Faust's workouts

A Tight but Triumphant Return: 06/16/11

2011-06-14T06:52:00.002-05:00

My back is close to being back to normal. It still feels off. I can't sit for extended periods of time without constantly fidgeting, adjusting and stretching. My hips have gotten real tight and I have to be better about rolling them out with my baseball and PVC.

I've been getting back up to a full workout load although I am not back in the gym yet. I've had a great week though.

Sat: cardio and SAQ
My main competitor this year is 0 x 30 yd 2 min tabata. By the end of the year I want to be able to bang out (4) 30 yard reps for every 20 second interval. If I accomplish it I add 30 seconds. It's terrible. Cone workout.

Sun: practice

Mon: Summer league. It was my first game of the season. The team cheer was, "who's here?" "Ben's here" and it was not intended to be patronizing. I have never met these people before. I heard my name and legend in the same sentence about 4-5 times. It was very embarrassing. I was reduced to telling an 18 year old I was gonna punch him in the balls if he kept doing it. Alexis hates it when the unconditional metro east love starts flowing. We won. I ran a bit, had a great first half and then started turning it over at will.

Tue: off

Wed: Track workout

(2) 800's of sprint 50, jog 50 with a break between the 800s

(4) 200s with 45s and 90s rest
29, 29, 30, 29

(1) 400
71, got too far behind and couldn't fight back for that sub 70 I was looking for

Point Gone Bad
basically sprint 80, jog 20, sprint 80, jog 20, sprint 80, jog 40, repeat

couple other things.

Excited to be back blogging!

Injured

2011-05-15T19:28:00.001-05:00

My back wasn't kind of messed up, it was really messed up. I plan on going in for xrays Monday or Tuesday. In the mean time hopefully I will have the chance to do a recap of what I have been doing and my plans for the future.

Field Workout: 05/04/11

2011-05-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry kids, finals week. I also managed to mess my back up, perhaps doing the following workout.

10-30-10; cones at 0(A), 10(B), 40(C), 50(D)
jog 10, sprint 30, stop!, walk 10, turn, repeat = 1 rep
4 reps
90s
4 reps
90s
4 reps

(I really like this pattern. Because its the first part of the workout the first two sets aren't bad, but its a good workout. The last set is hard. Stopping that many times gets to your quads)

4 mins

5 Reps For Time (RFT)
1 rep =
15 yards of burpee broad jumps (same as two weeks ago, but try to gain as many yards as you can on the jump), whole foot has to cross the 15 yard "line" if not, do another burpee
15 yard sprint back, 15 yard sprint out

(Finished it in 1:50~ This was really hard. My legs were screaming 2 burpees into the 2nd set. I had a big advantage in that I probably did 7-10 less burpees than my main competition, who crept ahead till the last set, which I plowed through for the win.

4 mins

Little Dipper:
d 7yd c

7yd 7yd

a 7yd b

15 yd

x

x, a, b, a, c, a, d, x = one rep
one rep
10s fast feet @ x
10s rest
one rep
10s fast feet

90s

repeat

60s

repeat

30s

repeat

(fast feet are a deceptively hard part of this workout)

5 minutes

Two Man Dump Huck drill
mini sized field 40x25 with players A and B
B goes backfield dump cut (with upline fake)
A throws to B and takes off deep
B throws deep to A, pauses, cuts in for A
A throws to B and jogs to dump position
repeat
1 rep = 2 deep cuts, 2 dump cuts, 2 incuts

rep

60s

rep

60s

rep

(really hard if your partner is making you chase down hucks)

6 in 60
Start in pushup position
Down when time starts, hold everything an inch off the ground
1 rep = hold for 9s, up and hold for 10th second, back down on 1st second of next rep
1 set= one minute

set

30s

set

(1st set was good, second set was garbage)

done

Crossfit: 4/29/11

2011-04-29T15:43:00.002-05:00

8 rounds of tabata rope undulations

10 min AMRAP:
5 pullups
10 pushups
15 air squats
=10 plus 1 pullup (I suck at push ups right now. They are what killed my time.)

Good mornings:
3 @ 195
3 @ 205
3 @ 205
1 @ 215
1 @ 215

zercher squats: really stupid exercise. my forearms are gonna be a mess
1 @ 235
1 @ 245
1 @ 255
1 @ 265
1 @ 275

Track: 04/28/11

2011-04-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

Oh the track. I hate it so much. I have no one to blame but myself, for many reasons really, but most importantly cause I made the track workout.

400, 90 secs, 400, 90 secs, 400
72, 73, 77 (I was screaming down the straight for the last rep and when I looked at my time I was astonished to see 77, but then I remembered that 200 m before I had almost stopped cause I felt so shitty. Looking at that time, I might as well have)

5 mins

200, 60s, 200, 60s, 200
32,33,32 (a monsoon blew through during my second 200)

100m, 30s, 100, 30s, 100, 30s, 100

I hate 100's. They are short enough that if you aren't going full speed you feel like you are not getting a good rep in, but long enough where if you do go 100% your wiped for a good minute or two. I suffered through these.

Point Gone Bad (yes I am ripping off cross fit)
cones @ 0yds and 20yds
0, 20, 0, 20, 0
jog 20
0, 20, 0, 20, 0
jog 20
0, 20, 0, 20, 0
jog 40
repeat

5 mins

Come back cuts
3 x's:
0,7,07,0,14,0,14,0, deep cut

Done

Basketball: 04/25 and 04/26

2011-04-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

Two stressful days at school and I am digging basketball right now so I opted for the cowskin instead of the big weights. I have been playing a lot better. The biggest difference is my ability, for at least Mon and Tue, to hit 5 footers. It really makes defenders respect my outside game more. I got a huge block on Tuesday amidst the little pieces I get here and there. A little guard never saw me coming barreling down the lane as he went baseline and tried an under hand scoop, which essentially became a volleyball spike for me. Has anyone else done that? I've done it 3 times this semester and the involuntary banshee yell that I let out every time is embarrassing. I got a hold of it early for this one so it wasn't as explicit as it usually is. The guy I was defending gave me a fist bump. I'm pretty big time now.

Crossfit: 4/22/11

2011-04-22T12:52:00.002-05:00

warm up:
AMRAP in 10 mins
400 m run
500 m row

I ran (3) 400's and completed (2) 500 m rows and was 360m into my 3rd when time went off.

Snatch grip deadlifts + 10 ring dips after each set: I was told to move my hands in to the markers and it became loads easier. I should have gone heavier
3/3/3/3/3
195/210/235/245/255 too easy for this to be my last set, but had to move on

AMRAP in 10 mins
(5) 95 lb thrusters
(10) burpees
(20) double unders, which i finally started banging out uninterrupted by my stupid singles
5 rounds completed along with 5 thrusters, 10 burpees and 0 double unders. It was terrible.

Field Workout: 04/21/11

2011-04-22T12:49:00.002-05:00

Active Warmup

30 yard tabatas: Cones @ 0 and 30 yds
4,3,3,3 on pretty much all sets

3 minute rest

repeat

3 minutes rest

repeat

6 minute rest

As Many Reps as Possible (AMRAP) in 2 minutes; count your reps, a rep is...
5 burpees*
30 yard sprint (you should still have the cone @ 30 yards, use that)

= 5 reps plus one burpee

3 minutes

Square Cuts: 10 yd x 10 yd square; 30 seconds on, 1 minute off X's 3

A <--10--> B

X

C D

Make alternating cuts. First is from D to B to catching on or near X. Fake, throw. Jog to C and then sprint C to A to X, catch, fake, throw, repeat. If you catch it and throw a completion its a rep. If you are alone, do the same thing along with catches and fakes
4,4,4

5 minutes

5 rounds for time: record your time
10 push ups
10 lunge jumps
10 situps

Didnt keep track

Gym: 4/19/11

2011-04-22T12:42:00.002-05:00

I was itching to do some snatches, which I haven't done since I got to New York in the summer of 09. I didn't do well. My grip was too wide. My pinkies were against the sides of the bar. I think this limited my power. I also get nervous dropping under 100 lbs of weight and just trusting that my shoulders know what to do. I could have gotten more weight if my technique was better.
a bunch @ 110, some more at 132, 1 @ 154

Clean and jerk was next. I did these much better a couple weeks ago, getting up to 185. I think I peaked at 154 or so says my notebook. Not sure what the issue was.

I had it in my head to do 21 reps, 15 reps, 11 reps circuit for time of pullups, burpees and wall balls. I did 15 kipping pullups, took a break, looked at my hand and noticed that I had already lost a penny sized piece of skin on my palm. I finished the pullups, but after 21 bupees and worst of all 21 wall balls with a 30 lb ball I was spent and conveniently had to go anyways.

Basketball: 04/18/11

2011-04-22T12:30:00.001-05:00

Basketball! I played well in some very physical games. I have to push myself to not take any possessions off even though I bet my team wished that I did.

In between the game we lost I ran stairs and did burpees.

Crossfit: 4/15/11

2011-04-15T11:03:00.003-05:00

3 min of jump rope

I got 65 double unders. I spent about 2:30 just going single, double, single, double. I probably should have gotten more. I spent the last 30 seconds trying to string together double unders. I think I got 3 or 4 but then lost it every time.

Front Squat:
3/3/3/3/3
225/235/245/X/X
I got kneed in the quad on Tuesday during basketball. I didn't effect me until the 3rd rep of my 245 when I tweaked it. It was a tough rep overall and it wasn't a pull or anything, but thought I would settle for 245 x 3 and not push it.

I learned to front squat with my arms crossed or semi crossed. I agree now that it is better to try to get your fingers under the bar with your elbows straight out in front of you. It helps to improve your posture for clean and jerks. Unfortunately it is a bit limiting. A couple weeks ago I did 3x3 @ 265 lbs. Im sure it will get more comfortable.

10 Rounds For Time (RFT) :
10 kettle bell swings (crotch to shoudlers) @ 24 kg
10 box jump @ 24 in
=9:01

I went to the website last night to check what today's workout would be and I was not that impressed. My tune changed once I picked up the 24 kg kb (heavy) and looked at the 24" box (high). The box jumps were the hardest part. The first few kb swings were hard because I was gassed from the box jumps. I took a 10 second rest between rounds 3 and 5, which I ended up regretting.

WOD Rx'd as they say in the crossfit industry.

muscle ups on the bar: 1
muscle ups on the rings: .5

This weeks crossfit games workout is slaying people:

AMRAP in 10 minutes:
60 bar burpees (do a burpee jump over a bar with a plate on each side = 1)

30 OHS @ 120 lb + have to get the bar from ground to OHS position. Apparently this is killing kids. I am going to do some snatches on Monday to see how it feels.

10 muscle ups, regular people aren't even getting here, but once you do it is f'n brutal. I almost did one and in fact was in the "easier" part with the rings underneath my armpits, but my elbow slipped and I almost dislocated my shoulder. There was an impingement/grab near my scapula but after some laccrosse ball grinding it was all better.

Running: 04/14/11

2011-04-14T12:00:00.002-05:00

My promise to myself this year is not to let cardio get in the way of being my best. To that end for the immediate future I want to do 1 act of random cardio (basketball, goaltimate, ultimate, etc) and two acts of concentrated cardio (running as my main objective) a week. In season, Aug-Fall, I want to do 2 concentrated cardios on top of 2 practice days. My wedding will be messing with that all summer so we shall see what happens.

3 x's (4 min: 30 secs jog, 30 secs run, 30 secs survive)

right now my paces are:
jog is a good mile pace
run is a good 200/400 pace
survive is just like it sounds

I took decent rest and ended my first two sets with a sprint uphill.

Basketball: 04/12/11

2011-04-11T11:54:00.000-05:00

Three games of basketball. I ran my ass off. I figure cause I can't make a shot if I am not directly under the basket (95% true as in I am literally shooting 5% from outside the paint) I need to run my guy around people until I can get open within 5 feet of the basket. The dude who was guarding me told me to go run on a treadmill. Some skinny kid at like 5'11 got a rebound from me. I absolutely destroyed him on a pick the next time down the floor. A couple times when people are really moving and smaller than me and they don't see me set the screen I warn them and kind of try to catch them before I crush them. I didn't warn this guy. Definitely sour grapes on my part.

I had a lot of work to do so I got to the gym late and stuck to basketball. I haven't lifted for about 10 days, which is a bummer.

field workout: 04/10/11

2011-04-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the hiatus...who am I speaking to? I guess I am apologizing to myself. I played disc golf at fools and was just lumbering like an exposed brontosaurus through hordes of velociraptor/poison ivy. We even mentioned it at the time, but it just seemed too early for poison ivy. Sure enough on Sunday night I start to get the tingle. Its a slow burn for me. I took Monday off cause I had tons of school work to make up. In between my fingers was getting red and angry. Tuesday it felt worse than it looked so I took that day off too. Wednesday morning and I couldn't even approach a fist with my right hand because there was poison ivy bubbles in between half my fingers. I get miserable when I have poison ivy. Miserable and completely crazy. I took everything to the dry cleaners. I threw shoe laces away. I actually haven't touched the shoes or cleats I wore to fools they are on the floor next to the door. Alexis is supposed to do something with them, but I think she forgot. It spread, not in bubble form thankfully to my thighs, neck, bicep and even creeped up onto my face. It was a lot less worse than it sounded or at least with my history of poison ivy it was a very minimal case, but I swear it gets worse and hurts more with exertion so I took it easy.

