Road to Atlanta (Training Log, Day 1)

Monday 24th November

Training Log [Day 1]

Initial Goals for Atlanta: 

-To achieve VII Rank in the 75kg weight class [150 reps for jerk/snatch and 35 reps for long cycle]

-Jerk [2x 24kg, 5 rpm (50) for 10mins]

-Snatch [1x 24kg, 12rpm (120) for 10 mins]

-Long Cycle [2x 24kg, 4 rpm (40) for 10 mins]

Warm-Up

2 Arm Swings:

-20x OH Swing @ 16kg

-20x Swing @ 24kg

-20x Swing @ 32kg (first time using my 32kg bell)

Jerk

-2x 24kg, 5 mins @ 5rpm (25)

-2x 24kg, 3 mins @ 5rpm (15)

-2x 24kg, 2 mins @ 5rpm (10)

*Just wanted to ease back into this one today and figured 10 minutes under the bells wouldn't be a bad place to start. I rested about 3 minutes between sets. 

**My rack position was immediately different from when I competed in Michigan. I was able to find a comfortable position with the bells overlapping as usual, but today I was able to keep the bells closer than previously and was able to overlap one hand over the other which made the rack feel a lot tighter and more secure. I had attempted this before with little joy. However, since I last competed I have dropped a few pounds, I'm down from 183# to about 168#, so I think this may be a contributing factor with regard to my rack.

Snatch

1x 24kg, 4 mins @ 12rpm (24/24, with 1 hand switch)

1x 24kg, 3 mins @ 12rpm (18/18, with 1 hand switch)

1x 24kg, 3 mins @ 12rpm (18/18, with 1 hand switch)

*I rested about 3 mins between sets.

**First set felt the best, second wasn't good technique felt sloppy, third set was a little better. I need to put in some quality time on this one. Definitely the toughest lift for me.

Jump Squats

-2x 24kg, 3 sets of 50reps

1 Arm Swings

-1x 32kg, 20/20reps

I'm fairly happy with today's workout, if nothing else it's a starting point to work from.

The Road to Atlanta (day 1)

Monday 24th November 2008

It's been a while since my last post. Life's been hectic and my time has been limited, but caught a minute here so I thought I would throw something down. 

It's Monday morning 6:30am. I have decided I'm going to attempt to journal my road and preparation to the AKC Kettlebell Meet in Atlanta, December 13th. 

Firstly, here's a little background info on recent events in my life and training. Following my CKT certification in NYC last August I suffered a severe hamstring injury which put me out of commission for quite a while. In the quest to work out at lighter loads and allow my leg to recover I stumbled upon CrossFit training and thought I'd give it a try. I was extremely shocked to discover that my fitness level was not as high as I had always believed. The CrossFit WODS kicked my butt initially and I felt humbled seeing the kind of performances other crossfitters were producing! This proved to be the fuel I needed to ignite my motivational fire inside to get back on the road to recovery and ultimately peak condition. So I decided to hit these type of workouts for a while and lay off the K-bells until I was 100% and my fitness level had increased. 

This worked well for me. My hamstring recovered and I feel that my level of fitness right now exceeds where it has ever been, so life was good! I had planned to next not to compete in K-bell competition until the New Year, but then I got an e-mail from my good friend and mentor Ken Blackburn regarding the AKC meet in Atlanta. Which happens to be on my doorstep as I live just outside Charlotte, NC so I immediately wanted to go. I got this info 4 weeks out from the meet, so I immediately went into a panic as I knew that was little prep time and I hadn't picked up the 24's since my last competition in Michigan in July! 

Initially I thought I'm not going to be able to compete, it's not enough time. I'm not the type of person to just enter competitions, If I go, I go to win or at least perform to the best of my ability. The last thing I want to do is show up at Atlanta and post lower numbers than I hit in Michigan! What to do? I pondered a while... Then it became clear, I'm a Kettlebell lifter and I love a challenge! The decision was made. Time to go to work! 

This was a week ago. I managed to hit a short 4 minute jerk set and a 2 minutes snatch set last week before I was hit by food poisoning! Yeah food poisoning, I mean are you F$@*!#ng kidding me! This cost me another week of training! So here I am 3 weeks out, feels like I'm starting from scratch, but I made my decision to compete and there's no backing out now! So today's the day, Day #1. Stay tuned, this should be interesting.......