Recovery Weekend

I've taken the weekend to work on some active recovery. The past two weeks I have pretty much opened up the throttle on my training and unfortunately, I can feel my back starting to protest. Therefore I am going to have to ease up a bit relative to recent days.

Yesterday I practiced the Intu-Flow Intermediate program.

Today was a thorough review, with the DVD playing, of Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation Joint Mobility program. I then followed that up with some of the Compensatory movements from the same DVD set.

Tomorrow, it's back to the bells!

Rabbit Posture

It's still early Sunday morning here and I'm not sure what kind of training, if any, I'll get in today.

In the meantime, I thought I would share with you Rabbit Posture. This movement comes out of Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD Series and is a great compensatory movement to perform after your kettlebell work. This movement opens up the mid-back muscles and assists with increased thoracic mobility.

Again, I learned this from Scott, so if you want to learn first hand, I highly recommend his DVD package.

My Plow

I video taped myself today demonstrating how I get myself into the Plow position. Please excuse any stammering on the video, it was unrehearsed.

This is just one of the movements found in Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD Series. I strongly recommend every kettlebell lifter to buy a copy as it is filled with very powerful information to assist in your kettlebell training and health in general.

Scott does a much better job explaining and demonstrating than I do, so please use my demonstration as just that. If you find it may help you, go out and buy the real thing!

First Frost

Leaving the house this morning, to head into the office, I was forced to backtrack and hunt out the ice scraper for my car windshield. This was the first morning that required some elbow grease to clean off the windshield . The thermostat read 31 degrees (F) and there was a nice, thin layer of ice hugging each of my windows.

Luckily, I can say that I am feeling better today than yesterday. A bit of Claritin and a heavy dose of the Neti pot seems to have had a positive effect on this cold that started to hit me Wed evening. Nonetheless, I found it difficult to get out of bed this morning. Sleeping in would have been sooooooo nice.

But I made today my low intensity day. Very low. Warmed up with Intu-Flow Beginner program. I then went through and practiced the first 13 movements (of 22 in total) of Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation Compensatory Movements.

I am really digging these! They are something of a prelude to his Prasara Yoga program and for someone who practices kettlebells but does not have a lot of yoga experience, these movements will set you on the path. Scott does a fantastic job explaining and demonstrating each movement. Some are easier performed than others, but all feel good to the body. I was amazed at how far I was able to move into the Forward Fold posture given the fact that I haven't been stretching regularly. But by following Scott's directions I got into it deep! And felt great from it.

Tomorrow I have my bodyweight work lined up. Swing 'em high y'all!

And... Action!

Howz Training, Take 2.

OK, so this week starts the new program.  We'll be starting off easy and we'll be starting off light.  We still have back pain, but it's bearable.  Wednesday night is the last session of physical therapy (unless we decide going back will provide any more relief).  We'll continue to see the chiropractor in the meantime.  We are now incorporating the heal lift gradually into the left shoe.  We will be mixing up some body weight exercises with kettlebell exercises along with anything else we feel like along the way.  We will also be experimenting with the 4x7 program (to the best of our ability, early on that might be difficult, but that's the goal).  For the low intensity day, we will be practicing the Compensatory Movements from Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell FoundationDVD set.  Eventually moving into Prasara yoga "A" flows.  Low intensity days will consist of IntuFlow.

Today's moderate intensity day looked like this...

IntuFlow Beginner

A1) Pushup:  15, 15

A2) Ab Wheel Rollout:  5, 5

A3) Dip:  5, 5

A4) Pullup:  5, 5

These were performed in a circuit.

I received Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD in the mail on Saturday.  There are 3 DVDs included in the set - Kettlebell Movements, Joint Mobility Warmup, and Compensatory Cooldown.  I briefly scanned all three disks.  There is a lot of material included in these DVDs.  I was able to view the entire Compensatory DVD.  There are 22 different movements taught, the majority appear to be yoga based and some appear to be a prelude to the more advanced Prasara poses.  From what I have seen so far, I am very pleased with this product.  It's going to take a bit of time to digest it all, but that's where the fun is.  Baby steps for me with everything these days.

Tomorrow I play with the bells.