Many Dogs, Many Swings

things

2011-05-10T08:48:00.001-05:00

Light ring workout. Pushups, dips, static support holds, pullups.

MM 20kg 12m. Previous best was 8m, last workout a few days ago. Yeah.

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2010-06-02T09:52:00.001-05:00

C&P 20kg 5(1,2,3)
MM 16KG 8M

BLAH

Thursday good, Friday meh.

2010-05-28T07:51:00.000-05:00

Thursday was good. TGU 20kg 10min, Swings 20kg 30:30 12m. Good solid response from my grip, it's getting stronger at a pretty good rate. I is pleased.

Today I listened to my body and didn't push it after trying to warm up. Gonna write it down as a rest day, which I probably deserve after two days of solid gains.

Moving weight

2010-05-26T07:50:00.001-05:00

Today was incredible. I moved more weight than I have in years. More on that in a sec.

MONDAY was terrible. I woke up knowing I wasn't going to have an incredible workload, so I gave in to it. Did some small bodyweight sets and jogged a mile and a half at a comfortable pace.

Tuesday I woke with stomach issues and slept in an hour. This is the fist weekday I haven't gotten out of bed at 5am in months. I just knew it was a rest day. I needed it I suppose, the whole day was bleh.

Today I felt strong. Woke up with energy, started working out ten minutes early.

C&P 16kg 5(1,2,3,4,5)

This is, I believe, my first 100% legit full 16kg ladder workout. I've done it many times before, but the past few weeks I have been going over my C&P with a fine tooth comb, nitpicking and adjusting. I'm sure I could still benefit from a FMS, but this is as good as I am going to do on my own and it felt great. Clean between every rep, too.

Manmakers, 16kg, 12 minutes.

Today was a good day. I think I will run tonight.

A mowed field is a recipe for disaster.

2010-05-23T11:21:00.002-05:00

Anyone who swings kettlebells with me knows (or will know very soon) that when my lower field is mowed it means trouble. Every day the grass is short and dry is a good day for manmakers. Nobody wants that, not even me.

Today was good.

TGU 20kg, seven minutes.

Manmakers, 16kg, twelve minutes. Every rep felt perfect, I jogged at a speed outside of my comfort zone, I got bit by a horsefly around the three minute mark. Huge PR day for me, I feel great.

Now to go push mow for eight hours. Life is good.

Too busy to blog.

2010-05-21T07:45:00.002-05:00

Sorry!

Had a really good workout Monday. Sat around coming up with excuses not to work out for a little over an hour before I jumped up, grabbed a 16kg and started swinging. Did alternating L/R swings for 18 minutes. Felt great.

Took Tuesday and Wednesday off. I've been seriously fearing overtraining between my workouts, push mowing my billion acres and what I am doing nutritionally. Ate some carbs, watched a movie. Good two days.

Thursday was presses again. C&P is feeling really good right now, but I think I'm going to work clean back in between every rep. Feels like I am cheating or something.

C&P 16kg 4(1,2,3,4,5)

Went outside to do manmakers. Got to the sixth set of swings and felt like my back needed to pop. Popped it, but my hands got slippery in the dew, couldn't hang on to the bell. Tried to dry them but got frustrated because my time was all screwed up and called it a day.

Today was annoying. Warmed up with some decline situps which were harder than usual, same with military pushups for sets. REALLY annoyed with my pullups, did two sets of five and it doesn't seem like I am making any progress there, something still feels funny. I need to concentrate on this some day soon, but finding the time...

TGU 20kg x 5m

Swings 20kg 30:30 10m

Felt good to move the 20kg, at least there is that.

Sunday Morning

2010-05-16T09:35:00.002-05:00

Michael was supposed to come work out but slept in a half hour too late and wouldn't have had time before work. That gave me the opportunity to do some slow, grinding presses.

Warmed up with a couple sets of four pullups. I'm still afraid to push this for some reason, I need to re-educate myself to see if I am over-reacting.

Went right into presses. Today I concentrated on not only flaring the lat, but crushing the handle. I don't think using my lat is an issue anymore, I seemed to just do it without thinking about it. So all my efforts went into squeezing the handle like I was trying to turn it into powder. 2(1,2,3,4,5) at 16kg and I was covered in sweat.

I have rediscovered the press and it is beating my ass. I absolutely love to be humbled like this.

