Friday, October 16, 2009
RTK Heavy Press Day OWNed me: another frickin' learning experience session
Follow @mcphoo
Tweet
I've said that so far each session of Return of the Kettlebell has been a 
learning experience. Usually it's been about technique. The start of this latest block, it was about reading comprehension. But no matter the type of learning, the result goes to the body - and the mind.
The first time i did the RTK pressing block i did it wrong. I did it as ETK with two kb's. Even as such, double 12's for me for five rungs, five ladders on heavy day was challenging, but it didn't hurt my brain. After this last C&J block, the ETK book arrived and so in reading it from cover to cover, rather than the Plan that is on the DVD, i noticed that my interpretation of the pressing block was in error.
I have now adjusted accordingly, such that the heavy day, the final one of the week, is double 16's. Snatching two 16's - for me- is on a whole other plane from double 12's or alternating a 16 with any other lesser size doubles work, no matter the hand.
Is this my Beautiful House?
I consider that half a year ago i was struggling to press a two consecutive left arm presses with the 16 (as part of the perfect rep quest series). Now, i'm doing DOUBLE frickin' 16's with a SNATCH at the start of each rung? When i thought about it, my brain did do a bit of a tilt. But excuse me if this is being a sissy, but again, for me, double snatching 16s is an exercise at this moment as much in intestinal fortitude as it is in strength. And also mental stickiness. By five ladders were not total 5's of 5. They were (sounding like figure skating scores) 4,4,3,3,3. Owned. Toasted. Perhaps basted.
THis is so intriguing to me: gals test with single snatching the 16 for the RKC cert, yes? so we are familiar with hiking this thing back and way up, either side. But does the physics change or what at that weight in a way that is dfferent from double 12s - and if it's not 12's for you, imagine whatever your snatch test bell is or say higher bell if it is that is at the sort of top of your single pressing for reps bent. Weird. Glad only to go there once a week. But also looking forward to seeing how this feeling changes with more reps.
Forget Something?
And speaking of mental stickiness, i'd just like to know, how many people forget to squat after the last ladder rung of a set and dash to reclaim the bells before they get all the way to the ground? Hmm? is this just me?
And may i say that on heavy day, doing those squat sets with the double kb's well i can see where someone might say it will make a man out of you. But it's really the mental toughness i think because it's doable, challenging, but not a form killer. it's a nicely balanced edge, but it's also just not nice.
KB swings for in between set Active Recovery, strength and Owning My Swing.
Continuing on from the last update, i again used a light kb to get in 100 perfect swings between ladders. I focussed on form, muscle awareness and experimented with eye position and movement for what the smoothest feel was. It did not wear me out. It was great. I'm getting in 600 swings a workout this way more or less for free, alternating standard speed with overspeed eccentrics.
I'm doing this keep the heart rate up for two reasons: one, to test the this will kill DOMS theory and two to test the Cardio Between Sets Improves Strength Gains.
I make no claims here as i will have nothing to compare against my results of not doing cardio between sets. That said, i KNOW my oxidative capacity will go up - it can't not physiologically from that kind of forced exertion. So that's nice. IT's only about 12 mins worth of cardio all told, so not a biggie, but not nothing either - plus it's 600 more opportunities every other day to own my swing.
When i get to a place where a day's RTK workout is "practice" rather than "new learning experience" i'll be sure to shout.
anon.
Related Posts
learning experience. Usually it's been about technique. The start of this latest block, it was about reading comprehension. But no matter the type of learning, the result goes to the body - and the mind.The first time i did the RTK pressing block i did it wrong. I did it as ETK with two kb's. Even as such, double 12's for me for five rungs, five ladders on heavy day was challenging, but it didn't hurt my brain. After this last C&J block, the ETK book arrived and so in reading it from cover to cover, rather than the Plan that is on the DVD, i noticed that my interpretation of the pressing block was in error.
I have now adjusted accordingly, such that the heavy day, the final one of the week, is double 16's. Snatching two 16's - for me- is on a whole other plane from double 12's or alternating a 16 with any other lesser size doubles work, no matter the hand.
Is this my Beautiful House?
I consider that half a year ago i was struggling to press a two consecutive left arm presses with the 16 (as part of the perfect rep quest series). Now, i'm doing DOUBLE frickin' 16's with a SNATCH at the start of each rung? When i thought about it, my brain did do a bit of a tilt. But excuse me if this is being a sissy, but again, for me, double snatching 16s is an exercise at this moment as much in intestinal fortitude as it is in strength. And also mental stickiness. By five ladders were not total 5's of 5. They were (sounding like figure skating scores) 4,4,3,3,3. Owned. Toasted. Perhaps basted.
THis is so intriguing to me: gals test with single snatching the 16 for the RKC cert, yes? so we are familiar with hiking this thing back and way up, either side. But does the physics change or what at that weight in a way that is dfferent from double 12s - and if it's not 12's for you, imagine whatever your snatch test bell is or say higher bell if it is that is at the sort of top of your single pressing for reps bent. Weird. Glad only to go there once a week. But also looking forward to seeing how this feeling changes with more reps.