On Monday I did not have to go to Rutgers so without the gym at my disposal I tried to get up for a field workout. I got to prospect park and there were 1000 asians tossing frisbees. Weird anywhere else, but this is just Stuyvesant HS. So I threw with a 17 year old for a good 10 minutes and then rattled off something like this:

cones @ 10 yds, 20, 30

suicide
rest
0,30,0,30,0,30,0,30,0
rest
suicide
0,30,0,30,0,30,0,30,0
rest
suicide

My hips weren't opening up on the sprints so it wasn't a great workout. Good limbering up though.

the "0,30,0,30,0,30,0,30,0" got me thinking about how to make team workouts fun in the spring. One of the reasons crossfit is marketable and appealing is because in many cases it is measurable, not only can you see personal increases, but you can match yourself up directly with another person. My idea is that for the team ultimate workouts that I make up in the spring, I am going to dabble with some crossfit measuring ideas for ultimate workouts so that everything is reportable and competitive.

The "0,30,0,30,0,30,0,30,0" got my attention because what if the workout was As Fast As Possible (AFAP) "0,30,0,30,0,30,0,30,0 and 10 seconds of rest x 6" You wouldn't even have to stop the watch, just take your total time and subtract 50 secs from in. Or AMRAP 30 yards sprints in 30 seconds or a 1 minutes, etc. Things to think about.

Fri-Sun 04/01/11 to 04/03/011: Fools Fest

2011-04-04T09:23:00.002-05:00

Lots of ultimate at an average of 75%, but sometimes spiking upwards of 95%. Metal wins the tournament despite being more Rusted than Twisted. Highlight for me was trying to throw a 45 yard blade in the finals. Lowlight was shorting it by about 15 yards. In general I was good for a couple cuts than a lot of deep breaths, lots of lasers and a couple decent hucks and lots of mistimed jumps along with a couple good skys. I also lost in pokey by way of a face shot that went in my mouth and scraped my gums. I hope his nails were clean.

3/28/11: Gym

2011-03-28T19:35:00.001-05:00

One and done in basketball. I took the initiative on offense because our team sucked. We got as close as 10-8 before they won.

Front Squat: 3/3/3/1/1/1; I've been rocking this set structure for a bit so I thought I would assess where I was in reference to years gone by.

242/242/242/264/275/286 fail (f)

275 I actually matched my PR. I wasn't even close to the 286. I got stuck pretty deep and never recovered.

Rack Pulls: 4x5
285, 295, 305, 325

reverse lunges from deficit:
8 @ 30 lbs

cross fit: 3/25/11

2011-03-25T16:47:00.002-05:00

3 rounds not for time (RNFT) wall walk/skin the cat:
wall walks suck. They put so much stress on the shoulders in semi-compromised positions. I hate them. My first round was great, much better than a month ago. My form deteriorated quickly. Skin the cat was more to practice the movement than make it hard. I couldn't get my feet up past the bar without catching the bar with my foot. Doing the skin the cats on the rings was pretty easy.

Clean and Jerk: 3/3/3/1/1/1
145, 145, 165, 175, 185(f), 185

I was getting ready to toss 10 more lbs on the bar when they told us we were done. My last rep should have been at 195. The 185 rep that I missed was terrible. I tried to press it before I was ready and was still mere degrees away from locking it out. Not too much trouble the second time, but it was time to move on to...

21/15/9
power clean @ 115
push ups
GHD situp

6:53

21 is a lot of power cleans. My form was terrible for the first 7 as I tried to just use speed and brute strength to get my reps in. The situps were weird. My lower back ROM is bad so I wasn't really breaking parallel. My last set of 9 cleans and pushups was blazing. I was behind the other dude in the class coming off the 15 situps. He might have done 2 or 3 power cleans by the time I got there, but I ripped off 9 cleans and then 9 pushups as fast as possibe, giving me the lead, but I lost it on the situps, which is fine cause I didn't want to win with the fake situps I was doing.

3/22/11: Gym

2011-03-22T16:37:00.000-05:00

I should have learned my lesson from yesterday. I really wanted to do the crossfit games WOD that I had practiced the day before. I talked myself out of it so I could play basketball. I told myself that I could do it at the crossfit gym where it would be more official. We shall see if that actually works.

I did a lot of banging in these games. There was this one dude who thought he was Lebron. Bummer was that he actually pulled it off. He was probably 6'1 200 lbs. Either on a fast break or from the top of the key he would get a head of steam, protect the ball like a RB going through the line, plow through 4 guys and somehow lay it up. It was really frustrating, but he didn't play any defense so I actually got some offense going. After losing, hopping on the next team and losing again I went to run some stairs. At that point I was feeling shitty about my play and was gonna head down to the gym and lift it off, but a different game needed a 10th. It was school yard style picks and I got picked first. I did legitimately did the look around after he called my shirt color cause he had just seen me miss 2 or 3, 2 on 0 layups in the previous game. This isn't an exaggeration. A guy on the opposite team drove to the rim and missed and everyone thought he got fouled but he didnt call anything. While everyone is trying to figure out what happened me and a teammate take off. I get the ball under the rim and miss. He missed. I missed. I missed. I made it. Or something like that. Nobody bothered to try and play defense on us. It was funny more than humiliating. Really. It was.

We lost and I felt lousy for not playing well and for not lifting. I think playing basketball is good for cardio, but lifting one day and running another is definitely better than playing basketball one day. Whatever. Ill adjust.

Gym: 03/21/11

2011-03-21T21:35:00.003-05:00

I played too much basketball. 3 games kills any chance I have of getting to the actual gym, but I was coming off a great week of basketball and I was itching to keep playing. I played ok and ran a lot. I'm not sure I took a shot that wasn't a put back. I did have 2 absolutely monster blocks. I mean like volleyball spikes. One was on game point. I usually get caught up in the moment and let out something gutteral that ends with my pretending like I was clearing my throat.

My dude scored the winning basket in game 3 at double game point. Terrible. Three games left me little time for lifting, but I banged out:

3o double unders
15 power snatches at 90 lbs
couple more double unders

This was one round (30/15) of the cross fit games workout. I'm not sure when I am actually going to bang it out, but I am hoping to break 4 rounds.

box squats:
5 @ 200
5 @ 222
5 @ 243
3 @ 263

I'm still out of sorts with where these numbers are relative to my PRs from years past.

step up jumps:
15

Just something single leg oriented to toss in before sprinting to the train.

goaltimate: 03/18/11

2011-03-19T16:37:00.002-05:00

One sub goaltimate is a lot more fulfilling than the 5 or 6 sub goaltimate we had last week. Lots of run with a young team against some savy veterans. Brought it back to 2's after losing the first two games by a combined 10-1. I threw a sweet no look IO backhand to make it 4-4 in the rubber match and then had a throw for the win dropped. If you weigh those against all of my turnovers I'd say I almost had a positive impact on the game.

Tons of running though and some physical play which is great to get this early in the year.

Next Week!
Sun: off
Mon: crossfit games WOD + some heavy lifting and maybe some basketball
Tue: basketball + some circuits
Wed: off
Thurs: 400's (my least favorite workout of the year)
Fri: cross fit WOD
Sat: wedding dessert tasting!

cross fit: 3/18/10

2011-03-18T11:05:00.003-05:00

The crossfit games have started and I want to attempt the first workout. It's get AsManyRepsAsPossible (AMRAP) in 10 minutes of 30 jump rope double unders and 15 power snatch at 75 lbs. Double unders are going to be trouble. I haven't done more than 4 or 5 in a row, but I am starting to find a rhythm. I wonder if it would actually be less intense to go single, double, single? That would mean 30 extra jumps, but I'm not really worried about 30 single jumps effecting my performance. And who am I kidding, it is not going to be how many rounds I can fit into 10 minutes, it is gonna be surviving 10 minutes of the workout so taking my time might be better. I don't really know what to think of 15 75 lb power snatches. I think the 30 double unders are gonna be sneaky tiring and make the power snatches even harder. I will probably do it on Monday as my first workout.

Today was Fight Gone Bad. I've always wanted to do this, just because the name is so cool. The workout is not cool.

5 rounds. 1 round is 5 min of one min each station then one min rep. AMRAP at each station. Cause we had 5 people doing it, everyone started at different stations. Mine went:
20" box jumps; 25, 24, 23, 22,21 (I only remember this cause it was so methodical)
row for calories; averaged 11
75lb push press; averaged 14
75lb sumo pull to chin; averaged 14
wall ball; averaged 18

I ended up at 417. I could be off though because I lost count a few times when I didn't write it down right after the exercise.

I could have pressed more. It was the only overhead exercise. Finish it and your done with shoulders till wall ball which is more legs than arms.

I was still feeling pretty good and this place is just filled with awesome toys to play with.

Tire flip right into...
5, 5, 5

sledgehammer, both sides
10, 10, 10

GHR @ 0 right into...
8, 8

Bar Roll outs
8, 8

Field Workout: 03/17/11

2011-03-17T18:55:00.001-05:00

Nothing crazy, just getting my legs under me for Fool's Fest domination. I actually should be focusing on cardio, not short burst/change of direction stuff. It just feels so good to be outside.

active
3 x (6 x jog 10, sprint 30, hard stop, walk 10, turn around, repeat) couple minutes rest after each rep
3 x O points (sprint 5 out, 10 in, 5 out, jog 10 out, sprint,5 out, 10 in, 5 out, jog 10 out, sprint 5 out, 10 in, 30 out) with decent rest

Not much time to do anything else

crossfit: 03/15/11

2011-03-15T11:04:00.003-05:00

Murph:

1 mile
100 pull ups (chin above the bar), 200 push ups (chest to the ground, palms off the ground, push up), 300 squats (butt to fluffy med ball, well past horizontal) broken up however you want
1 mile

47: 39

100 pull ups looked intimidating, no, I think it was better to say I was absolutely dreading them, but Kip pullups are pretty easy. I was essentially only engaging my back as my forehead approached the bar and almost never engaging my arms. Unfortunately I could only do one, stop myself, do another, stop myself, etc so I couldn't get a rhythm going and lost tons of time. My pushups were a bit sloppy at the end. I was using the chest to deck as an excuse to almost drop my body into the deck position. Squats were easy. Second mile was brutal. The first 400 m I couldn't really use my arms which were extended out in this weird jacked Jersey shore guy angle. So I was basically running armless until the halfway point which is the uphill part. During the last 400 I was choking back throwup which I sealed off for a final 100 yd run to the finish where I promptly booted all over the sidewalk among women pushing strollers and guys cleaning their cars. I think that is a respectable time

I needed to get some heavy lifting in so after a break I front squatted:
5 @ 195
5 @ 205
5 @ 215
3 @ 225

update:

I feel terrible. I feel hungover without the headache. I'm gonna watch water and drink some Bad Girls Club on demand.

goaltimate: 03/12/11

2011-03-12T07:59:00.003-05:00

I have been playing lots of goaltimate in the new year. Attendance ranges from no subs on the cold days and up to 8 or 9 on the nice ones. I like having subs because you can go after it for 5 minutes and then pull yourself with a terribly risky throw attempt. I played 4 games; won 2, lost 2.

Next week:
Sun: off
Mon: unsure
Tue: cross fit
Wed: off
Thur: cardio
Fri: crossfit
Sat: goaltimate

Blog Comeback Part 2

2011-03-11T09:27:00.000-05:00

I promise no more theatrics related to my heroic return from the blogging graveyard. I wonder how many blogs go unused right now? Millions? I wonder if there is a way to monetize all those unused blogs, somehow accruing .5 cents on all of them like in Office Space.

Tue: Boxing
My sister is really good at boxing. If you know my sister you would think me a liar because it is often unclear whether or not a 5 year old with epilepsy has control of her via some sort of puppet contraption. She took some sort of walking class instead of penmanship in 1st grade. Yet somehow she is now a badass boxer. The last time I went with her to a boxing class I had about 2-3 under my belt. It was a combo fitness/boxing class and the fitness part was really intense so I was super sweaty for the boxing part. A pool of sweat was developing at my feet and when I went to hit the gloves the instructor was holding I took a swing and fell over like a drunk cowboy at a Honky Tonk bar or at least that is what I imagine both of those things looking like. I've had a bit more experience now so I was hoping to dazzle my first time out.

