Monday 31 December 2007

Easy

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Was a bit lazy and skipped my usual little complex....again!!

M Press 24Kgs (1,2, 3) x 5 - total of 30 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 100/10mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Pressing was alrite - not especially great form, wasn't concentrating as much. Trained in my bedroom today as it was bucketing down. Had kerrang music channel on and spent a lot of time watching videos .....ooops :(

Swings were easy - I decided to do them to be on the safe side instead of the snatches cos I was indoors. I think in future I'm going to get a little more scientific on these, timing rests etc. I used to do this but my heart rate monitor watch broke and now i just go from mobile phone timer.
These were an easy 10 on the minute for 10 mins about 50% effort I reckon

Saturday 29 December 2007

Workout was as follows:

Heavy

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Was a bit lazy and skipped my usual little complex.

M Press 24Kgs (1,2, 3, 4) x 5 - total of 50 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 119/5mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Pressing was really good - added another rung from my last heavy day, which seems such a long time ago!! I really didn't expect to get through them all before I started, but after the first couple of rungs I knew I'd do it. It did take me quite a while....but I don't care another rung next week!!

Swings weren't bad, but a little ways off my best hard day effort. I did try my best which is all that counts. Hopefully I'll be back to my best next week.

Wednesday 26 December 2007

Workout was as follows:

Medium

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1,2,3) x 5 - total of 30 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 104/7mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Still not feeling 100% but still went out to do what I was supposed to. Idea was to back off if it was too much - but I was fine.

Swings - sets of 13 with 15 breaths between sets. Bizarrely I didn't do as many swings as with 12/15 breaths. I think that I'm a little bit fitter and my breathing was more controlled so I actually had longer rest periods!! Will increase to 15/10 as it felt a little too easy anyway.

Monday 24 December 2007

Takin' it easy

Very Easy

M Press 16Kgs (1,2) x 5 - total of 15 reps L/R
One Arm Sw 16Kgs 80/4mins

I decided to heed the advice of those world renouned trainers....THE EAGLES and Take It Easy today. Feel another virus coming on, throat is sore, lightheaded and not feeling strong at all. Got through this without feeling TOO bad, I wouldn't have been happy to skip another day so soon after illness took a week away from me.

I'm not really prone to getting these things but lately everyone around me seems to be coming down with something. Add to this the fact that my diet for the last month or so has been terrible (Maryland cookies anyone?) and it's not so surprising. Lets get real about this now, over christmas it probably aint going to get too much better. However I will endevour to try to take things in moderation and rest up plenty til my next KB session on Wednesday.

Merry Xmas to my vast readership - you know who you are Martin, possibly Rannoch!! Haha

Saturday 22 December 2007

Mixing it up

Messing around with various exercises.

Loaded cleans with 24kg/32kg - been banging up my arms a little of late when cleaning for my presses, so I practiced quite a lot of these with good form. Strangely my form was better with the 32kg!!

Waiter Walks with 24kg - pretty weak on these, time under tension not great, probably why I was so bad with the TGUs other day. Think I'll practice a lot of these on variety days from now on.

Swings with 32kg - pretty easy, did 3 sets of 10. Obviously I'm not out to bust myself on these days though. I have been working backwards from the SSST goal lately and thinking about how I'm going to have to reach certain milestones along the way to ace it. The way I see it I need 300 two handed swings in 10mins with 24kg , 300 one hand swings in 10 mins with 24kgs and if I was up to around 250 one handed swings with 32kg I reckon it'd be in the bag!!

Clean & M Press with the 16kg - all about the form and tips on pressing from ETK. Really wanted to feel tight throughout and feel my lats working on way up and more on way down.

Pounding a tire with a sledge hammer - one of my favourite activities!! :) I love the noise it makes and the davistation I know it would cause haha. Took it pretty easy again, but it got the heart pumping a bit.

Farmers walks with 32 and 24 alternating sides.

Probably did a little more than I had intended to, but was working well within myself with possible exception on waiter walks. Locking out for decent periods of time seems to be a weakness of mine and needs to be addressed.

I am trying not to exercise directly in lifts that I want to test myself on to see the WTH effect in operation for myself. Fortuneately there seems to be no end of other stuff I can do with KBs.

