So Friday night I blew out a spoke on the ol’ fixie; big time bummer. Now normally this wouldn’t be such a big deal — a slow, careful limp back to the casa, an hour’s-worth of garage triage and repair, and everything is everything. However the bulk of my tools are sitting in a storage unit in Austin Texas; not of much use to me here in North Carolina. Bleh. Ok, then, this calls for a trip to the bike shop to get things right. Luckily Rocky Mount is blessed to have a bike shop like Moore’s to serve the small cycling community here. Support your local bike shop! I don’t know that I’d been able to get in much riding this weekend anyway; and the weather has been intermittently stormy, with high wind gusts — downright tornado-like. Anyway, the result of all of this is that I hung around the gym for my workouts this weekend. Fate-imposed chaos and fractal training. Hey, it’s all good; gotta make the most of the situation, right?
Oh, and did I mention that the thermostat went out on my truck on Friday as well? Augh. Lemme get to the workouts, before this turns into a parody of a sad country song.
But before I delve fully into the workouts themselves, though, I’d like to point out that I’ll be throwing some band work into the mix here and there over the following weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve worked with bands, and in my on-going effort to “keep my body guessing”, and to “better what’s lagging”, I’ve decided to sprinkle some band work into the ol’ “hopper”. Bands are excellent for helping to accommodate the strength curve for various movements, especially in such things as squats, deadlifts, good mornings, and various presses. Now, the weights I note here, along with the band set-up, will mean absolutely nothing to anyone other than me. For those following my workouts, though, the point is not so much the actual weight used, but the nature of the movement itself, and the fact that the bands essentially make the movement increasingly difficult in the portion of the exercise where the movement, because of the more advantageous angle of the prime mover (relative to the load), would normally become easier. In other words, in a normally-weighted good morning, a trainee would actually decelerate at the top of the motion because of the advantageous angle of the prime mover (glutes/hams) relative to the weight — otherwise, you’d just rather comically fling yourself backwards. Not so, however, when bands are employed. And be forewarned — bands are taxing in the way that Oly lifts are taxing, maybe more so. A little bit goes a long way.
Saturday, 4/24/10
low box front squats wide stance (w/black bands, single loop): 135 x 3, 3, 3; 155 x 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
Sunday, 4/25/10
good mornings (w/black bands, single loop): 95 x 3, 3, 3; 115 x 3, 3, 3
Alantis machine jump squat: 210 x 3 for each round
barbell floor press (w/bland bands, double loop): 135 x 5; 165 x 3; 175 x 3, 3; 185 x 3, 3
feet elevated ballistic push-ups: bw x 5, each round
Two separate exercise rounds on Sunday, with an approximate 10 minute break between the “lower” body and “upper” body supersets.
Note: bands should always be adjusted so as to be taught at the bottom of the movement, not slack; i.e., band tension should be present from the get-go.
Overheard in the gym on Sunday:
“Brah, waddaya trainin’ for?”
To which “brah” answered –
“to be 200 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal.”
Heh, good one, brah – rock on 🙂
Theory to Practice 