With the last holiday of summer underway, the temperature now is warmer than it was for July 4th…outside the gym and worse in it. Regardless, it was a good day to squat. I wasn’t sure how my recovering quads would respond, but they were fine since the squat affects mostly the posterior chain anyway. My warm-up consisted of two rounds of the Crossfit warm-up and some empty and light bar squats. Once that was finished, I did,
195×5x5 and followed that with pause squats of 145×5x5 with the pause being 3 seconds in the hole. I cooled down, so to speak, by doing some stretches and kettlebell halos and Turkish get-ups with Val’s 8 kg kettlebell.
Tomorrow, I am going to mix in some rings, weighted vest, kettlebells and some bodyweight exercises before going heavy on Sunday.
With Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, (DOMS), the second day is usually the worst and if walking up and down stairs sideways isn’t a good indicator, I don’t know what is. My thighs feel like they were tenderized with baseball bats. Tuesday, I was at the track (no Dave, not the one with horses and betting windows) and did walking lunges non-stop for 400 meters. Today, I’m at the gym wanting a workout that doesn’t involve my legs bending more than a few degrees. My main friends have been Motrin and fish oil, but if misery loves company, another friend, Brent “Oak” Oakeson, also having done the 400 meter walking lunges, called to find out if I was hurting as much as he was.
As we lamented our hammered legs, George Gutierrez arrives to Met-Rx with fresh sticks, wanting to do a kettlebell/run combo. I was more than happy to get him going and time him. I just wasn’t going to join him.
George did great. He did 3 rounds of 400 meter runs and 30 swings, adding 10 each round from the last time and still knocking off 1:45 from just a few days ago, to finish with 8:07. Afterwards, George was still fresh enough to continue some technique work with the 20 kg bell. I think George is digging kettlebells!
My workout was toned down considerably from George’s. After warming up with several sets of push-ups and sit-ups, I did some halos and clean and presses with the 20 kg kettlebell. My main workout was simple:
3×30 kettlebell swings, 20 kg, 10 both hands, 10 ea hand2×30 kettlebell swings, 20 kg, alternating hands. There was full recovery this time between sets.
Played with the bells some more afterwards, but that was enough for today. I want to load up for a good squat session tomorrow.
Eric Cressey, coach and powerlifter loves the deadlift and I have become fond of it even though I am far from being proficient at them. Cressey was interviewed by Myles Cantor and I have posted an excerpt. The interview in it’s entirety can be found here.
Another blogger that seems to like deadlifts and writes well about them can be found at stronglifts.com
Tuesday is the day Val goes to the track to do speed work and occasionally I will go do a workout in the infield. Sometimes I’ll actually run on the track, just not today!
I started off my workout by doing walking lunges…400 meters, around the track and it took 19:21.
I suspect walking up and down stairs for the next couple of days will be interesting.
After a five minute rest, I did 4 rounds, for time,
25 squats
25 push-ups
25 kettlebell swings, 20 kg
25 sit-ups
Total time for that was 15:52 and the splits were 2:52/3:22/4:37/5:01/. I was spent for this workout. Toasted, roasted, but never coasted.
I just got my Elite rings in today and may try them out tomorrow, but really, tomorrow is going to be a rest day.
July 7, 1978 started as just another day for Dave Kekich. He was working out in the gym… without a care in the world. The next day, he found himself staring at a hospital room ceiling, connected to machines, unable to move anything below his arms.
Read the rest at the Master’s Athlete blog. Dave’s 100 Credos is an excellent guide to living.
Does Creatine Supplementation Increase the Risk of Rhabdomyolysis?
When you want to get strong, creatine for many is the supplement of choice. When you train at high intensities, rhabdomyolysis is a potential threat. Below is an example of an adverse reaction to creatine, posted by Ralph Giarnella MD on Supertraining.
For additional reading on creatine and rhabdo, there are some good links posted at the end of the article.
I bought my first pair of weightlifting shoes, blue suede Do-Wins and they arrived today from Wichita Falls Weightlifting and Glenn Pendlay. The shoes worked great and I was able to power clean 100 lbs more than my previous best. (NOT!) Seriously though, they fit great and I think I will enjoy lifting in them. Even better is the level of attention and dedication to the best customer service possible that Glenn brings. I first heard about Glenn’s commitment to his customers from a friend of mine who purchased two bars from WFW.
i was going to take the day off, but I took the Do-Wins out for a drive…
Here’s a quick clip of World Masters’ Powerlifting Champion Lee Marshall pulling an incredible 365.5 kg. After competing for almost 18 years, he’s convinced that you’re never too old to lift heavy.
Today was a difficult day to get motivated to train. It was made all the more difficult by not going to gym first thing in the morning, but waiting until later in the day. That works fine during the week, but not always so on the weekend. To add to that, I was undecided what I wanted to do, having trained hard and heavy yesterday. I did manage to get a short, but intense session in with the help of a willing and motivated training partner.