Forget Something?
And speaking of mental stickiness, i'd just like to know, how many people forget to squat after the last ladder rung of a set and dash to reclaim the bells before they get all the way to the ground? Hmm? is this just me?
And may i say that on heavy day, doing those squat sets with the double kb's well i can see where someone might say it will make a man out of you. But it's really the mental toughness i think because it's doable, challenging, but not a form killer. it's a nicely balanced edge, but it's also just not nice.
KB swings for in between set Active Recovery, strength and Owning My Swing.
Continuing on from the last update, i again used a light kb to get in 100 perfect swings between ladders. I focussed on form, muscle awareness and experimented with eye position and movement for what the smoothest feel was. It did not wear me out. It was great. I'm getting in 600 swings a workout this way more or less for free, alternating standard speed with overspeed eccentrics.
I'm doing this keep the heart rate up for two reasons: one, to test the this will kill DOMS theory and two to test the Cardio Between Sets Improves Strength Gains.
I make no claims here as i will have nothing to compare against my results of not doing cardio between sets. That said, i KNOW my oxidative capacity will go up - it can't not physiologically from that kind of forced exertion. So that's nice. IT's only about 12 mins worth of cardio all told, so not a biggie, but not nothing either - plus it's 600 more opportunities every other day to own my swing.
When i get to a place where a day's RTK workout is "practice" rather than "new learning experience" i'll be sure to shout.
anon.
Related Posts
- b2d kettlebell article index - including RTK stories and Perfect Rep Stories among other moves.
PDF
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
A gal DELIBERATELY gaining "mass" (not weight). How can this be?
Follow @mcphoo
Tweet
So, i'm female, like to be lean and ripped AND i'm trying to gain mass - a new way to say "gain weight." What is that about? If awhile ago someone had told me i'd be looking at mass going up rather than down i would have paled, horrified. So what's happened?
Two things:
So, with the release of Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell (start of a review series here)- geared at hypertrophy strength in particular- i thought i'm in a good enough place now to push on this strength side with RTK's double KB work and investigate the mass side promised with it. And i know for my NSCA CSCS text book - and every other sentient knowledgeable person on mass tells me so - this means eating to achieve a caloric surplus not a deficit. I have never eaten for caloric surplus deliberately in my life.
The result so far is a strange thing. Over the past 6-8 weeks i have been watching the scale go up AND i have not freaked out, i have not panicked, i have not broken into a sweat of fear.
Don't Panic
Part of the reason for this lack of panic is perhaps knowledge and control. I know something about what's going on, and i am doing it cautiously and deliberately. Whether it's optimally remains to be seen, but i'm ok with that, too, as the weight going up is not huge leaps and bounds.
Part of the ok'ness is also that in the knowledge side, i know how to evaluate the number on the scale from a few metrics. One of the most powerful ones is girth and the other is skin fold testing.
With Girth i whip out a wonderful gadget called a myotape, and cuff it around my biceps. Not
a ton of change, but it's an honest 1/8th of an inch. And after a workout the measure is considerably greater. But we're talking post rest not post workout measures. the real stuff. I can also keep an eye on more sensitive areas like hips and waist with girth and see if this is beyond my mental tolerances or not. The best check there however is still feeling comfy in my clothes.
With skin fold measures i track what i really want to track here: improvements in lean mass. These are slower to grow than fat to be sure, but seeing weekly progress is a good thing. So far i haven't seen bigger jumps than when i've been trying to lean out and work out at the same time, but it's only been a short trial so far. The main thing is the trends are going in the right direction, and the BF% is still well within tolerable limits.
Why else am i doing this?
I want to see if i can "get arms" (and maybe some other body parts too, but arms has always been the one for me). As far as i know there's no genetic reason why my arms shouldn't respond approriately to appropriate forces for hypertrophic adaptation. However, i also want to walk the walk.
I confer with lots of folks who are more into bodybuilding than strength. The interesting demographic is young lads and post 30's gals - in my experience anyway. So while i'm giving council like "eat more to gain" where have i been on that continuum? Strength and leanness.
So i figure now is the time to fish or cut bait. I'm not going into body building, but i am experimenting with how muscle mass growth can be stimulated, fed, supported, with what one might see as the *minimal* set of moves to achieve that goal, and where RTK right now is my main mission.
For now, part of the experiment is just figuring out how to be cool like a little fonzy with this weight gain thing while the mass gain thing comes along.
The basics: how one reacts to food.
The far more challenging part at least for me and perhaps for other women too who may want more mass (as opposed to weight, dam it. weight bad; mass good - we know what we mean) - is feeling ok about seeing the scale go in the usually dreaded direction.
