Friday, April 25, 2014

4/25/14 Friday April 25, 2014 (training with Kevin)

Checked my training log and I last trained with Kevin on March 21- over a month ago.

Flew back to Seattle from Spokane, didn't get much sleep at all last night (4 hrs), got warmed up with primal move and OS resets, hangs from the pullup bar at the kettlebellity studio and actually felt ok.

2:35pm - Training session with Kevin.  We worked a lot on TGUs today and movements to prep TGUs, and particularly to focus on some of the issues I have had with connecting the hips to the shoulders in the roll to press, particularly with the bell in the L hand.  We did some bridges with yoga blocks, both legs and then dropped the blocks and did single legs, really focusing on getting extension in the hip.   These were good, this will help me.  We then worked some TGUs with the 16kg where I laid on my back and extended the opposite leg up and down, and then also did some opposite side hip circles and shoulder circles with the bell hand in a coordinated fashion to try and connect the opposite hip to the bell shoulder.  I thought these were really good and should help me with leakage issues.  Sprinkled in here as well were a variety of TGUs with the 16kg, roll to elbow for reps, primarily.  After working these we then bought in the 28kg, 32kg, and also the 36kg to test technique and see if form improved.  The reps with the 32kg were very solid.  The 36kg with the L was still a challenge though there were small improvements.  The 36kg with the R was extremely solid, zero issues.  All in all, I have a lot of ideas now, some good things to program into my mobility work, and I really think improvements here could lend a significant benefit not only to heavy TGUs but various other KB work too.  It was clear to me with the tightness in my R hamstring, the fatigue I was experiencing in the R quad, glutes, calf, etc. with these relatively easy movements that this imbalance with the R side is something I simply must work in a more focused way to eradicate.  I think it is really holding me back from what I hope to create which are some serious gains in the next several months in all of the lifts I am working on.  I have to say I felt great after doing all of this work, neck was loose, overhead position felt very good, hips were stretched out.  These are important technique points for me to work on.

After doing this work we did a variety of 2H SW with the 32kg, then some 1H SW with the 28kg.  Swings felt good, the 1H felt better than the 2H but that is due to not really training 2H SW much at all lately.  And it was weird, it actually felt a little hard to get my two hands into the 32kg.  My hands have actually gotten bigger from KB lifting, it is insane but it is true.  Then for the first time ever I got to practice snatching the 28kg.  We did it in a ladder scheme with 1H SW, going 1H SW 3x, SN 1x, SW 2x, SN 2x, SW 1x, SN 3x.  I liked it a lot.  This was power focused, go very slow, hold the lockout, really focus on the hand flip to the descent and load between the legs, just use this as a strength building movement and not so much a ballistic for conditioning.  Snatching that bitch and holding it up strong in lockout just felt amazing.  With the path I have been on and continued strength focus, I can honestly say I think I could snatch the 32kg for some reps, I probably could have even done it today in this ladder scheme using a 1H SW to get momentum built to make the SN easier.  In any event, that was badass.


3:50pm -  Good stuff.  Really good things and I appreciate that Kevin is reading my training notes, asking questions, and really he came prepared with some ideas today on the TGU that were quite beneficial to me.  We talked a bit about the next cycle and we are going for strength work, I am looking forward to it quite a bit.

4/24/14 Thursday April 24, 2014 (OS, PM, KB warm up)

7:25am - Original Strength and Primal Move - 30 minutes

7:55am - Kettlebell warm up

1/2K halos - 8kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
16kg Roll to press (TGU start) - shoulder cam shafts, each arm
Arm bar 12 kg, 1+1
Crooked arm bar with press, 12kg, 3+3

24kg TK PR, 3/3

8:15am - Complete

Notes -  Didn't have it today.  Overhead position was tight, I tested it with the 24kg on some TK PR and was just shaking my head at how heavy that bell felt today.  I did S&S with a 28kg 3 days in a row, traveled back and forth to the Oregon coast Monday/Wed, had a bunch to catch up on last night and didn't get to sleep until after 1am, didn't sleep that well.  Rather than be a dumbass and push ahead today, I parked everything after the mobility warm up.  Live to train another day.  It's been a good week, I see Kevin tomorrow to fine tune a bunch of things, no need to push harder.  Sometimes you just do not have it, it's not a matter of being lazy, you just have to listen and stick with mobility stuff rather than try and add load.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

