Happy Halloween!!

Long live Mini Twix Bars!!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

I'll be glad when all this candy is out of the house (well I'll be sorta sad too). Because then we can start thinking about Turkey!! OK, enough about food. Let's get on with today's workout. In the spirit of Enter the Kettlebell, I am trying to keep the Light-Medium-Heavy Day cycling throughout the week. Therefore on Mondays I'll be Snatching with the 16kg (Light), Wednesday will be Swings with both the 16kg and 24kg, and Fridays will be Swings with emphasis on the 24kg (until I get something bigger). Oh yeah, and I'll be doing Clean & Presses each day as well, but those will be focused on building strength with the 24kg. So here's what today's session looked like...

Warmup of 2-Hand Swings and Halos:

8kg - 30 swings; 5/5 halos

16kg - 20 swings; 5/5 halos

24kg - 20 swings; 3/3 halos

Clean & Presses:

16kg - 5/5

24kg - 2/2, 1/1, 2/2

Weighted Pullups:

15lbs - 3, 3, 3

1-Hand Swings:

16kg - 20/20, 15/15, 10/10

24kg - 10/10, 10/10, 10/10

Daily totals:

70 2-Hand Swings for 2288lbs

150 1-Hand Swings for 6336 lbs

Total poundage 8624 lbs

Gotta go, time to put on my costume... possible pics tomorrow....

Z-Health for Breakfast

You know the Rice Crispies commercial right? Snap, Crackle, Pop? Well that's what my neck sounded like this morning as I worked through the neck portion of Z-Health R-Phase.

Today is technically my "day off", but that just means I go easy but still try to keep things moving. Surprisingly my biceps feel a bit sore today, maybe from yesterday's pullups. I almost feel like I've been curling. Anyway, to keep moving today this is what I did...

Practice Standing Ab Wheel Rollouts - an uncounted number of reps where I started first standing maybe two feet away from a 45lb olympic plate, rolled out (from my tippy toes) into it (to a complete stop) and returned back up, did a few reps like this, then inched back and repeated. I did this a few times. Not enough to kill my abs but enough to feel some fatigue. The plan is to continue to do this until I can do a complete rollout and return back to standing without any assistance.

Then on to Z-Health....

Started with Neutral Standing and Lengthening - no prob.

Next worked the Shoulder routine - not too bad, the shoulder circles felt good, the scapula rolls (camshafts) created some popping sounds, but no pain involved, so ok.

Then it was on to the Neck routine - neck continues to be tight on me from my mishap last(?) week. (Maybe it was the week before even...) First real challenge was the Lateral Glide or Egyptian. My range of motion for this is limited. Same for Full Circles since it hits the same movement. Then the Lateral Tilt & Lateral Glide... the Glide was almost non-existent. On either side. I guess I've found an area to concentrate on! Hahaha And lastly, the Figure Eights, good movement here but this is where the Rice Crispies came in. Lots of Snap, Crackle, Pop here.

So all in all, my day off wasn't too physically demanding, so I should feel strong for tomorrow morning's kettlebell workout, but it also has given me something to focus on with Z-Health. I'll continue to work the neck now as much as possible throughout the day and repeat today's routine again in full on Thursday.

Time to run. Keep swinging!

Is It Monday Already?

The weekends go fast around here! I can't believe it's already Monday morning. I was still tight from Saturday's workout, particularly in the hamstrings. But they loosened up pretty well with my warmup. When I warm up with 2-Hand Swings, I typically keep the range of motion small since (1) I'd only woken up a few minutes earlier and (2) it allows me to really focus in on the tight muscles of my legs, hips and back.

So today was the restart of my program. For now, I am going to stay similar to the Enter the Kettlebell program, only I've made a few personal changes. Firstly, with the Cleans & Presses, no laddering, just straight sets. And secondly, I'm not going to be performing my Swings/Snatches to time for a while, also going for straight sets. This will allow to pace myself better and start introducing the 24kg kb into my program.

So this is what today's routine looked like:

Warmed up with my routine of 2-Hand Swings followed immediately by Halos with the 8kg, then the 16kg, then the 24kg

5 sets of Clean & Presses supersetted with Bodyweight Pullups:

Clean & Presses -
16kg 5/5, 5/5
24kg 1/1, 1/1, 1/1

Bodyweight Pullups - 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Snatches with 16kg -
10/10 (left/right)
10/10
10/10
10/10
10/10

100 snatches in total for 3520 lbs

Tomorrow I plan to start working on some Z-Health movements. I will be starting out with Lengthening, followed by Shoulders and then Neck. That will be my focus this week. Then I'll add one or two more areas next week (I'll be using the weekends to read up and watch the dvd for incorporating new movements).

