May 16. Naked Warrior Strength Challenge May 18, 2008

Woke up feeling energized so what better way to start the day than The Naked Warrior Strength Challenge. Before the real workout, I did some general warmup as follows:

Z-Health, R-phase

Foamrolling

Snatches

Naked Warrior Strength Challenge™

In the evening I did a quick workout of:

2-hands anyhow

Rough and tough! My strength has started to come back after the farmerwalk. No more headache or dys-focus. These 20 min intenses/exhausting workouts are great to increase the energylevel. You will feel momentary fatigue, but 10 min after you get this boost of energy and focus, that drives you through the day. At the same time it is very motivating to see how much work you can perform. Next time you try the same challenge/workout, see if you can increase the score. This is pretty much based on the idéas behind the Escalating Density Training (EDT) by Charles Staley. More workouts of this kind will follow in the log. Try it out, and let me know how it feels.

/Jacob

May 14. Squats May 16, 2008

Squats, GHR, OAPU

It was time for some weightlifting squatting again. The WL squat is a new part of my exercise routines and I actually kind of like it. In the past it has mostly been the deadlift and pistols I have used to strengthen the lower body, but after integrating the backsquat I feel a greater power in my pistols as well as increased hypertrophy of the glutes and quads – no wonder!

Magnificient Mobility

10 min

Overhead Squat

20 kg x 5 x 2

This exercise just works great for warmup. Here you can see an alternative version with kettlebells

The film was recorded by Mark Reifkind at the danish RKC last month. Mark is a fabulous resource, check out his LOG on http://rifsblog.blogspot.com

WL Squat
50 kg x 5 x 1
80 kg x 4 x 2
100 kg x 5 x 8 (2 min break between sets)
100 kg x 8 x 1 (last 2 forced reps)

Great power from the bottom with the glutes

A1 Glute-ham raises (ass.)

10 x 4

A2 One-arm Pushups – King of Exercises

5/5 x 4

Pullups

bw x 6-10 x 5

Dips – partials

BW x 4 x 3

Shoulder almost OK after the AC-problems earlier.

Playing with the beast + GTG + Farmerwalks May 14, 2008

Last week was pretty intense in different ways. First of all we had another training in the park with the beast. Check it out in this video:

Here is a resume of the entire workout

Farmerwalk/deadlift walk
48 kg, 300 meter

Joint Mobility
10 min

A1 One handed Swings
48 kg, 5/5 B2B x 7

A2 One Arm Pushups
3/3 B2B x 7

Farmerwalk/deadlift walk
48 kg, 300 meter

Stopped doing the swings after the 7th set, because I felt the acceleration went down. I have started to focus a bit more on the swings. In the past I have been more attracted by snatches, probably because I have never had a kettlebell heavy enough to give me a real challenge. Not because it needs to be extremely heavy I just cannot see any point in doing swings with a kettlebell you are able to snatch, unless your goal is cutting bodyfat, increasing your VO2-max or practicing technique. Snatches with the 48 is a bit above my current capacity still, but who knows whats gonna happen 🙂

08.05.2008 Pullups and One-arm Pushups GTG

One-arm Pushups
5/5 x 5

Pullups
BW x 12 x 4 (3 min. breaks between sets)

Practical Wing Chun
1 hour private session

09.05.2008 – Presses and pullups GTG

Military Press
24 kg, 5/5 x 4
5,4,3,2,1 x 5 (right + left)
 

BU-press

24 kg, 4 x 5 (right) Static in bottomposition (left)

Pullups
BW x 10 x 4 (2 min break)

Days in the sun reading, but that no excuse for not working out. In “The Naked Warrior”

Pavel describes the term Grease The Groove (GTG), which practically means to make as many repetitions during a day while feeling fresh and strong. This works great for a lift in which you want to increase your strength. By doing a lot of repetitions while staying away from failure. The above workouts was done by this formula.

