I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate cardio and I think the best way to do it will be to switch my lower body days to 10,000 swing style sessions with the 28kg for swings and the double front squats for the strength movement. I’d just do that session twice a week as I’ve been doing so far this log, with dips and pull-ups on the other days. I’m not keen to do the full 10,000 swing routine at the moment because it’s hard to do in a commercial gym, it will detract from focusing on my upper body and it’s very monotonous.
My neck feels a lot better now that I’ve stopped doing cleans. It still cracks every morning but I’m no longer bothered by headaches. Unfortunately my shoulders have started playing up, at the pec insertion. My right hip is also tight and uncomfortable at the moment.
Warm-Up [/b]
Front raises, chest press machine and dislocates
Dips
BW: 5x10 (woop)
Neutral Grip Pull-Ups
BW: 5x5
Dumbbell Row
40kg: 2x10
20kg: 2x20
Bodyweight: ?
This was an excellent session - 5x10 dips fell faster than I could have hoped. My shoulders didn’t feel fantastic so I did quite an extensive warm-up and I timed my rest periods so as not to rush them (dips were every third minute on the minute and pull-ups were slightly less than that). I’m extremely excited about the dip PR, performance goals are so much more rewarding than physique ones. I’m not particularly interested in pushing my dips beyond 5x10 - I’d rather maintain at this level for now and then start pushing myself when I switch to ring dips. Given my dodgy shoulders I think this approach is wiser. The pull-ups felt about the same as usual.
Kettlebell Swings/Front Squats
20kg: 500 total
2x28kg: 30 total Time: 1:04:52
Bodyweight: 94.4kg (!!!)
Today I did a 10,000 swing based session with 2x28kg front squats as my strength movement and a 20kg kettlebell for the swings. I was originally planning on using the 28kg for swings but that would have been disastrous. As it was I had to break the fourth and fifth block of 50 swings into two 25 swing sets. This worked really well - the squats were challenging enough as a strength movement and it certainly did the job with regards to conditioning. I definitely want to do my lower body sessions this way for around 8 weeks. I don’t have huge ambitions but sub 60min with the 28kg for swings would be great. I also think a great maintenance routine for the future would be to do 3 rounds of this (instead of 5) with 1,2,3 squats, then 1,2,3 dips and finally 1,2,3 pull-ups. It would be a fantastic full-body strength and cardio session, if a little low on volume.
My weight was the highest it’s been in a long time this morning, unfortunately more likely due to over-indulging this weekend rather than massive muscle gain lol. I’ll get it back down.
EDIT: I should also add that my right knee spasmed a few times during the warm-up but didn’t bother me at all during the workout (despite some minor form breakdown as I fatigued). Having said that the whole joint feels a little loose and unstable now.
Week 3: Cardio/Upper Body Day
Today I played 60min of 5-a-side football with colleagues. Afterwards I did a super brief upper body session of back to back dips and pull-ups with absolutely no rest. Dips went 10-5-3 and pull-ups went 5-3-1.
Bodyweight: 93.8kg
Obviously a less than ideal session but I got some work done.
My grandmother is very unwell so I drove down to the south of England on Friday night to be with my family and just got back. Drank a lot of energy drinks and spent a lot of time driving (910mile round trip). Very sad. She is comfortable at least. Did 5x5 regular pull-ups on my cousins old swing set yesterday and today.
Warm-Up [/b]
Front raise, chest press machine and (later) hip circles and goblet squats
Dips
BW: 3x10
Neutral Grip Pull-Ups
BW: 3x5
Kettlebell Swings/Front Squats
20kg: 300 total
2x28kg: 18 total Time: 29:30
Bodyweight: 92.5kg
I wanted to do a full body day but felt pretty exhausted so I reduced my sets from 5 to 3 on dips, pull-ups and the swings/front squats. Bodyweight is pretty good all things considered and this session felt strong, but sluggish. My right knee felt “off” but not painful as such.
Warm-Up [/b]
Hip circles, goblet squats and (later) front raises and machine chest press
Ketlebell Swings/Front Squats
20kg: 300 total
2x28kg: 18 total Time: 28:28 (may have miscounted some reps)
Kettlebell Swings
40kg: 5x10 (EMOM)
Dips
BW: 3x10
Neutral Grip Pull-Ups
BW: 5-6-7-8
Bodyweight: 94.0kg (!)
This was a good session, although my bodyweight is still higher than I’d like. Got a pull-up PR (for recent times) and the lower body stuff went well. My knees (right in particular) are uncomfortable, which doesn’t bother me at the moment but I worry that they’ll get worse with time.
Hey brother keep up the good work, sorry to hear about your grandmother, just keep your chin up.
