Monday, March 03, 2014

31 kg KB Press, arched back pullups, belt squats and crawls



Interesting day. Right hamstring was tight all morning and I'm not sure what it was. Didn't feel a thing all day yesterday but this am is was tight. Not pulled but not normal. The combination of all those crazy swings with the ruck walk yesterday I'm sure overloaded it. Nothing more stretching and some light work won't fix.

We decided to change today to press day and snatch on wednesdays and it makes sense. We do all those heavy swings on saturday and then turn around and try to do the same basic hip hinge for volume again today. Makes more sense to get in some low volume presses and let the hinge rest up for wednesday. We were thinking of adding snatch vo2 back in but regardless if we snatch wednesday will be more rested.

Shoulder is STILL feeling great and that's a miracle too! So going into press today I was confident. I thought about taping a 5 lb plate to the 28 kg if the 28 felt good so make an intermediate jump. It's 68 lbs and the 32 kg is 70 lbs so it SHOULDN'T make any real difference but it seemed to. Go figure.

The form wasn't great but I was very distracted by the plate rumbling around as I cleaned it and tht didn't help at all. next time I'll just use the 32 but it was a fun experiment. It also showed me that I am more confident in my press than I have been in a long time. That groove is holding too, and, while not perfect( the above set was the worst of five sets) it doesn't hurt and I feel I have leverage.
I just don't have enough patience on my left side yet not to spin out so fast :( Soon though, I can feel it coming

one arm swing warmup 16 kg x 5/5 x 3

Press
16 kg x 5/5
         x 3/3
20 kg x 2/2
24 x 2/2
28 kg x 1/1 x 3
31 kg x 1/1 x 5 sets
28 kg x 1/1 x 3 sets

HAVE to stay tighter, and longer, in the rack to zip everything up on these heavier presses. I lose the tightness trying to get more speed into the rep and it costs me. Everytime. BUT the weights felt medium light, which is very good.

band pullups( arched back, bodybuilder style)
3 sets of 4 with purple band

these felt easier and better. only did three sets to assess any issues tomorrow before I load it more.

belt squats ( supported- held onto Glenn to lean back against. really worked good.)
32 kg x 15,10,10, 10
these worked GREAT and I was as deep as ever. quads really took the load. perfect.Still need more ankle mobility to be able to do these without holding onto something.
want to include both goblets and double front squats for form but don't have the space to put them in right now and they both load my arms and shoulders more than my legs so they have to take a back seat, for now.
Knee flexion and leg strength take priority.

crawls
3 sets of  40 feet
taking it easy to see how the shoulders react. good to do them again, they are always hard!


need to stretch and roll out my hammie tonight. Finally a days rest., well that means just stretching and mobs but that's fine :)

datsit.
neverquit

LATS the Super Muscles :)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Rif,

In reference to your Right Hamstring being tight compared to your left... I suggest you look up Postural Restoration Institute. I noticed this same thing in my deadlifts, when I pull myself down to the bar as PTP talks about I always felt my R Hamstring being tighter than my left.
Postural Restoration Institute talks about muscular imbalances and most people typically have tighter (and overactive) R hamstring, adductors, whereas the L hammy and L adductor are typically less active, with more range of motion and weaker as well. They have a couple basic exercises that are used in the warm up to teach you to load into the lift hip to turn on the L hammy and adductors while activating the R quads and glutes. The idea behind some of these exercises is to get the pelvis to neutral so that you can train in neutral. Sorry for the rant but I thought you would find this info interesting. There's also some very good abdominal exercises and diaphragmatic breathing exercises that they have and I use on a daily basis that are really great. The website has a bunch of free articles so check them out it's some legitimate reading.
BTW I thank you for your blog it gave me the inspiration to start my own! let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Eric

Mark Reifkind said...

thanks but it's already cleared up. I just used the right side more as I still have compensations because of my TKR and when I tested with the 36 kg bell I was just trying to survive.
worked the fascia, stretched the muscle and rested. it's all good.
thanks for the comment

195 x 1 x 11 , 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 35, 25

  Not great sleep and a bit sore ( no aspirin for last three days) so all in all it was a strong day . Just definitely not 'fresh'  ...