The take away from this for me so far thinking about it is that it's been my work in nutrition that's let me feel comfortable exploring this uncharted territory in strength and mass (mass. ha! so far i say ha! we'll see. an eighth of an inch for pete's sake! ), not the workouts.
The workouts psychologically seem the eas(ier) part. There are certain principles to which muscle reacts when stimulated appropriately. Check. But the scale? Really, i think if i didn't have those other measures, and a faith that i know how to reduce the weight again, i couldn't do this.
The Way i've Found Thinner Peace.
I'm stealing thinner peace from a fabulous book on how we react to change and how to make habits successful called the Four day Win by Martha Beck (US || UK ) - recommended. If you want to see why, i talk about habits, and the change of pain that is changing one's dietary ways and how to do this with as little brain pain as possible over here. That's potentially a first place: to know how change can work safely. And whence from there?
For me, how i got to a place of really knowing my body in terms of nutrition is with Precision Nutrition that i've reviewed over time, and have been using now, literally for years. The thing i'd like to draw attention to here are three parts of that approach that i think are relevant to this weight going up mental safety zone.
We're complex systems. Why wouldn't it take that kind of time to get to know how these complex mechanisms interact with complex inputs?
So i think it's great that there's a base case from which adjustments can be made. Second, once the base case is established, time to look at parameters for individualizing to get on with one's body comp goals: where start sensibly to work towards losing weight or gaining mass? how tweak either calories or macronutrients? why? how do that again in the spirit of change one thing, maintain the change for two weeks, assess.
The third part is actually having guidance on how to do girth and skinfold measures and make sense of those measures. A lot of that material is in the PN guides that come with the huge amount of material available in the program. Much more comes from the feedback of folks on the PN forum. The experts there from a diversity of backgrounds are awesome. A breakthrough for me, for instance, happened when i'd seemingly hit a plateua doing everything i thought right, and a power lifter trainer from London, Alex Gold, said, that happened to me: i hate calorie counting, but why not check in with fitday for a couple weeks to get a reality check and see what happens?
Wow. super. Did it for a month, actually, and, combined with what i knew at that point, and advice on tuning my workouts (also from PN) i had it nailed - the light turned on and i got what it took to tune my intake for that particular goal. Now i might not always choose to do that of course, but i know what it is - at least in that direction. I am so grateful for that collision of practice, reading, and the space in which to consult with knowledgeable and simply more experienced people. The photo on the left is from a time just after this tuning process.
Whither Voyager?
My modus operandi now seems to be figuring out how to use that knowledge from leaning up to muscling up (and then leaning again, leaving the mass in tact, more or less ).
What some folks may notice is that the above getting to know my physiology for food was a month here, two week tests at a time there - easily adding up to more than a 12 week body transformation. You bet. But, the point is, do it once, do it right, and the knowledge is there for well, so far, my life since then.
Diets suck. they're about temporary deprivation for the most part. They're not about skills or about self-knowledge to have confidence to take knowledge gained to new places.
With ETK (review) and the RKC cert (review), i learned a lot about single kettlebell work. Not everything, but a great foundation with solid moves that will also last a life time. Likewise i'm using that to transfer to the different beast (but related cousin) of double kettlebell work. I'm looking forward to the RKC II in feb 2010 to develop the vocabulary a bit further.
I guess the big thing here is foundations establishing a base of trust, and that trust comes from self-knowledge, and that the way to get that self-knowledge could be to hack around on one's own and hope to fall into it. Or it could be to get some good guidance, do some research, and find a space to ask questions to improve that practice.
With kettlebells it's been ETK and the RKC. With nutrition, it's been Precision Nutrition. In each case, i've gotten to a point where i'm gaining the confidence to fool around within the parameters of the space - play with a pump post the double pressing in RTK and explore IF that wiser people than I keep saying is cool.
The results of the good foundation and trust it perhaps this boldly going to a territory - weight gain - that previously would have devestated me and is now a new and if not undiscovered then potentially dangerous but with now acceptable levels of risk attached. That's likely a long winded way of saying it feels safe enough to have fun.
Does this process make sense to anyone else? hope if so, it helps :)
best
mc
Related Posts
So, i'm female, like to be lean and ripped AND i'm trying to gain mass - a new way to say "gain weight." What is that about? If awhile ago someone had told me i'd be looking at mass going up rather than down i would have paled, horrified. So what's happened?Two things:
- i've for a long time wanted defined strong and strong looking arms.
- But perhaps more importantly, over the past few years, i've learned how to do lean for me: i know what it takes to get lean dialed in, and have done it a couple of times - getting to the ideal weight, letting that slide a few pounds, going back. For me this has meant my weight has been consistently between 57 point something and 60k. Happy days.
So, with the release of Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell (start of a review series here)- geared at hypertrophy strength in particular- i thought i'm in a good enough place now to push on this strength side with RTK's double KB work and investigate the mass side promised with it. And i know for my NSCA CSCS text book - and every other sentient knowledgeable person on mass tells me so - this means eating to achieve a caloric surplus not a deficit. I have never eaten for caloric surplus deliberately in my life.
