We are quickly winding down to the Tactical Strength Challenge. I am excited to participate and anticipate a better showing than the last time.
Sunday: I dead lifted today and warmed up with 135, 185, 225 and 275. Did a work set of 305 with 3 reps and felt great. 3rd rep was the best rep.
Monday: Weigh in of 184.2. Did Pull ups of 9,6,6,5 and 5. Did Pavel‘s bench press workout and struggled a bit on the first set of 5 at 195. Did another set of 3 reps and finished with 2. Finally I did 3 sets of 5 at 155. Also did Front squats and managed 5 sets of 3 at 155.
Tuesday: I set out to do 120 snatches with the 32 kg kettlebell. I did 106 and aborted the mission as I had started to rip a callous off my hand and wanted to make sure that I did lose it completely. Was able to do my Pavel kb presses to finish with a set of 5 and then one double and one single.
Wednesday: Dead lifted again and did a my typical warm up. Started with 135, 185,225 and 275. Did a double at 315. Felt excellent.
Thursday: Since I struggled with 195 on my bp the other day I still added the 10 lbs to it and brought it up to 205 but just did a triple and a double. Then 3 sets of 5 at 165.
Friday: Moved up in my pull ups today to a set of 10,7,6,6 and 5. Did 5 x5 on front squat at 145 and held off on the snatch to protect my hand. Did a set of 5 kettlebell presses, then a set of doubles and finally a single. Felt great.
Train with purpose,
Sandy Sommer RKC
Week of February 28, 2010
Sunday: Dead lift went well. Warmed up with 135, 185, 225, and 255. Did that after a warm up of goblet squats, pumps and halos. Work set of 285 with 3 reps. First rep and third went well. Second rep I lost a bit but recovered nicely.
Monday: Weigh in was 183.2 so down 1.4 lbs.
Started today off with the front squat using the barbell. Warmed up a bit and then went to 3 work sets of 3 reps at 155. Felt good with a deep pause and good tension.
Did Recon Ron pull up program for sets of 9,7,6,5 and 5. Decent work but not perfect. Need to work more on breathing better.
Pavel’s Close Grip Bench press was 175 at 5, 3, and 2 reps. Finished with 3 fast sets of 5 at 140.
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: Dead lifting was great. Warmed up with 135, 185, 225 and 265 and finished up with a 3 rep work set of 295. All solid reps and felt very powerful. Next I attacked my pull ups and was flying up the bar. Sets of 9, 7, 6, 5 and 5 tactical style. Come back to barbell front squats. These are deep with a pause following by an explosion out of the hole. 5 sets of 3 reps at 145. I also did snatches today. Practiced a bit with the 32 kg kettlebell and then did 3 minutes with the 24 kg kb. 72 reps in 3 minutes so I’m keeping close to my goal of 25 reps a minute. Focused on both hip drive and taming the arc and I feel like I am getting better. Also, I haven’t tried to do a Tactical pull up with the 24 kg kb dangling from my foot for 9 months. Tried it Wednesday night and one rep was actually fairly easy. Couldn’t get a second rep though but I was pleased.
Thursday: Pavel’s Close Grip BP program. Was 185 lbs at 5, 3 and 2? I did 145 for 3 fast sets of 5. 185 was tougher but still finished it with ease.
Friday: Front squat was 145 for 5 sets of 5. I rested for 3 minutes between sets. Did 4 sets of 3 tactical pull ups using the 8 kg kettlebell dangled off my foot. Did two sets on each side. Finished off the day with 3:15 snatch workout. Did 80 reps and it was good.
Highlights of the week: Body comp test at 8.9% body fat.
Whats up Ya’ll! i HAVE BEEN MIA for a while and I’m sorry. Time to catch up!
First of all, I need to say after spending an entire weekend with Will Williams in Vermont a few weeks ago, I have decide to go “Warrior” on this shit!
Yes the Warrior diet. Now I have not weighed myself in a few weeks and the last time I checked I was between 194-198 depending on the food I stuffed my face with during the day or the night before.
