Back off Week! and a little Self Growth talk...

Because I have lifted relatively heavy the last two weeks I decided to lighten the snatch load and give the back a little active recovery. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still training, just going to lighten down to a 24kg for my heavy day.

The Power Circuit

A-1 Gorsky Lunge 20kg 5 x 6/6

A-2 Chin Ups 16kg 5 x 5

A-3 Snatches 24kg 5 x 5/5

20 min Zone

I really enjoy these shorter workouts. It also suits my Lumbar spine recovery well because it limits the total time of each training session and keeps me from overtraining or doing more than I should.

On another note, I recently started re-reading a great book which many of you have probably read, Stephen Covey's classic "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." It's amazing how many different aspects and details of the book I am learning now that I didn't learn or wasn't ready to learn a couple of years ago. Thank God for maturity and the self growth process.

A quick recap of the book. The first three principles are called private victories. The are:

Principle # 1 Be Proactive
Principle # 2 Begin with the end in mind
Principle # 3 Put things first.

Principles 4 through 7 are called public victories and are more related to an indivduals relationship with others and to society. The later principles must be preceded by the private victories and for obvious reasons. Princples 1 through 3 are the internal principles that govern a persons view on life and how they respond to what happens to them. It essentially means you accept the fact that you are responsible for your actions and the outcomes that result from those actions. It is telling yourself, "I am not a victim in life. I do have choices and I can choose how I want to respond to any given situation." What that means is that between STIMULUS...............and......................RESPONSE, there is a space. That space is where your freedom lies. People who successfully live the first three principles are essentially saying that they are responsible for their feelings and ultimately their behavior. The opposite would be like saying, "I couldn't help getting mad and throwing my starbucks coffee in his face, he made me mad." It is allowing external circumstances to govern and control internal conditions.

By truly wrestling and struggling with these principles, you can come to the realization the self growth takes work and is truly HOLY GROUND. But it is the only solution to becomming an effective person and member of society. Until you stop blaming others for your problems and lack of success, you will be like a computer or worse yet, a robot. Someone pushes a button and there is a knee jerk reaction to your behavior. Living the first three principles means:

a) You become a person of character who lives his life according to worthy God honoring principles

b) You do not make decisions based on what others may think of you and on your "feelings."

c) you do not live your life for the approval of others

d) You are Proactive rather than reactive

e) Writing and living your personal mission statement

f) Prioritizing the most important things in your life (family, faith, health, friends, etc..)

I will update more of this book as I begin to disect and devour the content. My challenge to anyone reading this is ask yourself the following Questions:

Question 1: What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on regular basis, would make a tremendous difference in your personal life?

Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

My answer to both questions is very similar. I would spend time daily reviewing and reflecting on my purpose in life (my mission statement) and reviewing my calendar to make sure my daily activities reflect my mission and purpose. I can honestly say that if I did that every single day, I would be a much more effective person. That is my goal, to live my life more ON PURPOSE. I would also say that I need to watch less TV at night and stimulate my mind more...

Anyone else????????????

If you would like to share, please do respond to this post!

Much more to come......

Last Week's Schedule

Saturday - First day on the track!

Today was my first day since the end of July / early August since I have sprinted. My back has been feeling much better so I decided I would do a couple of acceleration sprints at a very low intensity. It's two days later and my back feels fine. Hopefully I will be able to perform one day per week of light sprinting as my goal is to compete next spring in about 6 to 8 track meets in southern california. Of course all depends on how my back responds. If the sprinting starts to hurt back, it may mean that it's to premature for me to start sprinting and that my disc needs more time to heal.

Breif Warm up:
Various Track Drills

4 x 30 meteres acceleration sprints

2 x 40 meters acceleration sprints

That was it, short and sweet. Felt great to be out there, WOW!

Friday

A-1 Snatches

16kg 1 x 5/5
20kg 3 x 10/10

B-1 Bottoms Up Press

16kg 2 x 3/3

C-1 Lunges

16kg 2 x 8/8

D-1 Pull Ups 1 x 10

Thursday

Precor Sprints for 32 minutes (30 sec sprint / 2 min easy)

Great Article by Brett Jones!

Occam's Razor in Program Design

Brett really explains how simple program design should be and even brings in some great minds and philosophers from the past. YOU MUST READ THIS!!!!!!

My Heavier Day!

From the success of last weeks "heavy" day, I am keeping this workout in my training. My goal is to gradually increase the volume, let me emphasize "Gradually." I am the athlete who is so quick to lift as heavy as possible as soon as possible. It has only left me constantly injured and overtrained. I recently had an epiphany that in the past I was literally training all day long. While training clients I would "sneak" in those extra sets of heavy snatches or presses, hoping to get my strength levels up. My infatuation with constant progress actually led to regression (injured disc). I was also always stretching my hips and back constantly which I now see was making my hypermobile left SI joint more unstable. In fact, two months of little to no stretching has made my SI joint feel better than I can ever remember. In retrsospect I see my foolishness and realize that progressing slowly is better, especially if you are in a profession that challenges you physically every day. Now when I train clients instead of moving around and stretching non stop I save my stretching for my stretching session.

