Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Incremental Improvement

That's the name of the game when it comes to the bells.  Nice and steady upward movement - in time, in pace and in weight.  Creeping improvement.  (Sometime creepy too!)

Today I moved back to the Jerk.  My goal to improve upon my last outing which was a 4-minute set.  Here's how it all went down...

Warmed up with the 6lb medicine ball - big circles and standing twists.

Swing:  12kg - 15/15;  16kg - 12/12;  20kg - 10/10

Jerk:  2 x 16kg - 5 minutes @ 5 rpm - total of 25 Jerks

Cooled down with some yoga, muscular retraining exercises and tennis ball trigger point therapy.

I was happy with today's outcome.  I am experiencing quite a bit of tightness in my back.  Not the injured site, but other parts mostly on the opposite side of the injury.  Like I said before, I'm not sure what it means, if anything, other than possibly balancing things out(?).  I will stay vigilant to be sure I don't develop anything more than tightness this time.

On a positive note, my injury continues to feel improved.  I am now adding back in a few more of the Kettlebell Foundation Compensatory Movements that I avoided earlier.  Today for the first time (ever) I was able to include the Floor Scorpion into my routine(!).  I also added back Camel, Seated Chair and Tripod.  All of these had caused irritation before.  Let's see how I hold up after today.  

I hope to squeeze in a workout session tomorrow and then allow myself some rest on Christmas Day.  Let's see how it goes, shall we?  Jerk 'em up, y'all!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
hunashaman said...

Great work Howie. Those double jerks are moving along nicely and it is great to see that you are now able to incorporate the floor scorpion. Interestingly enough when I told Steve about my injuries during the cert (which as you know causes me similar difficulties to the ones you've had) he showed me the floor scorpion as the one exercise that would benefit me most. Happy holidays and jingle kettlebells to you!