Now 140.4kg is a lot of weight to lift, unfortunately it is not my new record for benchpress but how much I now weight. I know that all my body measurement are going the right way so this should be an indications that I am putting on muscle and not fat. But unfortunately this is still a lot of wight to move around. My understanding is that my body is starting to use the food I eat to help create muscle instead of storing it as fat, this is a good thing. But I really do not want to get heavy, my goal is not be a 'Super Heavy Weight.' The big guys are incredible athletes but I want to be also more mobile. I know what I need to do, cut down food intake, good to know though that my body is starting to adapt.

Some more good news is that I just took stomach measurement again and it is now down to 128cm. This might be just down to fluid loss, I have just been down in Melbourne and the heat was just stupid. On Wedensday the temp was 44c. It is hard to keep fluids up when you are walking around in that heat.

On Friday we did Elizabeth. My time was 9:11 with assisted Dips. There was a bit of contention about if the cleans were just get the bar up or if it had to be caught in the squat position. If any one had Coach on record stating which it would be that would be great. My understanding is that we are after power output there fore the faster we move what ever helps us do that the better. To me it is simular to the kipping verse strict pullups argument. But I do understand that a clean strictly should be catching the weight with the hip crease below parallel.

I have a couple of risk factors that worries my GP. He wants me to undertake some testing on my sleep pattens, he believes that my sleep apnea my have add to these potential problems. Though I trust my GP i just have a hard time taking advice on such matters, better to ignore the problems until they blow up in my face. I just read an interesting article between the possible link between sleep patterns and diabetes. I have to see my doctor next month so i will follow up this us with him then.

link to article physorg.com

I found the article when reading diablocrossfit.com

Did some more measurements and the news was good. To my surprise my stomach measurement has gone down by 2cm, this is a welcome but unexpected change as I really have not dialed in my diet. Chest and thigh measurement have both increased by 1cm. I will have to find some scales soon to jump on, I through mine out a long time ago.

Waist 129cm -2cm :)
Thigh 76cm +1cm :)
Chest 134cm +1cm :)

I have done a couple of workouts since my last post. Lets start with Friday.

Friday 16th Jan 09
Its been quite hot lately, something you wouldn't expect in the middle of summer. I have a lot of trouble sleeping on hot night and Thursday night would have to be hottest we have had this year. Even with little sleep I made it to the gym but my only contribution to the morning was encouragement to the other crossfitters. Overall I was quite ashamed of myself.

Later that day i was reading through Crossfit Oahus website and watched a video of Jason Khalipa doing Grace in 1:45. This inspired me to hit the gym again and give Grace a hit.



I started with a warmup on the rowing machine. I got an idea from a recent article on Jason Statham's training. My intention was to row for 10min but keep my stroke per minute under 20. Well like most of my bright ideas it was better on paper than actual execution. I stopped at five minutes with 1080m. though it was painful I will keep working on this, I would like to hit 2000m in 10min, its gonna take a while.

I then moved on to grace. My final time was 5:37. Not the best time but I did shave 7 seconds off my last time. The rowing was not a good warm up for the exercise as I for one had not recovered before moving on and second, It is a very similar action to cleans. Doug showed up alittle later and gave grace a go, he smashed his old time and broke 5min. These are both great accomplishment being that our first times were over the 10min mark.

This is when everything starts to go down hill. Friday nights my house has become a sanctuary for all my beaten male associates. It gives us a safe harbour were we can all sit around and talk tough with out our girlfriends/wives hearing and also celebrate all the things that make man great. This includes Zombie movies, Computer games, Cop shows and/or anything with Arnold. More often than not it is all washed down with a bottle of Scottland's finest. Our weapons of choice this night was a bottle of McAlisters and season 7 of 'The Shield.'

The trials of Vic Mackey and the boys are not only one of the best dramas on TV but also fulfills all the testosterone driven needs of any man worth his salt.


"Alpha Male Vic Mackey"

After watching Aceveda knock some claret out of one of his associates and finaly show some back bone Doug yells out "Lets do Grace again."

