Friday, January 28, 2011

She's here!



Tatiana showed up this week. 16 kg, or 1 pood of beauty and brutality. I did a fun little workout today with my family of kettlbelles. I started with 15 minutes of half turkish getups with one 12kg...yes...me and my pathetic getups. I think I need at least a 10kg, because while I can sorta do the 12kg, on my left side my right leg I cannot keep down. I have trouble keeping my opposite leg down partly because I'm not rolling onto my arm correctly. I think this is a pretty good demo of the getup




And from there I progressed to double 12kg clean and presses. And in 15 mins achieved 12 sets of 3 reps. Things to work on: when i get tired I do let the 'bells slap my wrist harder than I should. I don't tame the arc very well.

And then 10 fun minutes of 20sec on/40sec off of swings and snatches. I pulled in my 20kg for the swings at the end and attempted one set of snatches with my 16kg and the rest with 12kg.

So about that 16kg...um...yea. Really what I did was high arm pulls with the 16kg on my left and and did manage 3 on my right side, but I'm going to be honest (like I was in my last post), 16kg still scares me a bit. I'm meeting with an RKC instructor on monday to have a movement screen and I will work with him towards my RKC this year...so I'm also feeling a little bit of a 'maybe I'll just work with him a bit more to get over this mildly irrational fear first'. I believe the way to move through this is found in the hip snap and the rest is mental.

What is interesting is lately I'm still reading (not commenting much) triathlon blogs and i love to hear what people are up to...what they are training for, what they want to do...but I don't have that 'pull' at the moment. But I do miss my bike (and bike fitness!!)and I do hope to visit the track this year.

The interesting thing I reflected on today is how 'easy' it is for people to come to triathlon or really anything with no background and no foundation for what they can do and what they are able to do. You sign up for your first race. You download a training plan (maybe). You follow it. You complete your race and you are all grins. Next step: new race, new training plan...and it keeps going. What you don't account for are the things that sideline you or taking a lot of time off.

I trained with my new kettlbell gym from July through the end of Sept when they closed. 3 months. Not a lot, but I had a good program that keep progressing every week. And I got stronger. And then the gym closed. And Oct when crazy, and November came around and I had my life back and I trained some...and sort of haphazard...and then there was December of more chaos in lack of focus for any kind of training and now I'm in January and I have lost that beautiful strength I had back in Sept. And what is hard for athletes is that constant thought of 'I used to not be here'. So I am letting it push me forward. I want my strength back from Sept but I also want something akin to 2009....I don't need to be in HIM shape...but this RKC certification process will put me in something equivalent. But this must happen without my body rebelling again like last year.

Forward!

3 comments:

Kathleen @ ForgingAhead said...

Here's to health as we continue to explore what our bodies and minds can do!

Speed Racer said...

Yes, it is interesting how people progress (and don't) when you're out of the blogosphere for awhile.

Related story that's not directly about you, but you'll see my thought process. I had a client yesterday who threw down his kettlebell and screamed "FUCK!" before storming off.

Me: "What's up?"
Him: "I'm just so frustrated. This shouldn't feel THIS HARD! I used to be... [insert idealized "golden period" summary that probably closely resembles the truth here]."

The thing is, that life got in the way, as it will. He pursued other goals (which involved beer and restaurants). But now he's in the gym (or on the kettlebell) and training. He's doing EXACTLY what he needs to do to fix his problem. Strength and fitness ebbs and flows, sometimes you'll feel great, and sometimes you'll feel like crap. But you need the crappy times to not take the good ones for granted, right? Or else you'd never even NOTICE how strong you are. So what's the point of getting frustrated? This is just where you are right now... on the way to the best shape of your life as you will happen to define it several years after it has passed.

Anyway, that's what I'm telling my fat, slow, out-of-shape self.

Enjoy the journey. That is all.

Liz & Mindy said...

i just read(4-hour body) that this is one of the best exercises that you can do for "pre-hab", basically injury prevention. I really like this video, its a great find. Thanks.