The result so far is a strange thing. Over the past 6-8 weeks i have been watching the scale go up AND i have not freaked out, i have not panicked, i have not broken into a sweat of fear.
Don't Panic
Part of the reason for this lack of panic is perhaps knowledge and control. I know something about what's going on, and i am doing it cautiously and deliberately. Whether it's optimally remains to be seen, but i'm ok with that, too, as the weight going up is not huge leaps and bounds.
Part of the ok'ness is also that in the knowledge side, i know how to evaluate the number on the scale from a few metrics. One of the most powerful ones is girth and the other is skin fold testing.
With Girth i whip out a wonderful gadget called a myotape, and cuff it around my biceps. Not
a ton of change, but it's an honest 1/8th of an inch. And after a workout the measure is considerably greater. But we're talking post rest not post workout measures. the real stuff. I can also keep an eye on more sensitive areas like hips and waist with girth and see if this is beyond my mental tolerances or not. The best check there however is still feeling comfy in my clothes.With skin fold measures i track what i really want to track here: improvements in lean mass. These are slower to grow than fat to be sure, but seeing weekly progress is a good thing. So far i haven't seen bigger jumps than when i've been trying to lean out and work out at the same time, but it's only been a short trial so far. The main thing is the trends are going in the right direction, and the BF% is still well within tolerable limits.
Why else am i doing this?
I want to see if i can "get arms" (and maybe some other body parts too, but arms has always been the one for me). As far as i know there's no genetic reason why my arms shouldn't respond approriately to appropriate forces for hypertrophic adaptation. However, i also want to walk the walk.I confer with lots of folks who are more into bodybuilding than strength. The interesting demographic is young lads and post 30's gals - in my experience anyway. So while i'm giving council like "eat more to gain" where have i been on that continuum? Strength and leanness.
So i figure now is the time to fish or cut bait. I'm not going into body building, but i am experimenting with how muscle mass growth can be stimulated, fed, supported, with what one might see as the *minimal* set of moves to achieve that goal, and where RTK right now is my main mission.
For now, part of the experiment is just figuring out how to be cool like a little fonzy with this weight gain thing while the mass gain thing comes along.
The basics: how one reacts to food.
The far more challenging part at least for me and perhaps for other women too who may want more mass (as opposed to weight, dam it. weight bad; mass good - we know what we mean) - is feeling ok about seeing the scale go in the usually dreaded direction.
The take away from this for me so far thinking about it is that it's been my work in nutrition that's let me feel comfortable exploring this uncharted territory in strength and mass (mass. ha! so far i say ha! we'll see. an eighth of an inch for pete's sake! ), not the workouts.
The workouts psychologically seem the eas(ier) part. There are certain principles to which muscle reacts when stimulated appropriately. Check. But the scale? Really, i think if i didn't have those other measures, and a faith that i know how to reduce the weight again, i couldn't do this.
The Way i've Found Thinner Peace.
I'm stealing thinner peace from a fabulous book on how we react to change and how to make habits successful called the Four day Win by Martha Beck (US || UK ) - recommended. If you want to see why, i talk about habits, and the change of pain that is changing one's dietary ways and how to do this with as little brain pain as possible over here. That's potentially a first place: to know how change can work safely. And whence from there?
For me, how i got to a place of really knowing my body in terms of nutrition is with Precision Nutrition that i've reviewed over time, and have been using now, literally for years. The thing i'd like to draw attention to here are three parts of that approach that i think are relevant to this weight going up mental safety zone.
- - the basic baselining
- - the individualization plan
- - learning about measures
We're complex systems. Why wouldn't it take that kind of time to get to know how these complex mechanisms interact with complex inputs?
So i think it's great that there's a base case from which adjustments can be made. Second, once the base case is established, time to look at parameters for individualizing to get on with one's body comp goals: where start sensibly to work towards losing weight or gaining mass? how tweak either calories or macronutrients? why? how do that again in the spirit of change one thing, maintain the change for two weeks, assess.
The third part is actually having guidance on how to do girth and skinfold measures and make sense of those measures. A lot of that material is in the PN guides that come with the huge amount of material available in the program. Much more comes from the feedback of folks on the PN forum. The experts there from a diversity of backgrounds are awesome. A breakthrough for me, for instance, happened when i'd seemingly hit a plateua doing everything i thought right, and a power lifter trainer from London, Alex Gold, said, that happened to me: i hate calorie counting, but why not check in with fitday for a couple weeks to get a reality check and see what happens?
Wow. super. Did it for a month, actually, and, combined with what i knew at that point, and advice on tuning my workouts (also from PN) i had it nailed - the light turned on and i got what it took to tune my intake for that particular goal. Now i might not always choose to do that of course, but i know what it is - at least in that direction. I am so grateful for that collision of practice, reading, and the space in which to consult with knowledgeable and simply more experienced people. The photo on the left is from a time just after this tuning process.Whither Voyager?
