BEYOND STRONG: RISE AND FALL

Thursday

Early session again.. I am trying out the Warrior Diet. Not strict, but somewhat strict. I keep my food intake low, and have one big meal. Inbetween is a lot of carrots, some apples, some meat/ fish or a single rice cracker.. Joy!

Circuit:

Chins 6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6
Dips   10/10/10/10/10/10/10/10/10/10
Seat db press 14/16/18/20/14/16/18/14/16/14 in kg, all for 8 reps

Well, that was pretty hard. Chins were different handpostions everytime and suprisingly easy, compared to dips.. The db press makes the shoulders nice and pumped.

Machine crunch, 3 sets of 12

Treadmill 300m, Row 300m for 3 rounds.. I will try to keep this in, I like it.

-Theo

Tuesday

Easter done, gym open, so went for it in the morning on an empty stomach.. bit shaky..

Clean and Push Press: 5x40kg, 3x60kg and then 5 sets of 3 with 70kg.. 1 min rest inbetween

High pull: 2x90kg

Deadlift: 1x120kg, 1x150kg, 2x180kg and 6 sets of 3 with 150.. 60-90 sec inbetween, speed

Pulldown and laterals: 12x60kg/12x8kg, 8x70kg/12x10kg, 8x70kg/12x12kg

Did a new machine in the other hall, some kind of high row for upper back: 3 sets of 12

Cardio stuff:
300m treadmill/ 300m row for 2 rounds..wanted to do 3 but anyway, not enough time..

Didn't log 2 workouts, one on friday, some chest work, and a kettlebell workout.. aahh well..

Theo

Crossfit

Lately, I have been trying out some different conditioning work, doing small circuits, hitting the kettlebells again etc. Browse the internet and you can't avoid coming across Crossfit. Crossfit (and let me get the definition right here) is a core strength and conditioning program based on constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity.

When I visited the Crossfit sight, I can't help but thinking that this site has a truly bad navigation, and there are lots of cryptic description of exercises and WOD's.. WOD being the workout of the day.. Not to be mistaken with WAD.. Surfing blogs through Google was way more helpful.

What is good about Crossfit is that it uses exactly what it preaches to do, functional movements in a varied way. They apply these movements in a timed fashion, or for a certain amount of reps. Crossfit is not a be all, end all type of training. Most of the believers in Crossfit are involved in other sports as well, martial arts, running, or whatever.

Why I like Crossfit, is that it is a good way to enhance your condition, that is for sure. It can be a nice addition to your pure strength training, and can spice up your (maybe sometimes) dreading sets of 5 and reps of two's routines.

However, what Crossfit does is actually nothing more then setting up routines that were formerly known as a superset, an antagonistic vs agonistic set, or high rep sets with a total body movement.. That being said, crossfit has put a nice jacket on this type of training, and got some great training routines put up there. Workouts are referred to mysterious hotties like "Grace", "Diane", "Cindy"...

Today I took Grace a ride, or better yet, Grace gave me a ride.. Hard.. Grace is made up of 30 reps of clean and jerks, done for time, with 135lbs.. Now that's not a lot of weight, and doing sets of 5 is not that hard. But doing it in one straight set is a different story.. 7 minutes! It took me 7 minutes to finish this.. Boy, am I in a bad shape, conditioning wise..

The crossfit practioner will stop here, but I don't feel like it's enough. Did I not work it enough? No, I did, lungs were bursting. But I also like to lift heavy weights and won't settle for an Ironman condition alone, I like to lift and pull HEAVY..

I did a superset with bis and tris, and 2 rounds of 4oom, running.

Conclusion for me, and maybe for you as well, is to check it out, see what it is about and just for fun try out one of the girls, and see where you stand conditioning wise. For the not so creative persons amongst us, there are a lot of WAD's you can swallow on numerous blogs or on the site itself. If you are a bit creative, you can think up of some routines yourself and make it a finisher, a pumper, a breather, a long burner to round up your regular training..

ENjoy,

Theo

Tuesday

al First off, regarding my previous post about Laine Snook, I have to excuse myself for the major grammatic errors.. I did not look it through..

