5:45am - Primal move - 10 minutes
6:10am - Training with Kevin
7:30am - Finish
Notes - Good training session today. We warmed up with some arm bars. Practiced some segmental rolling, which has been helping to open up my shoulders, focusing on slowing down the movement. Did some tall kneeling halos with the 12kg, focusing on bring the bell low to the mid stomach area, and not shrugging the shoulders. Key for me. We tried some "bat wings" with 12kg bells, which focuses on the lower traps / rhomboids in the back, an area of weakness I have. I think balancing things out and improving strength in that area will really help the shoulders sit down, open up, etc. Priming those muscles also helps a lot for pressing. We then did some bottoms up presses with the 16kg, felt very good. Went back and forth with bat wings, bottom up presses, then hanging from the bar. Did some goblet squats with the 24kg, focusing on the same technique, not shrugging the shoulders but instead really firing the rhomboids. Eventually, went to practice pressing the 24kg and did various sets of 2, 3, and 5 reps on the military press. Was really delighted at how good things felt. We focused on an improved clean on the L side, getting the bell vertical on the clean, and really pressing off the lat shelf. Not letting the bell come too far on top of my arm / into the chest on the clean. We focused heavily on an active negative and really pulling the bell from lockout into the rack for the next press. This was huge for me, a real lightbulb moment, as there was a clean realization that an improved active negative can act as a spring-load for the next press - I have not been doing this as well as I can. I think focusing on this at lighter weights is going to help my press groove and strength with heavier bells. We finished the session by doing 8 minutes of 32kg 2H SW, with the first 4 minutes 10 reps on the minute, and then for the last 4 minutes, 10 reps every 30 seconds. That was tough! Felt great.
