Alright the second workout of my ballistic block...

It's thurs, and I've managed to lay off for two days. but today I reversed Monday's workout.

Mobility in the beginning.
5x5 cleans and jurks
Vo2 Max, all 24kg
and then at the end I did another round of jurks this time one handed for ladders 1-5 with the 24kg, and repeated it twice.

I would say that by now my neck is about 95% better, but we'll see when I begin my grind block in 1 week.

Tues....

20 min Mobility:
AIS hams
straight leg ham contract relax
AIS ham calf
10 min of work
soft roll 3 reps
ipsilateral bird dog 3 reps
10 min of work

Monday... Finally Snatches and Swings, and more

Alright, after 3 weeks devoted to body weight training, it's time for some conditioning- which of course means high volume ballistics- if you thought I was going to spend an hour on the treadmill, you don't know me very well.

Joint Mobility,
AIS hamstrings
foam roll t-spine
Bretzle
hard rolls
breathing drills
bird dog
5 sets- it took me about 30 min to get through everything

Workout:
100 swings 3 min
Vo2 max 15"on/15"rest- for 20 min with the 16kg for the first 5 min. 25" of the 24 kg.

Support work:
KB jurks 5 sets of 5 reps.

As you can see I'm doing block training. 2 weeks grinds, 2 weeks ballistics. In 2 weeks I will go back to grinds, but this time turks will make an appearence.

Sat.... Workout???

Don't worry I worked out Sat, it's just I didn't do swings or snatches. See each weekend I get in the backyard and normally do some weird stuff (i.e. push cars), so my son Christian gets interested. So on Fri when I got home from work I lost a bet with Christian, and had to play hide and seek, and tag for 4 hours, so I didn't have time to put in the training time with the swings and snatches. So on Sat. I had to find something I could do while hidding from Christian, lol.

In my opinion even though you should be seeking ideal movement in your grind movements, you should do so even more in your ballistics; in fast powerful movements your body is going to want to work efficiently so you must make sure the stablizers do their job- otherwise only primary movers will do the work. Furthermore because of the extra momentum which is added because of the nature of a ballistic you must be particularly in tune with your motor groove. Thus you need a little bit more attention to detail when you swing or snatch (or for that matter clean and jurk). So instead this on Sat I worked my Military Press, and hanging leg raise. 5 sets of 5 reps. Be back Monday.

Thurs Workout

5 sets of 25 down dog
20 sets of 5 pushups
5 sets of 5 flat bridges

No time to workout on Fri, but will snatch and swing on Sat. !

Monday workout

It's getting to be routine:

Mobility:
AIS ham
supine breathing drills, and rib mobilization
Sun A flow 5 sets

Specific Warm up
flat leg raises 20 reps

Hanging leg raises
5 sets of 5 reps

Pushups
5 sets 5 reps

Pistols
5 sets ladder 1- 5

Played with Pull up 10 reps total

Friday Workout Swings and snatches

Mobility
Sun A 5 sets

Cycle 5 sets of 20 reps
wall downward dog
incline downward dog
flat downward dog

Workout
VO 2 15/15 cadence, but I cycled the weight between 16kg and 24 kg. 20min total time. Switching weight after each hand took a turn at one size bell

Swing complex 20 min
10 swings
5 single hand swings
rest of min rest begin again at whole minute mark

Thurs trying to repeat Mon....

Hey hey, I'm getting better I was able to repeat all of Monday, nice!

Monday workout

Once agian after the break I'm feeling great.

Mobility:
Sun A Yoga flow,

Warm up:
lying leg raised 3 by 50
incline push ups 3 by 20

Workout

Hanging leg raises 5 by 8
Push ups 10 by 3
Pistols 3 by 1-8 ladder

Thurs trying to repeat Mon....

It didn't happend.

3 sets of 1 tof 3 ladder full push ups DAMN i'M WEAK!

20 minutes of swings 20 swings each minute.

3 sets of 1 to 3 ladder pistols


AND i'M OUT! REST OF WEEK AND WEEKEND OFF

Monday workout

Yeah again I'm writting out of my training log.

