Readers to this blog may know by now that MarkFu is an avid Green Bay Packer fan and I am just as astonished as the rest of Packer Nation at the Green and Gold’s 10-1 start. The NFC Clash of the Titans for supremacy in the conference was held in Dallas, Texas where the Cowboys were host to the Pack. I, along with countless other fans were on high anticipation and anxiety alert for this game and that grew the moment Packer icon Brett Favre went down with an elbow injury and a separated left shoulder and had to leave the game early. It ended up being a good and exciting game to watch, but in the end, the Cowboys won 37-27.

I had planned on taking the night off from training to enjoy the game, but my nervous energy got the best of me and I started swinging kettlebells in the living room while watching the game. I intended only to do that to dissipate some of that energy, but it turned into a full-blown and productive training session.

I started swinging light kettlebells and before long, went heavy.

Kettlebell Presses: I did sets of 10, each arm and started by doing 16 kg one arm presses, 10 each arm for two total sets. Following that, I changed up to the 24 kg and did 5 sets of 10 each arm. Each set of 10 was preceded by a clean.

Snatches: I needed to get in some reps especially since I was having problems getting a nice landing on my arm at the top of my snatch with my left arm. It seems the problem was in “taming the arc”. Most of my reps improved my technique and prevented me from bruising my forearms.

I stayed light, first doing a set of 10 each arm with the 8 kg. bell.Following that, I did 7 sets of 16 kg snatches, 10 each arm and stopped when my technique began to fade.

I followed the kettlebell work with 2 x 35 push-ups. By the time I was done, there was no longer any anxiety and I could, for the most part, sit back and enjoy the game, regardless of the outcome.

What a difference two different types of workout makes! Yesterday, I did max single deadlifts, including a PR, and my total volume was 2,405 lbs.

Today, I did low weight and high reps and finished with a total volume of 11,120 lbs. Both workouts were different, but both were tough in their own way.

This is the ass kicker I did today:

4 rounds,
10 x 95# Barbell Thrusters
10 x 95# Sumo Deadlift High Pulls
20 x 44# One Hand Kettlebell Swings and Transfer Swings.

Valerie found me after this session, sitting in the grass outside the gym, dazed, with my drenched shirt off and steam rising from my sweaty body and carted me off to Cappy’s Cafe for a deserved dinner.

I had a terrific session coming off a two day rest; perfect for doing a max single lift day. I chose my favorite, the deadlift. My warm-up was all deadlifting at lower weights, including snatch grip standing on an elevated platform.

This was the warm-up: snatch grip: 135×5/135×5/225×3. Standard deadlift: 225×5/225×3.

Now for the singles, with the goal to get the max in the third lift:

265/315/415 pr/405/355/335/315.

I beat my previous PR by 10 lbs! The next lift, at 405# was actually harder since I was already toasted.  All the lifts that followed, except the last one were very tough, but all lifts made it to lock-out. I am very happy with this, my latest PR.

Ice or inline speedkskating requires much more than time on the ice or road. Skaters of all stripes understand the benefits of crosstraining, especially using road bikes to improve their conditioning and skills. Time is spent in the gym by elite skaters doing various types of lunges, plyometrics, squats and power cleans. However, the best known and most useful crosstraining protocol is land training, or dry lands as they are also referred as. Here is a Japanese team going through their drills with their coach.

Alexander Bont has a great article on Dry land exercises in the Feature Articles section at Bont.com.

It has been a while since I laced up the Bonts for a Back Bay skate and I picked a gorgeous day, if not a bit windy. I covered 15+ miles in 1:13. I know I will pay for this as my quadriceps haven’t been worked like this in a long time. In part, I suppose, is the work my legs have been getting doing the heavy lifting in the gym. Mostly though, the sport-specific work for skating has not been there. Maybe I need to get back with the dry lands.

The good news though is that in spite of the difficulty, I enjoyed the skate on a beautiful day and there was no residual pain or tightness in either side of my groin.

The post-turkey workout came from the Crossfit site. Clean and Jerk, 5×3. I added more work to the session, but I started by doing 3 rounds of the Burgener Warm-up to get ready for a very technical and difficult lift.

