Friday night Session went well.
Squats: 3x5 130kg
deadLift: 2x150kg
Bench: 1x4 110kg. Tried to Bench 120kg but failed. Doug managed to press it and it was a new PB for him.
Saturday, did not do the run as scheduled.
Sunday: Another good session but reall strugerling with completing not the weight bu the amount of lifts.
Squat: 2x5 140kg.
Haven't had much to blog about. Last session was the first time since my break that I felt that I did a real workout.
Squats: 3x5 130 way harder than i remember. It is amazing how much you loose in such a short period of time.
Press: Just work in here with others, best set 1x5 of 60
Bench Press: Just worked up in sets of 5 until 110kg.
I am half way through the book "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall. I highly recommend it. It is that good that if the weather is good on Saturday I am going to try to run to Karate.
Friday night I had a go at the Crossfit Total. At the start of the session I wasn't. But it is just how things went.
Squats: I started off just do sets of 5 until I said stuff it put 170 on the bar. And to be honest the lift felt quite easy like I had a lot more in me. I have not done much squatting lately so I left it there.
Press: This is when the idea for doing the CFT came from. I was feeling strong in the shoulders and went for singles. 80 was quite easy, I went for the 90 but no luck. I then went back to 82.5 to beet Doug's previous days effort but unfortunately the 90 burnt me out.
Deadlift: this is were It all fell apart, 170kg was not easy but comfortable. I knew I had to pull a 190kg to equal Doug's last total, so I put that on the bar and gave it ago. Unfortunately it only moved an inch before I dropped it. As with the press when I lowed the wait back down I still could not lift. Nothing left in the tank. Next time.
The worry was that I almost blanked out after the 180kg attempt. I wonder if my high blood pressure has anything to do with my inability to DL. It has to be something like that, or there is a mental barrier there. Anthony (who pulled 2.25x his weight) said that I wasn't set up properly. Next time I lift I will have him give me some pointers.
Overall I beet my last total even thought my squat was 17.5kg under my previous max. So I should be happy with the 420kg. But i am not, screw you Chuck Norris and screw you Doug V. :)
Next time I am going to break the 1000lb barrier.
Last night was a good session in the Shed.
Squats Started with some squats. Did 5x100, 3x120, 3x130 and finished there as it has been a couple of weeks and I was starting to fold.
Linda (Mod): Last night we continued with our modified linda program. One of the members wanted to sub thrusters for P. Cleans. This was a good idea for the first couple of rounds but, at 6 we changed it back to power cleans. The weight was was to light but we will fis this next week.
The weights were DL: 110kg, BP: 80kg, TH/PC 50kg.
what was amazing was how my arms failed on a couple reps on the bench. I was still able to punch the weight out but even on the last single, I did not concentrate and it dropped to my chest.
For the last hurrah for the final dead lift I tried to clean the weight and got damn close. This Sunday 110kg over head.
Session last night was good.
Warmup
2x
10 Hang Cleans from open hip position PVC
10 OHS Pressing the bar up from behind the neck PVC
2x
10 Hang Cleans from open hip position 20kg
10 OHS Pressing the bar up from behind the neck with 20kg
Workout
C&J going up in 10kg increments. Best lift 100kg, failed on 110kg
2x5 100kg B Press
10 x 40kg Thrusters
5 x 50kg Thrusters
5 x 60kg Thrusters
So I am happy with the 100kg C&J. I think it was mental than physical and I hope that I will start seeing more progress. It was more of a power clean and Jerk, still having problems getting under the bar.
With both the 50kg and 60kg Thrusters, I reckon that I had easyly ten in me exxcept for my wrists.
Last night instead of the usual 3x5 program a couple of us did a light Linda and as a team. taking it in turns. Weights were
DL: 80
BP: 60
PC: 40
Up to about 5reps it was going well but after that it just became a little silly due to the light weight so we finished with another set of ten.