My modus operandi now seems to be figuring out how to use that knowledge from leaning up to muscling up (and then leaning again, leaving the mass in tact, more or less ).
What some folks may notice is that the above getting to know my physiology for food was a month here, two week tests at a time there - easily adding up to more than a 12 week body transformation. You bet. But, the point is, do it once, do it right, and the knowledge is there for well, so far, my life since then.
Diets suck. they're about temporary deprivation for the most part. They're not about skills or about self-knowledge to have confidence to take knowledge gained to new places.
With ETK (review) and the RKC cert (review), i learned a lot about single kettlebell work. Not everything, but a great foundation with solid moves that will also last a life time. Likewise i'm using that to transfer to the different beast (but related cousin) of double kettlebell work. I'm looking forward to the RKC II in feb 2010 to develop the vocabulary a bit further.
I guess the big thing here is foundations establishing a base of trust, and that trust comes from self-knowledge, and that the way to get that self-knowledge could be to hack around on one's own and hope to fall into it. Or it could be to get some good guidance, do some research, and find a space to ask questions to improve that practice.
With kettlebells it's been ETK and the RKC. With nutrition, it's been Precision Nutrition. In each case, i've gotten to a point where i'm gaining the confidence to fool around within the parameters of the space - play with a pump post the double pressing in RTK and explore IF that wiser people than I keep saying is cool.
The results of the good foundation and trust it perhaps this boldly going to a territory - weight gain - that previously would have devestated me and is now a new and if not undiscovered then potentially dangerous but with now acceptable levels of risk attached. That's likely a long winded way of saying it feels safe enough to have fun.
Does this process make sense to anyone else? hope if so, it helps :)
best
mc
Related Posts
- Return of the Kettlebell - double kb work prelim review
- the complete list of all the updates related to RTK at the b2d kb index
- exercise doesn't work without diet. - either way the weight goes, it seems.
- Myth busting: women are afraid to bulk up.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Return of the kettlebell Update 4: C&J heels fix and Balancing the Press, Swing Sets and a Pain in the Quad
Follow @mcphoo
Tweet
This entry (4th RTK update) is about high heels in the C&J, the peculiarity that is uneven pressing, and swinging between sets in practicing Return of the Kettlebell (RTK). Also a question about pistols, pain and mass gain.
C&J - always learning. Dang
In my last episode i'd just lost my C&J form, and got it back noticing i was doing more of a C&J GS jump in the second hop than is appropriate for the Hard Style Way. The next session solved that hop: heavier bells. Ha! Seriously. It's harder to hop on the heavy days. Lor'! Learning to keep speed going for that second hop makes a difference in a good rep and a not so good rep. It seems that because each time one does the RTK block a variable changes - no. of sets, no. of ladders, load, that there's always going to be something new to learn. This is a good thing, to be sure. But likewise, gosh. Anyone who says they need a new program - that a few moves is going to be boring - just hasn't met ETK or RTK.
Uneven Presses
The intriguing thing about uneven pressing
I've been experimenting for the past few weeks on keeping my heart rate up between sets, and this for two reasons: one, it's supposed to help eliminate doms (end of this article) and two, it's supposed to help with strength gains, and i'm all for more strength gains.
Today i wore a heart rate monitor and noticed that my typical light jogging in spot or running around the place didn't get my heart up very high, so i thought, what the heck, swings.
So i did some Rannoch's 100's between sets for my 2 mins of recovery, alternating one handed and double, focusing on good clean hip snaps, as well as light overspeeds. Let me say that if you don't have a heart rate monitor, don't worry about it: doing 1oo's of any of these will keep your heart up for two minutes without wasting you.
Pistol Practice
And, just because i'd like to keep up some pistol work, and as this was light day, i got an EDT (escalating density training) set of assisted pistols in. This was done by attaching a green band to a door, and doing the squat down unaided and using the band as an assist on the way up: this was both work and let me focus on form - again with bone rhythm - especially thinking about the form of standing up straight and fast with good good form. That's cool - usually i've been so occupied with just getting up repeatedly that the difference in being able to focus on the groove of the form is pretty cool. Will be interested to see how that translates into unassisted (and gulp, loaded) practice.
What i did notice that was new is that oh, about 3/4's of the way into my EDT block my legs suddenly felt as if DOMS had just turned on about 24 hours early. So it's not DOMS. it's something else. And it's a bit of a surprise, and a rather painful one. Ow? The suddenness of going from fine to Ow was rather abrupt. Anyone?
Mass Gains - to date
It goes without saying, does it not, that strength improves on RTK with each workout? Super duper. But mass? Getting past scrawny arms? Hmm.
Gals who have worked to get lean don't often, in my experience, just surrender to adding more calories in plans of adding some mass, but i've been up for it. In the past 6 weeks, the gains have been on the scale more than on what the tape measures in my arm. Is there anything i could do better, or there just hasn't been enough time to say?
