BEYOND STRONG: Shaf's Corner

Post-Mortem on the Sled Conversions

The kettlebell towel swings coupled with the sled sprints were of short duration, yet a high intensity exertion.  I am sore in spots that normally aren't sore.  My posterior chain is a bit whipped, and the core (abs, obliques, lower back) sore.  Upper back is sore right between the shoulder blades and in other little used spots.

This feels more like the aftermath of a rugby game, without the bruises than the typical aftermath of most workouts (except the Suckfest described in a previous post)

Vblog 18: Sled Conversions

Inspired by Dan John.

Dabbling with Templates

I like to tinker with workouts.  I like to deconstruct them, get a feel for why they might be productive, then put them back together. 

This workout template has been sitting around for about 6 months.  I haven't really given it an honest shot yet, but I have come back to it a few times to mess around.  It's a cumulation of several different trains of thought that coalesced together.   Here's the cleaned up piece I posted recently somewhere else.

The Shaf Stack

I'm looking at some different kinds of ways to arrange my workouts. One of them is a heavy exercise followed by a circuit of assistance exercises. I am interested in the circuit because if I moved through it fairly quickly, there should be a bigger conditioning effect along with allowing more recuperation time for each movement. The old vertical stack or power circuit or whatever the hell you want to call it. I'm sure nothing here is new, except for the fact that it's me who's writing it down this time.

An example:

Main Exercise:

Safety Squat Bar Squat

Assistance Circuit:

1. SSB Good Morning (6-8 rep range)
2. GHRs (as many reps as possible)
3. Suitcase deadlifts (3-5 reps)

I'm thinking about a three week rotation of sets/reps:

Week 1: 5/5/5/3/3/3 (looking for a 5 RM and a 3 RM on the last sets)
Week 2: 3/3/3/1/1/1 (looking for a 3 RM and a 1 RM on the last sets)
Week 3: hitting a max single...looking at PR territory

An alternate for week 3:  The 20/50 density thing by bryce lane.

The assistance circuit rotation would look like this:

Week 1: 2 circuits
Week 2: 3 circuits
Week 3: 4 circuits

OR it would look like this:

Week 1: 4 circuits
Week 2: 2 circuits
Week 3: 3 circuits

I'm leaning towards the latter because it's less linear and I suspect the assistance volume drop might assist with supercompensation for the third week of PR chasing.

I don't know though, it's more undulating than I usually set up. Can anyone poke any obvious holes in it? (except for exercise selection...all three of the assistance movements are fairly brutal on the posterior chain)

I'd set up similar days for pulling and for pressing. On the pulling days, the exercises chosen for assistance would be more focuses on leg drive. On the pressing days, it's probably be a mix of middle back/lats and triceps. I'd probably have one overhead pressing dominant day and one horizontal pressing dominant day.

Weekly Template will probably look like this:

Day 1 (MON). Heavy squat, pulling circuit
Day 2 (TUE): Heavy overhead, mixed bag of upper body assistance
Day 3 (THU): Heavy pulling, leg drive circuit
Day 4 (FRI): Heavy bench, mixed bag of upper body assistance

I'm not looking to include speed work yet because

a. I don't want to.
b. I need some basic, remedial bustin' ass training
c. I'd like to pursue some alternative means of RFD training I've been thinking about.

MON:

SSB squat
-SSB GMs
-GHRs
-suitcase deadlift with farmers bars

TUE:

Seated OHP
-fixed bar tri extensions
-chins
-GHR sit ups

THU:

Deadlift
-front squat
-1 legged split squats
-hanging leg raises

FRI:
Close grip bench
-bradford presses
-bent rows
-full contact twists

Some Training

Some quick notes about two sessions:

On Friday, 11-May-2007

A while back a friend of mine, a Crossfit trainer from Ottawa named Pierre Auge, gave me some workouts to do.  I was sick of thinking them up for myself, and he thought he had some nice ones that would hit my weaknesses pretty hard and improve my conditioning.

This was the fifth one out of seven.

9 runs through the circuit below.  The repetitions for each circuit are listed next to the exercise:

Pullups 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3
BW DLs:  9-5-3-12-7-4-8-3-6
KB swings:  35x9
Knees to Elbows:  10-14-8-19-3-7-12-20
GHD sit ups7-14-28-15-9-5-21-4-6

It went down kind of like this:

Round 1:  OK until the ab work.  Managed both sets of ab work, but it sucked.
Round 2: Ditto. KTE went 7 reps before I hit failure. GHDs I also hit 7 reps. I went back and finished both KTEs and GHDs in two additional sets of 3 and 4 reps each.
Round 3: OK until the KB swings. I put the kb down at 20, then at 31, and then finished. At this point I knew I was fucked. KTEs: got all 8 reps. GHR sit ups. I did 3 sets of 5 and couldn't go on.

-at this point I laid on the floor. I didn't know if I was going to throw up or crap my pants. My abs were trashed, and all I could think about is that GHD sit up article in the XFJ where the guys balls swelled up and incapacitated him.

Round 4: I did everything, then rested. Then I did the KTEs in 5 sets, and did one set of 5 on the GHRsits. I walked around a bit with some dry heaves, then got a drink.

Round 5: Everything was good until the KB swings. I lost my grip and threw the kb about 5 feet on the fifteenth rep or so. I finished it out and did the ab work as prescribed for mercifully low reps.

I bailed at this point. I'd been working for a long time, and I felt like 10# of shit stuffed in a 5# bag. I just laid down for about 15 minutes, breathing, sweating, and occasionally sipping water. I thought for a minute about finishing the workout without the ab work, but couldn't make myself do it.

My abs are still screwed up today.

This was probably one of the toughest workouts I've done in years, basically because it catered to my specific weakness.  Pierre things he's funny.

Todays (14-May-2007) workout was:

Safety Squat Bar Pause squats:

The Sequence:  Squat-Hit bottom then come up slightly-pause for 5 seconds under tension (I can hear my clock tick off the seconds)-ascend.

Worked up to 375x1...my abs didn't like this at all.  One thing I've noticed is that when I miss, it's at this location in the squat.  I have never done these small isometric holds in specific positions before, and wanted to try it.  These hit my hip flexors very hard. 

SSB squats + Assymetric kettlebell swings:  245x12/9, 245x10/11

This was just some conditioning, I wanted to hit 20 reps on the SSB Squats, but I pussed out due to the previous work.  One aspect of losing your work capacity is that you candyass your workouts more often than you should.  With the kb swings, I had a 32kg on one hand and a 24kg in the other.

Jump Rope + 16kg kettlebell presses:  30 seconds then 10 presses each hand.  3 rounds.

I can used to be able to jump rope like a mofo, but video of this was kind of embarassing.  No grace at all, it's obvious to the casual observer that I haven't found the groove of the rope yet, plus it kept hitting the ducts on the ceiling.

I'll probably toss some footage up on YouTube.