I may do a few Turkish GetUps or Windmills tomorrow first. They do seem to be good for my shoulders and I don't want to loose that. But at the same time, I don't want to overdo things again. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear and see how things go. Time to shower!

Rainy Saturday

A lot of rain has been falling here in the last two days. So it makes it a lot easier to play with kettlebells in the house. Today was a hybrid workout, something a little different. This still being my off week I'm doing some experimenting to come up with a good program for myself. So today I tried out some pyramiding for my swings.

Workout looked like this...

Warmup of supersets consisting 2-Hand Swings and Halos, first with 8kg, then 16kg, then 24 kg.
(I don't count the reps for these, but do just enough to get my warmed up and loose.)

16kg Turkish GetUp - 5/5
Rather than perform for time, I opted for 5 reps on each side, alternating sides for each rep.

16kg 1-Hand Swings:
10/10
12/12
14/14
12/12
10/10

24kg 1-Hand Swings:
5/5
5/5
5/5

Total volume: 5667 lbs

This felt pretty good. I think I might prefer this type of routine to the timed kind. I think maybe I'll cycle through each kind every few weeks. Also might change the Clean & Presses come next week, to perform more straight sets rather than pyramids (until I start using the 24kg).

Also started reading through and watching the Z-Health R-Phase manual and dvd. There's a lot of info in there to take in, although it seems rather easy, I find it very difficult to perform the "Egyptian". I'm sure there will be other movements that won't come too easy as well. I'm thinking that maybe next week I will start a Mon-Wed-Fri KB routine, introducing Z-Health full body work on Tues-Thurs(-maybe some Saturdays as well).

I am finding it more difficult to get my Saturday workouts in as the weekends are the only days I have at home to get anything done. And I'd feel awfully guilty if I missed a scheduled workout.

That's all for today. Catch you on Monday!

Friday Quickie

Well today is not a usual training day for me, but since I had taken most of this week off I wanted to squeeze in one or two exercises to keep the body on track. I received the Z-Health package yesterday, so I'll start digesting it over the weekend.

Today consisted of the following:

Ab Wheels - 6, 6, 6
One Arm Pushups - 1/1, 1/1, 1/1

That's it!! Back/neck is still awfully tight. Have a great weekend all!

Rest Week

I decided to take a bit of a break this week. I started getting up early almost 5 weeks ago and have been working out 5 days a week. After this past Saturday's heavy swings session, I could feel my body asking for a bit of a reprieve. I did jump in pretty fast with things so I can't blame it for wanting some rest. I plan to restart the ETK program again on Monday, only I am going to jump back a week from where I left off and then start working my way up again. I realize now that there's no hurry for me to reach any specific destination, that benefits are gained on the journey. So why rush when you can enjoy the ride?

I also went out on a limb this week and decided to find out what all the fuss is about with regard to Z-Health. I ordered the R-Phase dvd and manual. With my problem shoulders and neck, I figure it can only help. And from what I've heard/read, this program apparently works.

So today's workout was a Variety Day consisting of...

Warmup - 8/26/24kg - 2SW & Halos

8kg TGU for 5 minutes (still breaking into parts)

BW Pullups - 5, 5
24kg Cleans - 5/5, 5/5

OAP - 1/1, 1/1
8kg Pistols - 1/1, 1/1

Finished off with some stretching. Upper back/neck tightened up on me again yesterday, still pretty tight this morning. Swing 'em high!

Saturday Squeezed for Time

Saturday has finally arrived. My Heavy Day is upon me. Let me tell you, I have been tired and sore and stiff from this past week's workouts. My Thursday workout of TGU's and Ab Wheels left me so sore, that I felt like I had a bruised rib. Breathing in too deeply has been uncomfortable. I guess I was breaking down the TGU pieces correctly! Wow.

So anyway, I was pressed for time today. And I didn't want to push today's routine into Sunday because that would screw up the rest of my week. So I left out the pullups today that I typically superset with my C&P's. Also, I kicked today's swings up a notch by working with the 24kg. Bam!!

So today was pretty simple... added the fifth rung to my C&P ladders...

16kg C&P - 1/2/3/4/5 x 3

24kg 2SW - 4 min - the dice have been kind to me the last few sessions =)
- 20
- 15
- 15
- 15
65 swings in total, for 3432 lbs or 858 lb/min
Since I haven't been working with the 24kg in a while I opted to do 2 Hand Swings today. And it feels heavy!! But good!

That's it for today, gotta run now. Swing 'em high!!