Friday, 30 May 2014
May 30's Steaming Pile of Kettlebell Pressing
Fives @ 8, 16, 20, 24, 32KG
5 @ 32KG + 4KG of chain
5 @ 32KG + 8KG of chain
This last set felt AWFUL. My new plan had been to do 3 sets of five with 32KG and 16KG of chain, which would've been very tough but doable I think. NO way that was happening. I decided instead to do kind of a West Side DE day by backing off to 32KG + 4KG, work on speed with short rest breaks to add up to enough volume in a short period of time to kill a horse. You know, if horses could press kettlebells and volume wasn't a big deal to them. I did ten sets of three per side with about 40-60 seconds of rest between sets. I filmed a couple of sets but setting up the phone, getting back to the kettlebell and setting up within the short rest break was annoying so I only did it twice and only one turned out well. This was my eighth or ninth set on my left arm.
http://videobam.com/pCAYD
I feel like it would've been a bit too easy on a good day but when I was done I felt like I'd made the right call to get the best possible work done this morning. Sometimes what's most important is just getting something in.
2 x 20 dips (all the assistance work I felt like doing)
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
Box Squats May 28
Triples @ 45, 95, 135, 225, 275, 295, 315
6 x 3 @ 330
Leg Press
20 @ 90, 180, 270, 380
20 @ 380 slow down, full second pause, explode up
20 @ 380 + 140lbs band tension, same thing
Swimming May 26
So after a visit to SwimCo (which was interesting because I was always very picky with my suits and goggles and I think I may have overwhelmed the poor girl with questions about spec comparisons to equipment that hasn't been around for over a decade) we went to the Terwilleger Rec Centre. Steph hobbled off to the hot tub and I got into the pool. After my first push-off, I felt pretty good. A few strokes later... not so good. Dear God was I inefficient. The technique felt right, but I'm much larger and apparently less mobile than I used to be, plus my swimming-specific fitness has clearly tanked. I was actually breathing hard after a "relaxed" 100m.
I had a general idea in my head that I would warm up with 200-400m and then do 8-10 hard 50-100m sprints. I decided that 100m was a good enough warm-up, then tried a hard 50. I did it in about 38 seconds. To put that in perspective, my best time when I was fifteen was about 27 seconds. Granted that was with a dive, but even assuming the dive would have taken off a few seconds it still felt like I was moving just a bit faster than the average glacier. A few hard 50's later I'd dialled it in a bit and managed 32 seconds from a push. That was okay, but still. As a teenager I could've held a 32 second pace for 15 50's in a row with 15-20 seconds rest. I honestly thought that being literally twice as strong in every measurable way than I was back then would have made up for the shaky technique, but it really didn't. I think overall I did maybe 600m total in the 20 minutes I was in the pool (we arrived at 9:40 PM) . I will do this again and I will make it as regular a thing as I have to in order to put up some respectable numbers. It's a matter of pride now.
Sunday, 25 May 2014
Why I Love Teaching Kids BJJ, and What I've Learned From It
If you look at a school with classes of varying age groups, there are often some pretty huge differences in terms of how they're taught. With the tiny ones, most of the classes are games of some sort that are loosely based on martial arts. The adult classes are more solemn and disciplined, which logically makes sense. There are certain assumptions you can make about an adult student versus a four year old regarding goals, attention span and physical ability. The 8-13 age group that I teach is an enigmatic mix of both, especially those on the higher end of it.
A lot is going on in the mind of an eleven or twelve year old. They're still treated predominantly as a child by other people but they don't really feel like one anymore. They're already subconsciously trying to bounce their personality, values and beliefs off other people to form the adult they're going to become later, and carve out their place in the world; their own little sphere of influence. When it comes to BJJ, both physically and mentally a kid in this sort of range doesn't need a ton of hand-holding. They can drill, they can roll, they can compete, but they're still enough of a kid that there needs to be that undertone of fun to keep the energy up. What becomes very clear from teaching them and learning to maintain that balance is that adults aren't all that different.