We started out with 3 x's: 3 minutes of jumping rope with 30 sec off/30 on high knees and a minute of "rest" which we spent at the bottom of a pushup with chest about an inch of the ground. Yuck.

Nothing that spectacular followed, but it was a great workout. We did a 3 minute "progression" drill which means 2 punches to the left glove, slip, 2 punches to the right glove, slip, step forward, 4 punches to the left glove, slip, 4 punches to the right glove, slip, step forward, 6, slip, 6, slip, forward, 8, slip, 8 slip, forward....20, slip, 20, slip, forward, 18, slip, 18, slip... 20 punches in a row after 1:30 of constant punching is terrible. I felt like I was simply alternating shoulder thrusts in some sort of weird drugged out Phish dance. We finished with a round of our partner calling out combos. It was really fun. It was in a pretty sweet gym so I took advantage and ran through a circuit:

3xs
8 thrusters @ 95
8 pull ups
10 push!ups

Thurs:
I did an agility/baby sprint workout. It felt awesome to start running at full speed in cleats. Cleats are the easy part. I want to run some more 400's or maybe even, gasp, a couple miles.

Fri: Crossfit
3 minutes of double unders

Press- 5/5/5/5/5 (60-75%1RM); I was a little confused by the workout so I went too big to start 115/115(3)105(2)/105/105/105

2 Rounds of Row 500M @24 SPM- 2 minutes rest after each round; last round fast as you can
1:47, 1:48, 1:39 (I went out way to hard. I think I am better out keeping good form and being powerful for the first 400 M and then cranking up the tempo for the last 100.

AMRAP (as many reps as possible) in 6 minutes: 6 Broad Jump (max distance)/ 12 Ball Slams (20/10); I think I got six done.

25 yard bear crawl; 5 burpees

I think a year off is long enough

2011-03-09T08:48:00.002-05:00

Yesterday would have made one year since I last posted. I'd say that is a long enough blogging break. Do people even blog anymore? I feel as if it has been eclipsed by other mediums. I still like this as a mode for, if nothing else, keeping track of my workouts.

So where am I? Good question. Can you ask yourself a question and call it a good question? Workout wise I am headed back towards a happy, happy place. I spent the last year and a half without a workout home and it affected my desire to stay in shape. I had a gym for the first year, but it was far away and pretty awful. I also got a packet of one to three day coupons for about 50 gyms in the NYC area. That got old quickly and due to not having a normal job and hours it was already difficult to get stuff done (job applications, cover letters, grad school applications, GRE studying) while working 40 hours a week. I cleaned up my act for the ultimate season, but did not have access to what I needed to be as productive at training as I used to be. I finally have a schedule that makes workouts much more accessible. Right now I am rocking:

Mon: hour of basketball, heavy lower body lifts
Tue: boxing and crossfit/circuits I make up
Wed: off
Thurs: cardio (eventually)
Fri: Crossfit
Sat: cardio (goaltimate)
Sun off

I have had something like this for the last month or so and I already feel a lot stronger. It was emasculating to see my numbers after such a long layoff, but it was to be expected. In an effort to get some numbers back on the site and cause I had a decent workout week the last seven days Ill summarize.

Wed off

Thur off

Fri: Cross Fit
This was my third day/week of crossfit. I like it, but don't love it. I love the equipment they have, but the price is severe. I need to figure out if I could attend a really nice gym monthly for the same price I am paying to workout at crossfit once a week. The workouts are brutal and I like being brutalized, but I am not sure they are the best for ultimate. A lot of the movements involve upper body strength especially over head lifting strength,, which I don't think is super ultimate oriented. Once I retire, I might fall into it full time. Anyways:

row: 1000m for 3 minutes at 24 strokes per minute (spm)
I loved this part. Keeping the spm at 24 means while pulling as hard as you can means you have to explode out, go back reeeaaaaalllllll slow and then explode out again.

wall walks/reverse walks: 3 x 5 or 10 minutes:
unlike that 80 lb prepubescent kid in the video I am 200 lbs of man, not that there weren't two other 200 lbs of man doing this correctly right next to me, but I just wanted the juxtaposition of the kid in the video, calm and controlled, and me just suffering through the first set of these, barely getting vertical and then crashing down. This is the type of exercise that I would not associate with ultimate improvement. The reverse ones started f'n with my back, but I finished them. I finished the wall walks too, but it wasn't pretty or correct.

overhead squats: 5/5/3/3/3/1/1
Nice! I think crossfit has changed since I maligned it 4 years ago. Some places take time out to get your 1RM in, which is awesome (cause it came right after wall walks where people were for sure questioning everything about me). I went something like:
125/135/145/155/160/165/170

Some core exercise that I couldnt do.

Sat: Tennis
Used a beautiful Saturday morning to get some tennis in. Played three sets after I let the 2nd set get away from me due to a couple terrible service games, but I crushed in the 3rd set.

Sun: Off

Mon: Rutgers
Started with some basketball. As documented here before everything offense I suck at. I put the ball on the floor one or two times a game usually with terrible results. I miss put backs all the time. I mean point blank, one on none, put backs. I freak out on fast breaks and usually end up just jumping with the last thing on my mind being to score. On defense and on the boards I work my ass off. I contest all shots, take runs at inbounds and lazy passes, bang hard with the big guys, jump over people for rebounds, etc. All in all people love me and I have been getting better. This Monday we had an awesome offensive team, which means I do absolutely nothing on offense except get offensive boards and try not to get in the way. It was awesome. We crushed teams. Almost every week I get a steal at the top of the key on a lazy pass (as an aside, last week I was dominating some really good kid on defense and it was game point us. He looks to get a pass above where anyone else plays defense and I jump the lane, body him out of the way while corralling the ball and so I on a break away all alone. I dribble twice, most likely touch the ball with two hands, take another dribble and now I am close to the basket. This is like the 3rd or 4th break away I've had and I try to dunk everytime. Once I pretty much dunked, two other times I've kind of dunked/layed it in. This was going to be point 17 in a 16-15 game that has lasted forever and came after another drawn out 12-10 game. I am tired. I take off for the dunk and immediately know things are going wrong. I am not going up as much as off to the side so I try to change the "potential" dunk into a layup. I'm not sure it hits rim at all. I bet it looked like I had somehow got bumped by an imaginary player ((Angels in the Outfield style)) and got all out of sorts. Luckily one of my teammates ((we did have about an hour of history behind us so maybe he had an inkling that this would happen)) was following me for the put back.) and this was no different resulting in me, of course, jumping with no idea what I am going to do seeing a trailer who I hit, who hits another guy for a wide open lay up. Anyways, fun!

lifts:
deadlifts: 5/5/3/3/3
I dont want to do the early math so its in bumper plate colors
4 blues/4 blues, 2 yellows/4 reds/4 reds 2 5's (272)/272/287

To be continued...

Finally

2010-03-08T18:35:00.008-05:00

I have finally hit a little rhythm with good workouts in the past week or two.

My sister and I bought a package of free visits to a bunch of gyms in NYC. It was 60 bucks and we have over 100 gyms to attend. It is a bit of a racket for sure, as in I could probably just show up at these gyms and say I am interested and they would give me a week to try it out. However included in the package are fencing lessons, free bowling, gymnastics, karate stuff, etc. I would probably pay $60 just to jump from a trampoline into a foam pit.

The first gym I went to coincided with a visit to Columbia University. It was on a roof top on the upper west side that overlooked the river and had a great view of the skyline. I did a warm up and then launched into 3 of these sets of exercises with like a minute or two rest between:

5 KB clean and jerks @ 35
20 mountain climbers
10 push!ups
16 walking KB swings
6 pull ups
10 squats with a 45lb sand bag
10 clean the sand bag to shoulder

I did some lat pull downs and some DB presses to fill out the upper body work and some reverse lunges from defecit and hamstrign curls to finish out the lower body work.

Next was Crunch! I haven't been to a mainstream gym in a long time. It was quite refreshing. Towels, tons of space, full boxing area with gloves, nice locker rooms, etc. I hit the bag for a while, which I haven't done in 6 months. I did some deadlifts for the first time in ages at a whopping 205. Elevated rear leg lunges at about 35. Next I cranked the treadmill up to 10, ran for a 1/4 mile and then hopped off to do 10 burpees. Finished with some push presses and some pull ups.

Third was some stupid little gym near NYU dental school which has cheap emergency dental work that I needed cause a filling fell out. I hit the bag for a while and then did this circuit a few times:

10 airplane pushups
10 step ups, 10 side step ups
10 med ball slams

I missed a couple but this post is like 3 weeks late.

Im having trouble posting with any regularity. A 9 to 5 really promotes good blogging.

Ho-Hum

2010-03-05T09:47:00.003-05:00

Looking back on my posts from this summer, I lament losing access to such an amazing gym. Reading the diversity of exercises that I was doing makes me really cherish the time I spent at TPS and I would push anyone in the Somerville/Medford area to get there immediately.

Ultimate was fun on Monday. I felt alright, but my lower back has been rebelling against my renewed interest in an active lifestyle. It makes it hard to get low and cut. Other than that and some terrible decisions I played well. My quads still get abnormally sore the day after a workout. Not like a diffusive soreness, but a soreness local to where I had my pulls/tears. Im trying to work it by rolling on the PVC.

I'm not sure how to get my back in shape except to keep plowing forward. I think the stress on it has come from basketball, especially trying to keep huge guys out of the pain. I get assigned big, strong dudes almost every game. On Tuesday I played 2 v 2 against some old guy and this guy who was built like Zach Randolph. The old guy sucked so he just kept feeding this dude in the paint. Luckily his shirt was freshly laundered cause I had my face buried in it for 25 minutes as I tried unsuccessfully to stop a huge guy with above average post moves from scoring. We lost. I had a series during the next game, 3 v 3, where I got 4 offensive rebounds in a row and missed all the put backs. For all that I am playing a ot better. I am also getting some handshakes when I arrive. One kid said, after I apologized for playing terrible for one game, "but you got that hustle, I wish I had that shit". He addressed it as if hustle was a pull up jumper or a crossover.

Making the transition back to an active lifestyle

2010-03-01T13:14:00.002-05:00

I had a busy week. Tuesday and Wednesday I played basketball. Thursday I worked out. Working out means mostly doing crossfit work. Clap pushups, mountain climbers, cleans, step ups, pull ups, all in a row.

I played some snow goaltimate on Saturday which was very fun.

I played basketball today. I had a bad first couple games, but game back with two good games including the...wait for it...game winner! I should just stop now cause I am guaranteed to suck next time out. The dude in the last game wore me out. He wasn't all that big, but I bet he was cut out of some sort of metal or stone. He tired out at the end, but my team kind of lost it and we ended up 2-2. Whatev's, it is fun, and I get a lot of "good hustle" comments, which is all they can really say after I do things like launch 3 balls that hit off the top of the square, never hit rim, and ricochets over everyone and right out of bounds. I swear I had a good game though and they actually chose me over some other dude when there were 7 of us for a 3 v 3.

My plan is to play some outdoor pickup tonight. Not sure if I will make it. Fingers crossed.

More Stuff

2010-02-24T08:11:00.002-05:00

Let's see.

Friday I went to the gym. I did a couple sets of front squats and back squats and as I walked away from my last set my legs felt like I had removed my hamstrings. It made me realize how long its been since I've been under the bar.

Saturday I skied at Bromley for my annual one ski day of the year. I wish I could get out there more. I love skiing. Left the mountain with only a scratch on my cheek when I led my way out of the glades with my face. I also survived my attempt at a 360 even though my body resisted so much that I only made it about 90 degrees into my 360. I'm sad to say that that part of my life might be over. Sad.

Basketball yesterday. Some dude worked me out for like 30 minutes. He made sure my feet were under me for my jump shot and actually helped me out a lot. I ended up having a decent game. We also had a dude who was maybe 5'7" and at one point hit 4 or 5 threes in a row. Check, pass to this guy, 3 ball. That helped.

Running, but where am I running to?

2010-02-18T15:24:00.002-05:00

Tue:
2 fartleks
30 sec jog, 30 sec faster jog, 30 secs fastest jog; I really struggled.

Thur:
2 fartleks
30 secs jog, 30 secs faster jog, 30 secs run; felt a bit better

1 (6) 10 sec sprint, 20 secs walk

I went for two runs this week. That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it was a for me. It marked the first time I have singularly exercised outside since a couple weeks before nationals. I am pretty sure I have the glimmer of a pooch starting to form or at least the closest thing that I will come to one for some time. Mired in injuries and self loathing, these last few months have been rough and my body is showing it.

From national's 2008 till now I've spent like 3 months healthy. I wrecked my hamstring at 2008 nationals and chronicled the frustrating rehab here. I finally got back out there in June and had probably the most successful summer of training I've ever had, but it seemed that my body wasn't ready for all that work. One thing led to another. I got a nasty charlie horse in my calf that set me back two weeks. A few weeks later I strained my quad and in my haste to get back severely strained both of them the next weekend which effectively ended my season, which I will elaborate more on in a later post.

