Crossfit Norwest, Raw strength and conditioning and Barefoot Evolution Discussion Forum

[Dan]

I have a fair bit of construction experience, what sort of shovel are you using? What sort of digging?
The longer the handle the better, and you simply move the dirt/sand/whatever, rather than ramming a shovel in and muscling it.
When I first came to CFNW, I was scared to deadlift 60kg. Years of work on sites on and off gave me a bad back to.
Watch it, cash isnt worth it.

[Tom]

I have a fair bit of construction experience, what sort of shovel are you using? What sort of digging?
The longer the handle the better, and you simply move the dirt/sand/whatever, rather than ramming a shovel in and muscling it.
When I first came to CFNW, I was scared to deadlift 60kg. Years of work on sites on and off gave me a bad back to.
Watch it, cash isnt worth it.

Long shovel, just clearing out a trench next to a wall. Unfortunately had to dig through a bit of clay so that's a pain in the ass.
After these holidays have finished I'll hopefully never have to do labouring full time again. I will probably do it two days a week when I'm at uni, but I feel I can manage the fatigue much better then.

[Tom]

Squats
3x5 @ 107.5kg(235lbs)

Press
4,3,4,4 @ 50kg(110lbs)

Chinups (Palms In)
8,6,5,4,4

Pushups
3x10

1 Arm Row
8,7,7 @ 24kg (each arm)

1 Arm DB Press
7,6

- Not much lower back fatigue today, despite a pretty heavy day at work (moved 2t of sand, 300 bricks, 50 blocks...). Decided to take advantage of it while I can and do some Skwattin'.

- Squats felt alright, I think my knees are coming forward at the bottom meaning I'm taking some of my hamstrings out of the movement. I'll maybe lower the weights for a little while and work on keeping my hips back.

- Finally decided to try (relatively) heavy weights on the Press. No elbow pain, though unsurprisingly I have lost some strength.

- Pullup strength felt better this week, coming back slowly.

- Pushups caused a little pain in the right elbow (skateboard stack elbow), however nothing unbearable. I will try work these in from now on to hopefully help with rehab.

- Rows were fine, I'm trying to get a bit more back volume as I think it may be a weak link of mine. I have problems staying tight & upright both in the Front Squat & Deadlift.

- 1 Arm DB Presses for the sake of it.

- I'm thinking that while my lower back is a bit knackered I may just try do more Upper body volume as it generally seems to lag behind my lower body a bit anyhow.

[Tom]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xFm9q1H ... r_embedded

[Tom]

Wednesday 13/01/10

Press
4,4,5,4 @ 50kg(110lbs

EDT Work
20 KB Swings @ 16kg(35lbs)
3 Chinups

As many sets of the couplet as possible in 10 minutes

8 Sets in 9.15

Pushups
12,12,7,8

Inverted Rows
6,6,6

- No lower body work today, sore & tired back. Can't WAIT to get back to uni haha. My back does seem to be managing better so I might try getting more consistent in my training routine soon. At the moment I'm just buggerising around and probably not making any progress...

- EDT work was good & hard. Heart rate was up a bit and I was sweating something nasty (though it was also quite humid in the gym). Going to try for 9 rounds next Wednesday.

- Pushups were fine, elbow pain is pretty manageable now.

- Rows were done for the sake of it.

[Tom]

Friday 15/01/10

Squat
2x5 @ 120kg(265lbs) Belt on

Pushups
3x12

Clean & Jerk / Snatch
3 @ 40kg(90lbs)
3 @ 50kg(110lbs)
3 @ 60kg(135lbs)
3 @ 70kg(155lbs) (C&J Only)

Dumbell Press
10,10,15 @ 10kg(22lbs) (each hand)

- I took a video of my first set of squats and was dismayed to see they were quite high. Tried to go deeper in the second set and they still looked pretty iffy. I'll drop the weight back slightly and start videotaping all of my sets to make sure I'm hitting depth.

- Pushups were fine, elbow pain is almost gone.

- FINALLLY! Had a crack at doing the OLY lifts again and was able to do them all without pain. I missed a few attempts in some of the sets but made sure that I got 3 reps at each weight. I just loaded the bar @ X kg then did 3 C&J, waited a minute or two and did Snatch. All felt good, a bit of a problem with my hands on the cleans, I was ending up with only 2 fingers on each hand on the bar when cleaning... have to be concious of this.

- Dumbell Press to make the shoulders GROW!

- I've been crawling around in the roof of a very old house all week. To give you an idea of just how old, I found some old pieces of newspaper from 1899...I had to remove the old insulation, and am now vacuuming up 111 years of accumulated dust. I've knocked my head about 30 000 times on the rafters. It's like a sauna up there so I'm seeing drinking about 4-5L of water while at work and finishing each day ab-so-lutely putrid.

