It's all about the journey

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerful Women
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Cal does kettlebells. I love them but don’t have much access to them. They can be a great warmup if you can’t stand the cardio machines.

I’d say at the end of the day it all depends on your goals. If your still in leaning phase I’d say go for high reps, once you want to focus on mass you might want to keep your reps a little lower.

If PL improvement is what you are looking for overall you might want to do a “light” kettlebell warm up pre lift and then use the high reps as a finisher. The idea is NOT to tire yourself with anything pre-lift of the big 3.

Hope this makes sense. Overall I give the bells a thumbs up.

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You do both of those warm ups before every workout? That is dedication! You make me feel lazy and I know I should do them. I have been doing the agile 8 and I like it!

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Ahahahaha! I wouldn’t say dedication :slight_smile: I found out the hard way that my body starts to fall apart when I don’t do those warmups. I’ve started retraining my thinking by seeing going to the gym as ‘me’ time and something that I GET to do as opposed to HAVE to do. So taking 20+ minutes to warm up is okay with me. I’m trying to juggle my work schedule so I get to go to the gym mid-morning as opposed to mid-afternoon so I don’t have to deal with ‘that guy’ who uses the squat rack for curls.

I get this insane urge to come up behind him and just yell, “HUGE!!! Come on man, you got this! Woooooo! Light weight!” I’m sure I could shame him out of the rack :slight_smile: As funny as it is to think that, I’m not quite that obnoxious yet.

Workout stuff for the day:
Nothing much today. Went through my rehab exercises - glute bridges, rolling with the travel roller and lacrosse ball and finished off with the ab roller. Laaaaazy day.

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nl: Totally understand what you’re saying. It really does depend on what your goals are. I guess one of the reasons I like them so much is because of the conditioning side effect they have. It benefits my throwing. The better cardiovascular shape I’m in, the faster I recover and have that much more energy left to put into the next throw. I’ve never played around with the rep scheme too much so I don’t know how that would effect my overall power base. I definitely don’t do them right before a heavy leg exercise. In the morning, hours before my workout? Yes :slight_smile: I’m a little crazy and focused when I have a goal in mind and decide I’m going to reach it.

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Kettlebells are great. I took the plunge over a year ago by signing up for a four hour workshop to learn how to use the damned things properly, and then bought a set of three (12, 16 and 20kg). I use them at home sometimes and I’ve dragged one to the gym every so often - I’ve also taken one up the road to Tooting Common in the summer when I fancy an outdoor workout. But we also use them a lot in the Sunday circuit class I’ve started doing. Overall, kettlebells are great.

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Kettlebell swings, YES! I am a big fan as well. Good cardio wise, and they totally get after the posterior chain. I also think the explosive snap helps with deads and general lower body strength.

I love that you’re not that obnoxious yet. It’s only a matter of time, aye? :wink:

right on for ‘getting’ to go to the gym rather than ‘having’ to.

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[quote]PixieThrower wrote:
Ahahahaha! I wouldn’t say dedication :slight_smile: I found out the hard way that my body starts to fall apart when I don’t do those warmups. I’ve started retraining my thinking by seeing going to the gym as ‘me’ time and something that I GET to do as opposed to HAVE to do. So taking 20+ minutes to warm up is okay with me. I’m trying to juggle my work schedule so I get to go to the gym mid-morning as opposed to mid-afternoon so I don’t have to deal with ‘that guy’ who uses the squat rack for curls.

I get this insane urge to come up behind him and just yell, “HUGE!!! Come on man, you got this! Woooooo! Light weight!” I’m sure I could shame him out of the rack :slight_smile: As funny as it is to think that, I’m not quite that obnoxious yet.

