Kal's Training Log

I started training the WODs on 2010/08/19, so it's probably time to start a log here.

Background:

Was a scrawny kid who ate badly. Now a scrawny adult who eats well. Working on becoming strong. Let's train.

Benchmarks

Here's some rough benchmarking of my current maxes and notes to myself so I can judge my progress later.

-L-sit: 20s-30s with legs low on rings at 45 degrees, which I think interfered with my planche training. Virtually untrained 30-40s bent l-sit on elevated floor. Barely a second regular L hold on the floor (raised on fingers seemed to make them easier).

-Straddle-L: Entirely untrained gives 30s legs bent on elevated floor. Can hold low for a little while.

-Manna: Also untrained. Not much beyond a decent 20s reverse pushup. My triceps!

-PL: 60s frog, never tried adv. frog, 20s-30s tuck planche.

-BL: 20s bad assisted german hang, 30s tuck.

-FL: 20s tuck with hips not particularly high.

-Pushups: 3x5 XR Bulgarian, some progress on XR PPP.

-Dips: My ROM tends to be a little poor here as I don’t have anywhere to do them with my legs straight down. I tend to lean forward as well. No PB here so I do ‘em on the rings.

-HSPU: 3x5 wall HeSPU negative.

-MPPr: Can’t do a chest roll.

-Rows: 3x5 XR elevated at ring height. Can’t really pull out arms for bulgarian.

-Pullups: There was a time when I could do 25 of these on the bar, although I pull much more strongly to the chest now. Can only do with legs low in L.

-Curls: 3x5 inverted chinups with good ROM.

-MPPu: I don’t have the height away my bar to try pullovers or naners, but 3x5 tuck TOPs pulls are okay.

-CPP: I don’t think I’m too far off a muscle-up on the bar, but I find it tough to pull from hang with a false-grip on rings.

-V-ups: Tuck is easy, straddle isn’t very strong.

-HLL: Tuck half is easy, but my flexibility doesn’t currently allow for half.

-Lowerback, obliques: Haven’t tried this stuff yet.

-Straight body: Pulling out of a full ROM german hang would be difficult. Body levers are tough.

-Deck squats: 3x5 jumping to decent height, certainly improved a lot here.

-SLS: 3x5 graduated with not enough control near the bottom.

-Hamstring: 3x5 NLC doesn’t cramp as much as when I began, but I’m still not strong here. It’s quite difficult to practice this correctly without a partner or something heavy that fits your ankles snugly.

-My wrists have got stronger, but I still do wrist pushups on my knees.

-ROM in my shoulders, particularly the left, has improved due to wall extensions and Ido’s scapula mobility routine – band shoulder dislocates are vastly smoother.

-Pike and straddle flexibility have improved thanks to the Dominic Lacasse routine – pike is comfortable but I can’t lean forwards much in straddle.

-Bridge wall walks are about a foot away from the floor.

-Never touched a barbell, kettlebell or dumbbell.

-My 5k time when I stopped running was a leisurely 21 minutes. Entirely untrained 10k time was an equally slothful 55 minutes.

-Could do 25 pullups or 7 weighted with 35lbs backpack at 140lbs.

-Crossfit - "Cindy (pack)" - I wasn't much better than 8 rounds of 5 pullups, 10 pushups and 15 squats in 12 minutes (or 21 rounds of 3, 6 and 9 in 20 minutes) back when I was training this kind of bizarre stuff.

-Tabata sprints are doable, but 3 rounds of 3 minute Thai clinch knees with partner is very tiring.

Great to see another log

Something about your writing reminds me of J.R.R. Tolkein. Maybe it was the last sentence! before you listed your benchmarks lol! I like Tolkein a lot.

You'll find that this training prepares you for the Muay Thai far better than what you were doing. For some reason a lot of the trainers are very endurance oriented, even though fights are only 5 rounds. I mean, I am not trying to be disparaging but as a former fighter that is a joke as far as endurance is concerned. Muay Thai is a power sport if there ever was one, and what we do here is something I wish I had known about and practiced 10 years ago! I recently went to a Krav Maga class and went nonstop at a pretty fast pace for an hour straight with absolutely no problems. Thanks to the program here I was far less winded than even the people who had been there for a while and did all that straight endurance stuff. The GB program definitely develops an amazingly well conditioned athlete in all respects!

I think that if you do find your way back into the fighting world you'll quickly discover that your training here has done more for your fighting than anything else you could have put your time into, in both power and endurance. I remember the clinch work... Definitely exhausting. The only other thing that tiring was when I had to do 3 minute rounds just throwing round kicks into the Thai pads, with no rest other than switching legs occasionally. I get tired just thinking about that stuff lol!

Welcome to the forum! I'm glad you've found something that makes you happy, and I'm even happier that it's here! We'll all be looking forward to seeing your progress!

slizzardman said:

Something about your writing reminds me of J.R.R. Tolkein. Maybe it was the last sentence! before you listed your benchmarks lol! I like Tolkein a lot.

