Trog Log: Transforming a 170-pound weakling into a highland athlete.

[LitTrog]

This morning:

Rapid-fire bi-tri work:

Preacher curls to skull crushers. Repeatx3

Squat- Moderately fast 205lbs 4x12

Wide-grip pull ups 3 sets

Seated "machine" rows 3 sets

For anyone following along who wonders about how much time it takes to work out, I never like to spend more than 50 minutes lifting. Today's took about 45, yesterday's with all the presses took about 1.5 hours. Yuck.

[Alan H]

Nice!

Yeah my weightroom workouts, including the walk over to the gym and back are about an hour and 45. 20 minutes to walk over there. 20 minutes to walk back. Five minutes to flirt with Donna or Wendy. 60 minutes to do work. No more than that.

[Alan H]

Well, yes and no. From what I understand, P90X doesn't get into a lot of weight. The key of weight cardio training is that you use the max weight you can complete the 45 reps with, going at the 1 minute/30seconds/1 minute/30seconds/one minute/ next exercise pace. If you're not struggling to get those last couple of reps, you need to add weight. I was doing 80 lbs on flat bench when I started. I'm up to 160 now. Remember it's about doing the reps with good form and control. My max press is running about 250 these days, and with moving more to free weight is rising again.

You're flat-benching 45 reps with 160 pounds?????? .... and max bench is 250? Geoff, you're about as upper-body strong as I am! This, and you do kettlebell swings with a 50 pound kettlebell and you beat a big tire with a flippin' sledgehammer.

You are 64 years old and you do this. Damn.. Geoff, you are PLENTY strong enough to start throwing. PLENTY. By miles....

[Alan H]

Doing Olympic lifts without bumper plates is a bit of a challenge. We don't have bumper plates in my gym at the Big U, and no platform, either. So *real* Olympic lifting ain't happening.

So I do a LOT of hang cleans. I lack the flexibility to really get my elbows out there (I bet you are fine at this) at the catch, so I do what I can. Sometimes I just do high pulls from the hang position, and don't even catch the weight at the collarbones, just let it drop under control and catch it at waist height. I sometimes clean and snatch off the floor, but I can't push the weight on those because no can drop 'em. So I have to KNOW that I can finish the lift under control.

I also do a fair number of dumbell snatches, because Dan John says that asymmetrical lifts are good for throwers and Dan seems to know his business, to put it mildly. Y'all don't need bumper plates for those.

As for doing what I do....nah. You do what works for YOU. All my rambling here is just to explain how I go about it, so you have sort of a point of reference. Go look at o1d_dude's workouts, too.

Matt Vincent, the current world champion, has written an e-book on his training regime. Now, Matt is a total monster, and he's pretty young, so you have to take this with a grain of salt. But still, it's a good read, and it'll make you think.

This is Matts training log on his web site:

http://www.mattvincent.net/training-log/

and this is the link to the e-book...

http://www.mattvincent.net/store-3/training-lab-2/

Matt strongly advocates throwing year-round. He splits the calendar year up into sections and there are different amounts of lifting/throwing during different times, but at no point does he stop throwing. Me? I throw track and field implements in the winter...the Masters 50-59 shotput is 6kg/13.2 pounds so it's lighter than the open stone. I throw discus, too, but I do that just because I love to do it. However, it's easy for me to internalize a couple of the basic throwing principles when I throw discus, because I've done it for so long. So in fact, it's probably good for me. Also, it's a mental thing. I worked with US Silver Medalist, John Powell for a few weeks, many years ago. John said something that really resonated with me. He said that discus throwing is simple. His example was that he sometimes had developmentally disabled kids out to the track. He'd show them how to throw it a couple of times and tell them that they couldn't step outside the circle and hand them a discus. And they threw it. Throwing the discus is a simple thing. However "simple" and "easy" are NOT the same things. For me, discus is a simple thing. I just get in the ring and don't worry about stuff. I just throw the discus. It's hard to explain but it works for me.

