Alan H's training log

[Alan H]

1-29-2010

Felt good today, little twinge in my right knee from pushing a big stack on the leg press yesterday, but it'll get lots of rest this weekend so I'm not worried. Back feels good. Easy day today as I had to cut out early to get to a work meeting.

bosu lunges and push back; 80 pounds, 6 x each leg

hip adductor/abductor on the machine; 2 x 10 each leg @ "135 lbs" ...done with week #1 of this, another week to go and back to the squats

hanging leg lifts; 2 x 15

dumbell snatch; tried 100 pounds just for fun...FAIL! Pretty funny...so went 85 pounds, 4 x each hand

incline dumbell press: 2 x 6 x 70, managed to crank one up at 80 pounds

bench rows; 2 x 6 each arm @ 80 lbs

hammer wind core crushers on the Roman Chair; 10 each way with 10 lb medicine ball

[Alan H]

1-31-2010

Throws day, today. I met up with new thrower, Bert MacBride and we went at it for about two hours. Stones, LWFD, Light Hammer and Weight over the bar. Afterwards, I discovered that I'd locked my keys in car. Thus, the evening finished off with a 45 minute bike ride on mostly level ground.

I am SORE in the hips.

[Alan H]

2/2/2010

bosu lunges and push-back...5x 80 pounds, each leg

hip abduct, adduct... 10 x 135, 10 x 150

sit up: tired them with a 25 pound plate on my chest today. did 10

lat pulls on Roman chair...15 each side x 55 pounds'

incline dumbell press... 8 x 70, 2 x 80

bench rows/pulls: 6 x 90, 6 x 90 each arm

curls ... 6 x 100, 6 x 100

upright rows ... 6 x 90, 6 x 90

seated flys: 6 x 190, 5 x 190

"face pulls": 15 x 48 pounds

triceps pull -downs ... 15 x 58

[Alan H]

2/3/2010

Some lower body work, today and still working on strengthening the hip rotators, abduct/adductors as well as lower back.

Bosu lunges and push back: 6 x 80 pounds, each leg. I'd do more but they take a long time and I can barely hold on to the 40 pound dumbells for the whole time!

dumbell snatches: some nasty stuff has come down in my life and I'm mad about it so I thought I'd channel some of that anger into these snatches. I had a rather extended conversation with the dumbell before I took ahold of it. They nice young fellow doing curls at the bench looked at me kinda funny, but I don't care because I did 5 x 90 pounds with the right hand and 3 x 90 pounds with the left hand and that is a LOT more weight to throw around than I ever have, before.

hammer wind core crushers on the roman chair: 10 each way with 8 lb medicine ball

sit ups: I've been thinking that I want to add more weight, so I grabbed the 25 pound plate today, told myself that I'd do more today than I did yesterday, and cranked out 13 good situps on the incline board at the steepest setting.

hip adduct/abduct: 2 x 10 x 150 pounds "on the stack"

supermans (thanks Chirolifter)...10 of 'em, hold for ten seconds.

pushups: feet on t 20 inch box, hands on wobble boards, 20 pushups, as fast as I can.

dumbell lifts...I dont know what to call these, but you put a dumbell on the floor, take a squat stance above it, grip the thing equally with both hands, and then smoothly, with arms straight, stand and lift the thing over your head. Amazon Goddess Wendy prescribed them and when Wendy speaks, I listen.... 2 x 10 x 55 pounds

Lower back feels pretty good...little bit sore in that one muscle in the left upper glute. Right distal gracilis tendon is sore-ish but not bad. It seems to be recovering from shoving around that big stack I pushed in the leg lifts last week. One more day of hip adductor/abductor work and I go back to trying the squats.

I might have to give up on the 300 pound squat goal, and focus instead on moving 200 pounds, *fast*. We'll see how it goes.

[Alan H]

Missed my workout on Friday, some stuff came up at work and I couldn't get away. So I went in, today. Man oh man, but the place was *packed*. Today is the last day for "hip strengthening" prior to starting up squats again.

2/6/2010

Bosu lunges: I just could NOT get balanced today, and the two 40 lb dumbells just wore out my forearms and I couldn't hold on to them....so 4 each leg, 80 lbs.

sit ups: incline board, steepest setting, 25 pound plate on chest x 14 ...which is one more than LAST time

Lat pulls on the Roman Chair: 15 x 55 pounds each side.

dumbell snatches 85 pounds x 9...5 right hand, 4 left hand, plus two near "misses" that pissed me off.

Hip adduct/abduct: 2 x 10 x 150 pounds "on the stack" each leg

supermans: 10 x 10 second hold

incline dumbell press: 8 x 70, 6 x 70

leg press: 2 x 10 x 290 "on the stack"

upright rows: 2 x 8 x 80

tricep cable pulldowns: 2 x 10 x 70 pounds

seated flys: 8 x 190, 6 x 190 "on the stack"

It's now four hours after this workout and lower back still feels good.

Squats on Monday!

[nh_maclean]

So Alan, inspired by your postings, I've decided to incorporate the DB swings and DB snatches into my new workout... pretty interesting.

I do 1 day fullbody workout and then do a 3 day/split... so each body part gets hit 2x/week. This is my first week, coming off another program. I'm doing the DB swing and snatch on shoulder/bi days (well, mainly for shoulders) but def. felt it in my core today as well. It was a great addition to my Shoulder workout...

Do you do the swings 1-handed or two? Are you supposed to keep the swing going or come to full-stops?
-- I'm doing two-handed with a complete stop on bottom and since the weight is light for now what looks like a 2-handed tricep overhead extention


For the DB snatch... you do this 1 db at a time, right? and do you follow through over your head into a db pressup or do you go from floor to shoulder height only?