11.05.2008 – Farmerwalks

This day I decided to perform a workout out of the ordinary kind. I had to transport my 32 kg Kettlebell over a distance of 5.2 km. In the beginning I had planned to farmerwalk it to the station, and then pick up a bus. When I came to the station I thought it was to weak an action to jump on the bus, so decided to walk the entire trip. It took 2 hours, and when I came home I felt like I had been doing 1000 sets of 2-hands anyhow with 2 x 24 kg. The 2 days after I had fever and my body was acting like it had been run over by a truck. Hmmmm, maybe I should have started out a little lighter, but it was one heck of a workout. 🙂 During the walk I stopped once in a while and did some z-health for my feet, ankles and knees. Worked great…

Here is a interesting article by Gray Cook about kettlebells and something about farmerwalks:

Cooking Up A New Challenge In Functional Movement And Kettlebells!
An Interview with Dr. Mark Cheng, RKC Team Leader
Gray Cook, MSPT, OCS, CSCS, RKC

Hard Style: Gray, in the world of physical therapy and corrective/rehabilitative exercise, you’ve been there, done that, and got the T-shirt. How does Pavel’s system of movement mesh with your Functional Movement Screen (FMS) technologies?

Gray Cook: With training the human body, it’s analogous to how a computer runs. There’s a difference between programming and systems. What we learn in the Russian Kettlebell Challenge is some of the best programming I’ve ever experienced for teaching lifting, for using your body, and for turning strength into a skill. The problem is that if you don’t have an operational system in the back of your head that governs everything, then you’ll do the wrong program on the wrong person at the wrong time. Pavel, because of his training and research and because of some of his own personal injuries, has learned by default not to do what to whom.

What I’ve done with the FMS is show people how to use a numeric scale that guides you through that, like a movement GPS. When you see a guy like Pavel or a guy like Brett Jones doing what they do, you think they’re just giving you a program, but they’re actually showing mastery of a system. If you put three different people in front of them, they’ll train those people three different ways, depending on what pre-existing conditions those folks come to them with. What people tend to forget is that highlevel instructors like Brett and Pavel will tailor the information based on exactly what sort of movement issues they perceived. If you’re not as intuitive as those two and let’s say that you miss the gait or postural imbalances that present even when the client walks towards you to shake your hand, then you’ll blindly go into programming and you’ll teach a Turkish get-up, a swing, and a press. On the other hand, what Brett and Pavel might do is say, “Let me see you touch your toes” or “Let’s see you do the same thing on this side”. I’ll never forget when I went through the RKC and Pavel said “It’s not about the kettlebell. We use the kettlebell as a tool to see how you move.” I thought that was absolutely brilliant. A lot of people didn’t get what he was trying to say, but I knew right away that we were speaking the same language. His medium, his tool is a kettlebell.

The Functional Movement Screen just takes that a step further by giving users a more systematized way of evaluating movement patterns and potential problems, hopefully before they become debilitating ones. HS: So you see a clear-cut crossover or a connection between kettlebells and the FMS? GC: Sure! People like the military and martial artists understood the worth of what Pavel’s been presenting all along, I think. But the average trainer might not get what to do with this alien looking weight. My personal mission last year was to get 5 or 6 NFL teams creatively using kettlebells to correct shoulder problems, and, sure enough, they got our Secrets of the Shoulder DVD. The trainers started investigating and applying some of what we revealed in that DVD and realized that they had been training their players to develop strength in situations where they really needed more stability!

I think that’s one of the great themes in the Hard Style approach to kettlebells. When you do the kettlebell lifts, you’re training stability first. This is part of the reason why I think Stuart McGill migrated to some of the work he sees Pavel doing. He sees that inherent stability that’s built right in to Hard Style. You don’t just blindly get this bodybuilder strength without a lot of the functional control that’s inherent in a lot of the kettlebell lifts.

HS: So what happened with the NFL? I heard that you took one of the most injured teams and turned them around to one of the healthiest teams with the fewest players on the DL.