It's not necessarily about the content of the class itself, it's about the energy of the instructor. Kids are very, very sensitive to the difference between an instructor who wants them to succeed and have fun, and an instructor who's just there to instruct because they're wearing the belt and that's what they do. That's a trap that I have admittedly fallen into at times while teaching adults, whether I was tired or grumpy from work or distracted by something else that was going on, etc. Adults may be more emotionally mature and more physically capable but they're still ultimately doing this because they enjoy it, and they want to feel that genuine joy of jiu-jitsu from their instructor. I firmly believe that the best instructors at the biggest schools aren't just in that position because of money, connections or skills, but also because they love jiu-jitsu and believe in its power to enrich life.
There's something really special about teaching a kids class when the kids really enjoy themselves and work hard. It brings me back to when I was their age, competing at a national level in swimming. It was incredibly hard work but I had some very special coaches that enjoyed what they did, believed in me and went above and beyond to bring out my potential. That made it fun, no matter how brutal it got. The way that affected my development as a person, and now striving to be that positive influence for the kids in my class can turn a really shitty day around, really quick when I come straight from a long day at work to start the class. Sometimes adults don't realize how much kids know, how much they understand and how strong they can be. When I was collecting donations for a seminar I was teaching in honour of my mother who passed away from breast cancer this year, one of the girls from my class gave $20 from her own piggy bank. That was a pretty serious tug on the heart strings and it's those kinds of things that get me thinking about this kind of stuff. Sometimes it can take me a few months or more between thinking about something and writing about it, but I'm glad I did today.
Heavy Bench May 25
Fives @ 45, 95, 135, 185, 225
6 x 3 @ 240, sinking for at least two seconds at the bottom and firing it up like I'm trying to throw it through the ceiling. It felt really easy so I'm already getting a lot more powerful, assault is working really well or both. I did 3 x 2 @ 265 last week and it went just as well.
Dips - Loving these lately. I can always do a couple of solid sets of 20 deep reps with a minute of rest so the main event is what I can do after another minute or two in the third set. Today I got 13.
Hammer Strength Iso-Row
10 per side @ 45, 90, 135, 180, one arm at a time, vertical low handles with emphasis on lats
20 @ 90 per side, both arms at once, high horizontal handles with emphasis on rear delts
50 band tricep extensions, 50 band curls with monster mini. Burn baby burn.
Friday, 23 May 2014
Kettlebell Pressing May 22
I always bench heavy on sundays, and mid week I usually have what I call accessory upper body, relatively high volume (5-6 triples in the 70-82% range) and usually either close grip bench or floor press. Yesterday I was too busy in the morning so instead I got to Arashi Do early and did strict kb pressing instead. It wasn't too bad actually, considering it was unbelievably hot and it had already been a very long day at work.
KB strict press
Triples @ 8kg, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28
5 x 5 @ 32 (really focusing on lowering slowly, spooling up tension and firing it up fast. Felt a bit easier than I was hoping but solid. I'll use a 40 or add chains next time)
2 x 20 per arm @ 24kg long cycle strict press (relaxed drop into gs style rack after strict presses)
3 x 20 push-ups feet elevated superset with 3 x 20 band pull-aparts
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Homeostasis, Earthquakes and Your Fitness Goals
To understand what I'm getting at, you should familiarize yourself with a term called 'Homeostasis'. It's ancient Greek for "Standing Still" and basically refers to a self-governed state in which systems are in place to keep everything exactly as it is. Your thermostat does it, and so does your car when you use cruise control. There's compelling evidence that even our entire planet does it. We also know that the human body does it, and so does the mind. Essentially every single physiological process you have is designed to resist change. Your body has no autonomous view of what's going on in the outside world, so it operates under the notion of "Well I'm alive, so I must be doing something right". You sweat when you're too hot, shiver when you're too cold, you maintain blood glucose levels using insulin and glucagon, and the list goes on endlessly - all working to get back to zero. When an irritant is introduced to the system, the system corrects it. The bigger the irritant, the more efficient the response but the body doesn't actually make anything BETTER than it was before unless it absolutely has to. Now to bring this back to fitness, think about how the body views exercise. Yes, we understand consciously that exercise is good for us, but to our body it's nothing but another irritant; an attack on homeostasis that must be dealt with as efficiently as possible. This is where consistency comes into the equation.