Friday 21 December 2007

Workout was as follows:

Heavy

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1,2, 3) x 5 - total of 30 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 156/6mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Pressing was quite good - need to concentrate a lot more on the finer points of pressing it though. I've been reading a lot of posters on DD this week pressing the 40kg and 48kg bells - guys who were either a lot lighter than me or a lot older than me. While it did make me a bit jealous to begin I realised that these guys worked hard and consistantly for it - it has inspired me and made me raise the bar on how much further I'm going to improve!!

Talk about improving in leaps and bounds!! This is 34 more reps of swings than a few weeks ago in the same time - and I'm not sure where the hell it came from!! I think resting for breaths is helping me somehow, I breath deeper and slower and probably don't take as long as for rest overall.

I was right on the limit though - my forearms were like stone after it, and I could hardly hang from the bar for my decompression hangs haha.

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Medium Day

Workout was as follows:

Medium

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise (note NEVER hit your ear when doing these!!)
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1,2) x 5 - total of 15 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 146/8mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Again felt pretty tired before this session - but really blasted through it and feeling good now. Presses were pretty sweet, good and tight, really felt strong and capable of a lot more.

Similar thing with the swings - was more or less doing sets of 12 with 15 breaths between sets. This felt pretty easy and I would have said intensity lay somewhere between easy and medium. I was quite surprised to see that I did 5 more than last time out for this duration.

Tuesday 18 December 2007

Variety Day

Messing around with various exercises.

Bottoms Up Presses with 16kg - pretty weak grip on right with these.

Cleans with 32kg, Swings with 32kg - feel pretty easy, in fact don't really notice a lot of diffence from 24 on swings.

Half Get Ups with 32kg - quickly dropping to the 24kg after I nearly dropped the 32kg on my face!! Its no joke that KB for me - I'll wanna be the 24kg TGU Master before I even think about using the 32 again.

Farmers walks with 32 and 24 alternating sides.

All done quite comfortably - except the get ups obviously - haven't been keeping track of numbers as I stop long before it gets hard and may do a couple then 4 then 2 then 3 etc etc - purely going by feel. It makes it seem more of a practice, and a little more fun.

Monday 17 December 2007

I'm Back!!

Easy

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1) x 5 - total of 5 reps L/R
Sn 24Kgs 72/6mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Exact same workout as last Monday before I went down with whatever I went down with. Felt very tired before hand - was very tempted to let myself off the hook by claiming I wasn't over my illness. But I got out there and did....and as usual I'm glad I did.

Feel pretty good now - it went better than last weeks session especially the snatches. Just happy to get through it unscathed and be back training.

Saturday 15 December 2007

Playtime

Felt pretty much recovered from whatever it was that hit me through the week today. I had to site a few of my vending machines this morning and was feeling a bit tired after that.

So instead of jumping back in I figure that I'll repeat what I should have done last week starting Monday onwards. That left me with today and tomorrow to play around with.

Today I broke out the 32kg KB and messed around with some of the exercies from the bonus pdf you get with ETK. More like practice than anything else - wasn't really counting reps, sets or rest just did what I felt like.

I was doing Loaded Cleans and Swings with the 32kg and Bottoms Up Presses with the 16kg. Cleans and Swings were easier than I thought they'd be, still a few of the cleans weren't really in the grove and I could feel how easy it'd be to wrench your arm. That bell got and will always get full respect!!!

Presses were a little shaky on the right but I was happy enough with these also. Didn't break sweat and I'm just on my way out for a good long walk. Easy break in day.

Thursday 13 December 2007

Illness not laziness :)

Early on Tuesday I began to feel really bloated. This presisted until mid-afternoon when my body decided to throw nausea into the mix. I left work early and by the time i got home my body was shivering, sweating and doing other unspeakable things that I refuse to mention here haha.

It's now Thursday - I haven't eaten anything really for 2 days and anytime I try to it passes right on through!! I am feeling a lot better though and fingers crossed I should be fit for work again tomorrow.

It's either a bug or food posioning, but the only thing I could put that down to would be a bacon sandwich I had. How could bacon do that to me? After all we have been through together!!!!

Seriously though - I don't believe that this was brought on by overtraining weakening my immune system. I felt grand after Monday nights practice. Its a little bit of a set back and when I do get back into KBs I shall probably repeat the week that I missed again.