Since I’ve started the diet I have dropped FAT on a steddy pace. I look good and still feel like the monster I was before hand. So this is just something I wanted to add to the post.
Now back to the good stuff..
Before the change in routine, I topped off at 280 F/S, 265 Bench, and and hard Grind 405 in the Dead.
All these were done for 1 rep. They were a 10 on the 1-10 and I still kept awesome form (in my opinion)!
After talking with Marty, we changed it up, back to trips and drop the weight, twice a week. So this week 3/1-3/5, I performed all three lift in a 45 minute session. 195 F/S, 185 bench, 295 dead. I’m back to reality and more focused on the form. These lifts are becoming normal to me again and I will be going up 10lbs on every lift each week. And thats all I have for now. So I’m going to eat a garden and a chicken house so I’ll get back to your as soon as I can! LATE!!
I was able to finish the week strong. This was an excellent 7 days of training and I feel that I continue to make progress.
Thursday:CGBP from Pavel: 165 lb x 5,3, and 2 reps. Each set was followed by 3 minutes of rest. After that I dropped down to 130 and did 3 sets of 5 with very little rest. I haven’t done any benchpressing at all in years so it’s nice to work this program in order to assist my kettlebell clean and press.
Friday: Started today’s session with Recon Ron pull up program. It was the first session with a new rep scheme. 9,7,6,5 and 5 and I liked how it went. All good solid reps. 5 more work outs at this scheme and I will be getting closer to my goal. Next up, I did barbell front squats. Sets were 5 and reps were 3 at 145. Deep with a pause. Finished with a snatch sprint. I was scheduled for 2 rounds but wasn’t feeling it. So I did 1 sprint. 2:45 and did 66 reps. Pace of 24 per minutes. A little slow but not off too much.
Sandy Sommer RKC
This has been quite a week. I found out my current one rep max for the dead lift as well as the barbell front squat. When I saw Marty on Saturday he used the information to help me program for the stretch run until the Tactical Strength Challenge.
A few of you have contacted me about how I eat. I follow the Primal Blueprint and I will post my fueling for the week later toward the end of the week.
Monday: weighed in at 184.6
5 sets of 3 reps of 145 lb front squats. Deep and with a nice pause. Felt excellent.
Followed that up with Recon Ron Pull ups. Sets were 8,7,5,5 and 5. Only one more session of this scheme to go.
Finally, I did Pavel’s CGBP workout today. 5,3 and 2 rep sets at 155. 3 sets of 5 at 125 to close it out. Very good work on that and felt easy.
Tuesday:
2 24 kg kettlebell sprints for 2 ½ minutes each. Six minutes of rest between sets. Did 62 in the first set and 61 in the second. Really pleased with the pace so far and I am on track. 24.6 reps per minute. This felt very very good. I am making the progress I am looking for to get to my goal at the TSC.
Wednesday:
Warm up for the dead lift with 135,185, 225 and went from there into one set of triple at 275. Felt great and had a great finish on each rep. Looking forward to more.
Recon Ron Pull ups went well too. Rep scheme was 8,7,5,5 and 5. Last session of these and I moved up on Friday.
Front Squats warmup with goblet kettlebell squat. Then 5 work sets of 5 reps at 145.
Train with purpose,
Sandy Sommer RKC
After being sick for the better part of last week thanks to the human petri dish otherwise know as the commuter train to D.C., I am starting a new training week.
After getting Marty’s blessing, I have switched over to a “sports-specific” training block to best prepare for the TSC and RKC, while minimizing the chance for over-training given my current life demands.
I will be concentrating on the deadlift, pullups, and kettlebell work for the next 6-8 weeks.
Today:
deadlift- 275 x 3 x 2 volume and loading felt just about right. Good technique maintained throughout (going back to the woodshed over the last month helped immensely).
Pullups- single set of max reps. Got 15 solid reps today- shooting for 20 for the TSC.
Will post my KB work on Friday.
