Monday, 7/28/08

3 Position Snatch, x 3: 65/65/75/80/88/90
Hang Power Clean, x 3: 90/115/139/149/155 + press/160 f/160 + press.

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Tuesday 7/29/08

Kettlebells Swings Pyramid, 24 kg. 5×15 32 kg. 5×10 103 lb.* 5×5 *is a T-Bar or homemade “Hungarian Core Blaster” 103 lb. 5×5 32 kg. 5×10 24 kg. 5×15 About a minute rest between most sets.

For the finisher,

Farmers Walk, 2 x 190 lb x 225 & 250′ respectively.

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Wednesday, 7/30/08

Rest Day

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Thursday, 7/31/08

Hang Snatch 65×3/75×3/90/90/100/110

HITT Run, 20 min 5 minute walk followed by running intervals 1 minute run, 1 minute rest, 1:1 for 15 minutes.

Overhead Squats 45×5/90×3/95×3/105×3/115×3/135×3

Kettlebell Swings, 32 kg. 2H: 10/10/10 H2H: 10/10/10/10/10/10/10 —————————————————————–

Friday, 8/1/01

HIIT Workout in Back Bay. I walked for 5 minutes with a 40# weighted vest and then did 8 hill repeats, 1 minute on, 2 minutes rest. Good solid anaerobic effort.

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Saturday, 8/2/08

Muscle Snatch + Overhead Squat + Snatch Balance x 3: 45/65/75/80/88

HIIT on treadmill: 5 minute walk, 1 min on/1 min off for 15 min, increasing speed by .5 mph from 7 to 10 mph.

Hang Squat Clean, x 3 95/115/125/135/145.

Press + Push Press + Push Jerk, 1 each: 95/115/135/145/155/160 My jerks still suck.

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Sunday, 8/3/08

Rest Day

Val and I went to UCLA for a one hour training at the tail end of the big RKC cert being held there. Learned a little, did not get much in the way of a workout, but had a great time, nonetheless.

That’s Val and I with Dan John, who along with Brett Jones and Harvey, coached our group. Here are pictures of the last RKC workout.

Our pal, Steve Belanger, was there training and saw actor, John Saxon who became famous in his role with Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon”. At age 75, I am told he is still quite good with the kettlebell.

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In the previous post, I wrote about my strongman workout session which included doing a couple of heavy farmers walks. What is a farmers walk and why should I do them you might ask. Simply put, it is standing between two heavy objects, lifting them and walking forward until your grip gives out or your arm falls out of it’s socket, presumably still attached to the heavy thing you were trying to carry. OK, so the arm isn’t going to fall off, but at some point, the grip will give out and you will drop whatever it is you were carrying.

So, the first benefit to doing FW’s is grip strength. Doing heavy FW’s has a practical function in our urban lifestyle. And we are all about function here at MFBB! We already know farmers have to carry heavy stuff. It’s their job! But what about us city folk?

Let’s say you and the little lady are going on vacation. Your suitcase has a few pairs of the basics, boxers, shirts, socks, shoes and that’s about it. I promise you, she doesn’t pack like that. She just emptied out half of her closet into one, but probably two suitcases and guess what? You get to carry them! What you haven’t anticipated is that your gate at the airport will be clear across the terminal. Do you get my drift? Do you see a practical side to doing these Farmer Walks? While you’re at it, besides carrying the two suitcases, she will undoubtedly put another bag over your shoulder because one of your job titles is Pack Mule.

To train for this extra load, I suggest you do your farmers walks with a sandbag over your shoulder in addition to the loads in your hands.

If you don’t have to carry her bags, should you still train with FWs? You bet. Besides vastly improving your grip strength which will certainly help you with heavy deadlifting, here are some other benefits:

• Core strengthener. Everyone wants core strength and this will help you get that. Strong back and strong abdominals. I always feel it in my traps, which is good because the traps are heavily involved during deadlifting.
• Improved coordination. It isn’t easy to maintain coordination when every muscle in your body is screaming. This is a compound movement so various muscles groups work together to get the job done.
• Posterior chain strength. Your glutes and hammies will benefit greatly.
• Increased work capacity. Farmer Walks are HARD work. You will build muscle!
• Mental toughness. What will give out first, your grip or your will? (Hint: say “grip”).