Mobility:
Sun A Yoga flow, mixed in with Cook push up rolling, and hard rolls till warmed up

Cycle through 5 sets 25
door downward dog
incline downward dog
flat downward dog

Hanging leg raises 5 sets 5 reps

Push ups knees 5 sets 25 reps

KB preacher curls complext set with goblet squats 5 sets 5 reps

pistols 5 sets of ladders 1 to 8

Sunday Workout...

Took my TRX home today- (yes I'm writting about two weeks after the fact but I'm copying right out of my training journal. Alright I'll put it in past tense!) Worked to 50 flat TRX Rows- 1 warm up set of 20. 4 sets of 25 reps of flat bridges and bilateral straight leg raises, and then upside down squats. Neck feels great.

Thurs Workout...

Alright, so after a day off on Wed- I normally do a Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri schedule- this is my Thurs workout. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's workout because I'll really focus on getting stable on the pull up bar, and working back toward my handstands against the wall. My scap stability is suprisingly better just after one hard focused Tues workout. If you can't lift yourself you how can you really be strong?

Warm up:
straight leg raise (slr) work, Hamstring AIS stretching, single leg hip bridge, and quadraped (bird dog).

Specific warm up:
incline push ups 2 sets of 50 reps
kneeling push ups 2 sets 25 reps
close leg squats 2 sets of 50 reps
empty leg supported pistols 2 sets of 20 reps

Working sets:
1/2 push up 5 sets of 4 reps
Pistols 5 sets of 7 reps
hip bridge 3 sets of 20 (weight supported on hands)

Play:
incline back bend 2 reps
leg assisted pull up 2 sets of 10
eccentric pull up 1 rep
turk get up 1 rep with 24kg

day 1: tues

I know it's odd to start on a Tues but I hate procrastinating, so normally whenever I get the inclination to start doing something I jump in, and I don't wait for Monday to come. So my tues day workout looked like this:

FMS self test

t-spine, Hamstring, and ankle mobilization


Circuit 1:
- incline push up 25reps
- legs together squat 25reps
-hanging bent knee raises 10reps
went through this 5 sets

Cuircuit 2:
-1/2 push up 10reps
- inverted row 10reps
-pistol 10reps
went through this 10 times

End with play- this is basically challenge work to see if I can stabilize my scapula at movements that use to be easy:
- pull ups just the way down
- push ups from the floor just the way up
probably did a total of 20 of each of these but 1rep at a time

Support work curcuit 3:
down up dog 5 reps
stiff leg deadlift 5 reps
5 sets of this curcuit.

Health vs. Fitness???

After an almost 3 hour visit with my alternative medicine doctor Darrick Sahara, DC, AK, I’ve been questioning myself, and my purpose as a fitness professional. I’ve been wondering what exactly my purpose in the health care field is? I mean sure people who are more fit tend to get sick and ill less often than their unfit counterparts, but if Dr. Sahara can actually do what he claims to do, which is basically hit the reset button on your system, and totally make you strong again- what’s my purpose, and certainly what is the purpose of multiple sessions with me or someone like me? I mean isn’t that what exercise over time is suppose to do; be a sort of reset button for your movement so that you can adapt and get strong, endurant, flexible, better posture, or whatever… ?

Now, before you go on reading I’m not depressed, and there’s a reason why I’m putting these questions to myself and out in the open for you to read about. But to understand that you need just a little background on what has happened the last few weeks.

First, I’m injured again! If you know anything about my background, then you know I’ve been injured multiple times in my athletic career; the most significant being: my elbow reconstruction, Quadricep tear, and fractured shins- three injuries that ended my baseball career. The injury I have to deal with now is a disc herniation in my cervical spine, and the multiple other bulges shown on the MRI. The symptoms that I am having are called cervical rediculopathy from the infringement upon the root of the C7 nerve.

Second, I believe that I am the fittest I’ve ever been. In fact I believed this claim so much, that I think that even though I haven’t run in over 2 years, if someone asked me to run a 10k I could. My heart is in that type of condition, and even though it might not be smart if I had to do something I could. In fact I was once asked why I train, and my response was, “so if the world blows up and I am projected into space that I would survive in space the longest”- (to which the friend immediately responded: hahahahahahha; moron).