Finished up with a couple sots presses for some stupid reason. 1(1,2) double presses with 16s. Felt a little twinge in my lower back on the left side so I left it at that, didn't even wear myself out with swings. Oh well, we'll count this as a half ass off day.

People sleep in on Saturday?

2010-05-15T09:47:00.004-05:00

Don't they know Saturday is for progress?

Light warmup. Some decline situps for sets of 20, couple sots presses with the 16kg.

Swings alternating 16kg/20kg for 12 minutes, 30:30 ratio. Felt good to do so many swings with the 20, it's been a while. My grip strength and endurance has drastically improved since the last time I used it for sets.

It's a long road back to the 28, but I'm doing it right this time.

Kinda funny to feel twice as strong as I did three months ago while weighing 40 pounds less.

Macronutrient Ratios

2010-05-14T19:36:00.002-05:00

So I've decided I'm not going to break down every day's nutrition on this blog primarily because I am lazy and really don't want to. I will elucidate a little for the people who have asked, however.

My goal at the onset was to eat bodyweight x 10 calories a day for twelve weeks. 30g carbs max, slightly more fat than protein. Refeed day (carb day/cheat day) every two weeks. I've done this before a few times, but never as a vegan.

So I've had to adjust a little bit. It's almost impossible for me to get 1,000 calories, much less 1,500, without surpassing 30g of carbohydrates as a vegan. The numbers just don't work. So I made my new target 50g, none of which are from grain/starch/fruit/sugar sources. Most of them come from almonds and broccoli.

This week the daily average looks like this:

Fat: 91.7g (54%)
Carb: 48.9g (13%)
Pro: 112.8g (39%)

Some days I hit low on calorie intake, at BW x 9 or BW x 8, and that's ok too.

Getups

2010-05-14T08:35:00.004-05:00

Oh, Turkish Getup. You're so Turkish Getuppy.

Today started with a light group of pullups, 4x3 with a couple minutes between each set. Still taking it easy in case there is something going on with my elbow, but it felt good. Maybe Monday or Tuesday I will really lay into them and see what I can crank out.

Then TGUs! Set my timer for twenty minutes, put a 16kg bell on either side of me, and went to work. Good, solid reps, pausing at every position to check form and suck my shoulder in. I lost count at 24 reps, but I guess I did about 45. Floor was covered in sweat.

Went outside for manmakers, but I was trashed. Did six minutes before I thought my form was suffering too much to swing.

GSD day 9. Yesterday was hard, I guess because I didn't train. Today will be easy because I had such a good workout. That's what I am telling myself, at least.

Rest days suck

2010-05-13T08:35:00.005-05:00

I hate waking up and not working out. I hate it slightly less than I hate not being able to work out because I injured something from overtraining, so I deal with it every once and a while. Right now I am forcing myself to take every fourth day off. Yuck.

Stepped on the scale this morning out of curiosity. Do your own math.

Wednesdays are better than mondays.

2010-05-12T07:59:00.003-05:00

One week in to my GSD and my goals are starting to form themselves. I'm not trying to push myself quite as hard, maybe one day a week in an attempt to make gains and all other workouts designed around just being good overall workouts. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Today was goblet squats 16kg 25x3 and swings. Swings were 16kg 30:30 for 12 rounds. I did four rounds one handed with each hand and four rounds with both hands. Progression looked like this: BH/RH/LH/RH/LH/BH/RH/LH/RH/LH/BH/BH.

Decided to get in a lot more one arm swings, wondering if that's why my elbow has felt tweaked. Lots of cleans and presses, not a lot of one arm swings/snatches.

Taking every fourth day off for now, that means tomorrow.

GSD blues

2010-05-11T18:55:00.002-05:00

This GSD is beating my ass. 1350 calories a day, only 30g of carbohydrates none of which are fruit/sugar. Add to that not turning down my training meter and you have a delicious recipe for exhaustion.

I HATE feeling exhausted. So much so that tonight when I got home from work and hardly made it up the stairs, I decided I had had enough. I needed energy, I had shit to do, dogs to play with, bars to build (more on that later.)

Yeah, I know, hardly anything at a turtle's pace, but I felt triumphant over my condition.

Tuesdays are better than Mondays

2010-05-11T08:13:00.003-05:00

While shitty training days can make you feel super shitty, amazing training days can make you feel amazing. Today was amazing.

I warmed up with a few sets of four pullups, just trying to feel out my elbow and see what it would do. Nothing tweaked, good.