I'm religiously doing a pre and post drink as per the Nutrient Timing work i wrote about awhile ago, and am as said going clearly into caloric surplus. But Tracy Reifkinds arms remain unrivaled. That said 6 weeks may well be far too soon to anticipate real change. I shall just keep it tight, (the HS way of saying "hold my breath?") in the meantime.
Till next time...
Related Posts
This entry (4th RTK update) is about high heels in the C&J, the peculiarity that is uneven pressing, and swinging between sets in practicing Return of the Kettlebell (RTK). Also a question about pistols, pain and mass gain.C&J - always learning. Dang
In my last episode i'd just lost my C&J form, and got it back noticing i was doing more of a C&J GS jump in the second hop than is appropriate for the Hard Style Way. The next session solved that hop: heavier bells. Ha! Seriously. It's harder to hop on the heavy days. Lor'! Learning to keep speed going for that second hop makes a difference in a good rep and a not so good rep. It seems that because each time one does the RTK block a variable changes - no. of sets, no. of ladders, load, that there's always going to be something new to learn. This is a good thing, to be sure. But likewise, gosh. Anyone who says they need a new program - that a few moves is going to be boring - just hasn't met ETK or RTK.
Uneven Presses
The intriguing thing about uneven pressing
- - snatching different weights and matching speed between them.
- - matching speed between pressing sides - keeping up bone rhythm
- - matching form per side - by the fourth set, the heavy bell starts to feel, well, heavy, and the later presses can let the pelvis slide over to give it a boost that the other side doesn't need. Temptation to do so is very strong.
I've been experimenting for the past few weeks on keeping my heart rate up between sets, and this for two reasons: one, it's supposed to help eliminate doms (end of this article) and two, it's supposed to help with strength gains, and i'm all for more strength gains.
Today i wore a heart rate monitor and noticed that my typical light jogging in spot or running around the place didn't get my heart up very high, so i thought, what the heck, swings.
So i did some Rannoch's 100's between sets for my 2 mins of recovery, alternating one handed and double, focusing on good clean hip snaps, as well as light overspeeds. Let me say that if you don't have a heart rate monitor, don't worry about it: doing 1oo's of any of these will keep your heart up for two minutes without wasting you.
Pistol Practice
And, just because i'd like to keep up some pistol work, and as this was light day, i got an EDT (escalating density training) set of assisted pistols in. This was done by attaching a green band to a door, and doing the squat down unaided and using the band as an assist on the way up: this was both work and let me focus on form - again with bone rhythm - especially thinking about the form of standing up straight and fast with good good form. That's cool - usually i've been so occupied with just getting up repeatedly that the difference in being able to focus on the groove of the form is pretty cool. Will be interested to see how that translates into unassisted (and gulp, loaded) practice.
What i did notice that was new is that oh, about 3/4's of the way into my EDT block my legs suddenly felt as if DOMS had just turned on about 24 hours early. So it's not DOMS. it's something else. And it's a bit of a surprise, and a rather painful one. Ow? The suddenness of going from fine to Ow was rather abrupt. Anyone?
Mass Gains - to date
It goes without saying, does it not, that strength improves on RTK with each workout? Super duper. But mass? Getting past scrawny arms? Hmm.
Gals who have worked to get lean don't often, in my experience, just surrender to adding more calories in plans of adding some mass, but i've been up for it. In the past 6 weeks, the gains have been on the scale more than on what the tape measures in my arm. Is there anything i could do better, or there just hasn't been enough time to say?
I'm religiously doing a pre and post drink as per the Nutrient Timing work i wrote about awhile ago, and am as said going clearly into caloric surplus. But Tracy Reifkinds arms remain unrivaled. That said 6 weeks may well be far too soon to anticipate real change. I shall just keep it tight, (the HS way of saying "hold my breath?") in the meantime.
Till next time...
Related Posts
- Kettlebell Article Index - including previous three RTK updates
Thursday, October 8, 2009
What's Flexion/Extension Eccentric/Concentric Negative/Positive - move basics
Follow @mcphoo
Tweet
I am directionally impaired. If someone asks "do you remember if we go right or left?" and i say "left" do yourself a favour and go right. Likewise when i was trying to learn about muscle action it took me ages to unpack flexion and extension from eccentric and concentric contraction.
So for any of you folks out there trying to understand what a negative contraction in flexion might look like or if an eccentric contraction can be positive and in
extension, this post is for you.
Just to start of orienteering, most stuff in kinesiology seems to refer to the midline of the body, and the body is trisected into three planes: sagittal, frontal (coronal in the image) and transverse.
These terms simply make it easier to talk about direction of a move. Eg a forward bend is mainly an action in the sagittal plane. A lateral raise is in the frontal. One might then say ok, what of your moves is working transverse? This is a big deal as transverse is associated with rotation and rotational power is important. internal/external rotation. oy.But i digress. The main thing is that there's a midline of the body. We'll see that in action.