Why am I going to a Doctor of Alternative Medicine? That’s easy to avoid the surgery recommended by my neurologist, to avoid stoping my martial arts and strength training practice recommended by my physical therapist, and to get back to Jiu Jitzui and my crazy phone book tearing self. Furthermore I believe in the power of the body to get over a lot! I’ve been through many different stresses in my life from weeks with almost no sleep, to playing with broken fingers, muscle and joint spains/strains, and even playing baseball with 1 eye being patched; Furthermore so far I’m even surviving a life with a wife and kids - (my wife is going to “kill” me for saying that one, lol). Even furthermore, this injury was probably sustained the easiest way I’ve ever been injured; I never even knew I was injured until two days after the incident. In essence WTH- How did a guy at the fittest point of his life get injured without ever even knowing it?

My Western Medical Pro’s would suggest that I had something structurally wrong that is common in my age group that was asymptomatic before, and became inflamed after taking on new challenges. Yet I don’t believe them entirely. Maybe I’m weird but I believe I was physically fit enough to handle the stresses of my new martial art, even if I was structurally misaligned. In essence I believe something else went wrong; I believe that somehow I wasn’t recovering - (whatever I could’ve done) - and that my health failed. Enter in Dr. Sahara!

With all this said last Wed, I went into an appointment at 1230pm with him and was tested and worked on until about 3pm. Now he didn’t give me a blood and urine test, but looked at my blood pressure, and heart rate in different positions, and then pushed on my arm in an almost undetectable way, and came up with the result that I needed some sort of solution spray for adhesions and scars, that I needed 4 leiters of water/day, that I needed him to rub “the living hell” out of my chest with his knuckle, and that I needed more meat, less fruit, and no nuts- HIP HIP HURAH MORE MEAT! After all of this I then past my subscapularis manual muscle test, as well as my lat and triceps test- which have all been weak since my injury, and these were not just assessed by him, but by my PT, MD, and me. After all this I began wondering, “If it’s really that easy to get a muscle strong enough, then what am I practicing?”

First off- I thought- My practice as a fitness pro is important for biomechanical concerns, obviously. So if you come to me because you don’t know how to squat, I can teach you. But that certainly can’t take as many sessions as I sell, nor should it.

Second off I’m important to people who need to lose weight or who want to reach some sort of fitness goal- i.e. bench press a certain amount or get into the splits, run a marathon, etc. There are plenty of studies out there to suggest that people who pay for trainers get more results than those who don’t. Furthermore, because I’m NSCA and RKC certified I’m more than well versed in the science of training for fitness, sport performance, and everyday performance needs. Yet once again this stuff is just like learning to squat- it’s really purely mechanical, and a matter of your work ethic, and a little coaching; IT’S NOT REALY THE WHOLE OF HEALTH. And although all of these points make what I do important, because I do enable your fitness, performance, and health, what I do is certainly not the pinnacle of what needs to be done for great health, and because health is so much if you wonder to far from it you’ll feel it despite your fitness.

See many people sign up with the idea that somehow they’re going to achieve this healthy being from training with me, because to most fitness is health. But health is so much more than just being strong, flexible, muscularly endurant, cardiovascularly endurant, in the right body composition, or even able to perform whatever you’re doing in a better- stronger/safer way. Look I’ve said it many times throughout the years- “fitness is rooted in its five aspects!” And I should have said this more, “health doesn’t end with being fit!”

In other words, Health is this huge encompassing idea. I mean fitness isn’t small, and certainly by being fit you are helping your health in many different ways, but being healthy is so much more , and to be honest it’s so big of an idea I’m not sure how to define it. It seems like it’s not just being alive and thriving, which fitness has quite a bit to do with, but it’s something so big it takes a team of people to find, get, or even understand. Yet while health is so big it’s also so small, and easy to picture when it is absent or not wholly present. I mean we all feel when we aren’t healthy- i.e. when we need recovery/a vacation, less stress, more happiness, more faith, more support, less adversity, more security, etc… . Yet there are just so many feelings that seemingly need satisfying, that while we feel them we don’t seem to be able to meet all of them. This is where I think both Dr. Sahara, and I fit in, and perhaps everyone in the health care community- we all help people meet some aspect of the giant idea that is health. And although this experience has brought me to an enlightened perspective about just how big it all is, one thing remains completely unquestionable that in the end although fitness isn’t everything it’s a big part of what total health is. How big of a part it is, is a topic I’ll leave for another article.