Saturday, March 15, 2008

"It's all easy 'til it's heavy"

BJ#2, 3 rounds @16kg, 1 hour

5/5 C&P
20 two hand swing
5/5 C&P
5/5 C&FSQ
5/5 C&P
5/5 TGU
5/5 C&P
5/5 snatch
5/5 C&P
Rest as needed.

In the first round I had extra long rests, in the vain hope that it would help my pressing, so it took about 30min.
Then I considered the following:
1. No use resting longer, I can only do 2, maybe 3 strict presses, less and less with time.
2. This is actually more a strength-endurance program, if I turn it into GTG, the essence is gone.
3. I don't have to force strict presses in this program, I can practice them on other days if I want to, or I can return to ETK ROP after the cert.
So I decided to simply do all push presses and have normal rests between exercises. Thus I finished the second and the third round in approx. 15min each.
Or what do you think?

6 comments:

Gunther said...

like your routines. have added your blog to my favourites to follow it. Got the link from an answer you gave at the dd forum.

Franklin said...

I am far from an expert in proper KB training but I would have to agree with your observation about replacing the C&Ps with C&PPs.

The 16kg x 3 strict MPs with each arm is quite impressive, however, C&PPs fall more into the ballistic groove of your complex.

Gabi said...

Welcome, Gunther,
I'm glad you like them.
I'm not going by weeks, I organize my workouts around Brett Jones' 3 consecutive days' program. These sessions are generally Fri-Sat-Sun, but sometimes I shift them a bit, depending on my working schedule or my momentary condition (health, energy level, etc.). Other workouts are mostly based on Tracy Reifkind's ideas, but I'm planning to do a bit more of Kenneth Jay's VO2Max protocols. I usually train 3-4 days in a row, sort of imitating the cert circumstances, then take a day off, but it can be more or less, depending on previous/coming workload.

Gabi said...

Franklin,
Thank you.
I got stuck for a long time last year pressing the 16 although I could easily complete 5 ladders of 5 with the 12. Then, in October, came the decision about the cert so I thought to myself: "To hell with the 16, I weigh somewhere between 125 and 130lb, I won't be expected to press it anyway", and went for higher volumes with the 12, sometimes doubles too.
Several months I never touched the 16, until one day I got curious... and voila, I could complete 5 ladders of 3!
First I thought WTH, but I found the explanation in the Bryce Lane article Steve Freides posted on DD a few days ago (http://www.ironsports.tv/gp.html) - a great read.

Franklin said...

Thanks for the link to the Bryce Lane article .. very nice and directly applicable as well!

Using his pyramid, I now better understand what happened to me recently as I had the opposite experience of you. In my case to improve my plateau at "#2" swing endurance with the 24kg, I went with "#1" heavy low reps with double 32kg swings. This made the 24kg feel much lighter and subsequently, I have been hitting a new PR about once a week with the 24kg.

As a side note, for some reason when clicking on your name in a post, it doesn't bring up your profile .. instead it raises a "bX-nix4as" error (whatever that is). Consequently, I was unable to find this blog .. it should have been available in your profile. I tried this a few days ago when you posted on Tracy's site and it still behaves like that now as well. If you want to get more feedback on your blog, I might suggest contacting the Blog help desk to have it repaired.

Like Gunther, I only was able to get to your blog as a result of you explicitly publishing its URL on the DD forum in one of your posts there.

Gabi said...

Franklin,
This indeed very annoying profile-problem has been persisting since Blogger was down last weekend. I tried to get help via Blogger Help Group, but unfortunately without success.
Now I decided to fix it the only way I can myself, so I created a new Blogger account and moved my blogs. I just hope it'll work some time now...