The first pull is from the floor and then a blast into a full squat clean and a split jerk. I got the squat down and deep on all but two reps and most of the jerks were split jerks. I can understand why it is accepted that on Oly lifts the maximum number per set is three. Technique is critical and the lifts are quite taxing.

Five sets, three reps each:
95/115/125/135/140pr/

After a brief respite from a  robust grouping of C&J’s, I did a 5×5 of overhead presses using 2 mini bands.

The loads were 95/115/125/125/125/. Form and focus were starting to break down so that was it for today.

In honor of Thanksgiving, and anticipation of the feast we have not yet eaten, my workout was the Frozen Turkey Swing.

This was a ladder of three different weights, 16, 20 and 24 kg.

16 kg: 15L/15R20 kg: 15/1524 kg: 15/15

16 kg: 10/1020 kg: 10/1024 kg: 10/10

16 kg: 5/520 kg: 5/524 kg: 5/5

Minimal rest between sets. Total number of swings was 180.

This was short, but a lot of work and went a long way to sharpening my appetite! 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

We got up early this morning, not to put a turkey in the oven but to get Val down to beautiful Dana Point for the annual Dana Point Turkey Trot 5 & 10K runs. On Valerie’s menu was the 10K event, which started at 7:00 AM which would get us home in time to watch the Green Bay Packers play beat the Detroit Lions for the first of three Turkey Day games.

(Go Pack)!

Val said it was a perfect day for a race with the temps in the mid-50’s and no wind. This race gets a great turnout every year and this year was no different with an estimated 10,000 runners and walkers for all the events.

Val’s official time, in her third 10K race was 46:22, which gave her an average pace of 7:28/mile. I asked Val which distance she like racing the best and she had no clear favorite, but did lean toward the 3.1 mile event over the 6.2. Whatever. She prepares and races well regardless of the distance and today was no exception.

Mixing it up a little tonight and keeping busy tossing things into the stew.

This is what was cooking:

Push-ups: 30/30/30
Overhead Squats with 45#: 15/15/15
Assisted Pull-ups with 2 mini bands. (I have neglected my pull-ups for a while now). 12/12/9.
Overhead Squats, 65×5/5×5/95×5/95×5/, alternating with 1.5 pood (53#) Kettlebell Swings, one and two handed, full ROM: 10/25/35/35/.

It turned out to be a full-bodied stew, a hodge podge of great ingredients.

Coming to the gym tonight, I decided to do back squats and as I went to the remaining empty squat rack, I found myself next to Scott Prengle’s Strongman crew who were also doing max singles of the back squat. These guys were working up to 500 lb squats and after they hit that, dropped the weight and did some grueling 5 rep 3 second pause squats. I even saw the stars and little birdies floating around their heads!

My numbers, while nowhere near the crew’s were good for me. I warmed up with 45×10/95×10/135×5/185×10. After that, singles. 225/255 (80% 1RM)/255/265/275/275/275/275 and then 225×5.

That was a good warm-up for hang squat cleans to a push press, 5×5’s.65/85/95/105/110. Now I got a good sweat going and that was it for this episode. Thank you and good night!

While Val was unsuccessful in getting me to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day, I do realize I have been neglecting doing even the minimal running I have grown accustomed to not enjoying, but doing anyway.

I brought out the GPS and mapped a 400 meter down the street and back. What started to be just a warm-up ended up becoming part of today’s workout.

6 x 400 meters @ 75% and or 1:45 or less. Full recovery between intervals. (Hey, I have to ease back into this so I can walk right for the next two days)!

Following that, I did a modified "Michael". Since I was at home and do not have a GHD machine there, I subbed out push-ups  (p-ups). I combined those with AbMat sit-ups (s-ups).

3 rounds for time, (or not),

Run 800 meters
50 P-ups
50 S-ups

Got it done in 27:10. The s-ups were the hardest and I took the most breaks, partly because my abs were a little tender from the previous day’s GHD sit-ups (105) and that I haven’t been doing them everyday like I used to (but will do). The third round alone took 10 minutes! When it was all over, I was toasted.

More on Val’s Turkey Trot Run in Dana Point on Thanksgiving Day.