GC: It was actually the Raiders. Jeff Fish, the strength coach for the Raiders, had attended our FMS workshop, purchased our FMS videos, and already started applying the FMS screening procedures to his athletes. He was amazed to see that the guys who were missing the most time in practice were the guys who had blatant issues on their movement screens. With the information we gave him, he took the Raiders from one of the poorer numbers in the League in terms of down time and injuries to one of the better numbers.

Not only were some of these athletes compensating in their movement patterns, but some of them were altogether unable to do some of the tests. For example, some of them might’ve had a perfectly rock-solid single leg stance on the right side, but as soon as they switched over to the left leg, they started looking like a drunkard taking a field sobriety test.

Jeff took our baseline and applied it to his players. He saw that the guys who have these movement deficiencies seem to be injured more, miss more practices and games, and when they do get injured from a contact injury, they take longer to recover. Contact injuries don’t discriminate. Guys who score highly on the FMS and guys who don’t are all prone to contact injuries in sports like football, but the players who scored higher on the screens were back in action more quickly than those who had low scores.

HS: Can you explain how that’s possible?

GC: Sure. The players who were scoring lower were already compensating for other problems prior to the contact injury. If a player who’s compensating like that suddenly has to limp around a sprained ankle, then BOOM, his S-I joint may go out within a couple of days. On the other hand if you’ve got a fairly respectable movement screen and you sprain your ankle, you’re just dealing with a sprained ankle and not a complication of a prior condition or collection of prior movement dysfunction issues. Some of these players are such good athletes that when you test them with a 40 yard dash, a bench press, or some of the other performance drills that they do, they don’t test out badly. That’s one of the insights we brought to our military consulting. Performance and durability aren’t measured the same way! We’ve all seen folks who perform very, very well with short duration tasks of a very few reps, but if you ask them to do say 40 or 50 snatches and their wrists flop back into extension, watch the failure rates jump.

HS: That sounds like an issue of proper form or proper movement leading to improved functionality and durability, right?

GC: This is why I think Pavel is so adamant about Hard Style. One of the brilliant things I heard about in the RKC is the concept of fatigue management. During some of the longer workouts, I think the instructors want to see if the students default back to the proper technique or if they’re going to be stubborn and try to muscle through with bad form. I think this is why Pavel circulates around during the RKC and tells certain people to go inside and grab a bigger bell. He doesn’t want you to be so strong or athletic that you can muscle through the workshop with bad technique. He wants you to get to the point where you have no choice but to use good technique to successfully move the bell. He wants you to really feel that there are keys to strong movement, such as keeping your body under you, keeping your form at all times, etc. Back to the football, Jeff Fish was noticing that his athletes were still doing well on the standard performance tests, even though some of them had done very poorly on our movement screen. But that’s just a testament to how well gifted athletes can compensate.

The Functional Movement Screen comes in under the compensations and looks at the blueprint of movement that you’re operating on and can explain why there was a propensity for some of them to break down in spite of the seemingly high performance.

HS: That must’ve been quite the revelation for some of the trainers and sports docs!

GC: Yes. Some of them accused us of having a “crystal ball”.

Our reply was that we weren’t looking at their bench press or their speed, but rather looking at their fundamentals of movement to find the proverbial flat tire and misalignment here and there. If you drive a car really hard and fast with a flat tire, then you’re going to have other issues. Similarly, if you push the body really hard with a movement issue, you’re more prone to suffer other injuries and have a harder time bouncing back.

HS: What were some of the problems or injuries that plagued these players?

GC: Well, one of the things that Jeff asked about were shoulder injuries, and I did a simple demonstration with him before he watched our “Secrets of the Shoulder” DVD. I told him to take a decently sized kettlebell and just hold it correctly and press it as many times as they could. You could see some of these big guys with absolutely no experience using kettlebells pressing a 24 kg bell over twenty times!

Now, their shoulder position was off, their traps were all elevated, but even when you allow these guys to recover, press the bell up again, and perfectly align their position, they still can’t walk to the 50 yard line with the bell pressed out overhead. It just ain’t gonna happen! Why? Because they can’t carry that kettlebell in the overhead position and maintain alignment to the 50 yard line, but they can press the hell out of the same bell.

