Conditioning 6/15/10

Moose and I started doing some stair and hill running after I decided I hated being 245 lbs. We started with a real low volume (70 yds or 1 "set" of stairs for 6 reps), full recovery between reps, and moderate intensity. I've progressed to going full bore on 8 reps, with no more rest between reps than the time it takes me to walk back down. It takes us about 25 minutes max (and that's with an extended cooldown). We do it twice a week. I may increase this after the meet, but for now I will sit at this level of conditioning as my primary focus is maximal strength, not being in the best shape I can be.

Today we did 8 reps up the stairs at McCullough Stadium, then walked the 1/4 mile track as a cooldown.

Monday Training 6/14/10

As I alluded to in my previous post, I'm about 8 weeks out from a powerlifting competition. This is a relatively short amount of time to truly prepare, so I've drawn up a slightly crazy training plan. I'm being conservative in volume (total number of reps performed) overall, and will base intensities (heaviness) based on how I'm feeling that day. I'm pretty objective about when to hammer and when to back off. I'd prefer to not completely deload (reduce volume/intensity to give the body a break) until the week before the meet. This will require me being a good boy with all aspects of recovery--nutrition, sleep, relaxation, soft tissue work, flexibility, etc.

The gist of my plan is to train some strength quality of all three power lifts in each workout, training three days per week with active rest on the weekends. I'll likely use special max effort exercises for each lift, dynamic effort exercises will probably be the lifts themselves with minor accommodating resistance or med ball/jump work, and repetitive effort lifts will be chosen to keep up muscle mass and provide the body with balance.

I wanted to take a heavy single in each lift this week to figure out where I'm at. With no further ado, here's what happened today...

Monday 6/14/10

Foam Rolling
Dynamic Warmup/Activation

A)Squats
Bar x some
135 x 3
185 x 3
225 x 3
275 x 3
315 x 3
(gear on--old knee and elbow sleeves, belt, Metal wrist wraps)
365 x 1
405 x 1
455 x 1
500 x 1
535 x 1 25 lb. PR

B1)DE Deads
w/u...
405 x 1
425 x 1 x 4 sets

B2)Flat DB Press
65s x 5
95s x 10 x 4 sets

C1a)Half-Kneeling Stability Lifts
27.5 x 8 x 2 sets each way

C1b)Half-Kneeling Stability Chops
32.5 x 8 x 2 sets each way

C2)Fat Grip Pullups
BW x 10 x 4 sets

NOTES: I was surprised by the 535 squat. I've lost about 17 lbs from my all-time highest weight of 246.5 back in mid-April, but my squat doesn't really show it yet. I felt my speed was good on the deadlifts--I love pulling in the Vibram Five Fingers). Giving the stability chops and lifts a serious go for the first time.

Wednesday we'll work up to a heavy single on the bench, do some kind of squat speed work and some light good mornings for our repetition dead work.

This is the beginning of blog, or bb for short...

I'm 8 weeks out from the AAPF NW Powerlifting Championships. I'll be competing in Mens Open 220, and will use this blog to outline my training leading up to that. In addition to that, I'll just write about whatever I might be thinking, as mostly I think I write better than I think. This being Sunday evening, I'm lazy and will leave this as my first blog post. Here's a pic of my training partner Moose and my dog Chaco on a recent hike to the Breitenbush Gorge.

Here we go...