Next Wednesday we will hit Linda again but put the weights up by 10kg
After my success on Wednesday with the 8x140kg I thought I would have a go at a new PB. I tried with 185kg but just could not commit to the second phase and therefore did not get depth.
I am going to change up my strength days from 1x8 to 5,5,3,3,1,1 for the month of august and see how I go.
I have not done much lately due to illness. Haven't really had the flu just achy joints and muscles. feeling better last night.
In my January post "You can tick that off my list" I wrote about how happy I was that my new work sets for 3x5 was now 140kg. Well last night my 1x8 was 140kg, a new milestone. The thing that I find hardest about between the 8 and 5 reps is the fatigue in the core.
Another good session last night. Small turn out in the shed, hopefully due to the State of Origin.
Squat: Hit a new PB with 8x135kg. Bloody hard work. This Sunday I will up to 140kg. My new goal is to hit 10 x 140kg as Rippetoe demonstrated in his youtube Video. I think just 8x will be hard enough this weekend.
Dead Lift: Here I just worked up to 120kg with sets of 5 then one successful rep at 170kg. Instead of being cautious I added another 10kg and went for the 180kg. No good, should have went for the extra 2.5kg. On Sunday I will just do 160kg x 5 and then have another attempt next Wednesday.
Press: Been a while since i did some pressing. I was also running out of time. just went up in 20kg intervals. Had to utilises push presses to get the 8x 80kg out.
It has been a while since I have posted. Really have not had that much to write about. I am still working on the x8 program. For the squat i am only doing 1x8, that is enough for now. I have set a new PB for deadlift so that makes me happy.
Sunday 6th
Did not get out to the shed with the group due to family commitments. When I did get to the shed Just did some presses and rack pulls.
Press: I did 3x8 at 50kg, these x8 eights really suck.
Rack Pull: Had a tender knee from the three hour karate class the day before. Didn't really feel comfortable putting the joint through the full range of movement for the Squat. I managed to load the bar up to 202.5kg. the bar i was using was a 22.5 bar. Any way, did 5x1. This has to be one of the best abb workouts ever. Come Tuesday my lower stomach was killing me. I am going to do more of these as the weeks go on.
Wednesday
Had another good session with the guys. Two gym records were beaten but unfortunately neither were buy myself. A new guy that we have working out with Brendon set a 500m time of 125kg and pulled 210kg off the floor. Fortunately I did post a new Pd for the Deadlift.
Squat: As stated before I have been just doing 1x8 for the squat. This not that hard to complete and I am ready to increase by 5kg, I just do not have a second set in me.
Deadlift: After watching some impressive DL from pete i decided to give all i had. Pete hit a new Pb of 130kg. My work sets were 8x60, 8x100, 5x120, 1x160 and 1x170kg. And the weird thing is it felts quite easy and I look forward next week at attempting 180kg. My in ability to achieve a good DL is more psychological than any thing else. I can think of any other reason for the discrepantly between my 1RM squat and DL. I think that the Rack pulls really helped me get over both the mental and physical stopping ponts.
Good session last night, 8 rep sets are still knocking me around. I am getting more of a burn but feeling less fatigued. This is maybe why I thought I had a new PB for deads in me. I tried 170kg but unfortunately failed.
Squats: Work set was 2x8 @ 120kg. I am surprised the difference in fatigue/burn feeling.
Bench: 2x8 @ 110kg. Just 10kg off my squat weight. But then I don't have to push my 140kg frame on the bench. Bloody hard work but felt good. With the second set I tried a different foot position. I tried bringing my feet more underneath my body and having only the ball of the foot on the ground. I found that this helped create more back arch and I felt more push from my leg in the lift. The only problem was that reps 6-8 I felt my hamstring on the verge of cramping.
Dead: Just worked up with the group through 60 – 100kg. As stated before I felt I had a lot in me so went straight to do a one rep max. With 170kg I managed to get the bar to the knee sticking point. Honestly I think I just didn't set up properly and lifted to much arse. Had a second attempt but my lower back said no.