The tools can be just a couple of dumbbells that equal your bodyweight. The only problem with dumbbells is that they will bang up against your hand and wrist so a good idea is to get a small section of pipe, 1-2″ diameter and connect it to the dumbbells with nylon webbing. You now have dumbbells with handles. Kettlebells are a natural with built-in handles. To go really hardcore, you can FW with a pair of farmers walk implements like these:

They look like short barbells with handles. In the picture above, the implements have two handle thicknesses. The thicker is harder to hold on to, as you might imagine.

There are many ways to Farmer Walk. You can go for distance or for time. You can go until you drop them, rest and repeat. You can add a hill or some turns. As always, mix it up for variety and variations in conditioning. Whatever you do, always stay tight, breathe, chest up, more your feet quickly and look straight ahead.

Finally, Farmers Walks are great finishers to your workout. They don’t take much time and you should do them after you have done everything else and when you do, you have just dramatically improved the quality of the entire training session.

With summer in full swing, I haven’t been blogging much but my training hasn’t missed a step even if I have. This week, our favorite smack-talking Freak Factory strongmen, Scott and Pete invited us to one of their Saturday sessions over at Scott Brengel’s Costa Mesa home gym. Now it may have been a simple matter of those two just being sick and tired of slapping each other down and needing some “fresh meat” by bringing in newbies like me, Mike Covert and their friend “Rhino” along with another strongman, Sean. Maybe Scott decided to have an “Open House”. Either way, it was great to get the invite and we had a great time training with the freaks.

Initially, we lifted the two strongman logs and did 8 sets of 3, up to 161 lbs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, 7/14/08

Burgener Warm-ups x 3

Barbell Snatch:
65×3/75×3/88×3/88×3/95×3/115pc/120pc/120/120f/120

Kettlebell Swing + Burpee Ladder, 24 kg

10 kettlebell swings + 1 Burpee
10 kettlebell swings + 2 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 3 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 4 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 5 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 6 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 7 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 8 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 9 Burpees
10 kettlebell swings + 10 Burpees

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Tuesday, 7/15/08

Rest Day

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Wednesday, 7/16/08

Sandbag Training, 75#
10 reps each:

Squat Clean and Press
Walking Lunges
Zercher Step-ups
Over the Shoulder, 5L/5R
Snatches
Step-ups, sandbag on back
Back Squats
Lateral Throws
Power Cleans
Good Mornings

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Thursday, 7/17/08

2 Position Snatch:
65/65/70/75/80/88/95/100/105 <sloppy>/105

2 Position Clean:
100/115/135/145/155

GHD Sit-ups:
2×20

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Friday, 7/18/08

Burgener warm-ups x 3

Barbell Snatch, singles:

65/65/88/88/103/103/103/103. The last 4 were at 85% of 1RM.

Medicine Ball Throws, 30#

• overhead, 20
• chest passes, 25

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Saturday, 7/19/08

Strongman-Style Workout

Already beat from my training of the last few days, I had to be ready for whatever Scott Brengel and his strongman freaks had planned.

Log Cleans and Push Presses, short 50# log
116×3/116×5/126×3/136×3/145×4

Log Cleans and Push Presses, long 75# log
151×3/161×3/161×3/161×3.

Log, 115# 1 set, 9 reps per minute for 1 minute

I liked the log.

44 kg kettlebell swings
2×10

Farmer’s Walk, 410#, 100′ uphill. This one surprised me. My grip strength was up to the task.

Medley

• Farmer’s Walk, 410#, 100′ uphill. This was a do-over since I wasn’t on the clock.
• tire flip, 3xm with help. This beast weight 800-900#
• tire sled drag. After getting through the first two, this truly was a “drag”!
  
• time was 2:07 (seemed like 20 minutes)

Some of the best workout sessions are the ones that take the least amount of time to get through and tonight was a nice example of that. There wasn’t a lot of time tonight and I did not want to hit it too hard since I will be back in the “Box” tomorrow.

So, I didn’t go too hard nor took a lot of time, but what I did, I made count.

No warm-up, but went right into it:

3 rounds, 30-20-10 reps,

Overhead Squats, 65# and Ring Push-ups.

For finishers, I did,

Farmer’s Walk, 200# (2 x 100# dumbbells) 36′/52′/52′.

Zercher Slosh Pipe Carries, 2 x 100 yards.

In and out quickly yet got in a metcon workout and some heavy finishers. Nice!