“Beware the Ides of March”, huh? — hey, who says? Meh, maybe for Caesar, but not for me. I tested out my newly-purchased (yea Craig’s List!) weight vest today, and it worked swimmingly; a great addition to the ol’ weightlifting toolbox! Sorry to disappoint, Caesar.
I began today’s workout with an extended leg-centric warm-up, focusing on plenty of lateral lunges, “duck walks”, skip lunges, lunging “pick-ups”, and “Rockette” kicks. The reason for this is that following an extended fixie session (I biked for approximately 2-and-a-half hours on Saturday), my legs and hips become rather tight/immobile; the down-side of the human body, simple machine interface. The aforementioned exercises are a great way to loosen things back up. And speaking of warm-ups, Mike Young (of Athletic Lab) has a great warm-up primer out on DVD. Highly recommended stuff. Give him a shout over at HPC and see if he has any more “misprints” remaining — the DVD, cover and insert were mislabeled as a “sprint mechanics” DVD. High quality material at a much-reduced price.
Here’s how the meat of this morning’s workout shaped-up:
pistol squats: 15 lb DBs x 6 (each leg); 15 lb DBs + 30 lb vest x 5, 5, 4 (had to “spot” the right leg on each rep of last round)
elevated feet ring flyes: 30lb vest x 7, all rounds
single-leg deadlift (barbell): 135 x 6 (each leg); 135 + 30 lb vest x 6, 5, 5 (failed last round, left leg, at 3)
elevated feet ring flyes: 30lb vest x 7, all rounds
So, 4 total rounds — 4 sets of pistols and single-leg deads, and 8 total sets of ring flyes. Very little rest between movements. Elevated feet ring flyes beat the hell out of any kind flat-bench pressing motion, if you ask me. It’s a more natural flye/pressing motion for one thing, more shoulder-friendly (via easily-manipulated hand positioning), and the entire body is engaged throughout the duration of the movement (think “praying man” plank to the nth degree). Really, unless you’re a powerlifter, I really don’t see any need for a flat bench. Need to blast the tris, you say? Load-up a weight belt and hit dips — there is no better tri movement, in my opinion.
The right leg is slowly but surely catching up and getting back into the game. I think what I’m dealing with here is a sleepy gluteus medius. Identify the weakness, and correct it.
Tonight’s nosh (and tomorrow’s lunch): crock pot rabbit, and boiled & buttered beets. Yum!
Theory to Practice 
ouch!!! inspiring but my legs ache reading this!
where are the rings – at your gym?
I keep them in my (well-stocked) gym bag, along with my other big-boy toys 🙂 These are my rings of choice — you won’t find any better.
Keith,
I stole the following from Mountain Athlete and use them constantly for hip mobility. They work GREAT and are very fun to do.
Ryon
Hey, yeah — those look great.
do you find the rogue rings better than trx?
how to you use them, throw them over a tree somewhere, or take them to the gym and hook them over the pull-up bar?
just curious 🙂
I prefer the Rouge rings because they’re much more solidly built. I also prefer a curved handle over a straight handle. Just a personal preference on both points. I use mine both in the gym (looped over the cable machine) and outdoors (over high monkey bars, in the park).
Keith,
Do you think it’s possible to be posterior dominant to a fault? I don’t think, in my years of training, coaching, being involved with athletics, that I’ve ever met an athlete that was so strong through his posterior that it was causing him problems.
Theoretically, I suppose someone could be PC dominant to a fault. In practice, though, like you, I’ve never run across it. I’m sure there is some optimal posterior/anterior strength and power ratio for each “framework” (skeleton, ligament, tendon insertion, etc.) make-up, however. How such an imbalance would manifest, though, I’m not sure. Repetitive injury, maybe? But how many straight-up quad pulls has anyone ever run across? And usually those initially thought to be quad-related, on further investigation, actually turned out to be groin (and overstretch, at that) issues. It is an interesting thought, though. Even most knee problems can be traced back to a weakened ham/glute/PC issue or some sort. Maybe someone with more of a strongman/powerlifting focus can offer insight into that realm, but even there I can’t see it as a problem/performance limiter. Sounds like a potential topic for someone’s kinesiology master’s 🙂
FWIW, my orthopedist says that the knee-problem patients he sees overwhelmingly tend to have hammies that are weak in relation to their quads (I’m a happy exception, but my problem is worn and missing cartilage, not an alignment issue). I would assume that weak hams are probably a sign that glutes and the whole posterior chain are relatively weak as well. I would take it all as one more piece of evidence that in real life, worrying about being “too PC-strong” is sort of like my worry, back in high school, that lifting weights might make me “too ripped” (as if!).