4/23/14 Wednesday April 23, 2014 (S&S - 28kg 1H SW, TGUs)

8:30am - Original Strength and Primal Move - 35 minutes

9:05am - Kettlebell warm up

1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
16kg Roll to press (TGU start) - shoulder cam shafts, each arm
Arm bar 12 kg, 1+1
Crooked arm bar 12kg, 3+3 with press

9:20am - Training session - Focus on S&S - 28kg 1H SW, TGUs

28kg 1H SW, 10/10 on the minute for 5 minutes

100 SW

28kg TGU, 1/1 x 5 goal of under 10 minutes, took 9 mins and 45 secs (15 seconds longer than yesterday)

9:40am - Complete

Notes -  Well pretty much the identical training session again.  TGUs took an extra 15 seconds, not sure why, it was a little more difficult than the day before though I slept much better last night.  Technique felt really dialed in though, strong reps.  I am pleased, the work this week I think has been very beneficial particularly just actually doing reps with the TGUs and seeing what that feels like, gives a little more time to really focus on each part of the movement as well starting with gripping the bell on your side on the ground and the way up and then down again to the back.  Good stuff.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

4/22/14 Tuesday April 22, 2014 (S&S - 28kg 1H SW, TGUs)

8:30am - Original Strength and Primal Move - 35 minutes

9:05am - Kettlebell warm up

1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
16kg Roll to press (TGU start) - shoulder cam shafts, each arm
Arm bar 12 kg, 1+1
Crooked arm bar 12kg, 3+3 with press

9:20am - Training session - Focus on S&S - 28kg 1H SW, TGUs

28kg 1H SW, 10/10 on the minute for 5 minutes

100 SW

28kg TGU, 1/1 x 5 goal of under 10 minutes, took 9 mins and 30 secs (1 min improvement from yesterday)

9:40am - Complete

Notes -  Did this at Cannon Beach on vacation while my kids were watching a movie:)  Good stuff, very good stuff.  I am seeing now some benefits of why S&S has been designed to get the swings done first, and then finish with TGUs for time.  The swings again were no problem with the 28kg, not even breathing too deeply at the end of the last set.  However for the TGUs I got serious, tweaked the switch between hands (instead of moving the bell to my other side as I usually do, I flipped my body around and it saved time - I got these done in under 10 mins and that was cool).  I was sweating at the end of the TGUs.  You do 10 reps with a heavy enough bell, that is a lot of time under tension.  I am looking forward to banging this S&S work out with a 32kg for the first time.  I have done 100 swings with the 32kg a number of times in 5 minutes, that is no issue.  However I have not done that many reps with the 32kg on TGUs, not even close.  With the 28kg work this week and dialing in some improvements in the technique, I can see doing this with the 32kg very, very soon if we elect to work that into the programming.

Monday, April 21, 2014

4/21/14 Monday April 21, 2014 (S&S - 28kg 1H SW, TGUs)

6:30am - Original Strength and Primal Move - 60 minutes (lots of extra time on the foam roller, lacrosse ball trying to stretch out lats, triceps)

7:30am - 15 min break (kids woke up)

7:45am - Kettlebell warm up

1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
16kg Roll to press (TGU start) - shoulder cam shafts, each arm
Arm bar 12 kg, 1+1
Crooked arm bar 12kg, 3+3 with press