After nationals I shut myself off to ultimate and really caring about my body. The new year was when I had planned to get back in shape and low and behold Alexis and I wander past a New Years hat tournament after brunch. Seemed like a good sign and I cleat up and walk over. I felt pretty good and played decent right up until I tried to get to a disc I had no business of trying to get to. I landed awkwardly on my knee and it immediately went numb. Like the whole thing. It was scary, but has been more of a nuisance since. I almost have total flexion back, but there is a quarter sized spot right below my knee cap that is still numb to the touch.

Here is my plan. Run. Run, run, run. Running for me is fartleks (jog, run, run faster), tabatas, 200's and 400's. I plan on starting to lift next week. I will elaborate on all of this stuff within the next couple weeks including my overall plan for the year. I still think my July-August last year is the ideal way to train for ultimate. I think I went after it 2 months early though. More to come.

You Guys Are Annoying

2010-02-12T11:38:00.005-05:00

Dont know why i didnt publish this last week.

Some really inspiring comments last post. Thanks for the support.

I worked out yesterday. It wasn't much, but I am sore. Every massage/PT guy who I've seen in the past year or two has told me that I my glutes aren't firing when they should be. Because my glutes aren't doing what they are supposed to be doing, my hamstrings and lower back have to exert themselves more to compensate. This imbalance has aparently led to a lot of injuries. To restore order I am gonna be focusing on my ass. In that vein I did some band work, some step ups and some good mornings.

Why is this so hard?

2010-02-09T09:19:00.003-05:00

I'm struggling to find the impetus to go out and get in shape. The only thing driving me right now is my increasing unflat stomach. I just don't know where to start. I banged my knee super duper hard at hat tournament I stumbled upon after new years. There is a section of my knee that is still completely numb to the touch from that incident and it is a bit painful at times when I try to run. The one good thing that I have done is sworn off cookies and muffins. I fucking love muffins almost as much as I love Subway chocolate chip cookies. Have you ever had Subway cookies fresh out of the oven? Best deal in fast food. While I was writing all of my college apps I would inevitably find myself in a cafe with a coffee and a muffin. I've probably averaged 2-3 muffin like items a week. Terrible. I hit a similar low with Dunkin Donut coffee cake muffins when I was in Chelsea.

I want to start working out in the AM cause that is when I have time right now. It's just weird for me to workout in the morning. I love leaving a 9-5 and getting a workout in before a big dinner. My plan is to start swimming and doing fartleks. Hopefully I get in one of each before Sunday. I need some inspiration though.

Bar Run: 01/29/10

2010-02-02T11:42:00.006-05:00

My first exercise in 3 months was Ironside's second annual bar run this past weekend. 10ish miles, 10 bars, about 30 dudes. It wasn't as insane as last year, well it wasn't for me. Last year I got there around bar 4 and started doubling up on shots so I had about 10-12 drinks in about 3 or 4 hours. Trouble. I ended up putting a newly engaged friends engagement ring up my nose. I took it easier this time as you can see by the summary. Not sure what the times were.

bar 1: Ironside Grill
#1 soco and lime
#2 car bomb
chicken wings

ran

bar 2:
Dirty Milly's
#3 shot of rum

ran

bar 3:
Alibi
#4 IPA

ran

bar 4:
Delux Cafe
#5 pineapple bomb
#6 jack and coke
quesadillas

ran

bar 5:
Bleacher Bar
#7 red headed slut

ran

bar 6:
TC's
#8 soco and lime

ran

bar 7:
The Paradise
#9 car bomb

ran

bar 8:
White Horse Tavern
#10 some shot
bought indian food

walk/run

bar 9:
Bus Stop
#11 shot of gin
#12 beer, beer and a half
ate indian food

rolled a huge spool/ran

bar 10:
#13, #14 shared 2 scorpion bowls

walked

colin's:
#15, #16 more beer

Bar
1 Ironside
2 Dirty Millies 0.8
3 Liberty Hotel 0.8
4 Delux Café 1.3
5 TC's Lounge 0.9
6 Bleacher Bar 0.6
7 The Paradise 1.3
8 White Horse Tavern 0.6
9 Bus Stop Café 0.9
10 Tommy Doyles 0.9
11 Colin/Seth 1.3

The Land of the Living

2010-01-19T13:49:00.003-05:00

I kind of fell off the workout boat for a long time. Injuries combined with GRE's and grad school applications did not leave me much time to do anything. I have been workout depressed for a while, which I will talk about as well. I plan on coming back slowly but surely over the next few weeks. I will include a welcome back to reality plan and a month by month breakdown of what my plans are for the spring, summer and fall.

Gym: 08/20/09

2009-08-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

I have two new gyms. One is the olympic lifting place in Queens and the other is a regular gym in Brooklyn. I will describe this place when I have a bit more time.

bench: i figured the best way to get to know people was hop on the bench
8 @ 145
8 @ 165
6 @ 185
4 @ 205
2 @ 225

squat: I don't know, I got up to a decent weight. I f'd up my neck though. I hadn't done back squats in ages.

5 @ 135
5 @ 185
5 @ 225
4 @ 275

popped off a few front squats at 225

shoulder press
(3) 6 @ 45

bulgarian split squat

(3) 8 @ body weight

6 pull ups whenever i went by the pull up machine

Ultimate: 08/17/09

2009-08-17T08:34:00.001-05:00

We played all right at ECC. D was great, but left a bunch of points on the field. O struggled at times because we got to focused on accomplishing individual it became to much of an individual race to score and not a concerted effort to move the disc effectively. When this happened we stalled out and had to make tough throws that sometimes got turned over. We had almost all of breaks on Saturday, going down to Ring and Furious 0-3. Ring has some balls and it was hard for the D to get them cause Ring kept bailing/ballin out of tough situations with crazy hammers and crossfield throws. Their D also takes hours to call a line and effectively took the game to cap although we had caught up by then and ended up going up to at cap meaning the game was over. We clawed back quickly against Furious and took half.

I played well and my achilles was hardly noticeable except for a few leaps where I didn't get much height. The first O point in the Chain game I took off deep with some space and got a very nice throw that hung only slightly, which made my guy think he had a play on it (he didn't) and as I went up he crashed into me sending me cartwheeling. Luckily after a scary fall where limbs were sent into the ground at awkward angles the only thing that hurt was my calf which took the brunt of the contact when his knee slammed into it. It ended my day as I could jog around, but when I tried to really push off somewhere deep inside my calf had shut down and wouldn't respond. I spent much of the game trying to do something to loosen it up, but nothing worked.

I will take it easy over the next few weeks and hope to be good to go by Chesapeake.

Injuries: 08/12/09

2009-08-12T06:45:00.002-05:00

My achilles is still giving me problems. When I started this blog it was amidst pretty bad achilles problems and it feels similar. I can't point out one instance where I could have hurt it so it must be do to overuse. I was just starting to feel awesome, but might have been pushing my body to hard over the last month while I tried to make up for 4-5 months of inactivity with a month of crazy town. I also tweaked my lower back. Basically I'm a mess.

I practiced last weekend and will play at ECC, but I need to get this shit under control before sectionals if I want to have a chance to be anywhere near 100% for nationals.

In New York news I was at IKEA yesterday and I noticed a woman who looked like a trashy version of Susan Sarandon. Kind of dressed frumpy, no makeup, tattoo on the back of her neck. I realized it was the real Susan Sarandon when she stole my IKEA guy away from me. She asked an innocent question (I still thought it was a poor man's Susan Sarandon so I didn't record exactly what she said, my apologies) to the IKEA employee I was deep in conversation with about whether one of their tv stands came in a walnut instead of a medium brown and he, in mid sentence to me, not only turned to answer her, but took off leaving me deep in my color conundrum. He returned a minute later like nothing had happened, but the damage had been done. I also notified her when she dropped her receipt at the check out line, but not without some disdain in my voice as I talked over a couple adoring fans who were bothering her. She actually seemed really nice and Im glad she looked frumpy, a hot 60 year old frumpy.

Back to the color thing. IKEA changes their colors very slightly every few years so you can't match used things to new things. Or at least that is my theory.

Liftin':08/05/09

2009-08-05T22:32:00.004-05:00

I went to the Lost Battalion Lifting Hall yesterday thinking it would be my gym for the rest of the year. It was pretty cool, but the only thing the dudes do are olympic lifts and a few, very few, supplemental exercises that improve olympic lifts. I was there for 2 hours and did nothing but clean and jerks and snatches. At the last minute I hopped in with some guys doing front squats as a supplemental exercise. I was kind of disappointed that they took such a narrow view on lifting. Just mentioning a deadlift drew some pointed remarks about fast twitch exercises vs body builder exercises. I can't understand why being able to move a shit ton of weight at a slower speed is bad for trying to move a shit ton of weight fast. You can't build fast twitch muscle. You can get better at your fast twitch movements, but either you have a lot of fast twitch muscle or you don't. Anyways it turns out that this hall is part of the NYC parks and rec that has gyms all over the city, apprently in various points of disrepair, but it is cheap, cheap, cheap. Only 50 bucks for the year.

I tried to tell the dude helping me that I have lifted before and yet he was continuously shocked that I was decent at it. I'm sure he gets a lot of guys in there talking about how much they can bench, but I was trying to tell him that I've done most of this stuff just not the right way so it was amusing (and I admit a pretty good ego boost) to see his chest swell as he told the other coaches, "under an hour, and look at him". The kilo's fuck me up, but he was adding some decent weight.

snatch
This is an awesome video. See how the bar follows the contour of her body? Mine was more coming straight up from the knees towards the chest instead of taking a detour to the waist. We didn't get the weight up to high with this one. Actually I have no idea how high we got.

clean and jerk
This is where the weight started getting up, but again I wasn't keeping track.

front squats: a couple at 255

Not sure how I will proceed with this place.

practice: week of 08/02/09

2009-08-03T12:55:00.004-05:00

Friday I thought I could run home from work and in about 2.5 hours finish up getting all of our stuff out of the apartment. That didn't work. It took more like 6 hours, which was a big sucky sucky cause we were trying to get to an engagement party, which we ended up about 2 hours late for. The engagement party went till after 1 am and by the time we got parked, into our hotel room and made a poor food delivery order it was 3:45 am.

Up at 7:15 am for practice, nice to know you Boston Sheraton, and off to bachelor party things for same engagement party at 3 pm. Volleyball, wiffle ball, more stump and at Foxwoods by 9 pm. Lost $100 in the first hour. Didnt play for an hour or two. Back to even by 12:30 am. Up $100 by 2:30 am. Another terrible food decision and we weren't asleep till 6:30 am. Up at 8 am for practice. On the road to Brooklyn by 4 pm. 1.5 hour nap around 84. Cruised on into Brooklyn at 8:30 pm. 3/4 of the stuff unloaded by 10:30. Asleep at 11:30. Up at 9:30. Breakfast. Back to sleep at 11:00 am up at 2 pm ready to start my New York life.

Practice was good. I made some bad throws on decent decisions. I got to just let it rip. On the two completions I did just that. On the three throw aways I tried to guide it in which is not my game.

I managed to severely stress my ankle and achilles on my left foot. I am hobbling around right now with an ankle brace and icing constantly. I think this is my body's way of telling me to ease up for a bit. My back has also been bad for two weeks, which has been excasperated by all this moving. Im using this evidence to take a light week of workouts on so I am ready for next weekends practice and ECC the weekend after that.

runnin: 07/30/09

2009-07-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

My legs felt awful heavy from this. It's either cause I did the sled workout last night or I'm hitting a bit of a wall. I might take some extended rest next week to see if I can work out the heaviness.

3 x 6-cone drill
rest is 3 to 1 so about 45 seconds between reps

2 min

3 x 6-cone drill

2 min

3 x tennis ball drill
3 to 1 rest to work

2 min

3 x tennis ball drill

5 minutes

3 x 0, 15, 0, 25, 0, 40, jog 40, 40
1:30 min between reps

3 min

5 x 15 s work* into 40 yd sprints (start one rep every 45 s)

3 min

3 x 0, 15, 0, 25, 0, 40, jog 40, 40
1:30

3 min

5 x 15 s work* into 40 yd sprints (start one rep every 45 s)

3 min

1 x 0, 15, 0, 25, 0, 40, jog 40, 40

Done.

*Plyo exercises for each set are:
tuck jump (http://www.brassringfitness.com/workout-techniques/tuck-jumps/)
fast feet
mountain climbers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTK0XzbFN0&feature=fvw)
toe touch (http://tinyurl.com/7gcrxz - #7 on the list, ignore the medicine ball)
burpees

runnin: 07/29/09

2009-07-29T22:32:00.004-05:00

Up on the hill for a speed workout.

one legged broad jumps
two legged broad jumps
one legged bounding
two legged bounding
starts from prone
15 yard sled drags
10 yard 85% to 10 yard 100% drags
10 yard drags, let go of sled, 10 yard sprints (while i was doing this Alexis' earphone got wrapped around a knot in the rope and the head popped right off)
pull throughs
side drags
front drags
one footed jumps for height
two footed jumps for height

throwin:07/28/09

2009-07-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

Got some throws and an active in instead of the gym. To much to do.