Think of your workouts as natural disasters, like an earthquake. The city where the disaster occurs is your body. Now imagine an earthquake suddenly happens here in Edmonton, Alberta. Seems wierd, right? Alberta is relatively quiet as far as seismic movement, and we've never had a major earthquake in recorded history but now we've had one. So what does the response look like? Depends how bad the earthquake was, but there would definitely be rescue operations, evacuations, medical teams and eventually reconstruction of what was damaged. This is like your body's response to a workout. Synnovial fluid in the joints, lymphatic drainage to clear inflammation, a rush of satellite cells to repair the damaged muscle tissue etc. Think about what would happen next, though. Edmonton is now restored to its former self, but considering that this was a singular incident in what is otherwise a completely earthquake-free city, the chances are slim that we would do any more than that.
Now, we introduce the factor of consistency and take a look at a place like Los Angeles where earthquakes are relatively common. After their first few earthquakes, it must have occurred to the people of LA that simply restoring the city every time an earthquake devestated it would be wasteful and pointless. If they were going to have to deal with earthquakes on a regular basis, they would have to do better. Reinforced buildings, protocols for quick and efficient maintenance and repair, better early-warning technology etc. Consistency forced a shift of mentality from "Fix it" to "Build it better".
This is why quick fitness fixes DO NOT WORK. Do this cleanse and lose 20 pounds in a month! Do this routine and gain inches on your biceps in three weeks! Take these pills and eat whatever the hell you want, you'll still lose a leg worth of weight in four hours! None of it works. Not really, anyway. It is ALL bullshit because it betrays understanding of the very simple principle of homeostasis. Your body has no idea what a cleanse is. That cleanse is an attack. Your body will do its job and fend off the attack for a month, and when it realizes that the attack is over, it will do its job again and return you to the state you were in for five, ten, fifteen years before that month happened. If you train like a madman for seven days and then quit because you can't get out of bed on the eighth day, the same thing will happen. Your body viewed those seven days as an attack on your system, and it's going to do its job and get you through it so that you can get back to normal. The only way to break the chain is to CHANGE YOUR NORMAL. Two days a week, for a half hour with decent intensity is more than enough to see some real results so long as you hit those two workouts every single week. Once that routine is absolutely locked in, add a third day that you do when you can. Once that's locked in, you add a fourth. Make other changes too, like trying to go to bed a half hour earlier at night. Drink 2L of water a day. Cut back on processed sugar. Put together a mobility routine that takes ten minutes and do it before bed. Make changes at a pace you can handle WITH CONSISTENCY, and you will see some truly amazing results in the long term. If you try to change everything all at once and go from 0-Olympic Athlete overnight, your body and mind will resist it with an intensity equal to or greater than the changes you're making, and you will set yourself up for failure.
You have to accept the hard truth of life, that this shit can take YEARS. A balanced strength and conditioning routine, a balanced and healthy diet, drinking enough water and getting enough sleep are really the only scheme that ever works in the end, and everyone realizes it eventually after going through enough hyped up bullshit. You may have to start small, but what's more important than anything is that you keep going.
Box Squat Day May 21
"Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most."
My literal self-monologue was as follows:
"So what do I want now?"
"Sleep"
"And what do you want most?"
"To be a %&^% beast."
"Damn it, beasts don't sleep in, do they."
"No Tyson, no they don't."
I'm glad I was open to my own considerable persuasion, because the workout went well despite the fact that I didn't have time for much assistance work.
Triples @ 45, 95, 135, 185, 225, 245, 275, 295, 315, 335, 355
Wrapped my knees
3 x 2 @ 365
I was already running late, so I figured I would just do a quick set of 10 with 225 and head out. I'll probably do some hill sprints in the morning so I'm kinda glad I didn't totally burn out my legs.