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.