Alan's 2013 Season Log

[Alan H]

CHAC practice last night, 5 of us. We threw WOB for about an hour. Schantae is starting to get the feel of moving the weight without just waggling her arm back and forth. Tim C dispelled the demons of missing at 12 feet at Woodland and cleared it 2x. New guy, Kenny threw a bunch and is clearing 11 with the #42, which is good as he weighs about 185, so he'll be a lightweight. Ryan is struggling with the 56, need more work here. I threw about 10x, focused on one thing...fast hips. Forget "strong", drive my hips up and forward as FAST as I can. I cleared several at 12, but the height doesn't matter. What matters is training my muscles to move FAST.

Then some stones, trying to keep my left elbow up. I have years of bad habits to break here. Also, did several shuffle throws, which went out to 34+...MUST actually practice this.

Finished up with LWFD, did about 6-8 throws. I didn't care how far it went, I just wanted to feel my hips drive the ball in the back and move forward a little bit in the first turn so I don't foul out the back. I tried grinding my foot in the grass as I noted Kit's suggestion yesterday....no go. Doesn't work for me. That's not a problem, if I focus on the hips driving the ball and reversing my feet instead of jumping around, I'm fine. Last throw of the evening was 50+, right down the pipe.

[RogerWS76]

I am certainly no weightlifter and others will correct me if I am wrong but I think that if you are going for speed that as soon as you feel that the weight is "going slow" you should stop your reps. I think that as you work on this your speed will increase and you can get more reps but if you continue when you are slow, those extra reps will only contribute to the red slow muscle fibers and not the white fast twitch muscle you want to develop.

Also on your "Elbow up" issue. Try thinking of it and as throwing your elbow out and up at a 45 degree angle. Your forearm will then follow and "whip" around, opening your chest.

In other words instead of elbowing the dwarf up side his head, pop him on the TOP of his head on your elbow's way down.

[Martin Roy]

Interesting point. As you feel the weight slowing down, ostensibly shifting from engaging the fast twitch fibers to the slow twitch fibers, if you decreased the weight to maintain the speed would you continue engaging the fast twitch fibers thereby enabling more reps? Or, once you've exhausted them, do they simply shut down?

[RogerWS76]

Again, I am NOT a weightlifter but I believe both are true! Of course if you can push more weight fast I think you will get faster. There is a balance point just doing ten pounds fast won't increase your speed past the ten pound resistance but trying to push a hundred pounds fast when you cannot will not help increase speed either.

From our genetics we all have a different distribution of these different kinds of muscle fiber but I DO think we can maximise the fast twitch by USING it! BUT if we are having to slow down and push hard to get a rep our muscles will revert to maximising the slow twitch to get the job done.

[RogerWS76]

This fast twitch fiber (along with good technique) is why smaller guys like Dustin Scott can throw the Open Stone 38 feet! While we are just pining for 30 or 35!

I believe that fast training will ALSO help with the WoB issues too! You can refer to guys like Josh Grace for evidence of that!

[Alan H]

The Plan
Overhead Press 12 x 3 @ 125
Deadlift, 12 x 3 x 245
accessory 1 - pylo boxes
accessory 2 - hammer wind

The Reality
Overhead Press - 9 x 3 @ 125 ... plus 6 @ 95 for warmup...left thumb tendon couldn't take it any more. If that had been healthy, I probably could have done two more before they became silly-slow
Deadlift ... 9 x 3 x 220....no way do this @ 245, but if I'd had straps, could have probably done 2-3 more
hammer wind ab crushers ... 2 x 8 x 10 pound ball
no pylo boxes, no time!

------------------

Roger, I'm basically putting into practice what you're saying. I would LIKE to do Matts program to the letter, but I can't, without slowing down, bigtime. Well, that's NOT why I'm doing this, so I just stop. Even to get 9-10 sets of 3, *Fast* I have to take off 10-20 pounds from my recommended percentages. Oh, well...we do what we can!

[o1d_dude]

http://store.sorinex.com/Tendo-Weigh...yzer-p/t-2.htm

By the time you think you're starting to slow down, the tendo unit would have picked that up several reps previously. Realistically, none of us are going to put down the $1600 to buy one of these things so we really have to pay strict attention to the bar speed.

Ultimately the speedy reps are much more important than the amount of weight you have loaded on the bar. Disengage the ego and remove some plates to keep the speed up. Make all the reps.

Louie Simmons (Westside) has some sort of formula for doing quick reps that you can look up online but it's along the lines of 55-60% of your 1RM. I used to do 8 sets of three with 135 lbs with either bands or chains at the time my 1RM was 225-ish. My stones were pretty good then for my age.

And there is the possibility that Matt Vincent is strong in spite of his training templates. It's hard to know what really works unless you train competitive lifters or athletes. The results will speak for themselves. Louie Simmons has the competition results to show from the athletes he's trained.

Most of us are plenty strong or at least strong enough. It's our technique that needs work. Be a thrower who lifts, not a lifter who throws.

[Alan H]

Easy CHAC practice last night. I mostly played "coach" as I was pretty tore up from gym work. I did do 4-5-6 sheaf tosses at about 75% crank, just remembering how to do it, and hitting the block. Then LWFD with the womens weight. Last night was all about hitting positions, being patient, and throwing pretty. I mostly sat there, but did throw 3-4. AFter that the guys threw hammer and I just played coach.

[Alan H]

My wrist tendonitis is getting in the way of workouts. Ice and the wrist brace aren't enough, I'm going to have to get the cortisone shot. Today I had to do high pulls, catching cleans *hurt*. I took Judy and Schanatae over to the gym and hung out while Donna the Trainer showed them how to clean. Then we did some deadlifts.

I'm still aware, however, that in the array of possible grievances, this tendonitis thing is a tiny one.
Easy workout, today.
High Pulls ...8 x 3 x 145... was going to clean but wrist tendonitis really hurt.
shrugs ... 2 x 10 x 135
db snatch ... 8 each side x 65 lbs
Hung core blast ... 10 x 65

[Alan H]

I bailed on the gym yesterday....just too much pain, so I made an appointment with the lovely Dr. Jennifer to get my decade-sufficient dose of cortisone anti-inflammatory. It's now working it's way up and around inside the tendon sheath, along with some local anaesthetic. No lifting or throwing for the rest of the week....a setback, but not a huge one. Hopefully this will take care of the issue.