Mini: 07/27/09

2009-07-27T09:32:00.000-05:00

I moved on Sunday. Awkward heavy lifting, check. We rented a Ryder truck that was filthy and only went 40 mph on hills, which there seem suddenly to be a lot of on the pike, but it got worked although it killed my back, which leads me to some disappointing news to my readership. 400 won't be conquered today. I don't think 300 could be conquered today. My back is still sore from last week's field workout and lifting heavy doesn't seem like the ideal way to get it back in shape. Good news is that I am contact with a few people in NY who have some information on gyms where I can get what i need so I am not giving up hope yet on the 400 for this season. By January 1st 2010 I hope to be up to 425.

Mini was fun. Although I have been running at least twice a week it has all been from one cone to another. It is a little different to have that cone moving all over the place and deciding how long and far the sprint will be. It took me a few games to get my legs under me, but eventually I was playing well. My team started off weak, but finished strong. Lots of tired ultimate, which is a great situation to be practice.

I will probably go to the gym today. I will take what it gives me.

Tue: gym/work
Wed: work/throwing
Thurs: trackish
Fri: off
Sat: PRACTICE!!!! finally
Sun: Practice/final move
Mon: Brooklyn! job? gym? who knows

Runnin: 07/25/09

2009-07-25T18:45:00.003-05:00

It was hot today for the first time in a while. It was genuinely chilly last night.

8 x jog 30/sprint 30

2:00

8 x jog 30/sprint 30

2:00

8 x jog 30/sprint 30

5:00

4 x's 15 out, 10 in, 40 out with walk backs

2:00

3 x's 15 out, 10 in, 40 out jog backs

2:00

3 x's 15 out, 10 in, 40 out jog backs

3:00

10 out, 10 in, 5 out, 10 jog x 3 except on last rep sprint 20 instead of 5

1:30

10 out, 10 in, 5 out, 10 jog x 3 except on last rep sprint 20 instead of 5

1:30

10 out, 10 in, 5 out, 10 jog x 3 except on last rep sprint 20 instead of 5

3:00

(2) 5 x 15 yard hill sprints

Liftin: 07/23/09

2009-07-23T18:56:00.003-05:00

I've been spoiled by being healthy and making time to go to the gym. As I said before I managed to tweak my back during some part of the workout yesterday and my left upper arm is feeling weird, but overall I've been doing well. I say that to preface my complaint with my back. It is more of a nuisance than anything else because I want to try for my 1rm deadlift next week, probably on Tuesday. I am secretly I deloaded a bit this week and went for a little higher reps with less weight.

sled pull:
2 x 40 yds @ 135
2 X 40 yds @ 160
2 X 40 yds @ 180
2 X 40 yds @ 205

safety bar squats:
(2) 6 @ 225
(1) 6 @ 245

pull throughs
(1) 8 @ 45
(2) 8 @ 80

reverse lunges from defecit
(3) 8 @ 40

pallof press
8

bowler squats
6

running and running and running: 07/22/09

2009-07-22T09:34:00.001-05:00

I liked this workout, so much I don't even want to share it with you, but you won't really know it till you run it with a bunch of your teammates so if you want to nut up and do it, more power to you.

8 x 25yd jog, 25yd run (80%), 25yd sprint (100%), 25yd walk

3 min rest

8 x 25yd jog, 25yd run (80%), 25yd sprint (100%), 25yd walk

6 minutes

4 sets of

25 yards (or 5) continuous double leg bounding for distance
10 stationary lunge jumps
25 yards bear crawls for speed
10 knee tucks for height (stay in the same place)

2 minutes between sets and every time you start a set, start with a different exercise

5 minutes

USA Box Sprints: Ask someone on your team who tried out, its hard to explain
2 sets of 2 reps
give yourself about 5 x's what it took you to do 1 rep at full speed
2 minutes between sets

3 minutes

suicides:
3 x's
0, 10, 0, 20, 0, 30, 0
1 min between reps

3 mins

3 x's
(sprint) 0, 10, 0, (jog) 20, 0, (sprint) 30, 0, 10, 0, (jog) 20, 0, (sprint) 30, 0
1 min between reps

3 mins

1 time through the following:
0, 10, 0, 20, 0, 30, 0
30 secs
(sprint) 0, 10, 0, (jog) 20, 0, (sprint) 30, 0, 10, 0, (jog) 20, 0, (sprint) 30, 0

This had me dry heaving, but it felt great and despite a little tightness in my back of all places I think I will be ready to lift tomorrow.

lifting: 07/21/09

2009-07-21T07:55:00.001-05:00

I think I messed up my arm tossing some kids around at a work social. I felt my left bicep immediately feel weird, but I wasn't to concerned. I headed into the gym today and right from the first lift it hurt. I was benching for the first time in a while and the pain started moving from my bicep into my tri and it was getting progressively worse. I persisted cause I am stupid and got all the way into pull ups and pushups before I decided to shut it down. I am sure it will be fine, but no more upper body for a few days.

A1 flat bench
5 @ 185
(3) 5 @ 205

A2 chest supported row
(3) 8 @ 80

B1 pull ups
5 @ 1/2 vest

B2 push ups
(2) 10 @ 1/2 vest

Throwing: 07/20/09

2009-07-20T11:36:00.004-05:00

My legs were real sore from yesterday's stair portion of the speed and power workout so I didn't go to the gym and instead returned late night to the hill to shake out my muscles and work on my hucks.

Google analytics tells me I have a decent following again and I know a bunch of you are decent ultimate players so I have a question. Let's see if we can get 5 responses.

How often do you practice your throws? When you practice them how often do you think of mechanics? Do you just grip it and rip it? I've been having golf swing type problems with my backhand and in the past have had similar problems with my flick huck where the throw just wasn't going where I wanted it to with the angle and speed that I wanted. So I would get creative with wrist angles, arm positions, arm speed to see if something clicked. I even studied tape from time to time so I could visualize some guys with great backhand hucks. Take for instance Bailey Russells backhand huck. I want to marry it. Make it mine forever. I'd treat it to a nice dinner, well maybe the first night would just be tacos or something as I figured out if it was reliable, and then eventually just hope that it would be ok with just being seen with me on a pretty consistent basis. I highly suggest taking a look at it in the 2004 nationals video.

So that is what I have been working at on the hill. What is my most consistent backhand huck form when I am a: standing with the disc in the middle of the field; b: going from catcher to thrower near the backhand sideline and c: pumping the flick on the flick sideline and then tossing the backhand while the cutter turns the page

So anyone else think about mechanics? I'll share some ideas if anyone is interested cause I have been through a shit load of different forms especially on the backhand.

07/19/09: Speed Day

2009-07-19T18:11:00.000-05:00

Plyos

high knee skips
2 x's 3

hurdle hops
2 x single, double, quad jumps @ lowest height
2 x single, double, quad jumps @ next height

long jumps
4 @ jump, pause, jump...
4 @ jump, gather, jump...
4 @ jump, jump, jump...

Steps at Harvard
2 x's big steps, big, little, big, big, little; 1:30 between reps, 4 min between sets

sled pulls
2 x's 2 reps of 15 yard full speed drags @ 50
1 x's 2 reps of 75% to 100% @ 50

shuttles: 6, 12, 12
2 laying down facing straight
1 laying down facing right
1 laying down facing left
4 approach, hop, go

games and games and pole climbing: 07/19/09

2009-07-19T09:52:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night after grazing a "how hard can you punch" thing twice, I finally adjusted and got a decent score. 2nd best in the bar that night. It was a small bar. I had said if I did well I would show some self restraint and not just spring back for more. And despite some "5 years from now are we gonna talk about that time you got second place at that punching game?" talk, I held firm, until the guy with the best score, perhaps inspired by my untapped potential, actually gave me a dollar to go do it again. I fucking drilled that thing the 4th time and now we can all talk about me being the hardest puncher at TC's on July 17th, 2009.

On Saturday we played a lot of wiffle ball and stump. These dudes are playing stump, but ours was about 1 foot off the ground and we were way more aggressive. It was more like trying to hit an elusive mouse with a huge mallet.

On Sunday I had to run my last big party. I had to climb a thick lamp post three times and my feet kept slipping so I had to just rely on my hands, which took a lot out of me and might have caused me to tweak my left bicep.

07/17/09: Liftin'

2009-07-17T18:24:00.003-05:00

warm up with a couple ladders and some heavy bag work

front squat:
5 @ 225
5 @ 225
3 @ 245
3 @ 265
3 @ 275: i might of had a little bit left after this for a shot at 285, but there was no one around who could help.

step ups: bench sized step. rested foot on the step and lifted the back foot a touch off the ground, pause, up
(3) 8 each leg @ full vest

GHR: im still not as strong at this as I want to be. it's really the only thing that is still lacking and I think it is because it is such a unique movement and during my hammy stuff I couldn't do it. I would like to be holding a 25 lb plate in two weeks.
5 @ 0
5 @ red band
7 @ red band

07/16/09: Running

2009-07-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

First an awesome video on a dude from my gym. I went to www.boston.com and saw his face front and center on the home page.

As for me back to the track and field. It is getting humid. Late July is notoriously the worst part of the year for trackworkouts, but it has been so mild that there is no room for complaint.

3 sets of the 9 cone drill
1 minute between sets

3 minutes

4 sets of kolt's box drill: 30 on 1:30 off

3 minutes

200 m
60 secs
200 m

4 minutes

4 min tabata
15s sprint, 15s jog

6 minutes

5 x 60m
4 man relay or 20 seconds between sprints

3 minutes

5 x 60m
4 man relay or 20 seconds between sprints

3 minutes

200m
60 secs
200 m

Done

That tabata messed me up and I lost track of reps and got completely psyched out. I might do this again on Sunday just cause I sucked so bad at it this time.

29,29,27,29 on the 200's, which were a real fun way to start and end the workout.

Toss: 07/15/09

2009-07-15T22:42:00.002-05:00

Threw for 45 minutes. I bring 6 discs up to the park that sits on top of Chelsea, which is right next to my apartment. The Boston sky line looms huge in the distance. It's just me and a perfect night. Well and there is the guy who is always sitting on the bench 50 yards away that faces the skyline. I feel like one day he is gonna get off the bench, approach me and have no face or something. And there is the guy who had like terrible cysts on his hands and they had to remove his lymph nodes and a piece of his skull. He talks to me about everything while his pitbull licks the sweat from my legs. I hate pitbulls, mostly cause they scare the shit out of me. It is like looking into the eyes of someone that would just as well beat the shit out you then make conversation.

gym: 07/14/09

2009-07-14T21:46:00.004-05:00

Quick active and jump rope warm up

jumping, overhead 30 lb med ball throws (i need to make a video) with jumps for height after

reverse sled drags
(3) 2 x 30 yards @ 135

box squats with buffalo bar: like this dude, but without the chains and with a shirt on (i know, surprising)
4 @ 225
3 @ 275
4 @ 275
4 @ 275
3 @ 295
3 @ 315: i was bouncing up to fast I realized after. I don't want to rock back like the dude in the video, but I want to let my butt drift a bit farther back than natural, touch the box with my butt, let the box take some of, but not all, of my weight, and then fire back up so the 315 barely counts

walking lunges:
6 @ 45
6 @ 50
6 @ 50

And had to leave for work. More work tomorrow night so I have to go off schedule a bit and make Thursday my track workout day. Hopefully I will get to throw a little more tomorrow night.

Tossin: 07/13/09

2009-07-13T11:56:00.002-05:00

I made an executive decision to go hang out at home and not rush to the gym before I had to head back to work. Walking around and talking to people always takes longer than I think it is going to take. I ended up talking with these two dudes who live in one of the worst sections of the worst streets in Chelsea about what is going on there. They are most likely well above average in income and education levels for the street and they are just about done with the street after like three weekends in a row of fights, domestic disturbances and tons of public intoxication. The block has so many problems that it is hard to convince people that anything can help, but that is what I try to do as well as offer up all my contacts in the police department and at city hall to try to show them that people care.

Anyways it meant that I got home near 8:30 instead of 7:30 cause I kept forgetting where shit was in our new Market Basket which is like the biggest supermarket on the east coast or something. I cooked this cause I bought a can of harissa on whim like 3 months ago and I wanted to use it. It was good.