That demonstrates one of the fundamental flaws we have in athletics today – your strength exceeds your stability.

Carrying a kettlebell overhead simply demonstrates postural control and scapular stability. Pressing the same bell, on the other hand, tells me very little about the integrity of your shoulder. When we were showing the Raiders a new move, we weren’t showing them that their shoulders were weak and needed to be trained more. We were showing them that their shoulders were out of balance and need to be conditioned differently! They had to let their shoulders “react” to the load instead of just trying to use their shoulders or arms to simply muscle through it.

Doing drills as simple as a farmer’s walk or an overhead walk with a kettlebell creates what’s known as reflex stabilization. The rotator cuff fires more naturally when you carry things versus when you press things. If your rotator cuff doesn’t fire first, it doesn’t matter what your pecs and deltoids do. That reflex stabilization is needed for things to work impeccably.

That’s why you sometimes see guys who are relatively small, like Pavel’s size, accomplish these unbelievable feats of strength. On the other hand, you see these bulky guys who look like they’re carved out of granite, but they can do nothing because their prime movers are firing before their stabilizers. The stabilizers are what give you the axis point of a joint. The better the axis point, the less work the prime mover has to do. The bottom line comes down to this. If you can’t move well, you shouldn’t be training hard! You don’t want to keep strengthening a bad pattern. You want to reprogram the bad pattern to function like a good pattern and then add strength. Strength training is a means of reinforcing movement patterns. Nobody wants to reinforce bad patterns, but how many people are really taking the time or even know how to check their clients’ movement patterns properly? Trainers and sports docs really should make sure that their athletes’ movement patterns are on point.

That brings me to the issue of athletic injury discrimination in professional sports. Trainers and coaches sometimes tend to shy away from letting previously injured players hit the field, but if the formerly injured player has done the proper rehab training and conditioning that he needs to, he may, in fact, be more balanced, more durable, and in better shape to play than someone who hasn’t been sidelined from an injury but is compensating like crazy!

HS: How has the response been to your findings and your work from other medical professionals?

GC: Some have been stuck in their ways and refused to acknowledge the validity of this stuff until they see a massive study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which is their choice. They’re hung up on asking the question, “What does the research say?” That, to me, is quite ironic because the researcher is really saying, “I have access to volumes of information, but I can’t formulate my own opinion.” A degree shouldn’t be a set of bars that keep you in a neat little box for the rest of your life, but rather a means of freeing your mind and giving you the mental prowess to think outside the box. How do we build on what we know if we never step out of that comfort zone? The folks in rehab and in sports medicine, who are actually working in the trenches, just embrace this information when they hear it. It’s a fundamental flaw that we get specific in our focus before we go back and check the movement foundation of some of the people we work on. The problem is that most medicine looks specifically at the site of pain, rather than looking at patterns of impairment. For example, I would say that after ACL reconstruction, you probably need to regain your single leg stance and your deep squat so that I can’t even tell which knee is the bad knee before you really get into heavy lifting again or return to field or court sports. But I get asked all the time to prove that. How do you reference original work??? Everyone who was making big progress in intervention was using some sort of screen, whether they were aware of it or not. For example, J.C. Santana uses exercise as his screen. He watches you move and that’s how he picks up where the compensations are. He’s been doing what he does forever and there’s plenty of built-in intuition with what he does because of his extensive experience. For me, the FMS is about developing a screen that football coaches, martial arts instructors, yoga teachers, drill sergeants, and folks like that could do. I did NOT want to make a screen so difficult that only health professionals could do it. That would be small-minded. What if only health professionals knew how to do CPR?

The FMS is simple, if any of these seven movements hurt, then refer out to a medical professional for intervention. If the movements are significantly limited or asymmetrical, then you need to correct the movement before you jump into fitness exercise or conditioning. That’s all the FMS is about.

HS: Regardless of the lab geeks, I’ve heard that your technologies have really turned the NFL on its ear, outside of the Raiders.

