Wednesday (6:30am and 6pm )
- Clean and Jerk: 6 sets of 3.
- Max out on back squat, bench press, and deadlift. Three attempts to establish new PR.
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25 October 2010
Workouts - Off Week
Please commit to the days and times you want to attend this week by posting to the comments.
Wednesday (6:30am and 6pm )
Wednesday (6:30am and 6pm )
18 October 2010
More from Pavel
Tim Ferris posted this article: Pavel: 80/20 Powerlifting and How to Add 110 lbs. to Your Lifts about two years ago. The article fails to mention the time involved in learning correct lifting technique, but the "less-is-more" principle is worth considering for strength gains. It's true that our actual physiological fitness gains occur during rest. Note: Ferris has a new book coming out, The 4-Hour Body.
Workouts - Week 6
Please commit to the days and times you want to attend this week by posting to the comments.
Monday (6pm)
- Turkish Get-Up: 3 x 3
- Workout: 3 rounds for time: 400m run, 20 KB swings, 12 pull-ups. Compare times to 7 Sep 10.
Monday (6pm)
- Back Squat: 5 sets of 5 reps
- Power clean: 3 sets of 3 reps
- Front squat: 5 sets of 5 reps
- OH press: 5 sets of 5 reps
- Turkish Get-Up: 3 x 3
- Workout: 3 rounds for time: 400m run, 20 KB swings, 12 pull-ups. Compare times to 7 Sep 10.
15 October 2010
Great interview with Pavel Tsatsouline
Pavel Tsatsouline is the reason you even know what a kettlebell is. See Part I and Part II at T-Nation (bodybuilding site), or the whole thing reprinted here. Well worth the time to read. All strength is core strength.
To answer Dyer's questions:
There's a lot to think about in the article, but what sticks with me three days later is this:
1) lifting to build muscles (bodybuilding) is not the same as lifting for strength and power. This is very important point for athletes, as the dominant paradigm in athletic weight rooms for the last 25 years has been a bodybuilding model--e.g. 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps, chest/shoulder/triceps day and legs/back/biceps day, etc. That's all very effective at growing muscle, but not necessarily creating strength and power.
2) All strength is core strength. Put another way, you are only as strong as you are able to maintain posture under load. Gripping the bar tightly and the corollary for push-ups are related to this through muscle activation and the holistic nature of our musculature system.
Pavel's points about not warming up and not lifting to failure are really items for an advanced audience; people with a year or more of serious lifting who understand the movements, their own reasons for training, and have experimented with multiple programs.
Not warming up is a matter of definition I think. Pavel talks about not warming up as a more accurate prep for mil and law enforcement. Valid point. However, my experience tells me that the first few sets of whatever you do actually function as a warm-up. With no official warm-up, the first 3 sets of a 5x5 workout become the warm-up by default. Also, the body performs better after it is warmed up. Sprinters routinely post better times/performances in their 2nd and 3rd events of the day. There is something to giving an all/nearly all out effort that preps the body-mind for giving a peak performance. I'm reminded of a quote from Gladiator (ca 1992); something like "If you go into the ring cold, you're going to come out of the ring cold."
I believe not lifting to failure to be a matter of experience and knowing thyself. What Pavel is talking about is people deliberately lifting to burn-out or failure. Max rep type workouts. In heavy lifts, you don't always know when failure will occur, but you are striving for known quantity of reps, usually 1 to 5. If you lift often and have a lot of experience, you can gauge how much is enough fairly accurately based on one set and how you feel. Novices don't really know themselves well enough to be accurate. Frankly, would anyone honestly try to move a barbell if they knew they were going to fail? That's why we try. We think we can, and sometimes we do. If you have a lot of experience, your "think" gets closer and closer to a "know", and you can make training decisions based upon it. You need to be pretty darned experienced to load a bar and know what's going to happen in a fifth set of heavy lifts. There isn't anyone in our workouts who is there just yet. I stress yet.
To answer Dyer's questions:
There's a lot to think about in the article, but what sticks with me three days later is this:
1) lifting to build muscles (bodybuilding) is not the same as lifting for strength and power. This is very important point for athletes, as the dominant paradigm in athletic weight rooms for the last 25 years has been a bodybuilding model--e.g. 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps, chest/shoulder/triceps day and legs/back/biceps day, etc. That's all very effective at growing muscle, but not necessarily creating strength and power.
2) All strength is core strength. Put another way, you are only as strong as you are able to maintain posture under load. Gripping the bar tightly and the corollary for push-ups are related to this through muscle activation and the holistic nature of our musculature system.
Pavel's points about not warming up and not lifting to failure are really items for an advanced audience; people with a year or more of serious lifting who understand the movements, their own reasons for training, and have experimented with multiple programs.
Not warming up is a matter of definition I think. Pavel talks about not warming up as a more accurate prep for mil and law enforcement. Valid point. However, my experience tells me that the first few sets of whatever you do actually function as a warm-up. With no official warm-up, the first 3 sets of a 5x5 workout become the warm-up by default. Also, the body performs better after it is warmed up. Sprinters routinely post better times/performances in their 2nd and 3rd events of the day. There is something to giving an all/nearly all out effort that preps the body-mind for giving a peak performance. I'm reminded of a quote from Gladiator (ca 1992); something like "If you go into the ring cold, you're going to come out of the ring cold."
I believe not lifting to failure to be a matter of experience and knowing thyself. What Pavel is talking about is people deliberately lifting to burn-out or failure. Max rep type workouts. In heavy lifts, you don't always know when failure will occur, but you are striving for known quantity of reps, usually 1 to 5. If you lift often and have a lot of experience, you can gauge how much is enough fairly accurately based on one set and how you feel. Novices don't really know themselves well enough to be accurate. Frankly, would anyone honestly try to move a barbell if they knew they were going to fail? That's why we try. We think we can, and sometimes we do. If you have a lot of experience, your "think" gets closer and closer to a "know", and you can make training decisions based upon it. You need to be pretty darned experienced to load a bar and know what's going to happen in a fifth set of heavy lifts. There isn't anyone in our workouts who is there just yet. I stress yet.
10 October 2010
Workouts - Week 5
Please commit to the days and times you want to attend this week by posting to the comments.
Monday (6pm)
Monday (6pm)
- 7 rounds for time of:
10 push-ups
10 squat cleans
10 pull-ups
- Stacy: 24:39 with 65 lbs. cleans
- Gary: 11:28 + 5 additional rounds (8 reps each; 45 lbs. hang power cleans; jumping pull-ups)
- Clean and Jerk: 6 sets of 3 reps
- Bottom-to-bottom Tabata squats
- Snatch: 6 sets of 3 reps
- Tabata sit-ups
05 October 2010
Great squat instruction
Watch this squat video from Greg Everett at Catalyst Athletics.
This is great cueing for those of us who struggle with getting to the actual bottom on the Oly lifts and squats. Stacy, Richard, this is especially useful for those of us who still round the lower back at the bottom of the squat. You will see this stuff soon.
This is great cueing for those of us who struggle with getting to the actual bottom on the Oly lifts and squats. Stacy, Richard, this is especially useful for those of us who still round the lower back at the bottom of the squat. You will see this stuff soon.
01 October 2010
Workouts - Week 4
Please commit to the days and times you want to attend this week by posting to the comments.
Monday (6pm)
Monday (6pm)
- Deadlift: 5 sets of 1 rep
- Box jumps: 7 sets of 1 jumps; establish max height jump
- Bench Press: Max out. Three attempts to establish a 1 RM.
- Workout: TBD
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