We quickly make our way out to the gym but our bravado quickly starts to diminish. I then suggest that if Doug jumps on the rowing machine and beat my girlfriends 500m time i will re do Grace. i though this would be a safe bet but unfortunately for me Doug smashes his PR and the required time.

Not one to back down from a deal i set up the bar for Grace. My target was to beat 4:30. These types of statements are easy to make with some dutch courage. I then found a song on my ipod that goes for the required time, I decided on 'The Prince' by Metallica.

Now with a hole lot of screaming by Doug and and the boys plus some very understanding neighbours (It was after midnight) I hit the time of 4:12 shaving an incredible 1:32 of the my previous PR. Was it the wisky or the encouragement from my friends? we will never know, but i am very proud of that time.

Sunday 18th Jan 09 3x5
This mornings work out was quite simple. I hit 3x5 @150kg. On my final set and after competing the final rep I had to let the bar fall. I have had trouble with the bar slipping and this time i could not recover it. Afterwards my right arm started to ache and feel as bad as when i had broken it. This put an end to the rest of the workout but after some time and treatment is back to normal. I do not know what caused the pain which was like a bad knock on the funny bone. Hopefully I will be back up and running by Wednesday night.

Last night I skipped the Squats at the start to keep up with my training partner. To still give the legs a bit of a workout I worked in with her and added front squats while warming up to do Deadlifts.

Bench Press: Ok, this is starting to get hard. My workout set was 95kg. Quite a light weight for the people I train with but it is really starting to become a challenge for me. I will try the 100kg next week but i can see soon that I will have to start going up in 2.5kg lots.

Front Squat: As my partner was doing her Deadlift work out I jumped in to do some front squats. I started by cleaning the weight up to the rack position and then punching out a set of five. My sets were

2x5 60kg
1x5 70kg

I tried to lift 80kg for a set but could not manage to rack the bar. Cleaning is a real weakness for me.

Deadlifts: Continuing on from the lessons i learnt from the last DL session I focused on keep the back angle constant longer, more weight on my heels. this really did help but I am not yet to move up to a heavy weight.



The lessons from Rip that I had forgotten actually started to flood back. When Rip was watching my set for the deadlift he would tell me to move my feet closer to the bar and then set. I would want to roll the bar forward to make this easier but I would have Rip yelling at me "Dont touch my bar" Looking at the set up I have worked last night it is exactly what Rip had instructed but I had forgotten somewhere along the way.

Had a migraine on Monday, I have not had one in at least five years. I am guessing that dehydration had something to do with it. Due to the migraine i have not done any exercise since Sundays 3x5 session. So I was surprised to wake up yesterday morning with a pain in my right leg just lower than my calf. It is quite sharp and constant and worse if i rise up onto the ball of the foot but does not appear to hinder the squat motion. I will have a go at squats tonight, if the leg does not feel good during the warm up i might just move in to bench press. I am thinking of increasing my dead lift by 10kg but will look at the warm up sets to see how I am feeling.

Tonights workout

S 150kg
BP 95kg
DL 140kg

On Sunday I focused on building on my previous PR and increasing my squat weight to 142.5kg, I wrote up my workout on the board including warm up sets and everything was ready to go, well that was until Doug showed up. Doug is one of my training partners for my crossfit workouts and a long time gym junkie. Been a regular at the gym since before we started the crossfit program he has always been stronger than I and holds the highest CFT in our gym.

Squat: So i went through my regular workout sets and did my first set of 142.5kg. Doug being the man he is then increased the weight to 145kg. Not to be out done I put 147.5 on the bar and completed a set, at this time I was very pleased with my progress until Doug increased the weight once again to 150kg. Lucky for me Doug only had three reps in him. I got under the bar and gave it my best and completed 5 reps. After looking at the video I am have to work on depth but overall I am very happy with the effort.


Here is the Video of the lift. Overall I am very happy with the bar speed and path so will continue to work on depth before increase weight again.

Press: Doug again went first. He completed a set of 80kg. I gave it my best and managed to push out 2 reps. As on previous workouts it was my right shoulder is still limiting what i can lift. To help compensate for this was cranking my head to the left, Doug being very observant insisted I put the bar down before straining my neck. I dropped back down to 70kg to complete.