GC: Oh, yeah. Last year, both of the Super Bowl finalist teams were our clients, and this year, the champs, the Giants, implemented our screens as well. We were so pleased with the feedback we were getting from the Colts, that we started looking into what the Colts’ strength coach, John Torine, had been doing. The first year, he screened his players and saw a high correlation between the lowest FMS scoring players and those who required surgery.

He went to management and told them that he’d found a serious biomarker of the players’ durability. Since 2001, John’s fielded the smallest NFL team in terms of body size, but had the most wins and the least injuries!

HS: In regards to this extremely high level of professional sports, how do you see Hard Style kettlebell training fit in?

GC: You need explosive hips, stable joints, and quick hands. What better thing for sports? Those exact attributes are what kettlebell training develops par excellence! The autonomic responses that kettlebell training gives you are unparalleled. You’re getting movement training with weight instead of weight training with microscopic movement. Kettlebell exercises are movement based, not just lifting based. With Pavel’s RKC system, we’re not just trying to hypertrophy muscles like a bodybuilder, we’re trying to groove movement patterns throughout the body that are both strong and stable.

Here’s a little preview of things to come. Since Hard Style and the FMS work so perfectly together, we’re coming out with some projects that will show how perfectly our screens and kettlebells mesh together. Keep your eyes peeled!

For more information on Dragon Door and Gray Cook’s new Certified Kettlebell- Functional Movement Specialist (CK-FMS) certification workshop visit the CK-FMS workshop page

Dr. Mark Cheng is an RKC Team Leader based in Los Angeles, California. To reach him, please visit http://www.kettlebellslosangeles.com.

All for now.

Jacob

Outdoor training rocks!!!! May 7, 2008

KB training in the morning sun with my girlfriend

Monday morning I went to a park 300 meters from my appartment, carrying my new toy, a 48 kg kettlebell AKA The Beast back and forth. Just to carry it was a workout by itself. Really works the abs, trapz and grip 🙂

I always start up every workout with 10-15 min of a combination of Z-health and Magnificient Mobility and some foamrolling if there is one available. This makes a huge difference in the mobility, especially in the hips. 

The workout was a superset consisting frontsquats and swings. The break lastet the time it took my girlfriend to do the same superset.

• A1) Frontsquats, 48 kg, 5 reps x 5
• A2) 2-hand swings, 48 kg, 20 rep x 5

 
Short and fast, but really drives the energy level up for the entire day. What a difference it makes to speed up the metabolism from the beginning of the day. Yesterday morning I really felt how the swings had worked my lats. Great.

HardCore

In the evening I taught 2 classes of HardCore, a class I have created together with my friend and colleague Christoffer. It contains all the best from mobility-work, movement preparations, kettlebells, sandbags and bodyweight exercises like The Naked Warrior. In the first class I wanted to see if I could make the entire class go rock bottom with the overhead broomstick squat by using principles I have learned by attending Pavels RKC Course. After 25 min, everybody went down, man I was amazed. The combination of relaxing into the stretch, prying and making space just works fantastic. This exercise works the entire body, and is great for correcting bodyposture, allignment and stability in the upper body.

The next class took place 400 meters from the Gym Fitness Dk ABC. Everybody, boys and girls went farmerwalking with the equipment to a park called Frederiksberg Garden and did a great job. These participants have very different skills, ages and the sex is about 50/50. One thing that characterizes the attenders are that they are looking for a fun and different workout made up of scientifically based knowledge, not just a stupid bootcamp, with an instructor standing and shouting. All the instructors have a background in either Exercise Physiolgy from the University, or Physical Therapy which guarantees the quality of the class. Man, I just love to make people better, try out new teaching strategies and feel the energy of people. I had the pleasure to have my good friend Christian on the class. We create outstanding courses for business executives on how to increase the energy level, focus and direction for their lives. We always inspire each other every time we are together, love to hang out with people who finds the best in me.

After the Class my girlie and I went for a express workout in the GYM.