You find what works for you, and do it. Just remember......

A.) the goal is to exert 80% of your max potential, with good form, for three seconds.

B.) all throwers power comes from contact with the ground. You can't throw anything while you're spinning in the air. Legs and especially hips and abs/lower back are the muscle groups that translate ground contact to implement distance. When you do a hard throwing workout and what's tired is your hips, you're well on the way to doing it right.

More lifting/workout information...
Also, Ryan Vierra's video will help you a lot... get it from Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Highland-Games...highland+games

[Alan H]

BTW, the 3x world caber champion, and the 2010 and 2011 World Champion, Dan McKim has a stunningly simple workout regime. I remember reading it at NASGA, one night. I just read about 100 consecutive posts in his workout log. I was shocked. So many guys do all this sophisticated stuff.... you know - the Albanian Overhead Core Whangler lift, the Romanian variant so as to hit the lower sublateral miningopopsicle muscle....

nah. Dan does about 6 lifts. He hang cleans A LOT.

You can read it, here:

http://www.nasgaweb.com/forum/traini...opic11573.html

There's a guy here in SoCal, who kind of reminds me of you, though he's a little bit bigger at about 215. He's about your age, has a kid that plays soccer...etc. etc. His name is Eric Clark. He likes to go running. You will hate him, his job takes him to Hawaii kind of a lot, so he puts up pictures of Waikiki...with comments about how he went out for a 3 miles run here...nyaaah, nyaaahhh. Now, Eric used to throw shot put so he has a jump on you but you might take some clues from his workout. He's a really nice guy. He's pretty seriously into Brazilian jiu-jitsu, too.

Erics log.

http://www.nasgaweb.com/forum/traini...opic14835.html

[LitTrog]

My wonderful wifey let slip that she had done some research and bought that video for me for my birthday. She said it had a companion video which detailed the lifting movements and workouts that would be most valuable. Have you seen it? If so, is it worth getting?

[Alan H]

My wonderful wifey let slip that she had done some research and bought that video for me for my birthday. She said it had a companion video which detailed the lifting movements and workouts that would be most valuable. Have you seen it? If so, is it worth getting?

I didn't know that there was another VP productions video!!!

I DO know that if you go to YouTube and look up "Ryan Vierra training log" you'll see a series of about 9 videos which show you what Ryan did a couple of years ago, to prep for the World Championships. It's seriously frightening to see how strong that man is....but it's worth it, to see what he does.

Here's #1 of nine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjD60EReZr8

[Alan H]

BTW, Eric Clark throws with the Orange County Highlanders....he's actually an X Marks member, but doesn't log here any more. The OCH is the biggest practice group in California, maybe the biggest group in the Western half of the country and there are some seriously big throwers in the bunch, as well as a couple of semi-retired Masters with a LOT of experience. So he's getting a lot of coaching. The video's from his first Games...Ventura... look pretty darned good. A 37 foot open stone toss in your first Games? That's no joke, that's damn good. 47 feet light weight for distance in your first Games at age 40? HELLO? wow. So don't worry about matching his numbers. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. Eric had some serious technique help.

[Geoff Withnell]

Good grief! That's strong! I'm "strong enough" I know. One thing throwing is going to help me with is balance and agility, whixh kinda sucks right now, so I'm working it. The days when I could flat bench 450 are long gone, but I am getting stronger, faster and better! oorah!

I didn't know that there was another VP productions video!!!

I DO know that if you go to YouTube and look up "Ryan Vierra training log" you'll see a series of about 9 videos which show you what Ryan did a couple of years ago, to prep for the World Championships. It's seriously frightening to see how strong that man is....but it's worth it, to see what he does.

Here's #1 of nine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjD60EReZr8

[o1d_dude]

Enough with all this gym talk.

Get out and actually do some Highland athletic things like throwing something.

Be thrower who lifts not a lifter who throws.