Muscles:
To hold something, muscles contract. That's it. The interesting thing is that muscles can contract in different states - usually one of three states.
Concentric - the muscle is shortening. Like a biceps curl (the curling phase)
Eccentric - the muscle is lengthening while contracting - like overhead triceps extension (the lowering phase)
Isometric - a contraction is happening without any muscle lengthening/shortening.
Joints:
Joints have a lot of ways of being described as moving: rotation, elevation and depression; adduction (towards the midline, latin ad, to, towards), abduction (away from the midline - latin ab, from), and the more familiar extension and flexion. To these can also be applied anterior, posterior, medial and lateral. Or front, back, towards the middle towards the outside (where the body is the reference point).
Let's look at just the two most commonly discussed terms in the workout room, flexion and extension.
Extension, generally, is increasing the angle in a joint. So standing up from a squat is both knee and hip extension.
Flexion, by contrast, is decreasing the angle in a joint. So the top of biceps curl is flexion around the elbow joint.
Negatives and Positives
Another name for Eccentric contraction is a Negative. And concentric is a Positive. Why they're called that, i dunno. I'm guessing that that's because the challenge is often perceived to be in the lift, and we move something from a starting position to a finished position, and going from a finish to a start is seen as the flip side or negative.
I prefer eccentric/concentric because of the different types of effects due to different types of actions.
We're stronger in the negative phase of a move - consider how much easier it is to lower a piano than to lift one.
Interestingly eccentric contractions are less well understood than concentric contractions, but what we do know is that eccentric contractions are strongly correlated with DOMS - delayed on set muscle soreness (more on DOMS here).
Putting muscle and joint movements together
So now we have a rough vocabulary for muscle and joint action. Let's try a couple of descriptions.
Examples
In a march or sprint step practice, when the knee comes up this is an example of hip flexion as the angle at the hip socket is narrowed via the femur coming towards the pelvis. The aptly named hip flexors group of muscles will be contracting to make this move possible - to pull the joint angle together.
If the knee is likewise bent as in a marching step, there's knee flexion too. If the knee straightens out, however, as in a kick, we have knee extension with hip flexion. In this case, the knees are being pulled into extension by the quads concentrically contracting, too.
Kick that straightened leg all the way back - like the tail end of a sprint stride, and there's hip extension - where the hamstrings and glute actually contract to keep the leg from flying off in a sprint.
To see eccentric contraction, we can look at the ever popular biceps curl with flexion around the elbow. As we lower a weight, we are working against resistance, letting the joint angle increase to lower that object under control.
Directions
So we could now do an anterior lunge - moving the lunging leg to the front. And we'd know that the anterior lunge foregrounds knee flexion - the hamstrings and related flexors concentrically contracting to shorten and so pull the tibula/fibula towards the femor. We could talk about anterior and posterior glides of the head where we affect a "chicken neck" to move the cervical spine past the front midline of the body and then pull it in the opposite direction towards behind the midline of the body.
So we have eccentric and concentric contractions, negatives and positives being the same; flexion and extension and some directions - and the midlines of the body.
Perhaps this is all one to you and easy peasy - but for anyone else out there who struggles with directions - hope this helps. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
I am directionally impaired. If someone asks "do you remember if we go right or left?" and i say "left" do yourself a favour and go right. Likewise when i was trying to learn about muscle action it took me ages to unpack flexion and extension from eccentric and concentric contraction.So for any of you folks out there trying to understand what a negative contraction in flexion might look like or if an eccentric contraction can be positive and in
extension, this post is for you.Just to start of orienteering, most stuff in kinesiology seems to refer to the midline of the body, and the body is trisected into three planes: sagittal, frontal (coronal in the image) and transverse.
These terms simply make it easier to talk about direction of a move. Eg a forward bend is mainly an action in the sagittal plane. A lateral raise is in the frontal. One might then say ok, what of your moves is working transverse? This is a big deal as transverse is associated with rotation and rotational power is important. internal/external rotation. oy.But i digress. The main thing is that there's a midline of the body. We'll see that in action.
Muscles:
To hold something, muscles contract. That's it. The interesting thing is that muscles can contract in different states - usually one of three states.
Concentric - the muscle is shortening. Like a biceps curl (the curling phase)
Eccentric - the muscle is lengthening while contracting - like overhead triceps extension (the lowering phase)
Isometric - a contraction is happening without any muscle lengthening/shortening.
Joints:
Joints have a lot of ways of being described as moving: rotation, elevation and depression; adduction (towards the midline, latin ad, to, towards), abduction (away from the midline - latin ab, from), and the more familiar extension and flexion. To these can also be applied anterior, posterior, medial and lateral. Or front, back, towards the middle towards the outside (where the body is the reference point).
Let's look at just the two most commonly discussed terms in the workout room, flexion and extension.
