First workout after almost 2 weeks off.  My trainer took a vacation last week, so it has been almost 2 weeks since I last worked out with her.  Looking back, hindsight says that week off was sorely needed.  I needed a break from that routine.  I tried to make a commitment to make this 6am x-training class while my trainer was on vacation, but that didn’t work out…  On the first day that I was supposed to go to that class, I was sitting in my kitchen, half awake, looking at an empty coffee cup and wondering what the hell I was doing?  My 7am training is bad enough, 6am is laughable…  So that is how that went..

The workout for today was a simple (yeah right) conditioning routine, with some skill work on barbell snatch and lift.

The warmup was the usual

• 500 meter row
• high knee run
• Butt kicks
• lizard lunges – 25ft
• shoulder dislocates – 10 reps with PVC pipe
• good mornings – 10 reps
• overhead squat – 10 reps
• back squat – 10 reps

Next with the warm up out-of-the-way we worked on a quick tobada round.

3 rounds for time,  20 seconds on 10 second rest.

• 10 pistols (5 each leg)
• 10 ring pull ups

I completed this in just over 3 minutes.  Next up was a skill round to cover an exercise that really bothers me, but it is something I really need to focus on.  Olympic dead lifting.  When I try this with the PVC pipe to learn the form, it hurts my left shoulder that was damaged as a result of a high-speed accident.  Between the airbags and seat belts, my left shoulder, elbow and right wrist are pretty messed up and these injuries really affect my performance (more than I admit to my trainer sometimes and that’s not good).  But this one of those exercises that I need to do.  I have to push myself here because it will be the only way to recover my range of motion.  This has worked so far on the wrist, rotator cuffs, and elbow.  I have about 90-95% of my mobility back in my right wrist.  It will never be perfect, but I am still not able to hold  a barbell with more than 80lbs for a front squat.  I just can not take the weight on the wrist, which really sucks….

Anyhow, I have good form with the lifting once I get warmed up.  I have a hard time holding a good form with the PVC pipe.  that really bothered my shoulder.  But, the same motion with an empty barbell felt much better, and I was able to hold a good form.  Hopefully with more work like this I can start adding more weight.  But I will have to be patience, it took about 14 months of solid shoulder work before I saw any results.  Now even with my rotator cuff injuries, I can easily move my arms in a full range of motion.  By the end of the skill routine, I had my form down solid and we were working on the finer details of my form.

items I need to focus on:

• getting the arm movement right so I can get under the bar fast.
• keeping my hips up when in the dead lift position
• keeping my feet in the same position after getting under the bar and going into the squat.
• balance, balance and more balance…  I need to hydrate more before working out.  I am getting dizzy too easily under heavy exertion.

The last session of the day, another tobada…  but just a little harder..

3 rounds for time, no breaks

• 3 burpies
• 12 kettle bells – 44 lbs.
• 18 ring pull ups
• 24 lunges holding a 35lb weight overhead, arms straight.

The lunges killed me.  That’s all there is too it.  On the second round, on the last 6 steps  I could barely stand up out of the lunge.  I had to take a deep breath, concentrate and push myself up..  The final round, I could only take 3 steps at a time, and those final steps were very hard.  I could barely keep my balance and I kept dropping the weight.  That includes dropping it on my big toe…  owe..  Oh yeah…. did I mention that I wear those Vibram foot fingers?  OWE my toe hurt…

Overall, a good solid workout.  Got some more prowler workouts coming up soon.  Should be fun.