• A1) Pullups, 20 rep no matter what x 4 sets
• A2) TGU, 32 kg, 2/2 B2B x 4 sets

While I did the Getups, she made pullups and vice versa. No breaks at all, 20 minutes of serious business.

Well, that´s it for today. Enjoy the sun.

/Jacob
 

Return of The Guard – RKC – Pavel Tsatsouline May 5, 2008

Woopadeedoo.. Long time without update, but now I am back again. Have just been assisting on the Danish RKC  (Russian Kettlebell Challenge) created by Pavel Tsatsouline, arranged by my friend Kenneth Jay, Sr. RKC.

I had the pleasure to be on Team Mark Reifkind with Doc. Mark Cheng and Maurizzio. What a capacity of knowledge these guys have, thank you for some great days with new inspiration. Also thanks to Pavel, Dragondoor and Kenneth for making this happen. Hope to see you all soon again. The new RKC´s did a great job, and their skill levels increased big time during the 3 days.

Rif told me to update my BLOG, or else he would come to Denmark and kick my A§§, so actually I have no choice:

EVOLUTIONRACE

Lot´s of exciting stuff has happened the past 5 month. In december, my friend Dennis and I competed in this Danish Adventure Race called Evolutionrace. The race contained 9 x 1000 meters sprint in rough terrain, with 7 challenges in between.

Action speaks louder than words, so here we go

SQUAT

In the spring I have been focusing on improving my back squat – high bar position, an exercise I never have practiced a lot. I have been shuffling between different protocols. Primarily 5 x 5 and 10 x 3 but also The 20 rep breathing squats. Wow, a big mouthfull and some DOMS in the days after the Breathers. After 4 sessions I went up to 18 reps with 107,5 kg and some gain in strength and size in both legs and glutes. At the same time this protocol teaches you the Never Give Up mentality. Outstanding. The squat feels right for me, and I feel a transfer to the One Legged Pistol Squats as well. Makes it lot easier to get out of the hole and stay tight in the upper body.

HOW I GOT RID OF AC-SHOULDER PROBLEMS

Unfortunately my shoulders have been out of order for a while, due to to many muscle-ups in the rings. The AC-articulation in both sides have been jammed, so the last 2 months I have been working on joint mobility, Foam Rolling, Z-Health as well as experimenting with different exercises that I was able to perform without pain. Here are the exercises that worked great for me:

• Bent Press (low rep)
• Overhead Squats + overhead shrugs (high rep)
• Turkish Getups (high rep)
• Christian Thib´s shoulder-complex from the T-nation article, with emphasis on traps, serratus and external rotators.

The combination of abduction and external rotation just makes it for me, maybe you should try it out if you have the same problem! 

Kettlebells Comeback & Climbing December 7, 2007

Sunday

 Kettlebells

• Cleans
  • 2 x 32 kg x 3 x 3 sets

Besides that it was time for 1 hour of Salsa, damn talking about motor-challenge. LOL.  😀  

Monday & Thursday

 Climbing The last month some of my regular exercise has been indoor-climbing (2-3 times pr. week). This is just a cool way to use your body. Everything besides the legs just gets one heck of a workout. The grip, forearms, the upper back abs, shoulders… Every muscle in your upper body will be challenged while being in an odd position. Some people compare climbing with chess. Climbing is playing chess with your body. You often end up in a challenging position where it feels like you have no chance of getting further. Then you just move one of your feet an inch, and you are ready to continue :-)Besides being physically challenging, it places big demands on your mental skills for several reasons. First and foremost, the fear of falling down. We climb without safety lines, but there are big pillows to land on – you wont get hurt. The walls are up to 8 meters tall and the degrees of incline can be adjusted with a motor system. Next time I climb (monday) I will do some filming so you can check it out. Another mental skill you need to master, well it will help you while climbing is to plan your route before you start. You can make a good comparison to your life about climbing. If you have a plan before you start climbing, the chances are that you will end the right place (the top) You may not make it in the first, second or third try, but sooner or later you make it, just like any challenge in life. But if you don’t have a plan for your life, you are at a great risk of ending up on the wrong top, if you even reach the top. Yesterday I finally made this tough route we made, with the wall hanging parallel to the floor. Nasty for the grip and lats. Think my crushing strength is down to 50 % MVC this morning. Adapt, adapt, adapt 🙂 Updates with some kettlebell-stuff coming up. Tried the C & J short cycle yesterday, and definitely need some advice, LOL.       