It is good to know that I do have someone who is going bust me if I do stop for no good reason though. Get a training blog up Martin and I'll gladly do the same for you!! :)

Monday 10 December 2007

My, what a horrible snatch!!!

Easy

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1) x 5 - total of 5 reps L/R
Sn 24Kgs 72/6mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Pressing form good. Concentrated really well, stayed pretty tight and tonights little area of focus was on the lat on the way up and down. They can really take it out of you when you do them this way even though they seem to go up easier....maybe it's just me though :)

Snatches were UGLY!!! Trouble was that no matter what I did with my right arm I kept pinching a callous on the way down. This kinda resulted in me trying to keep hold of the KB almost on my fingertips!!! I wasn't even really swinging it through my legs, they were more like deadhang snatches.....grim stuff to look at I bet. All of this made it harder on the right hand side than it should have been. Left though was grand. Mind you, if I could stretch out this amount of work over 3 times the time - I'd be well over the target haha.

Will have to have a play about with the 32 tomorrow night....my dad has commented that I'm scared of it....I reckon once he sees me swinging it about like a rag doll, he'll be scared of me ;)

Friday 7 December 2007

Form -drastic!!

Workout was as follows:

Heavy

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1,2, 3) x 4 - total of 24 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 122/6mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Pressing form wasn't as good tonight. In fact on my last rung on my last ladder I stalled with my 2nd rep. It didn't feel right - so i recleaned and pressed it correctly and then finished with another one. Beginning to see that there is a fine line between successfully completing a rep and completely stalling!!

That said - I still went through this pretty easily, another ladder added next week.

I'm still not feeling it with my swings - I've improved and its over 20 per minute, but I've still got a lot to find and its killing me haha. I am making slow progress though, so I shall just have to be patient and continue to work as hard as I am.

Wednesday 5 December 2007

Form-tastic!!

Workout was as follows:

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x3

M Press 24Kgs (1,2) x 4 - total of 12 reps L/R
Sw 24Kgs 141/8mins

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Couple of times tonight I really got what I'm supposed to in pressing - I was zipped up, strong through the middle, kettlebell across the palm of my hand and power breathing forcefully...the KB practically floated up. Even on the way down, I was engaging my lat well. It felt great!! Didn't happen often enough, but it's a start.

Paced myself a lot better on the swings this week. Just did sets of 10 with roughly 10secs rest. I know I have a lot more to come on these and I know that I really need to improve my grip for the snatches. The 32kger still hasn't arrived (the guy was just telling me that his delivery man has nearly died delivering his stuff up 3 flights of stairs haha), but hopefully once I start with that it will go a long way to improving these areas.

Monday 3 December 2007

Get a grip son!!

Workout was as follows:

Warm Up:
Mobility Drills (Neck, Shoulders, Upper Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles)
Front Squat 16kgs 3x5
Halos 16Kgs 3x5 Clockwise and Anticlockwise
M Press 16Kgs 2x2

M Press 24Kgs (1) x 4 L/R
Snatches 24Kgs 5L/5R x 7 (10 at the top of each min for 7 mins = 70 reps)

Decompression Hang / Hamstring Stretch

Is it just me or is this 24 starting to feel a bit lighter already? Presses, pretty easy (you'd expect that on easy day though).

Any illusions of gandeur were shattered though when I was snatching though. Still make me puff quite hard - form was a little off tonight, especially on my weaker right side. Not so bad that I was smashing myself up or anything, just not in the groove. Grip was starting to go towards the end as well on my right hand. Hopefully swings with the mighty 32 will sort that out when it comes. Was working out at 30secs on/ 30secs off snatching for 5 each side. Probably quite slow compared to a lot as well.

Again recovered fairly quickly though and feel now like I haven't done anything tonight.

Sunday 2 December 2007

Sale of the Century



Yeeeeharrrrr!! I'm sure that a lot of people don't understand how you could get this excited about taking delivery of a 32kg hunk of metal....but that's cos they don't use Kettlebells.

After much searching and internet research, emailing to and fro I have found a supplier who can send me one of these babies for what I consider a bargin :)

I can sense a picture coming on - but will it be after cleaning it, pressing it or snatching it I wonder!!

Haven't trained this weekend, have been quite busy and did 3 sessions this week anyway. In the coming weeks though I will be looking to add 1 or 2 variety days - using the 32kg of course to help me pass the ROP quicker......bring it on!!!