[Tom]

Wednesday 20/1/10

Snatch
4x2 @ 50kg(110lbs)
1x2 @ 55kg(120lbs)
Fail @ 70kg(155lbs)

Squat
2x5 @ 70kg(155lbs)

1 Arm Row
3x8 @ 24kg(53lbs)

Bench
2x8 @ 50kg(110lbs)

Stretches
Calves
Hamstrings
Groin

- Starting to try and slip in to my 3 day routine that I detailed a few pages back. I'm starting with rather conservative weights as I'm still working full time but I figure after 5 weeks (by which time I should be back at university) I will have built up some nice momentum. Starting Squats at 5x5 @ 90 and 1x5 @ 105 on Monday and Friday respectively next week and will add 2.5 kg each week.

- Snatches were good, 50kg felt great. Same with other movements, trying to start conservative but still heavy enough where if I'm not using the right technique I feel the difference (or fail). 55kg was for the sake of it and 70kg I think I could hit in one or two weeks.

- Squats on Wednesday act just as a recovery (as per Texas Method) between Mon/Fri. May change it up to C&J as time goes on but for now see how I go.

- I will try and add one rep to the rows whilst maintaining good form every week (i.e. 3x9 next Wed) until I hit 3x15 then add weight.

- Bench was light today, fairly high reps. Elbow held up well and I think I'll be back to normal pressing pretty shortly.

- Stretching because stretches are good.

- I'm thinking I might try compete in any Olympic weightlifting meet later in the year, possibly after doing some sort of focused program/routine later in the year.

[Tom]

Monday 25/01/10
Week 1 of Tom's Texas Method

Snatch
5x2 @ 50kg(110lbs)

Squats
5x5 @ 95kg(210lbs)

Bench Press
3x5 @ 70kg(155lbs)

Deadlift
1x5 @ 120kg

- This is the first week of what will hopefully be a long run with my new program I've designed for myself with a bit of help from ZM. I've started with what I think are fairly conservative weights and will only be bumping them up in small increments (2.5kg/5lbs for Squat/DL and 1kg/2.2.lbs for Upper Body / Olympic Lifts).

- Snatches felt good, trying to remember some basic cues and see how good I can get without any proper coaching (though I have had some in the past).

- I trained alone tonight and with my handy-dandy new christmas present (digital camera) I recorded my squat sets. I noticed that I was favouring my left side a whole lot (I should have a video up soon), as my left knee was being pushed out far more than my right knee. I tried to fix this in later sets by focusing only on driving my right knee out and which seemed to help the symmetry a bit however I then seemed to be favouring my right side a tad . Something to be worked on.

- Bench felt alright, my set up is pretty crap (two wooden boxes & a pair of old pants for cushioning) but I'm sure people have gotten far stronger on far worse equipment.

- Deadlift felt a tad iffy, I'd like to video tape these sets from now on (though I won't be doing much deadlifting). I need to focus on my set up for each rep and also pull it correctly (keep my hips and shoulders rising at the same rate).

- This was a pretty rushed session, finished at 9pm and by 9:20 was skating around my area with a mate. Did this for about an hour which was good fun.

- I need to do more mobility/soft tissue work as I think that's what's causing my depth issues. I was stretching the glutes and doing a bit baseball massage but have since stopped because I got lazy/stupid.

[Tom]

Wednesday 27/01/10
Week 1 of Tom's Texas Method

"Grace"
30 Clean and Jerks @ 60kg(135lbs)
Time - 10.11

1 Arm Rows
3x9 @ 24kg(53lbs)

Press
2x5 @ 40kg(90lbs)

Chinups
Some & S'more.

Stretching
-Glutes, Calves, Hamstrings, Pecs, Adductors.

- I was meant to do 5x2 C&J at a slightly heavier weight but decided to have a shot at Grace instead. No idea why, just did. I did the first 10 reps as full squat cleans and then remaining 20 as power cleans. I was sweating like CRAZY doing this. I hate high rep O-lifts, it felt like my form was going to shit but I was too tired to do anything about it.

- Rows were fine.

- Press was fine, shoulders a bit tired after Grace.

- Chinups/Pullups are a bitch. I couldn't be bothered recording reps and sets each week, I'm just going to go in and do 2 sets of pullups and 2 sets of chinups every week for max reps (atm about 5-6 per set). I figure they'll start to go up eventually.

- Stretching felt good.

[adrian]

it felt like my form was going to shit but I was too tired to do anything about it.

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