Headed up to the hill for some hucks and an active. My intention was to get up to the hill at least once a week, but life has intervened so this is my first time since the invite. I need to make my backhand huck more consistent and I am trying to figure out how to do that. I would love to have a big arching OI that can catch some wind and carry, but I might be better at ripping a tight, lower straight ball with a bit more OI release point. I think the latter is actually better with a mark on. The release point is more point blockable but the follow through is much more compact as opposed to really flailing to get the big OI to carry. Always more work to do.

beach sprints: 07/12/09

2009-07-12T21:53:00.002-05:00

I took Saturday off and headed up to Newburyport to talk team workout stuff. We managed to sneak a workout in before hand on the beach.

4 x's tennis ball drill

3 x's 6 cone drill

(3) 3 x's 15 yard get up and go

6ish 50 yard sprints

(3) fake d points:
30 yard sprint, 10 yards out, 10 in, 10 out, 10 seconds fast feet, 10 in, 10 out, 10 in, fast feet, 30 out
1 minute rest
repeat

gym: 07/10/09

2009-07-10T18:57:00.008-05:00

Before I forget.

active

3 x's
jump rope for 2:30 -
100 regular, increasing speed
50, every other foot
50, left, left, right, right
as many reg, reg, left, left, right, right, l, r, l, r (i do these last 4 reps as fast as possible) as I can do before time is up

pound the heavy bag for 30 seconds

1 minute rest

3 x's:
A1: 4 x's 450 lb tire flip
A2: 10 x's 20 lb sledge hammer slams (5 each side)
A3: 5 burpees (on jump get up onto tire)
good rest

I asked one of the trainers why my shoulders were getting so fucked up by the tires and he said it was cause i was doing it right. Sweet. He suggested I move up to the 650 lb tire, which would supposedly fit me better. It did, but it was full of crazy big grooves that were hard to get a hold of. It was also 650 lbs. I could get it up, but then I would have to brace it with my knee and then push it over where you are supposed to do it all in one motion. The worst part was getting that wobbly fucker back in its place. Rolling a 650 lb tire is not like rolling a regular car tire. It goes where it wants which meant at one point I was doing a "whoa, whoa, whoa" like in the movies when you don't want the elephant you are leading by a leash to crush the fence and flower garden of the woman you are trying to woo. That may not be a movie, but you get it. So it took me a solid couple minutes to roll it like 20 yards and it only fell over once luckily in the parking lot and not on somebody stretching inside.

deadlift: This gym is kind of firing me up to lift more. Everytime you go in people are moving heavy weight. Watch the first minute of there exercise of the month videos.

It fires you up to go big. Today it was low rep deadlifts with chains.

2 @ 225
2 @ 225 + 40ish lbs of chain
2 @ 275 + 40
2 @ 275 + 80
2 @ 275 + 80
2 @ 275 + 80
2 @ 275 + 120: I should have just done this again, but like I said above you get inspired so...
0 @ 275 + 160: even after a couple years of deadlifting, I can't remember missing a lift. I think this means that I'm not being aggressive enough. I wasn't really that close, my legs straighten pretty quickly and Im just not ready to have all that wait just on my lower back. This is the form that scares me a bit, not to mention what amounts to a full large person more he is lifting.

He barely has any knee bend. Yikes. His name is Mailbox and I saw him deadlift 730 lbs a couple weeks ago. That is the bar filled to each side with 45's. Ska-doosh!

Back to my day.

GHR's
5 @ 0
3 @ 25, 3 @ 0
3 @ 25, 3 @ 0

one legged squats:
8 each leg with 1/2 the weight vest on

box jumps:
5 double leg @ 1/2 the vest
5 single leg 1/2 the vest

during the GHR's and and squats/jumps i did pull ups

10
4 @ 1/2 the vest
5 @ 1/2 the vest
10: this made me feel good

Work: 07/09/09

2009-07-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

We had a -uuuge meeting last night, one of my last big ones as an organizer in Chelsea. Sad. I didn't do anything workout wise, but because half of my posts concern leaving a workout early or getting to a workout late becuase of my job and for the reason that I think my job is interesting, I will give a little breakdown of the night.

I direct the Community Engagement Department of a Community Development Corporation called Chelsea Neighborhood Developers. For the past 9 months we have been working with staff of the City's Planning and Development Department to think of ways that we can improve three of the most challenged streets in Chelsea. They have some of the highest crime and poverty rates in the city and Chelsea's averages are high for the state to begin with. We have gone through all of the challenges facing the streets from trash and safety to overpopulation and poor neighborhood design and come up with some solutions we think possible. In order maximize, 1st our ability to assess the situation correctly and 2nd our ability to develop solutions we are having community visioning sessions or charrettes as they are known in the biz....nasss world or something. We were lucky enough to partner with CDRC, a non profit that matches non profits like us to architects and urban designers and they hooked us up with some professionals who have been helping us work through some potential ideas. In order to bridge the neighborhood knowledge gap we host these community visioning sessions where residents and stake holders give the architects information on what is and isn't working in the neighborhood. The architects then come back with ideas on how to improve on what is not working. Here is lead architect David Gamble talking about how to improve the litter situation.

The residents then brokeout into groups to discuss the merits of these ideas. Once we convene all these ideas the CDRC group will put together a document that along with their design ideas will contain other social and economic plans for improving what is not working in the neighborhood.

I guess I am writing about it because it was a great meeting. Over 40 residents attended from streets that have been noted for their lack of civic engagement. The Chief of Police came, as well as representatives from city hall.

Imagine how much i could deadlift if I had a regular job? Sometimes/sometime soon I wish to have more of a 9-6 job where I can leave work at work a little more, but the highs and lows of this job are what make it so interesting. It is unique to have a job where if you are unsuccessful you feel like it's because people don't like you. You become very familiar with a very large group of people 300+ who you tend to trust and rely on to take time out of their crazy lives so that your work is successful. So when people come to events you organize you feel like people like you, like you had a party and that evite you sent out with an amazingly long invite list was fulfilled.

I ultimately won't be a part of whether or not the charrettes work, which is hard, and there is so much more to my job than these charrettes. No matter what CND does with the groundwork I have established, I can always fall back on some great relationships I've made over the years.

Just some thoughts on a non-workout day that I wanted to save on the WWW.

07/08/09: track and field

2009-07-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

Not your typical track and field.

on the track:

2 reps of 2 laps of jog 50 m, sprint 50 m; 4 minutes between reps

5 minutes

5 reps of a 4 x 100 m relay or if you don't have enough dudes: 5 reps of 100 m, 30 seconds rest

on the field:

fake d points:
3 sets of 2 reps - 50 (yd sprint) in, 10 out, 10 in, 10 out, 10 seconds fast feet, 10 in, 10 out, 10 in, 10 sec rest, 10 out, 10 in, 10 out, 10 secs fast feet, 10 in, 50 out; 1 min between reps, 3 min between sets

3 minutes

fake o points:
3 sets of 2 reps - 15 (yd sprint) out, 15 in, 5 out, 10 jog, 15 in, 15 out, 5 in, 10 jog, 15 out, 15 in, 30 out; 1 min between reps, 3 minutes between sets

Lot's of "fuuuuck" and "im gonna poop myself" but we battled through and even ran the fake points with some conviction.

07/07/09: I need a job

2009-07-07T10:09:00.000-05:00

Got stuck at work late applying for jobs. Who wants to find me a job in NY? Dinner with Alexis, her sister and her cousin. More job stuff at home. I wanted to get up to the hill and launch some discs and do an active, which is supposed to be my Tuesday routine, but I just worked on applications till I went to bed.

I started looking into gyms in NYC. I wonder if any gym would be interested in giving me a discount if I was only gonna go for 1.5 hours on Mondays. Probably not. I looked into crossfit which they have in brooklyn. $300 for like a month of training/certification then $160 a month after. Fuck. That. Seriously I could "crossfit" in a park with about $30 worth of equipment and some low hanging branches.

07/06/09: gym

2009-07-06T21:58:00.004-05:00

Monday will be my heavy day until August when I am forced to leave my gym that I am slightly falling love with. Now that I can lift with the big boys , in the sense that I'm no longer worried about my hamstring, I feel like I can finally start looking people in the eye instead of moping around and doing one legged squats with no weight. So Monday's will be heavy.

prowler push : i did it the right way this time. 30 yards ish down and back. Worked on powerful starts and fast feet throughout.
3 @ 50
4 @ 100

safety bar squat : the safety bar is just another squat variation to be filed among back squats, front squats, box squats, etc. It de-stabilizes the weight a bit and makes it hang straight down, which shifts the poundage to your hamstrings a bit more and also makes it so you don't have to hold the weight at all.
(2) 5 @ 235
(1) 5 @ 255
(1) 5 @ 265

rack pulls: i always have trouble re-racking this without a. hurting my back or b. making the most noise in the world. You are supposed to be able to rack pull more than you can deadlift, a lot more, but the rack position was a bit awkward for me so I might be hanging it a bit too low.
225
315
335
365
385
405

reverse lunges from defecit:
(3) 8 @ 35

This will be a typical Monday gym day. On Thursday's or Friday's I will work on a more total body, circuit, agenda.

07/05/09: independence

2009-07-05T08:23:00.000-05:00

Imagine two trips through NY this weekend and no traffic either way. This of course means that on a Tuesday night at like 10:30 pm this month we are gonna get stuck for like 2 hours on a random spot on 91, but it was worth the 2 sub 5 hour trips this weekend. I did manage to talk myself out of bringing my running shoes because I thought I could get a complete workout in on the beach, but it was probably for the better cause I pushed it this past week and should make sure my body is ready for consecutive weeks like this.

On Friday night we went for a walk and ended up on a track with high hurdles that I spent about 5 minutes jumping over while Alexis and her sister walked the track. I felt springy and was gonna try and take down the fence around the track. I'd say there was about a 85% chance for success, but the Johnson family have enough experience/terror with me trying to jump/climb/hike/leap over things that I thought I'd come back and do it alone at some point.

On Saturday I didn't take into account how packed the beach was gonna be so it wasn't easy finding some real estate to run on. I ended up getting a decent sized space and ran some sprint intervals, 10 steps as hard as I could, 10 steps to slow down, repeat 5-6 times. On the track you wouldn't have been able to stop in 10 steps, but on the beach you come to almost an instant stop. Running in sand is really hard especially when it's getting up into the 90's. The worst part really was how hot the sand was after I'd stop each time. I think I did this like 3-4 times and then went for a decent swim. Nothing crazy, but I was sweating balls.

Sunday we went for a 3 mile walking loop along the canals. It was a beautiful day except for the blister wreaking bloody havoc on my achilles, which I eventually applied 5 band aids to.

MON: gym, plan is to push the prowler, do some front squats, some rack pulls (blister on my palm from playing on a ropes course might prevent this), some reverse lunges from defecit
TUE: off
WED: track
THUR: work/off
FRI: gym
SAT: ultimate?
SUN: track

independence

gym: 07/02/09

2009-07-02T20:33:00.002-05:00

My hamstring is back so I am back. I don't know what I am committing to, but I would like to post every work day morning for the next week. During July I want to lift Monday, take Tuesday off, track/cardio on Wednesday, Thurs lift, Fri off, something cardio/spaq related.

deadlift with hex bar
5 @ 225
5 @ 275
3 @ 295
3 @ 315
3 @ 335

My grip isn't great and I tore up my hands, but I don't that is a bad starting point.

lunges:
(3) 16 @ 45

A1 GHR:
(2) 5 @ 0
(1) 5 @ 25

A2 wheel roll outs with band
(3) 5

07/01/09: Speed and Change of Direction

2009-07-01T20:55:00.002-05:00

Warm-up

4 min tabata
6 minutes rest

(10) 0, 5 yd, 0, 10 yd suicides (3:1 work to rest ratio, or run them in a group of four)
2 minutes rest

(5) 0, 10 yd, 0, 15 yd (3:1 work to rest ratio, or run them in a group of four)
2 minutes rest

(3) 0, 10 yd, 0, 15 yd, 0, 20 yds (3:1 work to rest ratio, or run them in a group of four)
2 minutes rest

(3) 0, 10 yd, 0, 15 yd, 0, 20 yds (3:1 work to rest ratio, or run them in a group of four)
3 minutes rest

4 x 100 yard sprints w/ walk backs
Done

The tabata as always is impossible. The first two reps go well and then I just lose it and rebound for like every other. Cause i was alone I used the timer on my watch for the suicides. I messed up the 3:1 rest to work and did 2:1 for the 10 reps of 0,5,0,10 which came to about 14 secs off, instead of 20 off. Whatever. The 10,15 i did 30 sec break. 10,15,20 was 50 off. I only managed 4 of 6 100's for a number of excuses. 1. my body was falling apart, but not my hamstring, yeah. 2. A dude I work with at city hall arrived at the track as i was finishing my 3rd 100, i had my shirt off, it was weird. 3. I had to leave for work.

kettle bells: 05/28/09

2009-05-29T09:01:00.004-05:00

I am coming off a semi-successful Wednesday testing of my hamstring. I made 10-15 yard cuts at or near 100% for the first time in... 7 months! Terrifying. I can't even imagine what my cardio is going to be like. I will do some drills on Saturday and maybe play a few points at some point. The last thing I want to do it go all out and set myself back again for the 100th time.