But when 5 turn out to be 8 that is a different story. Last night was my first session of doing 3x8 instead of 3x5. What a difference, I even had trouble completing my warm up sets and boy am I sore today.
For my work set I still ended up doing sets of 5 but the weight was a lot less than normal. I look forward to seeing my progress over the next couple of weeks.
I was looking for a fight photo of Randy but how cool is that shot.
On a trip to the states in 2006 I sat in on a presentation be Randy Couture. He detailed his work out program getting him ready for that nights title fight against Tim Silvia. His program consisted of five minute blocks, the same as the rounds in the UFC. He stated that he got so used to it when running on a tread mill he could tell when it was five minutes. This is how my body felt last night, I am so conditioned to sets of 5 that I could feel a markable diffence when i pushed pass five even with my warm up sets. The first 5 reps were easy, 6 was ok but seven and eight were hard.
Olympic Cert.
On the weekend I sat through the Club Weightlifting and Sports power coach licence level 1. It was definitely one of the better coarse I have ever attended. The coarse was run by Lyn Jones, a driving force behind weightlifting for many years. His experience and depth of knowledge help to produce a rich coarse. Now Lyn is not exactly a spring chicken, when he started to quote things that happened in the 50's was the only hint of his age, his athleticism, agility and strength was of some of at least 20 years his junior. He should be the poster boy of what weigh training can do for you.
Lyn's assistant on the coarse Phil, who complete level 1 and 2 weightlifting under Lyn in Belfast of all places worked well to complement Lyns teaching. I was able to spend more time with Phil and some of his drills I will be including into my regular program.
The coarse was held at the ACTAS Strength and Conditioning centre in Lyneham, ACT. The Centre would have to be one of the best set up gyms in the ACT, unfortunately it is not open to the public. There were three power racks and six lifting platforms with quality bars and well set out plate racks. Another high lite of the gym was a tumbling mat that I geuss is more used for sprint training.
I also ment some great people over the weekend including Darren and Nadine from Crossfit Ignite. Nadine is one of the qualifiers traveling to the US represent Australia in the Crossfit Games.
I would recommend this coarse to any one.
Change to Program.
I am going to incorporate some more Oly lifting in with my Wednesday night strength session. I am also going to change my 3x5 to 3x8 for the next three months.
Monday Rest Day
Tuesday Metcon
Wednesday Strength 3x8 Plus some oly lifts and technique work
Thursday Rest Day
Friday WOD
Saturday Oly Lifting
Sunday Strength 3x8
Good session focused on Front Squat, Bench and Power cleans.
Front Squat: Hit a new PB of 90kg, I tried to go heavier but due to the strain on my wrist I tried the I dream of jenny position favoured by body builders. I haven't had much experience with this way of holding the bar, maybe not a good idea to use it when I am trying to beet my previous PB by 20kg. Any way I failed dramatically. Thanks to my spotters helping me out of the whole as I couldn't even drop the bar.
Bench: Played around a little here. work set was ment to be 3x5 110kg. Instead I did 1x5 110kg, 1x5 115kg PB. That really took all I had. I then tried to do max reps at 100kg and only got out 7.
Power Clean: Here i just played around successfully lifted 90kg but had no way in hell of lifting 100kg. Easy to get off the ground but could not engage the second lift.
I did 4 PRs this week. Two of them gym records. But as these things go one has already been beaten.
On Wednesday i shaved 7 sec off my 2000m row time plus increased both my bench and Dead lift work sets. Overall a good session. Yesterday I didn't reach my target but I did manage to improve my grace score by 40sec to 3:05, my first gym record for the week. This morning i did 1rm max on bench and got 130kg, also gym record.
Unfortunately Doug this morning absolutely smashed my grace time with a 2:42. Now I could try to hide behind statements like. 'Well Dougs reach is 20cm less than mine so over the whole work out he moves the bar 6m less than i do.' But I would be a prat then would I. Watching doug work through his grace it is easy to see how far I still need to work on my C&J technique. Doug was a lot more dynamic from the floor and uses a lot more leg in the jerk/ppress. Fortunately I am doing a Olympic lifting certification this coming weekend. Hopefully in time I will be able to get my grace down to 2:30.