Workout stuff for the day:
Nothing much today. Went through my rehab exercises - glute bridges, rolling with the travel roller and lacrosse ball and finished off with the ab roller. Laaaaazy day.[/quote]

That is a great philosophy. I really admire that! And you’ll get obnoxious with time. =)

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lula & Dani: Yeah, I used to be a really nice, quiet girl. Over the past couple years the guys I throw with have pulled me out of my shell. Now, I surprise them with some of my comebacks. So is it possible for me to get that obnoxious… I’m not going to say never :slight_smile:

Week 3, Day 3:
More rehab! Yay! glute bridges x 100, kb swings 30x10x3, ab roller x 20 (I ignore the ab roller too much and it lets me know about it)

Went to my lovely massage therapist today and he absolutely tore into my legs. He didn’t have time to work on them all summer because my neck was acting up so there was a lot of garbage. Any surprise I’m still suffering knee pain? He’s cleared out a lot of the major junk. I have hips that can move! My feet rotate in and out with the same resistance, or lack thereof! I tried to crawl off the table a couple times. I swear that if you took an x-ray you’d find his name carved into my bones. But damn, for all the pain of a deep tissue massage, that man does excellent work and knows his shit when it comes to tracking symptoms back to their source.

Tonight is all about the epsom salt bath :slight_smile:

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Week 3, Day 4:
Short and sweet circuit day.
glute bridges x 100
kb swings 35x10x3
pushups BWx10x3
alternating db ohp 18x8x3
ab wheel BWx5x3 (these suck!)

Hip still feels beat up from the massage but my knee is starting to feel better. Who knew that when your aductor, quad and hip are all locked up your knee would feel bad?

Back to the gym tomorrow for leg day! Figure I’ll do lunges instead of squats for my major leg work.

30

Cool log, it’s always interesting to follow along with unfamiliar sports.

[quote]PixieThrower wrote:
Pushups - EDT for 4 minutes - 51 total (7 more than last week) Before you get all impressed, I’m cheating and doing pushups off my knees. I keep my elbows close to my body so it’s working my triceps again (and putting less stress on my shoulders).
[/quote]

Interesting, I’ve been working on push-ups, 51! I’m down around the 30 mark and still inclined.

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I am interested in any pics of men in kilts.
kthanx.

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[quote]PixieThrower wrote:

Hip still feels beat up from the massage but my knee is starting to feel better. Who knew that when your aductor, quad and hip are all locked up your knee would feel bad?

[/quote]

This is SO true. I noticed that whenever my hip flares up, my knee starts aching right along with it.

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983×695 304 KB

@Patch2: Wintertime is less interesting. I promise to post vids of throwing practice next year when I start up again :slight_smile: With the pushups, I’ve found volume helps out a lot. Doesn’t matter when you do them. When I’m not lazy, I’ll do a couple sets of 10 in the morning before I start getting ready.

@Hallowed: Sure thing :slight_smile: I promise to have better pictures next year. I don’t play with a lot of pretty boys but some of the older guys are in amazing shape. One guy plays in the Under 200 at the Masters World Championship… I’d totally lick chocolate off his abs :wink: For now, a picture of my trip to Hawaii shall have to suffice.

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Dani: I think the hip-knee relationship has to do with how all of the insertions run around in there. Any imbalance throws it off. Really bites.

Guess I should post my workouts :stuck_out_tongue:

Yesterday - Week 3, Day 5

Regular long ass warmup
Couple minutes on the elliptical followed by (15/45)x5 sprints
Agile 8, Simple 6 & glute bridges x 60

Static lunges: (20)x10x5 I was being optimistic here. 20# db per arm is a little much and I believe this helped contribute to my right knee screaming at me while I walked up 4 flights of stairs to my apartment. Maybe just stick with BW til I get comfortable with the balance and glute activation.

Assisted chins: (80)x5, (75)x5x3, (70)x3x2 Yup. Total weakling. Working on it! I might just start doing this twice a week as I reeeeeaaaalllly want to be able to do a chin up with zero assistance.

Superset of:
kb swings: (35)x10x4
SL RDL: (15)x10x2, BWx10x2 ← Other contributor to knee pain, I believe. I can’t balance worth shit and I think that puts a huge strain on everything. It’s the shearing pressure put on my knee that kills it.

Superset of:
BW squats x20x5 Really worked on focusing on form and muscle activation. Keeping the knees in line and sinking back then starting the motion up by tightening my glutes.
Hamstring curls: (50)x10x5 Remembered the very important lesson of keeping my abs tight. My lower back was worked pretty well by this point and keeping my abs tight gave me the very firm reminder of how much stress doing that will remove from my lower back.

So yeah, still working on the knees. Learning what not to do. Definitely no more SL RDL. Regular RDLs instead. Keep the lunges in there but drop to BW and increase the reps a little. Just work on finding the groove. Thankfully sleep took care of easing the aggravation I managed to flare in my right knee.