Weightlifting & Rings December 2, 2007

Have been a while ago since I have been doing updates in the BLOG. Thanks Rif for the push 😀 A lot of stuff has been happening, and I will sum up the most important ones. First and foremost, of course I have been training a lot, actually a lot more structured than I usually do.   

Weightlifting

 I have teamed up with a friend who is a lot into weightlifting. His background is national level competition, and he coaches young and upcoming talents. We have made a deal, that I teach him about fighting, and he gives me skills in weightlifting. I have always admired weightlifters due to their explosiveness and strength, and I find it necessary for a Strength & Conditioning Coach to have the awareness and knowledge about this kind of training. My philosophy in training is that I will never make my athletes do things I haven’t tried on myself first. I want to know how it feels when you do the squat, the kettlebell highpull, the ring-dip, interval work, 2-hands-anyhow and the list continues. Besides that I also have the philosophy, that if you want to learn new skills you need to go full immersion. The last 3 weeks I have had 3 sessions of 90 minutes pr. week with one-on-one teaching. This is the way to learn it from the ground up. It has been totally deconstruction of my techniques in the snatch, clean & jerk, back- and frontsquat 😀 A session looks something like this: Warmup 

• My own combo of Z-health and M2
• Overhead squats
• Bottom position press behind the neck

Workout 

• Snatch from the hips 
• Hang Cleans
• Pushpress
• Split-press
• Front squats
• Back squats

In combination with this there are a lot of assistance exercise, for which I don’t know the english term. My progress is quite well thanks to the extensive coaching and the training background I have. Kettlebelltraining, bodyweight exercises (one-arm pushups, pistols), ropes, rings etc. is just a fantastic way to give the kind of physique and flexibility i.e. in the hips you need. I have found out that my legs is the weakest part in my body compared to the rest of it. My torsional strength is as good as it gets, but the quads need some more danish dynamite. Great to find something to work on to take the physical skills to another level.  The loading is quite low all the time, mostly only the weight of the barbell + 10 kg, all technique.The squatting is a bit heavier and ass to the grass all the time. Last squat session was like this

•   70 kg x 8 rep x 2-3
• 100 kg x 5 rep x 2
• 110 kg x 3 rep x 3
• 120 kg x 2 rep x 2
• 125 kg x 1 rep x 1 (PR)

I don’t think it will take long before this goes through the roof. I have never been spending that much time on the squat, rather the deadlift and other pulling motions. Great to open up a new book of skills 🙂   

Rings  Muscle-Up The rings have been irritating me for a long time, because I haven’t been able to do the muscle-up. I can do them in a pullup bar, but the rings have just seamed to resist. Finally a week ago one of my friends made one, and then I just had to do one as well. Yeeeeeiihaaaaaaa, finally I got it. 😀 Now I can do 3 in row, and did 22 within 20 minutes in friday.This is the coolest upper-body exercise ever – Choice of Tarzan. It creates a great deal of stress in the muscles around the elbow-joints, so you need to be aware not to overdo it. After performing the muscle-up I have been wondering why I haven’t been able to do it before. I think that I have had the strength the last 3 years to do it, the thing I have done wrong was that I tried to dip it before I rolled the shoulders into it. That made the entire difference.   More updates will follow containing Track Running & Climbing (bouldering) 😀

One-arm pullups + Zerchers November 3, 2007

Thursday, November 1

5 x 60 kg
3 x 90 kg
3 x 90 kg
3 x 90 kg
3 x 90 kg
3 x 90 kg

Alt.

2/2 B2B x 5 sets

Total time = 10 minutes

Short, sweet and straight to the point 🙂