Bench: I was rather stiff this morning and just focused on bench. As I state in my previous blog, my work set weight for bench was now the same as my 1rm. So this morning I worked up from 100kg to my new PR of 130kg. I attempted 135kg but the bar came down way to fast and I just had no push at all, Thanks to my spotters or I would still be stuck under the bar.
This morning I hit grace, the idea was to work in sets of 4 or 3 and get it under three minutes. Overall I stuck to the plan but just missed out on my goal. Time 3:05
Sharon also did ver well at 3:15
This mornings session was Fran. And she whipped me good. Getting beaten appears to be the theme for this week. My fran time was +2:30 over last time. The weight wasn't really the problem and I was still using the blue band for the chin ups, i just couldn't get the old legs working.
Hope fully tomorrow I will redeem my self with a sub 3min grace. I have made the session open to help motivate me to get a good result.
I have just updated some of my stats. I noticed that my bench work set is 110kg and my 1rm is also 110kg. This Saturday time permitting I might go for a 1rm on bench press. I have done 120kg for reps but that was years ago and bench press Monday was the focus of my training.
Over the last 18 months I have made quite an advancement in getting stronger, not so much getting thinner, working on that one.
One thing that I wish I had taken up earlier is learning a foreign language. I am sure that 'having my arse handed to me' would sounds so much better in French.
Last night was the row off, and as you can guess from the above statement I was beaten, not just but by 7 sec. Pete has ernt his free steak though, he has done well to shave that much time off his previous PB over the last month. Still 7:37.5 is a good time, that is 8sec off my previous PB. Quite amazing since I haven't done a 2K since I set the 7:45 on the 5th of march.
the rest of the session went well, there was no squatting after the row, just bench and deadlifts.
Bench: I have not been doing a lot of bench lately, this is going to change with and agreement with Pete that Wednesdays shall now be renamed bench press day. I will continue to do strict presses on Sunday as part of my 3x5 program. Last night I did one work set at 110kg. Technique was sound and every rep was to the chest. Felt the arse start to lift on the second last rep, but over all, I was very happy with the set.
Deadlift: Another exercise I have been over looking. Last night my work set was 5x150kg. My first time to complete a full set so I am very happy. I almost didn't attempt the last rep as I really felt i was going to pass out after number 4.
Overall I was very happy with the session. With implementing the 3x5 program i have strayed a little from the crossfit program, but at the core crossfit is still what I am doing. Last nights session is a good testament to the crossfit model. I have made major advance ments on two different exercise that I have not been working. A good indicator that I am both getting stronger and fitter.
Today was a good session, Only did one set of 145kg. Still having a problem with the rolling of the bar.
Next we did some plyometrics with box jumps. The exercise was to just see max height, this was done by adding a plate after every successful jump to the box. I only managed the box plus 3 of the larger blue plates. Doug did a stellar job keeping up with the taller group. The winner of the event was young Winners, took Nick by one plate.
Next came the main event, The Sled. I have been dying to use the new sled for a couple of weeks. I was originally just going to add 25kg but with the machismo we upped that to 100kg. We did a couple of stages, some 50m and 25m sprints. Credit has to be given to young Mick, with the sled weighing 30kg more than him. Even with his strong start it took him determination and towards the end him on his hands and knees to finish. Bloody motivational stuff.
For the final timed event we dropped the sled to 75kg and did a single 50m. I blitz the others but that was kind of expected with my extra weight. It was also good to see old man Geoff show those young whipper snappers whats what.
I have just done some measurements. I am not sure of the results and will get my girl to re do them later in the week. The result that i was the most surprised and there for suspicious of was the thigh measurement. It showed me loosing 4cm off my thigh. I know that i am not squatting as before but this is a little unbelievable.
Other measurements were chest +5cm and waist -1cm.
