4/28/14 Monday April 28, 2014 (DB 24kg Moving Target Complex)

6:30am - Original Strength and Primal Move - 45 minutes

7:15am - 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

7:30am - Training session - Focus on DB 24 kg Moving Target Complex (CL, PR, SQ)

24kg TGU , 2/2
24kg G Sq, 10
24kg SW, 5, 10, 5, 10

DB 24 kg Moving Target Complex:

1 CL, 2 PR, 1 SQ rest
1 CL, 3 PR, 1 SQ rest
1 CL, 5 PR, 1 SQ rest
1 CL, 1 PR, 2 SQ rest
1 CL, 1 PR, 3 SQ rest
1 CL, 1 PR, 5 SQ rest
2 CL, 1 PR, 1 SQ rest
3 CL, 1 PR, 1 SQ rest
5 CL, 1 PR, 1 SQ rest

Took about 16 minutes.  Total of 16 DB CL / DB PR / DB SQ

8:00am - Complete

Notes -  started the new strength cycle today, really liked this training session a lot.  Focused on technique, very strong reps here for everything, really good sign as these DB 24s are starting to feel distinctly lighter.  Watching my R tricip, elbow and forearm for tightness, did a lot of lacrosse ball work last night and will keep on the soft tissue work in that area.  Overall this is a good start to the cycle.  Need more sleep though, a lot more.

4/27/14 Sunday April 27, 2014 (interval running / push-ups / pull-ups)

Got going Sunday afternoon.  Body felt great, particularly the hips and low back, the work with Kevin on Friday I think really did some good things around loosening up the hips, tieing the shoulders to the hips better.  I have to keep that going and dial that into the regular routine.  On the other hand my R elbow was acting up this morning.  I messed around at the park yesterday with the kids and tried to do a muscle up on some pull up bars a couple of times (almost got one which surprised me).  However, I have been watching the R elbow a bit this week as I noticed in tighten up after last week's interval pull ups and push ups.  I had upped the numbers and perhaps that was a bad idea.  It seemed at bay this week as I was doing S&S, until Thursday morning when I felt pretty crappy, though I don't recall it really being the R elbow, it was more the overhead position and just being super tight int the R armpit and lat (and issue I am continuing to try and work on through bar hangs and mobility drills).  I felt good training with Kevin on Friday, didn't notice an issue Sat.  I think the point is that everything is tied together and some of the tight spots on my R side, with the armpit, lat, hip, trap definitely are connected to the elbow via soft tissue.  I did a bunch of lacrosse ball work before this run today and man, things were tight as well, hitting the tricep, bicep, forearm, etc. - but things really responded well to that lacrosse ball work.  I need in to see my massage therapist and body work guy.  I have not had soft tissue work done in some time and have been training pretty hard until the last week or so, and that also has something to do with this.

In any event this is what I did today:

3 min run, SL DLs 5/5, 3 min run, Fighter Program pull-ups (sets with reps 5/4/3/2/1), 5 push-ups
x 5

Total of 30 minutes running, 25/25 SL DLs, 15 pull-ups, 25 push-ups

Kevin told me to do Pavel's Fight Pull Up Program so that is what I am doing, and I dropped the push-ups way down from last week and concentrated on full body tension and really driving the movement with the lats, assuming if I dialed in this technique it would take pressure of the elbows.  It did.  I focused on initiating the pull-ups with the lats, and getting full extension at the bottom of each rep, very slow, controlled motions. Went very well, didn't notice any issues at all during the training.  Running was extremely strong today, man that is the best I have felt running in some time.  Just glided along, pretty powerful.  Got to focus on the arms and elbows and stay vigilant on some soft tissue work given the strength cycle starting tomorrow.

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.

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.

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.

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.