Thanks!
Noah

[Alan H]

Wisdom in the weight room

So I'm a pretty "driven" person. I set lofty goals for myself, often in unusual venues. Throwing in the Highland Games is one of those goals, I would very much like to chuck the Open Stone over 30 feet, which compared to most of you guys, is not a terribly difficult achievement, but for some reason it's eluded me. I"m tired of going out on the field and tossing the weight over the bar and missing at 13 feet. I'd like to do better. So I have those things as goals.

I watch the videos' of you younger guys doing their gym workouts and I see myself. You are SO much stronger than I am! I read the training logs of the Kilt Bill and Chirolifter who are my age and I'm in there with you guys on a few exercises, but especially with the lower body..legs and core I'm far off the pace. I want to throw the distances that you throw and so I've been pushing myself in the gym.

....And I'm right on the edge of getting hurt. I can tell. So today I talked to Wendy the trainer at length. I asked her to watch me do squats and tell me if I was doing something wrong, since squats are my problematic exercise. She agree'd so I warmed up and get her from her office and we walked over to the squat rack.

But interestingly enough, she didn't start out talking to me about my squat technique. Instead, we talked about goals. We talked about life, and what's important and what I want to do. I said things like "...I can't understand the guys on the Highland Athletes forum who brag about their twelve surgeries and the fact that they don't have ACL's any more. I don't want to do that".... I said things like..."yes, I want to throw far, but when I'm 75 years old I want to be able to put a backpack on my back and go into the Sierra Nevada for four nights and see the stars over the lake"....

I said..." I love the Games, and it's fun. But the Games are something I DO...they're not WHO I AM." That made me think of a conversation I had with a bunch of the Pro's under the trees at Pleasanton, last year.

She nodded and talked some more about goals and then she watched me squat 190 pounds five times and I had to work pretty hard to rack that last one. She says my form is great. We talked about wearing belts and the kind of strength needed to throw well and the tradeoff between wearing a belt, or not, and about the fine line between pushing yourself hard to be the best athlete you can be, and that point where you get hurt. Finally, we talked very briefly about the obvious fact that if you get hurt, you're not going to throw at your optimum, eh?

We talked about priorities and goals and what's important to me.

On the way back from the gym I made a list in my head, of things that are really important to me.

1. Getting up in the morning and looking at myself in the mirror and being at least comfortable with what I see, if not proud of who I am.

2. Being "right" with myself, the people who are close to me, the people in my community and my world, and my God.

3. The ability to get out in the natural world by hiking, biking and sailing and seeing the beauty that's around me.

4. To be able to see, hear and play music through my old age.

....and so on. Way down the list, about number 10 or 12 is "throw the Open Stone over 30 feet and heave the Masters weight over the bar over 13 feet". It occurred to me that in fact, it's pretty stupid to lift weights in the gym that will compromise goals 4, 5, and so on, so as to be able to achieve goal #12.

The reminds me of another time in the summer 0f 2008 when I listened to a radio conversation and it caused me to remember my goals. I remember when I remembered to stick to the game plan and not risk everything for a goal way, way down the list, when that risk might compromise the first, most important goal.

So I'm going to let go of this "squat 300 pounds" thing and carry on. I'm not going to be upset when I see Duncan MacAllum squatting 100 pounds more than I do, when he's got a bum wheel. I'll squat, but I'll squat what I can without taking a big chance of getting hurt and if that means that I don't happen to clear 13 feet, then so be it. I won't blow my right knee to smithereens, either, and I'll be able to walk without a brace when I'm 60..

Today was a really good workout. I squatted 190 pounds 5x5 and 170 pounds 6x 6 and then did dumbell snatches and sit ups and lat pulls and 20 pushups with my feet on a 20-inch box. Actually it was kind of a light day. I didn't even write down what I did in my training log. But the BEST thing about todays workout was not the weights.

It was the wisdom. Thanks, Wendy.

[Alan H]

So Alan, inspired by your postings, I've decided to incorporate the DB swings and DB snatches into my new workout... pretty interesting.


Do you do the swings 1-handed or two? Are you supposed to keep the swing going or come to full-stops?
-- I'm doing two-handed with a complete stop on bottom and since the weight is light for now what looks like a 2-handed tricep overhead extention


For the DB snatch... you do this 1 db at a time, right? and do you follow through over your head into a db pressup or do you go from floor to shoulder height only?

Thanks!
Noah

snatches are one-handed, yes.... dumbell swings..

Go on to YouTube and look up Greg Hadleys video's he does kettlebell swings. Also, look up "Sorinex" and "Hungarian Core Blaster". I would do those if my back would tolerate it. They will bigtime pay off for WOB.

[nh_maclean]

snatches are one-handed, yes.... dumbell swings..

Go on to YouTube and look up Greg Hadleys video's he does kettlebell swings. Also, look up "Sorinex" and "Hungarian Core Blaster". I would do those if my back would tolerate it. They will bigtime pay off for WOB.

Those crazy Hungarians (figures I'm 1/4 Hungarian)! But it looks like it's a continuous movement so I'll switch to that - it makes sense. I'm doing it as partly core and partly shoulder work.

Thanks.

[nh_maclean]

Got this from a friend of mine:

1. Figure-8s:
take a plate if it's got handles or some good way to grip it or a medicine ball. Do figure-8s between your legs (like you would with basketball).

2. Plate Rotations:
take a plate. hold it out in front of you (arms slightly bent) and turn slowly left and right as far as you can go. do this standing. do this kneeling (on one knee with the other in front of you)

3. Plate Overhead Rotations:
take a plate. start in front of you and do circles - left, up over and behind your head, down to the right. go both ways. this is great core and upperbody workout.

I only just started this the other week and my abs are still sore!