Now today’s laziness!

Oh rehab, you’ll never treat me wrong! Used the travel roller and lacrosse ball on my quads, regular foam roller for everything else.

glute bridges x 100
ab roller: BWx10x2 Still working my way to being fully laid out. My torso starts to cave.
kb swings: 35x10x3

Did some stretching after this. I should really do more stretching but I was just too lazy today. Work is starting to creep up on me and I relish the moments where I’m just sitting watching sports and doing sudoku puzzles.

35

Oh yeah, that pic is purrrefect! Is that you in there? you’re such a cutie!

Nice job getting in all that rehab work. Finding the motivation to get that in is hard work as it is!

I love kettlebelles btw - I’m thinking of using them in my next cycle in a superset with my other lifts to keep my heart rate up in between lifts…we’ll see.

Great stuff, Pixie! Keep it up!

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[quote]Mascherano wrote:
Oh yeah, that pic is purrrefect! Is that you in there? you’re such a cutie!

Nice job getting in all that rehab work. Finding the motivation to get that in is hard work as it is!

I love kettlebelles btw - I’m thinking of using them in my next cycle in a superset with my other lifts to keep my heart rate up in between lifts…we’ll see.

Great stuff, Pixie! Keep it up![/quote]

Yup, that’s me :slight_smile: My name on here came from the guys I throw with. They all call me a pixie because I’m soooo tiny next to all of them. Most of the guys in that pic are from Hawaii but the guy kneeling in the middle in the front row is one of the guys I train with regularly. If you can imagine it, he’s one of the smaller guys on the field here in Alberta.

My motivation for the rehab comes from wanting to be pain free. I want to be able to play without a brace on. I want to get back into olympic lifts. I want to be able to do my classes and not feel like I need a wheelchair to get home. The hard part is not pushing myself and starting that up again too soon. I could call it a blessing because it’s making me work on my upper body strength :slight_smile:

Kettlebells are my favorite :slight_smile: I’ve given myself the goal of being able to use a 40# kb for sets of 10 before season starts. The lighter that feels, the lighter the 28# weight I use for weight over bar will feel. I have determined I will throw that bitch 12’ next year. I was knocking on 11’6" by the end of season this year. Kb swings actually translate quite well to this event. Here’s a vid of what the WOB looks like. First competition of the season and I just missed 10’6". I had 11’ by the end of season. Booyah.

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Week 3, Day 7:

Warmups:
Couple minutes at a steady pace on the elliptical then did sprints - (15/45)x8
Agile 8, Simple 6

OHP: 35x5, 45x5, 50x5, 60x3x3

DL: 95x5, 120x5, 135x5, 160x3, 165x3x2
These felt really good. I could have gone for more but decided to leave that for next week so I can plan for it and not tire myself out so much with the rep work. It’s been a while since I tested these. We’ll see what happens!

DB OHP: 25x8x3, 20x10x3 Getting in the rep work, awww yeah!

Seated Row: EDT for 10 minutes - 4950# of work. Last week’s was 4125#. Woot 20% increase! Time to bump up the weight a bit and start over.

Superset of:
Lat raises: 10x12x5
Back extension: BWx10

Remembering and focusing on keeping my core tight really helped save my lower back today. Silly how I always forget this.

38

Just stopping in to hi.

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Another picture for the ladies. I’m posting this one just cause it looks like they’re all staring at my ass :wink:

Week 4, Day 1:
Rehab! Travel roller and lacrosse ball fun followed glute bridges (BWx100) followed by stretching.

Circuit including:
kb swings: 35x10x3 Already feeling a lot easier. Yay!
ab wheel: BWx10x3 I’m not even going all the way out and these are killing me. Gah!
pushups (off my toes): BWx10x3

Read an article on Bulgarian Split Squats (Bulgarian Split Squat) and decided to try them out today. I was worried about stability but having the back leg on something solid really did help. No aggravation :slight_smile: I’m going to substitute these in for squats and work on pure volume for the next couple weeks to get used to them before adding dumbbells into the mix.

BSS: BWx10x3 Testing the waters. As my knees are fine, I’ll probably bump this up to 20x3 or something.

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that group looks like fun times :slight_smile: - thanks for sharing Pixie.