Anyways I was at the gym to do some light circuit stuff and I saw that the kettlebell class was starting so I did a quick active and hopped in never having taken the class before. It was fun. Lots of explosive lifts. I had a 16 kg and a 20 kg bell. I ended up using the 20 kg ball for most lifts and the 16 only when the instructor suggested we use the light one.

It was a lot of:
8 clean and press rt arm
8 clean and press lft arm
30 secs off
3 get ups
30 secs off
6 swings rt arm
6 swings lft arm
etc

then we did some kettle bell walks which were great except i needed a bigger bell

and we finished with some timed sets; 20 secs on; 10 off which nearly killed my arms

a good total body workout with a lot of sweating. if nothing else it's something to add to the tool box. Ill probably go once a month.

more hotels: 05/23/09

2009-05-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

3 in 4 weeks isnt crazy.

Put the treadmill at about 8 and ran a minute then did 10 burpees took about 30 secs off then repeated 3 times.

Put the treadmill on 11 and 7 incline did 30 seconds then did 10 airplane pushups and 10 crunches 30 secs off and repeat. I did it 3 times.

Then my friend and I raced a 13 year old boy and a 12 year old girl in the pool. 4 lengths of an itty bitty pool. I won. It was tiring.

giddy up: 05/19/09

2009-05-18T19:18:00.001-05:00

No more hamstring talk. It will either get better or it won't.

One Monday's they have a million little kids boxing upstairs so no heavy bag. Instead I got right into a circuit.

4 times: 2 minutes between reps

12 sledge hammer slams: 6 each side
10 alt hand med ball push ups: legs spread left hand on the ground, righthand on ball, pushup!, and in one motion hand from the ground comes up to replace hand on ball which goes to the ground.
6 ball tosses
10 get down, get up: start standing drop into pushup position and immediately fire yourself back up so you can get your legs under you, but dont stand up completely. Drop right back down to pushup position

There are these things hanging from the cieling that look like the ends of a 45 lb bar. There are two of them about shoulder width apart and they hang straight down so it is like gripping a thick street sign pole.

3 sets:
5 pullups on street pole thing
5 shoulder press (50, 50, 55)
5 hanging straight leg raises

Giddy Up: 05/19/09

2009-05-18T19:16:00.000-05:00

back to blogging,

2009-05-12T20:46:00.002-05:00

back to being frustrated. My hamstring is gonna be broken forever. Im going to get another doctor to look at it.

heavy bag:
3 x's 2 min on 1 min off

circuit:
3 times
1 min heavy bag
10 med ball pushups (med ball at center of chest, hands on the ground, explode up onto the ball, full push up, back down to the ground, push up = 2)
10 lateral blast strap pull ups
1 min off

heavy: full weight vest
5 pull ups/5 blast strap push ups
4/6
3/8
no vest - 5/10

planks:
alternating 45 secs; left, right, l, r

poop

2009-04-28T11:37:00.001-05:00

I am way behind on posting. Get into some heavy leg lifts and lots of massage for my hamstring. It might be getting better.

heavy day: 04/04/09

2009-04-04T17:42:00.002-05:00

I wanted to go heavy for the first time in a while. Low reps and heavy. It also helped that I had a poop load of time.

active

(3) 3 min on 1 min off jump rope
on my last one I got to about 270 without f'n up
50 regular
25 reg faster
25 reg fastest
50 alt feet
25 alt feet faster
25 alt feet fastest
25 left, left, right, right
25 l,l,r,r faster
then i go out wide alternating feet till time goes

(2) 2 min, 30 secs heavy bag
somewhere in here I was kicking the kickboxing bag (at least it looks like a kickboxing bag), which is at waist level, and wondered how high i could kick effectively. They have a long bag that is well over 6 feet tall so I kicked it high a few times and then I laid into it low. It felt like I kicked a cement pillar. I was pretty sure I had broken my shin. I think I'm allright, but Ill check things out before I kick them for now on. Good life lesson.

A1 bench
6 @ 135
6 @ 185
6 @ 205
2 @ 225
2 @ 225
2 @ 225
2 @ 235
0 @ 245
1 @ 240

A2 chest supported row
(3) 6 @ 70
(3) 6 @ 80

B1 pull up
4 @ 12 kg
4 @ 18 kg
3 @ 22 kg
3 @ 22 kg
2 @ 24 kg
2 @ 24 kg = 52 lbs

B2 push press
(2) 5 @ 55
(2) 5 @ 60
(1) 5 @ 65

C1 sledge hammer
(3) 8 @ 18

C2 ball toss
(3) 8 @ 30

leg workout: 04/02/09

2009-04-01T15:19:00.000-05:00

I am starting to get excited. It's been about a week now with limited pain, which is the longest stretch of success I've had in 4 months. It will take a while to build up my strength but it is something I look forward to.

front squat: im so pumped that i did this
(4) 6 @ 135, so little weight

45 degree raises: these weren't feeling that hard so I hopped on the GHR. Bad mistake. Almost set myself back 3 months.
(3) 8

leg curls with bands: they don't have a leg curl machine. i harp hard against hamstring curls and especially knee extensions (which are still the most worthless exercise in the world next to smith machine squats) but I need some hamstring curls!
(3) 8

1 legged RDL
(3) 8 @ 25
I am so weak!

Thurs: PT
Friday: Russ
Sat: off
Sun: sled drags

gym: 03/31/09

2009-03-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

jump rope: i had something stretching weird in my foot so i stopped

heavy bag:
(4) 2 min on 30 secs off

A1 alt med ball push! ups: these are hard. start with one hand on a med ball and explode up so that the arm on the med ball straightens almost completely. at the peak, flip the ball towards your other hand and land on it. repeat
3 x's
10 alternating hand
5 both hands just diamonds
5 regular

A2 lateral blast strap raises
(3) 10

B1 pull ups
(1) 8
(1) 8
(1) 9

B2 band push ups
(3) 20

C1 1 armed DB shoulder press
8 @ 35
8 @ 40
8 @ 45

C2 hanging leg raises
(3) 10

03/29/09

2009-03-29T08:38:00.002-05:00

jump rope

hills sprints
(3) 10

sled pulls
(3) 40 yards there and 40 yards back

leg curls

gym: 03/27/09

2009-03-27T22:26:00.000-05:00

I got in an early morning workout cause I knew I wouldn't have time Saturday or Sunday.

Friday, Friday. What the f did I do.

I am pretty sure I jumped rope and hit the bag, but more as warmup than workout.

A1 thick grip pull ups: these were really hard. i put the thick grip thingies around the pull up bar handles. Basically I was pulling only with my fingers.
(3) 6

A2 med ball push ups: little ball, back and forth, exploding off each rep
(3) 10

B1 tire smacks
(3) 20 @ 18

B2 stiff leg ball throws
(3) 8 @ 35

C1 twists
(3) 8 @ 50

C2 pallof press
(3) 8 with blue band\

03/26/09

2009-03-26T21:24:00.002-05:00

Started in the gym, but ended up outside.

jump rope
(3) 3 min x 1 min off

shadow box
2 min, 30 secs

heavy bag
(2) 2 min, 30 secs

sled drag
(3) 2 x 40 yards

These were real bad. Getting my cardio back will be a slow process.

Seeing Russ tomorrow. Hopefully a combo of Russ, PT and working out will get me good to go for tryouts.

outside: 03/22/09

2009-03-22T13:28:00.000-05:00

A small victory being outside.

Warmed up with some jump rope and an active.

Did some sled pulls and some very small hill runs, which was pretty tiring.

Split squats with an elevated front foot to take some of the pressure off my hammy.

Here is where it got interesting. I need to do hamstring curls, but my gym doesn't have that machine and it was closed anyways so I couldn't cobble some bands or cables together to create a makeshift one. So here is what I did. The straps that I pull my tire sled with are really long so I tied them to my feet/heel. I set the tire up as far away as it could reach from the end of a aluminum baseball bench. I laid chest down on the bench with the straps taut and did a hamstring curl. I then pulled myself forward with my hands till the straps were taut again and then curled it. I averaged about 6 curls before the tire got blocked by the bench. I was really getting into this especially for the last one. Curl, slide, slide, curl, slide, slide, curl and when I finished I thought how ridiculous I must look, looked around and sure enough their were two guys, about 20 feet away, chins resting on their arms which were resting on the top of chain link fence that surrounded the field just staring at me. They were latino so i quickly mumbled something in Spanish about how my gym was closed and i didn't have the equipment, etc. They repeated gym or something to me to show that they understood, but it was like a sane person responding to a crazy person, "Oh flying t-rexes using an easy bake oven, of course".

That was my workout.

gym: 03/19/09

2009-03-19T07:32:00.000-05:00

active

jump rope
3 x 3 min on 1 min off (on the first set I only messed up twice. top ten on my athletic accomplishment list right between winning an Ecuadorian tennis tournament against cripples and 8 year old girls and beating alexis at skiball)

heavy bag
2 x 2 min on 30 secs off

sled drags
2 x 2 lengths at 185
2 x 4 lengths at 185
1 x 4 lengths at 135

A1 90 degree raises (will get proper name)
3 x 10

A2 split squats
3 x 10

band hamstring curls
3 x 10

gym: 03/17/09

2009-03-17T21:50:00.002-05:00

jump rope

heavy bag

A1 weighted pull ups
(3) 6 @ half the weight vest

A2 weighted blast strap
(3) 10 @ half weight vest

B1 sledgehammer
(3) 20 alt side

B2 ball throws
(3) 10 @ 30

gym: 03/15/09

2009-03-15T12:15:00.003-05:00

Well, for better or for worse, I am back on leg rehab.

active

jump rope: 3 x 2 min on, 30 secs off
i try to go through something like this
50 reg
50 reg increasing speed every 10 reps
25 reg
25 alt feet
25ish 2 reps alt feet
the rest double dutch style, just joking, i just kind of wing it for the rest

heavy bag: 2 x 2 min on, 30 secs off
This is as hard as I make it. I made it hard early and I didn't finish strong at all.

sled drag
forward
backward

leg curls: the pt guy loves the leg curls so I can't really argue. My new gym is to tough for leg curls though so I have to McGyver it.

split squats no weight

gym: 03/12/09

2009-03-12T12:11:00.001-05:00

Why didn't I do this on Thursday?

I think I did bench and pull up clusters and then smacked the shit out of a tractor tire with a 20 lb sledge hammer followed by some pushups and situps

If I remember correctly I my meals were pretty typical with:

eggs and ham for breakfast and maybe a half a bagel
smoothie

pb and j

left over fish and salad for lunch

stayed away from pizza at a late meeting and made chicken with a white wine mustard sauce with broccoli over brown rice.

food: 03/11/09

2009-03-11T08:09:00.000-05:00

8:00 am
ham and eggs/egg white
smoothie

10:30 am
pb and j

1:00 pm
last of the indian

4:00 pm
tuna sandwich with pirates booty

8:00 pm
baked haddock over a salad of carrots and red peppers and a little goat cheese
1 scoop of low fat ice cream

snacks throughout the day:
peanuts and carrots

gym: 03/10/09

2009-03-10T20:16:00.002-05:00

I wanted to hit the bag and jump rope, but the stupid pilates class got in the way.

jump rope
3 x 3 min on 1 min off

heavy bag
1 x 2 minutes then right into a minute of jumping rope fast

pilates class

circuit
4 x
10 @ 35 lb med ball throws
20 alt hand med ball pushups
10 med ball slams
10 row sit ups with med ball between legs

food:

8:00 am
2 eggs, egg whites, 3 pieces of thin and trim ham

11:00 am
pb and j

1:00 pm
last nights indian

4:00 pm
last nights indian

6:45 pm
post work out shake

8:15 pm
pasta, red sauce, sausage

gym: 03/09/09

2009-03-09T19:12:00.002-05:00

no time for much of a warm up

A1 cluster pull ups: do 2, rest 10 seconds, do 2 more rest 10 seconds
(4) 4 sets of 2 @ 20

B1 cluster bench
(2) 4 sets of 2 @ 165
(2) 4 sets of 2 @ 185

C1 inverted row
(3) 8 @ 70

C2 band push ups
(3) 10 @ green band

D1 pulling motion
(3) 8 @ 50

D2 knees to ee's
(3) 10

what i ate:

7:00 am 2 eggs, egg whites and ham
smoothie

11:00 am
pb and j

1:30 pm
tuna sandwich carrots, itty bitty piece of cake for a co-workers bday

5:00
peanuts and balance bar with peanut butter on it

9:00 pm
indian (tomato based sauce with chicken, chick peas and green beans) rice

weekend food

2009-03-08T08:35:00.000-05:00

went out to NY this weekend and definitely was not on a good food schedule:

sat:
7:00
smoothie
1.5 bagels w/ cream cheese

12:00 pm
potato leek soup w/ bacon (not ideal, but most of this was out of my control)
2 turkey sandwiches

7:30 pm
fried calamari
chicken parm
brownie sundae (at this point I realize this weekend is a lost cause)

Sunday
9:00 am
turkey sausage
fritata
taters

12:00 pm
salad
turkey sandwich

afternoon
peanuts

7:00 pm
pizza

What a terrible food weekend. What is good is that I avoided being even worse knowing that I had to make this all public knowledge. There might have been as many as 2 mcflurry's added. It is pretty hard to be "good" when you are traveling or visiting friends. Hard in that it takes work. I didn't put that work in. I have some wedding/coaching weekends coming up and I will make sure to put more effort into setting myself up to eat right.