Extension, generally, is increasing the angle in a joint. So standing up from a squat is both knee and hip extension.
Flexion, by contrast, is decreasing the angle in a joint. So the top of biceps curl is flexion around the elbow joint.
Negatives and Positives
Another name for Eccentric contraction is a Negative. And concentric is a Positive. Why they're called that, i dunno. I'm guessing that that's because the challenge is often perceived to be in the lift, and we move something from a starting position to a finished position, and going from a finish to a start is seen as the flip side or negative.
I prefer eccentric/concentric because of the different types of effects due to different types of actions.
We're stronger in the negative phase of a move - consider how much easier it is to lower a piano than to lift one.
Interestingly eccentric contractions are less well understood than concentric contractions, but what we do know is that eccentric contractions are strongly correlated with DOMS - delayed on set muscle soreness (more on DOMS here).
Putting muscle and joint movements together
So now we have a rough vocabulary for muscle and joint action. Let's try a couple of descriptions.
Examples
In a march or sprint step practice, when the knee comes up this is an example of hip flexion as the angle at the hip socket is narrowed via the femur coming towards the pelvis. The aptly named hip flexors group of muscles will be contracting to make this move possible - to pull the joint angle together.
If the knee is likewise bent as in a marching step, there's knee flexion too. If the knee straightens out, however, as in a kick, we have knee extension with hip flexion. In this case, the knees are being pulled into extension by the quads concentrically contracting, too.
Kick that straightened leg all the way back - like the tail end of a sprint stride, and there's hip extension - where the hamstrings and glute actually contract to keep the leg from flying off in a sprint.
To see eccentric contraction, we can look at the ever popular biceps curl with flexion around the elbow. As we lower a weight, we are working against resistance, letting the joint angle increase to lower that object under control.
Directions
So we could now do an anterior lunge - moving the lunging leg to the front. And we'd know that the anterior lunge foregrounds knee flexion - the hamstrings and related flexors concentrically contracting to shorten and so pull the tibula/fibula towards the femor. We could talk about anterior and posterior glides of the head where we affect a "chicken neck" to move the cervical spine past the front midline of the body and then pull it in the opposite direction towards behind the midline of the body.
So we have eccentric and concentric contractions, negatives and positives being the same; flexion and extension and some directions - and the midlines of the body.
Perhaps this is all one to you and easy peasy - but for anyone else out there who struggles with directions - hope this helps. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Why Wait till After Eating to work out?
Follow @mcphoo
Tweet
You may have been told wait at least forty minutes until after eating to work out, or to go swimming. And maybe we all kinda think we know why - if we work out on a full stomach, we'll just hurl. Hmm. Maybe.
Apparently one of the actual reasons for this invective
to wait is more about blood supply. When we eat, our gut gets very active. That means a lot of the blood supply is being focused on our digestive system. You can see what's coming: exercise means that the blood supply is being wanted by our peripheral system (as we saw in the article on warm ups).
Likewise the hormonal responses around food digestion (load on the endocrine system) are different than the ones that get triggered for exercise.
So eating and working out close by each other is putting two rather opposing demands on our digestive and endocrine systems. By giving digestion a chance to do its thing, the body is more at liberty to manage the demands of our thing when we want to work out.
Sorta makes sense.
An interesting thing for peri-workout nutrition is that some fuel seems fine to ingest prior to a workout: fast digesting hydro-whey, fast carbs like dextrose, and creatine, can be taken on "right before" a work out. Some folks top up with energy drinks during a work out. So the energy requirements to process some of these fuels must be low relative to whole food.
Personally these kind of facts make it easier for me to plan how to work out and why to practice a particular way. I can calm down i guess around whether now is the right time to move or not. Maybe that's just me, but hope it might be a useful wee factoid for you, too. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Apparently one of the actual reasons for this invective
to wait is more about blood supply. When we eat, our gut gets very active. That means a lot of the blood supply is being focused on our digestive system. You can see what's coming: exercise means that the blood supply is being wanted by our peripheral system (as we saw in the article on warm ups).Likewise the hormonal responses around food digestion (load on the endocrine system) are different than the ones that get triggered for exercise.
So eating and working out close by each other is putting two rather opposing demands on our digestive and endocrine systems. By giving digestion a chance to do its thing, the body is more at liberty to manage the demands of our thing when we want to work out.
Sorta makes sense.
An interesting thing for peri-workout nutrition is that some fuel seems fine to ingest prior to a workout: fast digesting hydro-whey, fast carbs like dextrose, and creatine, can be taken on "right before" a work out. Some folks top up with energy drinks during a work out. So the energy requirements to process some of these fuels must be low relative to whole food.
Personally these kind of facts make it easier for me to plan how to work out and why to practice a particular way. I can calm down i guess around whether now is the right time to move or not. Maybe that's just me, but hope it might be a useful wee factoid for you, too. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
COACHING with dr. m.c. 