I myself have dodgy shoulders, curious as to what exactly your following, seems like pull ups, dips, front squats and swings, with an occasional lateral raise and dislocates, no prehab or rehab excerises for the shoulders or (right) knee?
Regardless keep going strong
[quote]sam_I_am wrote:
Hey brother keep up the good work, sorry to hear about your grandmother, just keep your chin up.
I myself have dodgy shoulders, curious as to what exactly your following, seems like pull ups, dips, front squats and swings, with an occasional lateral raise and dislocates, no prehab or rehab excerises for the shoulders or (right) knee?
Regardless keep going strong [/quote]
Thanks a lot Sam :). Yeah at the moment I don’t do any specific rehab or prehab, I just like to do a thorough warm-up to get plenty of blood flowing around the joints. I’ve found high rep raises and machine presses work well for pumping lots of blood into my shoulders and goblet squats do the same for my knees. I pretty much took 18 months off from pushing exercises and in that time did a tonne of Turkish get-ups which I credit with helping to improve my shoulder durability. I certainly haven’t been bothered much by dips since adding them back in, and they used to cause a fair bit of pain. I really like minimalist approaches to training, and experimented a lot with that over my last log.
In terms of recovery I usually hit the sauna/plunge pool at least once a week and I find that really helps. I also occasionally do active recovery sessions which usually involve a lot of goblet squats using the voodoo floss bands for my knees, but I haven’t had to do that in quite a while.
I feel like I’ve settled into a good routine now with just swings, squats, dips and pull-ups. It covers all the basics (previously I went too minimalist), and it keeps things simple.
Bodyweight: [/b] 93.3kg - higher than I’d like but not outrageous.
Training: I’m actually very happy with training this week, although I didn’t do as much as usual. Two full body days and two brief pull-up sessions. Lower body stuff seems to be going well and pull-ups are improving.
Nutrition: Overall OK this week. I drank far too many energy drinks last weekend, but apart from that I’ve managed to keep it quite healthy (although my portions could have been smaller).
[quote]furo wrote: Nutrition: Overall OK this week. I drank far too many energy drinks last weekend, but apart from that I’ve managed to keep it quite healthy (although my portions could have been smaller). [/quote]
what are you eating these days? 3 square meals? Prefer low carb, or are you mor eof a low fat person?
[quote]theBird wrote:
what are you eating these days? 3 square meals? Prefer low carb, or are you mor eof a low fat person?
tweet[/quote]
I’m still doing my intermittent fasting as always. I usually have two meals a day: lunch at around 13:00 and dinner at around 19:30, with a snack sometimes at 17:00. Moderate carbs and fat - neither are particularly low or high. I always used to think high fat/low carb was best, but moderate/moderate feels better and works well.
I joined Rattlehead for his overhead press day (he’s doing 5/3/1 currently) and added in some chins to cover pull as well. The presses felt good although the ring dips were really hard! Felt quite unnatural. The chins felt great - much stronger than the pull-ups. Bodyweight is good too. I also walked 2 miles to get to Rattlehead’s place, although that’s not very impressive.
This was just a quick lower body session because I’m not going to have much time to train during the week. The squats and swings were supersetted. I also went swimming with Rattlehead today. My hips still aren’t right from all that driving last weekend, but the swimming helped a bit.
This was a decent quick upper body session. I ran to and from the gym, although that’s less than a mile. The pull-ups started strong, but then faltered lol. Tomorrow I’m going to hit my lower body but then I’m probably going to have to take 4 days off as I’m busy on Thursday and doing 12 hour shifts from Friday to Sunday.
[quote]furo wrote:
I’m still doing my intermittent fasting as always. I usually have two meals a day: lunch at around 13:00 and dinner at around 19:30, with a snack sometimes at 17:00. Moderate carbs and fat - neither are particularly low or high. I always used to think high fat/low carb was best, but moderate/moderate feels better and works well.
[/quote]
Cool.
Im doing a similar thing as well.
I also find moderate carbs and fat work best. Although I try and get most of my carbs pre and post WO (EyeDentists influence).
Ketlebell Swings/Front Squats
20kg: 300 total
2x28kg: 18 total Time: 26:06
Kettlebell Swings
40kg: 20
Bodyweight: 93.2kg
This was a fantastic session - I got a decent PR on the swings/squats and the heavy swings felt powerful. Bodyweight has remained low as well. Like I said before, I won’t manage to do anything else this week.
Sounds like a good plan Bird, I’ve not experimented much with nutrient timing within my window and I should look into that.
Congratulations on the PRs, seems like you had that magical day that happens everyday now and then, would have been a good day to really push it, but you got PRs so that’s good enough.
Those 12 hour shifts are tough.
Keep chipping away.