Power clean: Not much left in the tank. I played around first with 80kg and then dropped back to 60kg to complete.

Here is a graph of my 3x5 workouts. Not really that much progress to show. You can easily so the areas were I have been injured. I will try to post these graphs to see my progress.

Fran plus rowing, what a great idea. Well it is not exactly Fran but closer enough to make it really hurt. My row times were good but it just kills you when you try to do anything else. I am still have trouble with my shoulder and pushing over head.

Last night is was great weather for lifting. It been a hot day but the afternoon breeze was just perfect. And I hit my goal of squatting 3x5 of 140kg

I set about doing workout B and was feeling strong.

Squat: 140kg
Bench: 90kg
Deadlift: 130kg

Squat: I went through the warmup sets as prescribed. When I got to my work set there was a shortage of plates so instead of adding 15kg to the bar I added 20kg and took the weight to 140kg. 140kg had been a goal for me for a long time as that is my body weight. I did have a bit of trouble with a couple of reps with my weight starting to shift forward but overall I got the sets completed. My bar speed and path was not exactly were I wanted it to be so next work out I will stay with this weight or depending on the day maybe just go up to 2.5kg.

Bench: 90kg is still rather easy but i going to still go up in small increments to look after my shoulder and concentrate on good form.

Deadlift: slowly getting there. 130kg was hard last night. I have lifted more but the squats took it out of me. My work set is starting to get smoother, I think this comes down to me making sure that I lean back a little more than i feel is natural. I find this takes the lift from my back and onto my legs. Hope fully this will slowly catch up to my squat weight.

Fridays workout is going to be a killer. It is basically Fran with some rowing added in. I am not going to take off so strong on the first row which is 1000m and head for a time of 4min and see how i go from there. For the pull ups i might go back to jumping instead of band assistance. see here for more details

This morning we did a clean and jerk ladder. I did the prescribed crossfit warm up which apart from OHS did nothing to warmup my shoulders. After the First lift my right shoulder gave me a lot of grief and i gave up after round three. Last time I did this work out I managed to complete 7 rounds. That might not sound that different but it is actually a difference of 22 lifts. Next time I will stick with the Burgenger warmup.

My right shoulder is quickly becoming a real week spot. It only gives me grief when I pushing over head. If the problem remains I might have to see a physio or my Chinese medicine guy. Both of which are quite expensive.

It shoulder has been good of late and has not giving me much trouble sinse I wrote the Bloody Buck Article in November

...Stay on target.

Well did some 3x5 on Sunday and everything went well. my work sets were as follows

S 130, 130, 130
P 70, 70x3
PC 80, 70, 70, 70, 70
C GB, GB, GB

Squats: These went well. The actual lifting part of the lift was no problem but I am having trouble keeping the bar stabilised on my back and it is starting to want to roll. I am now concentration on getting my hands closer to my shoulders to form a better platform with my hands. It is amazing how this effects the whole mechanics of the lift. It really makes me keep my back more upright and lift harder. I am sure with practice this will not be a problem.

Press: Due to all the interruptions of late I have missed the last two press workouts. I really struggled with 70kg. I will Stay at the weight for my next work out.

Power Cleans: Here I really did bight off more than I could chew. 80 was possible for the first set of three but after that I was toast. i moved back down to 70kg and this was a lot more in my range. Next workout I will just go to 72.5kg so i can work on the second pull.

Chins: I did two sets on Black and then three on Green. they are coming along slowly.

Wednesdays Workout will be

Squat 135
Bench 90
Deadlift 130.
Chins singles

Its 2009 an all the new years resolutions are dead already, well not quite. I didnt make any. Well manybe one, just do something a little better than last time. Just work a little harder, eat a little better. I beilieve that this will work better than trying to make a clean break.

On new years day we did the 300 workout again. Yep, twice in the space of the month, It appears to be Dougs favorite work out, dont ask me why, I don't enjoy it much at all. Give me a Crossfit bench mark workout.

The session went well with the box jumps being the worst component.