Tuesday, October 24, 2006

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.

2 comments:

Mark Reifkind said...

cool. some very important lessons learned for you. unfortunately I have not learned how to really get these things except what you just went through. this stuff you wont forget again.

one has to learn to do the things that work for them regardless of what others say. we are an experiment of one and if we pay close enough attention we get plenty of cues of what it right or wrong for us. the tough part is paying attention.

peaking works. powerlifting really taught me that. as well as that one cannot be at their max all the time you must"sneak up" on it and then back off to regroup.

plus, the bar always wins, you can always put more weight on it so you might as well relax and just do the best you can.

good post and workout franz.

Franz Snideman said...

Thanks Rif. Paying attention and being open to the signals of our body is the only way that works.