8:00am - Training session - Focus on S&S - 28kg 1H SW, TGUs

28kg 1H SW, 10/10 on the minute for 5 minutes

100 SW

28kg TGU, 1/1 x 5 goal of under 10 minutes, took 10 mins and 30 secs

8:20am - Complete

Notes -  Good day here.  Doing the Simple and Sinister routine this week every day until training with Kevin on Friday, using a 28kg bell.  The swings were really pretty easy which was great.  Really trying to dial technique and watching the R wrist very closely, continuing to really focus on being very solid on that side and particularly on the height of the swing, keeping a tight grip on that bell and not letting it run out on me at all.  Very good results today, have to keep this going.  For TGUs, very pleased as well to get 5 good reps on the L side with the 28kg.  Perhaps I am starting to get through some of the issues I have had lately on this side.  Still don't like my off leg (leg opposite the bell side) coming up and not staying planted on the roll to elbow as much as I want, but it was better than it has been.  R side continues to be easy with no real technical issues.  If I can get S&S in every day this week, I will certainly get some reps under the belt with the 28kg so more time to work on this technique.  Felt refreshed afterwards, back really felt great, might have been the extra TGU reps.  Interesting.  

Sunday, April 20, 2014

4/19/14 Saturday April 19, 2014 (interval running / pull-ups / push-ups)

Got going Saturday afternoon.  Weather was ok, pretty good running weather although it was cold and a little windy.  I took last week off of running and have been watching a very tight R hamstring and ankle, which has alleviated a bit the last few days.  Didn't feel like I had a bunch of sprints in me, particularly as after I did that two weeks ago, I had lingering tightness in the legs for quite some time.  Went back to a tried and true interval, 3 minutes of running intervals with a goal of 30 minutes of total running. Looked like this:

3 min run, SL DLs 5/5, 3 min run, 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups
x 5

Total of 30 minutes running, 25/25 SL DLs, 25 pull-ups, 50 push-ups

Over time I like the sweet spot of hitting about 25 pull-ups in these sessions, and I like sets of 5.  5 pull-ups is the SFG test, and given the vast other KB techniques I am working on, I don't see a need to push pull-up numbers up an more than this.  On the other hand I don't get much horizontal pushing in my routines and so I may start trying to move the push-up numbers a bit and see what happens as a result.  So I worked in 5 sets of 10 this week for 50 total push-ups.  Very slow, controlled, tight glutes, lats, etc and really trying to use the lats to control the movement.  Good stuff.  Pullups got hard on the last couple of reps on the last couple of sets.  This typically has happened when I do this training the day following snatching, which was the case here.  So I didn't think too much about it, just tried to go slow and keep the movement quality high.  I did get pretty close to failure, probably only had 1-2 reps in the bank max at the end, but that was fine.  I am going into an odd training week of just doing the Pavel S&S routine of 1H SW and getups for time, while taking some time off at the Oregon Coast with my kids.  Should be good and then Kevin and I meet on Friday the 25th to devise the next cycle of training which I anticipate is going to be heavy strength work.


Friday, April 18, 2014

4/18/14 Friday April 18, 2014 (24kg PPR ladders, 24 kg SN ladders)

7:15am - Original Strength and Primal Move - 45 minutes (some extra lacrosse ball work on glutes, traps)

8:00am - Kettlebell warm up

1/2K halos - 8kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
1/2K halos - 12kg, 4X each side / each leg (total 16X)
16kg Roll to press (TGU start) - shoulder cam shafts, each arm
Arm bar 12 kg, 1+1
Crooked arm bar 12kg, 3+3 with press

8:15am - Training session - Focus on 24 kg Push Press (PPR) ladders, 24kg SN 3/6/9 ladders

24kg TGU , 2/2
24kg SL DL, 5/5

3x of the following ladders:

PPR 24kg, 3/3, 2/2, 1/1

18 reps per arm on the PPR

24kg SN ladders, 3/3, 6/6, 9/9 x 2 sets = 72 reps.

8:45am - Complete

Notes -  Not too much to say here, deload week, I dropped the 28kg and 32kg push presses, stayed with 24kg, and dropped sets from 5 to 3.  On snatching I dropped 4 sets to 2 sets.  It was an "easy" session to say the least, bell was flying up on presses and up on the snatches very, very easily.  Talked with Kevin and we are going to have another "deload" week next week due to some timing issues, some vacation for me, etc.  Going to do Simple and Sinister, getups and 1H swings, for a week.  Should be good. Looking forward to getting back to some heavy stuff after that and ideally I will be primed and ready to go.