Friday December 7th

First Friday of the new cycle, I went pretty light with my jerks and snatch balances.  Since I'll be working up to five sets of five and snatch balances tend to hurt my shoulder sometime I'm keeping these pretty light.  With the jerks I will eventually work up to a heavy single that probably won't be for a few months.  The snatch balances will never be heavier than maybe triples.

On Wednesday I.......

Worked out again at Restor Fountain Valley (John Horsly has a platform there) and this was cleans and front squat day. Three sets of 5 x 50kg for the cleans and 3 sets of 5 reps x 60kg for the front squats. I very happy both felt easy especially the front squats. I had been front squatting AFTER back squatting all through the fall and now they feel easy by themselves.

Sorry for the silence

I've been working on a project that might change my career path, so I haven't had time really to concentrate on my blog. After doing a couple months of hypertrophy work, sort of your off-season GPP work, I started my second year of seriously dedicated Olympic lifting. Last summer I got up to about 75 K clean and a 55 kg snatch.  I didn't really squats back squat or front squat too much for several months.  So in this off-season I got up to several sets of eight with a hundred kilos in the back squats and sets of eight with about 60 kg in the front squats.  Now it's not as high as I wanted to get to but as December rolled around and this project I've been working on looks like it's coming to fruition I decided to go back to the Olympic lifts a little earlier and start off a little more structured.  So Monday of this week.  I did three sets of five in the snatch and three sets of five in the back squat.  I stayed pretty light in the snatch because I want to be of the get up to five sets of five in a couple weeks and I'm know I'm not in shape to handle really to much more weight.  In the back squat I was able to do  225lbs for three sets of five, which is all right and Ill work up to five sets of five with this in the next couple weeks. This lighter work with more volume for these lifts hopefully will help me get to my goals of a snatch of over 60 kg and a clean of 90 kg or more.  Well that's all for now and I hope to update you soon on the facility I'm working on.

Back to the beginning!

When first considering what you do after back surgery following physical therapy must get good direction from someone who has had the surgery you had and had the issues you have. Bad backs normally have a few things in common. One, poor core strength. Two, normally the person with the bad back does not move properly. Proper movement patterns also known as movement efficiency is the key to decreasing your risk for back injury. Core strength and proper movement patterns are not hard to learn but they must be directed by somebody who knows them intimately. This is why I would recommend myself or any of the people I have spoken of in this blog to help you regain that independence you once had. At this time I will go over a few exercises that you could find on the Internet examples of which should give you a good idea as to what people are talking about when they talk about core work. Learning how to execute a bridge or a plank could be the difference between back pain and full dynamic movement without any pain. Now movement pattern that is often spoken about in terms of reducing back injury risk is the hip hinge. This is an easy movement to learn especially for those who have had any kind of dance or athletic jumping background. The key is the pelvic tilt. The pelvic tilt is controlled by a number of muscles wanted particular is the psoas.The psoas is a long strong muscle that attaches near the top of the femur and then the lateral anterior aspects of the lumbar spine. This muscle often becomes shortened and weakened due to sitting all day long. The hip hinge is performed by placing a dowel four feet long behind the head and running along the spine to the buttocks. The dowel should remain in contact with the back of the head spine between the shoulder blades and the SI joint at the base of the spine as you flex your hips and your knees. This is the hip hinge simple but some people just have trouble in this motion. Practice this and it will go a long way in decreasing low back discomfort.

New Blog

I've started a new blog. It's called "Training the Older Athlete". It's will be all about training the over 35 athlete that involved with anaerobic sports like basketball, volleyball, tennis, weightlifting and so on. I will still blog about my come back from back surgery and my torn quad repair. But this new blog will have more training tips to help you continue to play the sports you love!

Offseason training for the older athlete (summer sports)

Remembering that recovery is the key for the older athlete's success, these workouts should be three days a week at most, four if you are doing no other physical activity. A good split to start out would be legs, upper body push and then last w/o of the week would be pulling exercises with deadlifts of you can tolerate them! This is my third week in and today I did 2x10 back squat @ 192.5lbs and 2x10 front squat 122.5. RDL's 135 x 10)3 plus 10)3 bw calf raises.

Notes of the past week!

I am now OVER the 90% Dr Kramer said I should expect to achieve after my torn quad tendon. I've been doing 75kg cleans for a while now and this past week I did an easy 55kg snatch. I have done an 90kg clean some years back but that was with straps so I'm counting my 80kg clean I did before my back surgery as my PR. My PR snatch is 57.5kg.