Thursday, October 28, 2010

Conditioning Wednesday

Wednesday and Sunday are my conditioning days. My only requirement is that I elevate my heart rate for an extended period of time. Obviously, Crossfit WODs are my go-to, but I also play on a hockey team so any time my games fall on a Wednesday (which has been the last two weeks) I count them as my conditioning. Unfortunately, the games this season (and many prior seasons) start at 10:00 PM (just imagine the numbers are in caps as well, I was shouting when I wrote that). At my old age of 26 and 5/6 years, when 9:00 pm rolls around I am ready for a beer and the couch. With these games starting an hour after my IPA-Time (its a play on Miller-Time because Miller is crap), its tough. But, if you read my post on VulcanFit.com, there are two different times to listen to your body, my body was feeling good and Training Is Training. To sum it up, yesterday my conditioning was skating for an hour and a half.

Here is what the best player in the world does to the biggest chump in the world on the worlds biggest stage, the Olympics.



Watch it again.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Tapering

I have started my taper for the meet on November 20th. My weight is currently 207# and dropping. I am constantly hungry and my precious belly is gone. I am looking for an excuse to stop cutting weight and just settle for gettting SMOKED in the 220# weight class. Yesterday was going to be a good measure to see if this weight cutting had any effect on my strength.

Backsquat
3x1 @ 365# (PR)

Shoulder Press
1x3 @ 155#
2x3 @ 175#

Deadlift
3x1 @ 475# (PR)

Well, crap. The damn lifts were not a struggle. In fact I could have thrown more weight on! The back squats went down and up with barely any slowing down. The 400# squat I am striving for is looking more and more to be in my grasp! The shoulder presses were fine, nothing special, wasn't entirely focused on these, the excitement in my stomach (and growling) for the deadlift (and food) were what was on my mind. I had pulled 475 once before during CFT when I was "90's Small", 185#. It was terribly ugly, I hitched the whole way, it took me about five minutes, I don't think I locked it fully out and I am pretty sure I shit myself. Today, wow, It felt like 405#. Up with relatively no sweat! All three reps! To try and fix my slightly rounded back I moved my shoulders even more in front of the bar, raising my butt another inch or two. This really felt good and I even got some props on my form from some veterans of powerlifting competitions. Yesterday was a good day.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Beautiful Sunday

This weather is so freaking great. I love it, nice breeze, green grass, sun shining, birds chirping.... want to recite me a poem, easy. Another thing I love to do in this weather is ride my bike! Since I have no where to go except, well, the gym (meathead), I have been riding my bike about 9 miles round trip to the gym on Sundays, conditioning day. The gym is especially awesome on Sundays because it is recently cleaned and there are very few patrons, meaning, I get all the damn space I need to swing from the pullup bar and throw barbells around. When the weather is as wonderful as it has been the last couple weeks, they have the doors open and it puts me in the mood to train! Yesterday Louis rode with me to the gym! A little apprehensive at first after not being on a bike in over a decade, I think he felt pretty comfortable towards the end, well accept for the whole ass pain thing from the seat.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Power snatch @ 75#
Pull ups
GHD sit ups

JMo: 10:33
Big Lou: 12:56

This was another good workout! I really wanted to get sub ten but completing all my sets unbroken was more important and garnered more rest from me between sets. My plan was successful but I feel like I took a little too much time before the pullups. Overall, and I can say this a million times, being stronger is such an advantage. I have dwindled my conditioning down from once or twice a day to twice a week to make room for strength training and adequate rest. Even with this drop in metabolic conditioning, my work capacity is relatively high and the weight doesn't fatigue me nearly as fast. My pullups are not as good as they used to be but banging 20 in a row is still not an issue. Louis was also successful in completing all the sets unbroken. Mad props.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Friday

Today was tough! I am still cutting weight, eating straight Paleo and I can tell that the lack of calories (compared to what I have been consuming for the past 6 months) is effecting my strength. However, I am not getting weaker, I just don't see myself setting 5 lb Pr's every time I squat. Today I tried to tie my 3x5 PR.

Backsquat
3x5 @ 340#

Bench Press
3x3 @ 260#

The squats were EXHAUSTING! I was about to lay on the floor and go to sleep after my first set. I also started to come forward (butt raising to fast) on rep 3-5 on my first set. I was able to correct this on set two and three. Although, I had serious doubts that I would succeed going into set three. That is definitely not the mindset I want beforehand. After rep three of set three, I again felt like laying on the floor and going to sleep. I was able to bang out the last two with fairly good form. All fifteen reps were below parallel. I can't wait until this competition is over and I move up to the 220# weight class. This dieting sucks.