CH
Last week Marty switched up my training routine based on the fact that I have little over 6 weeks till go time. The movements have stayed the same, Deads, FS and Bench press. Only, this time I am dong paused reps. For example, on my FS days, for the past 8 weeks I have been going butt to calf on my squats. The latest video shows me doing 225 at rock bottom. Now, I am stopping once my hip gets just below the knee. At first it was a little weird because I’m used to going all the way down. Now, I am finding that it’s getting easier and my legs are looking and feeling like logs. One thing to consider if you are trying these, you must have good form, if not gravity will take that bar down and there is nothing you can do about it.
Here is what I did:
135 for 6-8 reps/165 x 5/185 x 5 and 205 x 5. On my 3rd rep at 205 I felt the bar coming off, but held it together.
For my bench press day, I widened my grip on the bar at least one fist width. This grip feels great, I feel much stronger. I am really now getting the groove of the press down very well. Sternum to nose, slight C curve. I’m really focusing on corkscrewing my lats and breaking the bar now.
Again, pause reps on the bench, SLOW, SLOWER THEN BLAST OFF is what I’m thinking.
135 x 5/155 x 5/ 175 x 5/ 185 x 5. My chest was on fire after this session.
My dead Lift I have taken back a bit. Pulling 185 x 5 x 2 and still focusing on perfect reps each set. These felt solid this time.
Snatches and Pull ups are moving along nicely. I have Will William’s TAPS bar in my office set up. So, between clients I will jump up there and bang out 15 with no problem. I will probably do this 4 x’s day.
Again, between clients I will grab my 24k and rep them out. On the snatches I’m focusing on that pause at the top, making sure my chest is open and my shoulder is packed nicely. You will be amazed at how many snatches and pull ups you can hit in 1 day between clients. These do not necessarily have to be done at the gym during your primary lifts, for me it’s all about variety. As the Grillman says, “Remember MUSHIN: No mind,no emotion, just do it.”
Wednesday- Today was the last set of 5 dead lifts in a work set for this cycle. Did a warm up with 135, 185 and also 235. Felt very good and set the bar up for 5 reps at 255. Kept hips down nicely and each rep was equal in quality. Looking forward to moving to triples next week.
Did Pavel’s CGBP workout today as well. Warmed up at 95, 105 and 115. One work set of 5, 3 and 2 reps at 145 with recommended rest of 3 minutes between sets. After that worked 3 sets of 5 of 115. Felt really good on these.
Recon Pull up program was 8,7,5, 5 and 5. These didn’t feel quite as well as they did Monday so we shall see how Friday goes.
Thursday- Back to the Barbell Front squat for a work set of five reps. Warmed up with kettlebell goblet squat, some pumps too. Worked up to 165 and nailed it deep with a pause and re-pressurized at the bottom depth. Exploded out of the hole and it felt great.
Friday- Started off with the Recon Ron program again for my pull ups. Felt a lot better than I did Wednesday. Great “hollowing” and got the reps very easily. Never close to failure. 8,7,5,5 and 5. Did my kettlebell snatch sprint for 2:15. First set was 53. Rested for full 6 minutes and got 59 on my second and third sets. 171 reps in 6:45 of work. Pace in total was just over 25. Excellent work for me and am still keeping the rep velocity that I want.
Next week I will be re working my front squat and dead lift programming and it should be interesting.
I ended the week on Sunday with a great deadlift session with Sandy (see video). I backed off a bit last week as I felt I was “over-reaching” a bit and didn’t want to get into an overtrained state. With everything I have going on in my “other life”, I was feeling wiped out last week. So I took a week off of the press and pullups last week (both relative strengths for me) so I could fully recover and hit it hard for week 8. This is a lesson that took me years to learn (and actually implement )in my training………
Feeling great today starting week 8 with heavy KB snatches and will post the play-by-play as the end of the week.
Chris
I have been talking to Marty and He decided to see what my 1 rep max was. In the past weeks I have been killing the lifts and feel very strong. The only thing I am really worried about is my weight. My body weight has been erratic but I tend to look better than I feel. Hum…
So this was my Max. Remind you this is all in one day and I “Worked” up to these set. I felt tired by the Dead lift but still pulled a good weight.
Check it: