Val Log

[Valette]

Sunday's Workout:

 

Active Recovery!!!

I went for 30 minute walk this morning and did some yoga, foam rolling, and mobility work.  Gonna do more research in mobility in light of some structural issues I've been experiencing.

[Valette]

Chest/Tri/Back/Bi/Hams

Dynamic Warm-up

Plyos:

Various Medball Throws/Slams

3 Supersets
 

Strength:

Bench Press, 5/3/1x

FSL, 3 sets of 5-7

Deadlift, 5/3/1x

FSL, 3 sets of 5-7

 

Ring Dips, max
Bent-Over Row, 7x

Explosive Narrow-Wide Pull-Ups, max

3 sets

 

Shoulders/Traps/Legs

Dynamic warmup

 

Plyos:

Box Jump, 5x

Depth Jump, 5x

Bound, 5x
3 Supersets
 

Strength:

Military Press, 5/3/1x

FSL, 3 sets of 5-7

Barbell Squats, 5/3/1x

FSL, 3 sets of 5-7

 

Upright Rows, 7x

Bulgarian Split Squat, 7x ea leg

3 sets

[Kishi]

Nice! I like what I see here. You seem to understand that sometimes, More Is Not Better, but rather that More Is Just More. Good. Work hard and recover. That's how training actually works.

[Valette]

7 hours ago, Kishi said:

Nice! I like what I see here. You seem to understand that sometimes, More Is Not Better, but rather that More Is Just More. Good. Work hard and recover. That's how training actually works.

Thank you!!! Ultimately, I definitely think listening to the body is critical.  I make sure I still feel refreshed before I sling around more weight.  i definitely have been seeing improvements since I increased calories from my cut. woooo!!

Monday's Workout:
Morning:

20 minutes of stretching 

Evening:

Chest/Tri

Dynamic Warm-up: 

Ball Push-Ups, Box drills

3 sets, nice and easy

 

Strength:

Bench Press, 5/3/1x

 

DB incline, 15x

Wide/Deep Ring Push-ups, 10x (or some other push-ups variation)

Push-ups, max

3 sets

 

L-Sit Hold from bar, max

Ring Dips, max

Tricep extension, 10x

3 sets

 

Carry:

Bear Hug Carry for distance

 

Core Work:

Reverse Crunch, 20x

Floor Wipers, 20x

Side Crunches, 20x

3 sets

 

Loaded Mobility:

Overhead (Shoulder Flexion)

Shoulder Hyperextension

Hamstring/Calve (Hip Flexion)

Hip Flexor/Quad (Hip Extension)

Middle Split (Hip Abduction/Adduction)

Squat (Glute)


(For loaded mobility, again nice and easy. I have about 3 or 4 movements/stretches per area while focusing on 5-10 good reps or 30-60s static holds depending; The goal is to double down on mobility which I've been largely neglecting. :X)

Evening workout took 1 hr 15 minutes.  Not too bad.

[Valette]

Tuesday's Workout

 

Morning:

20 minutes of stretching

Finding a lot of enjoyment in Tom Merrick's stuff this week. Check him out on YouTube.

 

Evening:

Long Steady State Cardio

• Run, 1.5 miles 18 minutes.

Feeling mentally drained, so I stuck with some good, ol', meditative cardio for today. I started cramping hard after the first mile and dialed it down after a few more minutes.  The good news is that I finally completed the first mile in under 10 minutes.  Woo! Eventually, I think I'd like to be more systematic with my endurance/lssd sessions. Right now there a bit like "try to run for 20 minutes without feeling like you're going to vomit in the heat. GJ buddy!"

[Valette]

Wednesday's Workout

 

Morning:

20 minutes of stretching

 

Evening:

Metcon AMRAP for 15 minutes

• 5 pull-ups
• 10 push-ups
• 15 squats

10 rounds completed.  By round 5 I switched to jumping pull-ups. lol. Plus I meant to have leg day but it started raining. BOO!

[Valette]

Place holder for today.  Note to future self: make posts for week round-ups to catalog consistency, etc.

Thursday's Workout

Morning:

20 minutes of stretching

 

Evening:
Recovery, we designed to bum it out today.

[Valette]

I refuse to weightlift in the rain or bring this dirty equipment into the house, so looks like I'll be coming up with a TRX workout for the next couple of days which is fine by me!  I'm going to reset my Strength training stats as a result of struggling with the pres and squat. Reducing my 1RM on the press to 85lbs and gonna recalculate my squat 1RM based with a huge emphasis on hitting a depth just below parallel.

Will update this again at the end of the day with workouts!

[Kishi]

Nice! I like how you're able to adapt to circumstances. And FWIW, I find that the body generally responds well to consistent movement patterns and doesn't need to be hammered with weights all the time.

[Valette]

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

Nice! I like how you're able to adapt to circumstances. And FWIW, I find that the body generally responds well to consistent movement patterns and doesn't need to be hammered with weights all the time.

Thanks, my dude!  That's also an excellent point you make, and I think that's how I'm going to make peace with nature, for sure.  Can always come back stronger!

[Valette]

Friday's Workout

 

Morning: 

20 minutes of stretching

^This has seriously been making a huge difference in my life. I was able to recover from some SI joint issues through yoga, but it wasn't hitting the pain and tightness in other regions of my pelvis and hip joints, but Tom Merrick's stuff has been going great for me!

Evening:
TRX Leg workout:
Dynamic warm-up

Floating Lunge with knee drive
Crossback Lunge with knee drive
Pistol
Plyo foot cradle lung
glute bridge
10 reps ea. leg, 2 rounds

That's about it for me.  Wasn't feeling so great today. :X I don't think I react well to coca-cola.
 