Few sets of thirty pushups. Still feeling good.

Decided to press the 16kg a couple times, see what that was like. Felt good.

I've been pressing the 20kg and was about ready to move up to ladders with the 24kg, but I decided to stay with the 16kg today and work on my form. Concentrate on engaging my lats with every press and crushing the handle with my grip.

I also decided not to clean between every rep, which I have never done before. Even two years ago when I was ripping off ladders with the 28kg I would still clean between every rep, today I didn't for some reason. Dunno.

Holy shit, have I been cheating myself. Paying attention to my lats, visualizing pushing myself down and away from the kettlebell, it was like a completely new lift. I'd been so obsessed with progression and getting my strength back to where it used to be that I'd stopped paying close attention to my form, which is not like me. Generally I am a surgeon, a nitpicker, and a perfectionist.

C&P 16kg (not cleaning between every rep) 3(1,2,3,4,5) The first rep of the fourth ladder I felt a TINY TINY twinge in my elbow and decided I had made a ton of progress today and I wasn't going to push it.

Then I went outside and did manmakers.

I don't time my manmakers. I jogged 35 second lines several times to get a good average of what my 35 second footprint is, marked it with flags and use those two points to swing. (I have a big field to accomodate this.) I just push myself a tad beyond a "comfortable jog" between swings to make sure its only 30 seconds. So I swing 21 times (thirty and one half seconds for me) jog to the other kettlebell, swing 21 times, repeat. Ten rounds today, goal is 15 before replacing one of the 16kg bells with a 20kg.

Monday mornings suck

2010-05-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

TERRIBLE workout this morning. Planned on twenty minutes of getups but my elbow started to feel funny after four. Decided to just fill it out with a ton of swings but after about five minutes my back started to feel tweaked. Ugh.

This is day five of my GSD and its going well. I feel somewhat insane from lack of carbohydrates and i keep coming in way under my daily calorie allotment, but i guess thats ok since its a GSD and all. Only planning on doing it for eight weeks, if even that long. All depends on if my training starts to suffer.

The Corrections by Jordan Vezina RKCTL

2010-05-08T09:42:00.002-05:00

I recently purchased The Corrections Vol. 1, by RKC Team Leader Jordan Vezina. After waiting over 48 hours from the time I purchased it, the mailman finally delivered. Wrapped in a simple bubble-wrap envelope and smelling slightly of walnuts, my prize awaited viewing.

I was a little disappointed that the spine on the DVD case was plain black. I mean, how am I supposed to know which DVD is The Corrections if it isn't labeled. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIGURE IT OUT, JORDAN? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?

If you've seen his youtube videos you know Jordan is a very knowledgeable instructor with a good sense of humor. That's why, when I had paid for my DVD, I didn't think anything of the paypal email that said every DVD came with a free baby possum. "Whatever, that's just Jordan kidding around, what a goofball."

...

What the frak, Jordan. WHO SENDS A POSSUM WITH A DVD? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

So now not only do I have reel in horror at his ghastly image every time I put the DVD in, but now I have to compete for time with my kettlebells with a possum.

All in all, worth my $30 I suppose.

Saturday morning

2010-05-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

My goal this morning was five minutes of TGUs with the 20kg followed immediately by 15 minutes with the 16kg, but during my warmup reps my elbow started feeling tweaked for some reason so I bailed and ran a 5k-ish instead. Looks like tomorrow will be a rest day, can't afford to screw up my elbow right now.

Friday is Fridayish.

2010-05-07T08:02:00.000-05:00

Easy day. 20kg C&P 5(1,2,3,4,5) and then Manmaker rounds for seven minutes at 16kg.

Didn't take in enough food yesterday, but it was the first day of my modified GSD and the day after a "refeed" so it will be ok. Gotta remember to eat more.

Thursday Morning, ugh.

2010-05-06T08:08:00.001-05:00

Warmed up with pushups, pullups and decline situps. Carried two 16kg kettlebells out to the field for swings and jogging. 30 seconds of swings, jog 30 seconds to the other kettlebell, 30 seconds of swings. I lasted four minutes. Pretty significant difference between passive and active rest, since I can go twenty minutes easy when using passive rest between 30 second swing intervals. 15 minutes if my goal here. This may become my evening workout obsession, hmmm.

Started a GSD today. Not because I need to or I have any specific goals, it's just hard as hell and I like to challenge myself. I'll start updating in the P.M. with my nutrition for the day.