Torchin' the Rhomboids, Blastin' the Core: A Log

[damonwells]

Bronan, I am curious what your conditioning days are going to look like. I am in the Army, and I basically do a powerlifting routine with a 4-6 week trainup for the APFT. I am 6' 250lbs so it is no small task. Since you are running 3 miles, I would assume you are doing longer intervals (800-1600).

I am using a pretty decent 30 day trainup that we are testing today (APFT!).

Will let you know how it goes.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Chins: BWx8,7,6. First thing in the morning. Felt weak.

Conditioning: Treadmill Tabata with speed at 10.5 and incline at 3.0. This was tough. 2 minute rest. Rower Tabata for a total of 967 meters. I don't know anything about rowing, so I have no idea whether that's a good distance for a Tabata.

Damon, to answer your question I am taking Justin Lascek's recommendation and limiting my conditioning to 8-10 minute sessions. The key is to go very hard. For instance, 10.5 on the treadmill Tabata is much faster than I plan to run my PFT. I think it's pretty well established that if one trains shorter distances/times at a high intensity, there will be a good amount of carryover to longer efforts. As I understand it this is one of the general ideas underlying HIIT, Crossfit, and Crossfit Endurance. It works for me, as I ran my best PFT when I wasn't training any more than maybe 400m at a time in intervals. This way you get most of the benefits of LSD without the muscle wasting, etc. Also, you don't have to run long distances, which is nice.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

So perhaps I should run longer intervals--800m for instance--but I don't really know how much difference that makes as long as I thrash myself for 8-10 minutes. Plus I don't really want to run anything longer than a 400m.

[kopp]

remember that your PFT isn't going to help or hurt your shot at promotion if you never do an MCI...

For my two cents in this discussion, I ran my fastest mile and 3 mile since high school last fall running almost entirely repeat max effort 400m. On the other hand, if it had been 200m or 800m i don't know if there would have been a big difference, running as hard as possible for short periods is money regardless of the specific distances. I may start using tabata sprints when i start running again, that hadn't occurred to me.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Squat:
325x4
322.5x4x2
322.5x3

Bench:
227.5x5x3

Deadlift:
360x3
355x3

Squat and deadlift didn't go exactly as planned. Got the volume but not the sets of 5 I wanted. No surprise there because I did conditioning just yesterday and didn't take a rest day since I'm behind on the week. Exams will be over for the most part on Monday. I plan to sleep about 14 hours that night and get back on track. On the bright side, this was a new 3rm on the deadlift. In fact it would've been a new 1rm had I only done one rep.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Also did 45 degree back extensions with a barbell on the traps:

50x10x2

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Squat: 322.5x5x3
Press: 150x5x3
Powerclean: 185x3x3

Gym closed early tonight so powercleans got cut short. Reduced the weight a bit on presses and went back to sets of five. Hoping that will help me break through this 155-160 plateau I've been at for a while. Really, really need to get some 1/2 pound plates for the press and bench. Felt good to get back in there after an exam week that was pretty rough on the food and sleep.

Also played 9 holes this morning. Need to hit the range first next time I go out.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Gym closed an hour earlier than I had expected, so I had to race through these. I alternated sets of squat and bench with about 2 minutes rest in between each set. Not ideal, but I got my 15 reps on each. Will knock out deadlift, pullups, and a short conditioning session tomorrow morning. Way off schedule after a family illness required some unexpected travel.

Squat: 325 x 5, 3, 3, 2, 2
Bench: 230 x 5, 3, 3, 2, 2

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Pullups: BWx8
Chins: BWx8,6

Deadlift: 345x3x2. Back felt weak on these. Too much driving, sitting, and missing workouts lately.

Back Extensions: 55x10x3

Conditioning: Treadmill Push, 10 seconds on, 20 seconds off for 4 minutes. I read about this on elitefts the other day and had never heard of it, so I decided to give it a try. Absolutely brutal. If this is anything like pushing the prowler, I think I understand the hype now. Give it a try.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Squat:
225 x 5, 4, 3

Press:
150 x 5, 5, 4

Power Snatch:
Some singles and doubles at 135.

Time to switch to some form of intermediate programming. Power snatches will be fun if I can get decent at them.