Tuesday, September 22, 2009

In the sub-max zone


For over 3 years I maintained a cyberspace training journal on internet fitness forums until Pierini Fitness was born last August 2008 to cyber-chronicle my training. Soon thereafter, I discovered that middle-age man reflective writing was something more enjoyable than posting a training journal of the "this and thats" of my workouts, so I stopped posting my training details. I still maintain a training journal, bricks and mortar style, and every now and then share tidbits of my training with a video and accompanying blurb of something I did in a recent workout.

Wow! I can’t believe it took 93 words to say all that but it’s a long-winded paragraph leading up to sharing that lately my training has been not as challenging and not as frequent as I'd like it to be. Life sometimes gets in the way, but in a lifelong training journey this not as challenging and not as frequent training hiccup won’t last long.

For example, here’s what I did yesterday:

Flexibility and warm-up drills – various for about 10 minutes.

Squat cleans – lbs. x sets x reps - 95x3x3 – 115x2x2 – 135x2x3 – 145x8x3 – about 2 minutes rest between sets.

2-handed kettlebell swings – 24kg x 3 sets of 18 reps with about 2 minutes rest between sets. This is something new for me. I train at a gym that is a kettlebell heaven but have stayed clear of them until yesterday. This little 3x18 end of workout finale was a nice heart-thumper for me, as I haven’t done much cardio training as of late.

Lately I’ve had to avoid overhead work due to a right anterior deltoid muscle strain that has bothered me for the past couple months. The culprit, I believe, was one day when I reintroduced bar dips into my training and used a wider-than-normal hand placement. I hope to be back on the overhead training saddle in the next month and have had to be patient as my shoulder muscle heals.

Well that was it – nothing earth shattering – just my Monday afternoon workout in the sub-max zone.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

6 comments:

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Franklin said...

Great job on the 2-hand 24kg kettlebell swings! These make a great finisher to the O-lifts and work the posterior chain in a unique way.

Don't sweat the shoulder tweak. Work on cleans, front/back squats and pulls. When the shoulder heals you will be much stronger and it will carry over to the OH lifts.

Pierini Fitness said...

Thanks Anonymous, trying to figure out who you are, figuring you may be a Bodytriber.

Thanks Franklin for the encouragement. My posterior chain knows what you are talking about 2 days after those kettlebell swings. Played with clubbells yesterday and may try a few things with them in the training days ahead. Might as well use all the tools in the toll box.

Franklin said...

Make sure to start very conservative on the clubbells .. even light clubbells generate large rotational forces on shoulders and must be used with great care.

Pierini Fitness said...

Yes sir Franklin. I'll not compromise my healing.

I'm skipping all those ninja chops and other rotational stuff that seems to be standard clubbell movements. What I did yesterday with a pair of 10 lb. clubbells was forward swings starting with them at my side while squatting and holding them upright in front of me and returning to the starting position.

Nothing like new stuff to bring out the rookiness in me.

Justin_PS said...

Best of luck on recovering that shoulder, Ed! Sub-Max is always better than nothing at all. Every day doesn't need to be (and shouldn't be) a "kill it" day.

What I like about our blogs is that neither of us just post our training routines. There's more to fitness than just one person's exercise habits. You probably look at my training and see things that don't interest or help you, much like I probably do the same. Still, we can learn more from the thought and intent behind the training.

Good stuff!