Heh, my writing definitely doesn't deserve any comparison to Tolkein, but it's nice of you to say so. Interestingly, I often notice that my style tends to unconsciously mimic that of a recently read writer - no Tolkein lately, though! Now THERE was a writer of astonishing competence - that most don't realise the extraordinary technical complexity of The Council of Elrond (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, Chapter II) speaks volumes of his ability. To quote Tom Shippey:

Tom Shippey said:

[The Council of Elrond] is a largely unappreciated tour de force, whose success may be gauged by the fact that few pause to recognize its complexity. It breaks, furthermore, most of the rules which might be given to an apprentice writer. For one thing, though it is fifteen thousand words long, in it nothing happens: it consists entirely of people talking. For another, it has an unusual number of speakers present (twelve), the majority of them (seven) unknown to the reader and appearing for the first time. Just to make things more difficult, the longest speech, by Gandalf, which takes up half the total, contains direct quotations from seven more speakers, or writers, all of them apart from Butterbur and Gaffer Gamgee new to the story, and some of them (Saruman, Denethor) to be extremely important to it later on. Other speakers, like Gloin, give quotations from yet more speakers, Dain and Sauron's messenger. Like so many committee meetings, this chapter could very easily have disintegrated, lost its way, or simply become too boring to follow. The fact that it does not is brought about by two things, Tolkien's extremely firm grasp of the history ... of Middle-earth; and his unusual ability to suggest cultural variation by differences in mode of speech.

I will add that a great deal of geography and history is cleverly introduced and developed. Shippey's latter point showcases Tolkein's unrivalled, effortless philological prowess - the various races even use moods and tenses in ways that hint subtlety at their disposition and cultural history. Nobody else could pull this off.

Anyway... back to the training log. I definitely agree with your points about Muay Thai and eagerly anticipate the improvement in my performance when I go back. Thinking about "100 left kicks, 100 right kicks, 100 knees, 200 punches" as an end to the session will probably always make me feel exhausted though.

It seems reasonable for me to only update this thread weekly with links to my posts in the WOD forum. I'll also update it if I start doing extra non-WOD work or have any news/thoughts on my general fitness/health/nutrition/progress.

Your videos are certainly very helpful, slizz; I'll try elevating my head for headstand presses next time, concentrate on catching my depth jumps sooner and stop squat jumping when the explosion disappears. My thanks.

My only other real update right now is that I'm sleeping horribly - I need to reclaim a consistent sleep cycle. I'm more productive and feel better when I get up earlier, too. I blame computers.

The first 1.5 weeks:

100819

100820

100823

100824

100826

100827

Week 2:

100830

100831

100902

100903

Week 3:

100906

100907

100909

100910

Week 4:

100913 - done at noon on Thursday

100914 - done at 8pm on Thursday

100916 - skipped

100917 - skipped

I was away all week.

Week 5:

100920

100921

100923

100924

Week 6:

100927

100928

100930

101001

Week 7:

101004

101005

101007

101008

Week 8:

101011

101012

101014 - skipped

101015 - performed on Monday, week 9

I was away on Thursday and Friday.

Week 9:

101018 - did 101015 instead

101019 - skipped, busy

101021

101022

Week 10:

101025

101026

101028

101029

Week 11 (1st Nov - 7th Nov):

Tue - 101101 and 101102

Thu - 101104

Fri - 101105

Sat - 1.5 hrs Muay Thai training session

My right shoulder didn't seem to like the return of Muay Thai into my schedule, so I'll get back to just sticking with the WODs and trying to get my warmup/prehab/stretching schedule sorted.

Week 12 (8th Nov - 14th Nov):

Nothing.

Week 13 (15th Nov - 21st Nov):

Nothing.

Week 14 (22nd Nov - 28th Nov):

Mon - Prehab/stretching

Thu - Prehab

Sun - Prehab/stretching

I decided to take a few weeks off as my shoulders and elbows were feeling dodgy after that last Muay Thai session. I was in a pushup position and felt sudden pain on the inside of my right elbow; it felt like it was trying to extend inwards.

I haven't had any more pain on the inside elbow, and all that remains seems to be some slight discomfort on the outside elbow at the bottom of a pushup. Nor have I really noticed anything during other movements, but I suspect reverse pushup holds to be the culprit. I thought I was progressing well on these, seemingly able to advance my hands (backwards) directly below my shoulders with relative speed and ease, but I now recall the strange impression that my elbow was sometimes "pushing into itself" too much in recent weeks. I don't know enough about the anatomy of the elbow to speculate what's wrong, and nor can I recognise and fix the evident faults in my routine. I can't seem to find much information on here about elbow prehab/rehab either.

I'll just back off on the reverse pushup holds for now, and try to be extra vigilant about stopping exercises if I feel any discomfort. I guess things like HS Wall Runs are out for a while too. We'll see.

How I wish I had been able to attend the European Seminar 2010 - I would've been there in a flash had it been any other week in Nov-Dec. To make things worse, the May 2011 seminar in Arizona is probably right in the middle of my university exams. Urgh.

If my exams happen to complete before that seminar though, I just might be tempted to cough up the $750 for flights (it was $280 ish to Palma, but oh well). Of course, that is unless we miraculously managed to bring Coach back into Europe for the first half of 2011.

Week 15 (29th Nov - 5th Dec):

Mon - 101129

Sat - Prehab/stretching

Week 16 (6th Dec - 12th Dec):

Mon - Prehab/stretching

Sat - Prehab/stretching

I seem to have fallen off the wagon. I'll try to climb back on next week.

Week 17 (13th Dec - 19th Dec):

Fri - 101216

Week 18 (20th Dec - 26th Dec):

Away - only some small amount of prehab/stretching.

Week 19 (27th Dec - 2nd Jan):

Thu - 101230

Being "more serious about my training".