Have not been training in the gym for over a week. Did do some kettlebell work at home, going for a circuit with passaround/ clean/ snatches/ squats/ bottom up for 3 rounds or doing a snatch routine, with 20-15-10-8-6-4-2 and trying to do this continuously..

Today:

Db clean and press: 20kgx8, 24kgx8, 28kgx6, 32kgx4. Did last set with push press.

Standing Military Press: 3x8x50kg

Dips 6 rps/ Pullups 5 rps/ Cable crunch 10 rps.. Did 10 sets of this continuously

Threw in some curls and pushdowns.

3 sets of face pulls for 12-15 reps.

Laine Snook attack the Millenium & Inch!

Laine Snook has lifted the Millenium Dumbell and the Inch Dumbell Replica at the same time! It was last year (or is that already 2 years ago?) that I witnessed Laine lifting just the Millenium Dumbell. That already was quite a feat, and look it him going strong here!

Keep it up Laine, I am sure you wonn't rest until you lift 2 MDB's at the same time.. Now all you gotta do is find two in England..

Congrats,

Theo

PP/SQ/DL

Finally did deadlifts again. Normally i'd do them once a week, but things didn't work out as they were supposed to work out.. Anyhoo..

Warm up

Push press from the rack: 8x40kg, 6x60kg, 4x70kg, 2x80kg, 1x90kg.. not too bad

Squat: 10x80kg, 8x100kg, 6x110kg, 4x120kg, 2x130kg

Deadlift: 1x100kg, 1x130kg, 1x160kg, then the work sets with

1x180kg, 1x185kg, 1x190kg, 1x180kg, 1x185kg, 1x190kg

Lil' circuit all done with 5 sets of 10 reps without rest:

Upright row: 30kg

Dips: BW ofcourse

Cable crunch: non significant

The pushpresses were allright. I didn't want to go for a powerjerk, because I wanna focus on the push press. Now that I think of it, getting used to some heavier weight than I am able to PP, isn't such a bad idea at all. The squat, previously I did the same weights with a 5/4/3/2/1 set up. I now doubled the reps, and next week I will increase with 5kg, and then again 5kg, ending up with my with the weights I did for the last 'heavý' session of squats (single with 140kg pyramiding in 10kg raises also). After that, it's onwards to 150kg for a single, and so on.. Reason is to keep it a little bit more interesting. I know I am capable of more, but this way I can slowly up the weight at a nice pace. I am getting older ya know..

The deadlifts were all good. 2 min rest inbetween. So one might say heavy singles. The 1,2,3 I have no idea why I did that, but it felt nice. I did notice that getting angry and listening to some good heavy metal helps out a lot. I never really get angry when I am training, never saw the point in that. But to move some weight that (and it saddens me to say this) is currently near max, needs some evil.

The circuit was to up the conditioning a little bit. No rest inbetween exercises/ sets. Just keep walking and going until completion of 5 sets. I wanna experiment a little more with this. It's time efficient, and gives a nice pump as well. The upright's were way too light, dips ok, and the crunch was just a simple addition.

-Theo

Too little time to hit it..

Too little time, but did:

Clean and push press: 6 sets of 2 with 75kg

Milit. press: 3 sets of 8 with 50kg

Chins and dips/ flys and ab curls

Wanted to do a 8/7/6/5/4 scheme, doing these reps, and for abs keep it every set at 10.. Only did one ladder of this coz in a hurry..

Kettlebell

Not have a lot of time on my hands right now.. Tonight finishing my 3rd nightshift. Decided to do some early morning empty stomach kettlebell work..

Sunday, 16k:

Pass around: 10
Swing: 10
Pass around low: 10
Bottom up clean: 5/5
Clean and press and squat: 5/5
Snatch: 10/10

2 rounds

Monday 16k:

Pass around: 20
Swing: 10
Bottom up clean: 15/15
Upright row catch and squat: 5/5
Snatch: 10/10
High pull: 8/8

2 rounds

 

Tuesday 16k

Snatch.. Need to get better form

20/20 1 min rest
15/15 1 min rest
10/10 30 sec rest
Then 8/8 6/6 4/4/ 2/2 continuously

Legs in the kb's and ab crunchies for 3x30
Bent press: 1x6 l/r
Plank: 2x1 min