and a core day. Ideally I’d like to hit two whole body days per week, but I’m happy with how this week went.
Today I started a routine by Dan John called the 40-Day Program ( The 40-Day Program ). It is high frequency/low volume like a lot of Dan John/Pavel’s stuff. The basic outline is: heavy hinge (2x5), push (2x5), pull (2x5), explosive (1x20), abs (1x5). Done with high frequency for a total of 40 days (but that bit sounds arbitrary - he says he often just does it for 20). The only thing I’ve changed from the routine is to replace the heavy hinge with a 40kg goblet squat (for two reasons - I don’t have the equipment for a heavy hinge and I’ve spent a lot of time working on the goblet squats and don’t want to drop them). This routine is quite similar to what I naturally gravitate towards, but is more structured and a bit lower volume and higher frequency. I really enjoyed today’s session. The rollouts were just done on my hands as I don’t have a roller, seemed to work.
^given what I know of your training preferences, I think that program will suit you well. A slightly more diversified simple and sinister. Should be a really good “cutting” program I would think to maintain muscle as you lean out.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
^given what I know of your training preferences, I think that program will suit you well. A slightly more diversified simple and sinister. Should be a really good “cutting” program I would think to maintain muscle as you lean out. [/quote]
Thanks ActivitiesGuy, it does seem to be a perfect fit. The variety makes it more stimulating than S&S, but it is very similar and I had good success on that routine. I really like the idea of doing whole body sessions with high frequency. I’d have always thought doing just 2x5 was a bit too little, but given Dan John instructs it I’m sure it will work well! I’m particularly excited about seeing how it will improve my press for our challenge. The 2x5 28kg press was definitely the most challenging part of yesterday’s session and so practicing that until it becomes easy should really help. Then it will be time to switch to a more challenge-focused routine (or maybe just add in some extra cleans).
I’m off sick today so no training for me - I’ve caught the vomiting bug going around. I actually weighed in at 91.9kg this morning lol, but that’s certainly a dehydration thing. I feel a lot better now than I did last night, so hopefully I will be back to normal tomorrow.
[quote]furo wrote:
I’m off sick today so no training for me - I’ve caught the vomiting bug going around. I actually weighed in at 91.9kg this morning lol, but that’s certainly a dehydration thing. I feel a lot better now than I did last night, so hopefully I will be back to normal tomorrow. [/quote]
Hope you feel better soon! I know how frustrating it can be to start a new routine that you are excited about and get sick. A terrible joke my wife always says is “I’m only 2 stomach viruses away from my goal weight!”
^You said that you’re reading Never Let Go…at one point he tells a story of how he was getting stuck in the bottom position on cleans, so he left a bar loaded to something like 165 pounds and did 2 sets of 5 front squats every day for a few weeks (for all I know, this is what inspired his 40 day program). Dan John might have some odd theories, but his stuff usually works!
Ah interesting AG, I haven’t got to that chapter yet. I have to take Never Let Go slowly due to the repetition lol.
Cutting Week 12: 40-Day Program Day 2
Warm-Up
Hip circles and goblet squats
Goblet Squats
40kg: 2x5
Kettlebell Press
28kg: 2x5
Kettlebell Row
40kg: 2x5
Two-Handed Swing
40kg: 20
Ab-Rollouts
BW: 5
Bodyweight: 92.5kg
This session felt good. The goblet squats feel comfortable, but the other exercises all have a way to go before they are no longer challenging, and I think this routine will do me a lot of good.
This was a good session, I enjoyed it and the weights moved well. I paused the goblet squats, which I haven’t done before, and that felt good. Longer term I’m not sure how I’m going to progress the goblet squats. A paused set of 20 is a long way off, but going heavier appeals more.
Interesting to see Dan John’s 40-Day article today, although I definitely prefer the simplicity of the original version.
I went light on the presses, rows and swings today because I was feeling very slow. Not completely over the virus yet. Training with Rattlehead tomorrow :).
Barbell Curl/Band Extension Superset
Bar: 3x10/Band: 3x10
Bodyweight: 92.1kg
I trained with Rattlehead today, which was great. I wanted to test my front squat after all my recent goblet squatting and hit a PR so I’m extremely happy with that.
Took a few progress photos, will post them shortly.