I did not include all the beer and wine I drank too, I will start remembering to add it this week. The only other things I drink are coffee and water, which I am proud of. I even gave up OJ when I started drinking smoothies.

physical therapy: 03/06/09

2009-03-06T08:26:00.001-05:00

Another month another physical therapist. This one specializes in weird electrodes that are supposedly the reason TO recovered so quickly from that ankle "break" to play in the Pats v Eagles super bowl. I'll get back with some more information next week.

Had the day off so my meals are weird

7:30 am
2 eggs, egg whites
smoothie

12:00 pm
fish stew (mahimahi, celery, onions, garlic, red peppers)

2:00 pm
dunkin donuts coffee cake muffin (this happens about once every 2 weeks)

5:00 pm
balance bar

7:00 pm
more fish stew

8:30 pm
nuts, nuts, nuts (mixed, not sure what kind)

12:00 am
kelly's roast beef sandwich (so good)

gym: 03/05/09

2009-03-05T19:08:00.003-05:00

Back to "gym". I know, I also wish it was something different, but if I continue down my boxing path, expect to see such titles as "sparing", "street fight", "assassin mission" etc.

Jumped rope for a warm up.

A1 pull ups
(2) 6 @ 15
(1) 5 @ 20ish (stupid kilos)

A2 t pushups
(3) 10 @ 15

B1 1 armed db flat bench
(3) 8 @ 65

B2 1 armed row
(3) 8 @ 50

C1 face pull
(3) 8 @ 40

C2 dips
(3) 8

D1 roll outs
D2 grip

People are always asking me, "Ben, what do you eat?" Well maybe not always. And it's usually my mom making sure I am eating right, but guess whose blog it is? That's right so if you don't want to know what I am eating these days move along. This does mean I will have to post almost every day. Yuck.

today:
8:00 am
3 scrambled eggs, no salt
half a bagel w cream cheese
smoothie: carrots, blue berries, water, 2 scoops of myolean

11:00 am
low fat yogurt, pineapple, blueberries

2:00 pm
pineapple fried rice with shrimp (i had to buy lunch, which i hate to do)

5:00 pm
peanuts and a balance bar

6:30 pm
post workout, whey protein

7:30 pm
some sort of fish stew (i am still making it)

I just read a rule I like. The 90% rule. 90% of what you eat should be nutritional and eat what you want for the other 10%. I only had 4 meals today. Usually I eat lunch at 1 pm and another meal around 3:30 or 4. So I average 5 meals a day. That means every 2 days I can splurge on a fatty dinner or a good dessert assuming that I did real well for 9 meals, which is still tough to do. Just something to think about.

boxing: 03/04/09

2009-03-04T20:47:00.002-05:00

That's right a new title! Everyone was expecting gym and I go and drop boxing on you. I am full of surprises. You know what else is full of surprises? Something in the steak and redwine sauce I made for myself last night which has seemingly been sitting right above the "point of no return" if you will since 3 am this morning when it was deliberating which way it was going to come out. It chose not to come out, which is always an interesting option and left my stomach feeling cramped all day. Perfect for boxing/farting class.

(3) 3 min jump rope, 1 min off
(3) 3 min shadow box, 1 min off
prance around the gym for a while
work on hand speed

I think i've posted before how we tend to finish this class, but let me refresh memories. You get a partner. You face away from your partner and kneel down in front. Partner puts his hands straight out-ish, you hit up at his hands till your arms fall off then you switch. All the while the real boxing kids and coaches come around punching you in the stomach to make it interesting. I guess they thought it was pay back time for us so they lined up and we were supposed to hit them in the stomach with gloves on. 1,2,3. Whack, whack, whack. I felt bad and went about 50%, maybe 75% at the most on the big kid. One of the kids was about 12 one of the coaches was about 95 lbs. Pretty entertaining in general, but then we have to do our thing and they are a little fired up from having the pain train laid on them for 3 minutes straight. I definitely took some whacks, but I withstood the need to block, I farted a lot, but I didn't block. I then had the kid who I probably hit the hardest, hit me in the stomach just for fun. In college some marines were at a party someone had. One marine would hold his fist out in front of him and brace himself and the other marine would take a crow hop and slam his face into the fist. This is probably as close as I've come to that. He hit me pretty hard. I have a mark, but I took it pretty well.

3 minutes heavy bag
3 minutes jump rope

John Cena was at the gym last night. I did not recognize him. Should I of?

gym: 03/03/09

2009-03-03T21:38:00.002-05:00

jump rope
(3) 2 minutes on 30 secs off

hit the bag
(3) 2 minute on 30 secs off

circuit 3 x 2 min on 1 min off of the following
10 x 35 lb med ball toss
20 mtn climbers
10 med ball pushups alt hand, 5 both on ball
10 crunches

brutal

back on the wagon

2009-03-03T14:02:00.002-05:00

Took some time off from blogging as I decided the best approach to take towards my hamstring.

Sunday:

A1 blast strap pushups w/ full vest
(3) 6

A2 kb raises
(3) 8 @ 24 kilos

B1 rows
(3) 8 @ 135

B2 bar swings (ill get the real name in a sec)
(3) 8 @ 75

C1 dips
(3) 8

C2 grip pull ups
(3)

gym: 02/11/09

2009-02-11T23:09:00.002-05:00

Keeping up with the upper body while I take it easy on the lower body.

A1 strap pushups
A2 pull ups

B1 lateral rows
B2 db shoulder press

C1 face pulls
C2 med ball push ups, 5 left, 5 right, 5 both hands on ball

gym: 02/10/09

2009-02-10T23:07:00.000-05:00

Did my rehab leg stuff.

pull throughs
split squats
lunges

abs
roll outs with bands
1 min each of side plank, side plank, front plank

gym: 02/09/09

2009-02-10T13:27:00.003-05:00

Missed a post, maybe two. I am continuing to do upper body exercising and am just starting to do some lower body stuff. My lower body day consisted of some slide board side lunges, pull throughs, and step ups. I will continue with body weight stuff until I start to feel a little better and then I'll start with the weights.

I switched gyms, heading back to the strongman gym. One of the reasons for the switch, besides the fact that at my old gym guys go shirtless, nobody racks the weights and everything is broken, is that the new gym offers free boxing classes. It's from 7-8pm which is kind of awkward. 6:30 to 7:30 or 6 to 7 would be better, but I'll deal with it. The late start time forced me out of the Friday class, which would have been nice because I would have gotten a 1 to 1 intro with one of the trainers. Instead I waited till Monday and there was more beginners than just me: Two 18ish kids who were not that athletic and two 14 year old girls. The class lasted an hour. For the 1st 20 minutes we worked on stepping forward. For the second 20 minutes I worked on stepping with a left jab. For the last 20 minutes I did stepping with a left right jab. The 14 year old's never progressed past stepping forward. An hour of, "why aren't I doing it right?", "no, don't look at me when I do it (when the trainer would try to help)", "I can't do it", which invariably drew the dudes attention away from me and the other guys and onto the girls. He would take 1 minute to move me on to something else and then not talk to me for 15 minutes or so while he tried to get the other 4 stepping right. I'm doing this for cardio so if I have to do this like 3 or 4 more times till I have all the punches and foot work down I'm not sure it's worth it. That being said I think at the end of the training session I get to fight one of the girls.

gym: 02/03/09

2009-02-03T20:39:00.003-05:00

Lex had to get home to call some teachers.

circuit:
8 inverted rows
8 stepup pushups: one step up vertical at the chest. one push up on the ground (touch chest to step), explode from the ground to the step for a close grip push up = 1 rep
1/3 of the alphabet with 25 lb weight

heavy bag:
3 x 30 secs on 30 secs off

my hamstring feels better and i'm starting more strengthening exercises week by week. last week it was sliding lateral lunges on a slide board and also some great core work on the slide board by doing mountain climbers while always maintaining foot contact with the board.

gym: 01/30/09

2009-01-30T23:01:00.000-05:00

2 x 1:30 heavy bag
tried to really take it to that thing and in doing so realized I hadn't been pushing it on the bag yet. im in the market for some training gloves, anybody know where to find them?

A1 row
A2 pushups, step up by my chest, alternating hands on the step up (left hand on the ground, right hand on the step, left hand goes to the step, right hand goes to the ground and try to make motions explosive

B1 pull up
B2 1 db shoulder press

C1 bar roll outs
C2 knees to ee's

injury status:
had a good day today. every other day or so I do band pull throughs, step ups, 30 secs of balancing and then 30 secs of squats on an angled step that i made and some drinking birds. i have a couple more visits to the Dr. before my insurance runs out and I am hoping to start increasing the weight in my leg exercises towards mid Feb and hopefully should be starting some light running by the end of Feb, 4 months after nationals.

gym: 01/26/08

2009-01-27T13:53:00.002-05:00

stupid work

circuit:
30 side to side toe taps on step up (med ball overhead)
8 lateral body pull ups
30 toe taps on step
med ball push ups (10 left, 10 right), 10 reg
30 toe taps on bench
pulls ups, 6 @ 0, 4 @ 25, 5 @ 25

plank workout
1 min reg
1 min right*
1 min left
25 sec, pause, 30 sec reg

Something is wrong with my right oblique. I can only do 15 seconds at a time because it hurts. No other symptoms. Weird. Still did better than last time. I think Ill get the whole 4 minutes in February.

gym: 01/21/09

2009-01-21T12:17:00.000-05:00

I went to gw ultimate's alumni weekend. Unfortunately it takes place MLK weekend so playing conditions aren't ideal and they also had a little something else going down in our nation's capital that weekend, which made field space somewhat of an issue. I actually got out there and jogged around. I did not get up above 50% and threw a bunch of turnovers, which pretty much sums up every summer league experience I have ever had.

I know my rehab will go up and down in terms of how I am feeling day to day, but I had a great day Tuesday after my Monday treatment. Dr. Morgan worked on me for way longer than he was supposed to including showing me a bunch of exercises to do. It is the benefit of going at 6 pm when he doesn't have anyone else waiting for him. I hope that this is the start of some marked improvement over the next couple weeks.

Finally had time to hit the gym on Wednesday night.

upper body circuit: picked up a plate and got inspired.
10 45lb plate trap raises
10 plate raises from behind head to arms locked
10 platform push!ups
6 pull ups flat grip
10 pull throughs to arms locked

heavy bag circuit: that upper body thing crushed my shoulders
times 3
1 min on the bag
30 seconds of med ball slams
30 seconds of front squats with med ball
1 min rest

abs:
pallov press
(3) 10 @ 45

knees to ee's
(3) 12

gym: 01/14/09

2009-01-14T23:18:00.001-05:00

circuit:
1 min heavy bag hard
30 seconds mountain climbers
30 seconds body weight squats

plank trial run: tried to remember what the northeastern kids are doing, almost figured it out.
1 min front
1 min side
1 min side
30 secs front

eww. I think i strained both obliques and I still missed the last 30 seconds and it was supposed to be front, side, front, side, front.

A1 pull up
(3) 6 @ 20

A2 1 db shoulder press
(3) 6 @ 55

A3 plate alphabet: hold a plate out in front of you and draw letters
a-f @ 25
g-l @ 25
o-z @ 25

B1 flat bench
(2) 6 @ 185

B2 bent over DB row
(2) 8 @ 75

B3 zottman curls
(2) 8 @ 20

gym: 01/11/09

2009-01-11T11:24:00.003-05:00

heavy bag:
(4) 2 min on/1 0ff: 30 seconds sticking and moving, 30 seconds laying the hurt

I'm getting bored. The "boxing" room in the gym has a steep, slightly off vertical set of stairs to the attic that is just wooden slats for steps. So I climbed up the back, 3 steps up, 3 steps down, let go, deep breath, back on, 3 up, 3

A1 stair climb
(3) 3 x 3 up 3 down

A2 1 armed db shoulder press
8 @ 45

B1 row
(2) 8 @ 135

B2 med ball pushups
(2) 10 left, 10 right, 5 center

B3 knees to e's
(2) 10