October 17th &19th
So, this is the first week of my new training regime. Sunday were a session with the coach, where we(he) made the program, while doing the exercises without worrying much about counting reps & sets. This was more about finding weights, correcting form and stuff like that.
On Tuesday, I did the first workout in this program.
Warm-up:
Air squats
Back lunges
Leg stretching
Floss voodoo:
- Voodoo tendon twist/knead. (Basically just working the areas through with your hands)
- Voodoo air squats
- Kneeling voodoo quad stretch
This is something that I have now tried thrice and which seems to have an amazing effect. Basically you wrap the leg under and above the knee real tight in elastic bands (tight enough to hamper blood flow.) Then you do a little work while wrapped up to break stiff tissue / scar tissue inside the fibers.
Leg bar roll (Using a barbell as a foam roller to work the backside of the leg from ankle to ass.)
This hurt quite a bit, so guess I really need this.
The workout itself is focussed on building strength in the back chain, which should help the iffy leg, and no barbell work to spare my wrist which has also been an issue for quite a while.
The idea is that I basically do this with just a few variations for 6 weeks and then we will make a some changes.
Goblet squats, fast: 16kg x 15 x 2
SS Goblet squats, slow, paused at bottom 16kg x 10 x 2
Trapbar deadlift: wu, then 100kg x 8 x 4
WU for pressing: Cubans & pull-aparts
Arnold press: 12 x 8 x 4
SS 1 arm dumbbell bench press: 20 x 8 x 3, 16 x 8 x 1
This hurt my shoulder a lot - especially the one arm press. Really strange, but hopefully it is weakness leaving the body.
Wu for pulling: external rotation with dumbbells
Dumbbell rows: 30kg x20,15,12, 26kg x 15
Chin ups - rings: 3,3,2,2
BW inverted row (trx handles with feet on a platform): 8,6,6
The rep numbers on the chins is me being really generous when counting what substitutes a rep; I could barely do them, which was unexpected. This is an exercise which I know is hard for me, so have always programmed them at the start of a workout.
Push-ups: 35,25
(This was not in the program, but I barely felt the one arm stuff in my chest, so decided to stray from the program and throw a few in.)
Electric prowler: Did 60m @ 60kg x 2 & 40m @ 50kg
They do not have a prowler - but they do have two of the electric versions - basically a heavy duty threadmill that simulates pushing a prowler.
Now, I do not have any experience with a real prowler, but this was damn hard and had me gasping my lungs up at the end. Will make sure to do some work on this regularly, seems like it could add some of the conditioning, that I lack.
Thoughts so far:
It has been beneficial to have something go over my form and correcting various bits and pieces. While the coach was mostly happy, there were some corrections here and there that actually made the exercises a bit harder - hopefully they will also make them more effective.
And it has been really an eye-opener to discover how static and planned my workouts had become - and how hard stuff became when doing it differently (In particular the cutting rest times in half both in between sets and in between exercises took its toll. Somebody is in dire need of some conditioning methinks.)
Example: used to always do first chins, then some push, then another pull, then push, then legs etc - with 2min rest between sets and a few minutes pause between most excercises
Nice and comfy - and what I had learned made it possible reach my numbers for each.
Adding different exercises, done with less rest and switching the sequence up, made this unexpectedly hard.