ESSENTIAL LESSON LEARNED: In my case it is better for me to segregate and compartmentalize my training and stretching. When I train, train. When I stretch, stretch. After that, leave them alone!

Thus the GTG method for me is super dangerous. The princple is awesome. In the hands of a neurotic training junkee is can lead to overtraining and injury. Let me re-state the word "CAN"! I'm not saying it will for everyone, but in my case it did. I see the wisdom in training during my training session, and not during any other time. In other words, save my best for when it really counts and is needed, during my training session. As Paul Chek once said "TRAIN, DON'"T DRAIN."

No more draining, only training!

A-1 KB Snatches 28kg 6 x 3/3
A-2 KB Clean + Squat + press 24kg 6 x 3/3
A-3 Chin Ups 12kg 6 x 3

Felt great. Kept it under 20 minutes. That's my heavy workout for the week. Next two workouts are with the 20kg and 16kg.

Too much Bread and Cereal in your diet?

High bread consumption tied to kidney cancer

As most people are learning, too much refined bread and cereals can increase RCC (renal cell carcinoma. Something to think about.

Saturday - light day!

As per several posts from Rif, I am adding in some single arm swings to heal up the back.
Back is feeing better and as ever month passes by it seems to get stronger and more resilient.

A-1 Single Leg Deadlift w/20kg 5 x 5/5

B-1 Bottoms Up Presses w/ 20kg 1 x 5/5 1 x 3/3

C-1 DARC Swings w/12kg 1 x 20, w/16kg 5 x 20

D-1 Pull Ups 1 x 12

short and sweet. Feels good!

Great Article!

Check out this article on T-Nation by my brother Keats Snideman and Charles Staley.

Article

For those of you who like EDT, you'll enjoy this.

Thursday workout!

My back felt fine from the heavier loading on Monday. Will continue to keep monday as my heavier day. Everything else from there will be lighter loads for a while.

A-1 Snatches w/20kg 2 x 10/10

B-1 Clean and Press w/20kg 3 x 5/5

C-1 Dynamic Alt. Front Lunges w 16kg 3 x 6/6

D-1 Pull Ups 1 x 10

These easier workouts still feel real good and I know they are doing me alot of good. If I had just listened to Rif from the beginning maybe this would not have happened. Time to build a base (although I don't enjoy doing volume too much as you can tell).

Monday Workout..........not too bad

I have been getting in 3 workout per week, mainly working on the following movements:


Static Lunges
Bottoms Up Presses
Pull up and Chin Ups
Snatches
Bent Over Rows
Clean and Press

Have been using mainly the 16kg , 20kg and occasional 24kg. Back has responded favorably.
On Monday I upped the weight to test my body. Felt pretty good.

A-1 KB Snatch 28kg 5 x 3/3
A-2 Clean + Squat + Press 5 x 3/3
A-3 Chin Ups 5 x 3 (12kg)

Took me 20 minutes. My first real TEST on my body. So far so good. That is as heavy as I will go for a while. Once a week I'll toy around with teh 24kg and maybe the 28kg. The 16kg and 20kg will be the bells of choice for my Wed and Thursday workouts.

More to come!

More rehab....

Jack Lalanne's advice:

"If they're overweight, normalize that weight. Quit exceeding the feed limit. And exercise is number one! I don't care what you have wrong with you, you can do something - right? Maybe there are ten exercises you can't do, but there are a hundred you can do."

This Quote has really made sense to me this last week. I have been so doom and gloom with my back injury and so AFRAID to do anything, I have sometimes felt paralyzed. But what the hell, Jack is right, there are tons of movements I can do.

Back is feeling better although I can still feel the wound in the lumbar area. I was looking at the MRI today and it really bummed me out to see how little disc space is left betweem L-4 and L-5. I've been in a funk mentally the last week or two feeling a little disouraged about the future of my back. I need to pull out of this funk and realize that this is a good thing. It was a great wake up call to take care of my body instead of abusing my body. With my career as a trainer, working and lifting things all day, plus the training I was doing, it caught up with me. I am anxious to get out on the track and sprint, even more so than lift weight ( although I miss lifting the heavier bells).

I am still doing the same rehab drills from before and have added the following exercises:

Static Lunges
Pull Ups
Incline DB Bench Press
KB Clean and Press
Single Leg Deadlifts
Single Arm Bent Over Rows

The weights are light but I feel they are at least exposing my body to some real life movements. Just doing my job is also rehabing my back. I seem to be tolerating quite well my daily work load. Come friday my back is fatigued but I cannot say I am in any pain which is great. One of the biggest BLESSINGS to come out of this is that I am much more connected to my back in the sense that I have think about what postures I am in all day. I am AWARE of my habits and alignment more than ever. That awareness has almost been curative in itself. I'm convinced that changing you daily movement habits is the true secret to having a pain free body. It takes alot of work and patience but it is very effective.

more to come.....