[Valette]

I took a full recovery day yesterday. Not sure what I did, but I felt horrible by around noon and slept a few hours.  Did a bit better by the evening, but just decided against doing anything other than some light stretching. :S Just awful.

On the up and up, the weather is GREAAAAAAAAAT!

Sunday's Workout:
Day:
20 minute, Tempo Run

I wish I could avoid the hill, but yeah... There's hill on this run. ugh, but I am getting a bit more distance!  1.93mi in 20 minutes. Goal: 2 miles in 20 minutes. ;D

Evening:

Shoulds/Traps

Dynamic Warm-up

Slam Balls, Around the World, Plate 8s

 

Strength:

Military Press, warmup followed by 3x5

 

Anterior Raises, 10x

Lat Raises, 10x

Rear Delt Flies, 10x

3 set

 

Barbell Row, 8-10x

Elevated Pike push ups, max

Pseudo-pushups, max

3 sets

 

Carry:

Overhead walk for distance, 25lb bumper plate

 

Core work:

Reverse Crunch, 20x

Floor Wipers, 20x

Side crunches, 20x

3 sets

 

Loaded Mobility:

Post Upper Session set:

Overhead (Shoulder Flexion)

Shoulder Hyperextension

I actually missed my morning stretch today while I was spending the daytime re-organizing the game loft and streaming. I also reset some of my 1RP maxes for certain lifts (bench and squat), so I'm looking forward to the next cycle to not be so... impossible feeling.  Cheers!

[Valette]

I spent all day kayaking for the first time.  It was badass!  Gonna stretch it out tonight and maybe play around with some calisthenics later.

[Kishi]

21 hours ago, Valette said:

I spent all day kayaking for the first time.  It was badass!  Gonna stretch it out tonight and maybe play around with some calisthenics later.

 

Nice! It's a heck of a back workout. Put me right to sleep the first (and thus far only) time I did it.

[Valette]

26 minutes ago, Kishi said:

 

Nice! It's a heck of a back workout. Put me right to sleep the first (and thus far only) time I did it.

Holy smokes, you're not joking.  My forearms and back are currently sore.  We were out there for hours.  Had to carry this heavy kayak down and up a hill too.  AROOOOO

[Valette]

After experimenting with Crossfit metcons, I decided no to them. 1) I already circuit train after lifting, and I'm just not into their programming, techniques, etc.  I love what @Machete suggested in another topic.  So, I'm gonna weed down my strength training day anyway.

I'm so tired from kayaking yesterday. I think I want to lay along the pool and swim. :S Hee hee!

[Valette]

Dumping this here to create an index of plyo routine and other stuff we from TKD.   None of this should take ages to do.

 

Crawls

Apes, lateral + forward

Bear, forward, back

Crabs, forward backward

Duck Walk

Bunny Hop

Low Crawl

 

Box Drill

Unilateral

Lateral Hops

Front-Back Hops

Ali Shuffle

 

Plyometric Power, Med Ball Throws
Skips for distance
Skips for height
Depth Jumps

Broad Jump

Kneeling Jump Squat
Switch Lunges

 

Plyo Pull-ups

Plyo Push-ups

Chest Pass

Side Toss
Overhead Toss
ReverseToss
Slam Balls

 

Multi-Directional Sprints

Shuttle Run, Sprint -> Shuffle -> Back Peddle -> Shuffle -> Zig-Zag

[ReturnOfTheDad]

Those crawls are no joke, I need to find some mat space to get back on those!

[Kishi]

Yeah, crawls for the win. I've never really got into them, but I think it's to my detriment.

[Valette]

Thanks guys!  Yeah, I'm probably only going to be doing that at relatively short distances. XD I'm not sure how well I'm doing with programming, but I'm certainly not going to do all those things all the time, and I'm additionally thinking about scrapping some fluffy exercises from the strength day.  I don't know.  Any thoughts? Any exercises seem like a waste of time on the strength day or athletic days?

[Valette]

P.S. Did the Athletic Routine with a few reps 1 set just to feel it out.  Not too bad!

[ReturnOfTheDad]

Most Coaches I’ve had always stressed less is more. Depending on preference and function each had a primary exercise that was their big focus. One was the Barbell Clean and Press, another was Sprawls, another was Dumbell Lunges/Squats. Only constant recommendation I’ve gotten from trainers is compound movements geared towards specific activity goals. Not sure if that helps, but whenever I had a routine with a lot in it I would ask ‘where/why will I use this?’ and that usually helped me refocus.

[Valette]

9 hours ago, ReturnOfTheDad said:

Most Coaches I’ve had always stressed less is more. Depending on preference and function each had a primary exercise that was their big focus. One was the Barbell Clean and Press, another was Sprawls, another was Dumbell Lunges/Squats. Only constant recommendation I’ve gotten from trainers is compound movements geared towards specific activity goals. Not sure if that helps, but whenever I had a routine with a lot in it I would ask ‘where/why will I use this?’ and that usually helped me refocus.

Excellent wisdom, indeed!  I've also been considering combining OHP and bench press to the same day since, it turns out, a lot of those upper body compound movement work together.  We'll see! I do appreciate your thoughts, and I'll reframe stuff to sub-4 exercises.

[ReturnOfTheDad]

Nice! Happy I was able to help. Focus and function definitely help me streamline things, hence my focus on kettlebells with baby #2 coming in a couple of weeks:

 

[Valette]

Friday's Workout

Kinda getting lazy in the morning/day this week.  I felt a bit sick through the middle of the week and still shaking off a little malaise, so I'm trying to give myself a break during the day.

 

Evening Workout

Back/Bi

I did everything except my usual loaded carry.  The whole workout took 45 minutes including warm-up and post-workout mobility.  That's more like it.