This Week on TSB

My latest article is up on TSB magazine, it goes into the reasons of why new trainees get so sore after working and what steps can be taken to eliminate that muscle pain. If you haven't been working out for too long and you still suffer from the residual aches and pains associated with a particularly hard session in the gym, you might want to check it out

Here

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for stopping in!

The Man of Fifty Snatches

Well my hand is in much worse shape today than it was yesterday, hurts like a you know what from the middle all the way to the edge of the pinkie side...

In the spirit of improving my left side to catch it up with my much stronger right I did a set of fifty kettlebell snatches on my left side, then went on to some left handed gripper work with the Vulcan.

I went back and watched Paul Knight's instructional on setting a gripper and I felt like I picked up a little more knowledge and bettered my technique a bit, then I proceeded to crank out sets of max parallel reps starting on level three and working my way up to a final of 4 on level 6. While not my biggest single close on the left side, it was much more volume than I've been doing on my left.

I also hit the dungeon for just a tiny bit of squat research.

It was a good night overall!

Son of a ...

Well, it was probably less than forty-eight hours that my hand felt one hundred percent before I hurt it again - and this time it's worse.

I hadn't bent anything in the last few days and everything felt like it was aligned so I decided to go for a 1/4 X 5 grade 5 from FBBC. I wasn't sure whether I could do it in under five minutes, but I was confident that I could do some serious damage to it.

I honestly don't know what happened, I didn't hear any kind of pop or crunch, but after hitting it hard for a few minutes I knew something wasn't right. Now I have a spot right off of the center of my palm in my right hand that's swollen and bruised - it almost feels like something got pushed out of place.

The worst part about it was that it was at the beginning of my workout, which pretty much crapped up the rest of my performance. I did manage some reps and holds on my hub and some decent kettlebell work, but V-bar, deads and two hand pinch were a bit painful.

They say that God doesn't close a door without opening a window, so I'll assume that this is the perfect time to get my left hand caught up to my right on grippers and to really work the research on my "squat theory".

Tetting Hub has Arrived!

The Warren Tetting Hub that I ordered from a Gripboard member arrived on my doorstep yesterday and this thing is beautiful. I immediately popped it onto my loading pin for a test drive and found out quickly that I've got plenty of work to do on my technique.

Here's a pic and progress updates will follow...







I also hit the dungeon for a few minutes this morning to work on my squat research, hopefully within six to eight weeks I'll have some very interesting results to report.

Good Workout Last Night

I wasn't feeling one hundred percent upon entering the dungeon, I had planned on getting outside into the backyard but a sudden thunderstorm ruined that plan. I though the disappointment was going to make it harder to get into a groove, but I managed to get into it with some good intensity almost right out of the gate.

I ended up doing lots of one and two hand pinch - I worked my blobs, blockweights and hex dumbbells by the face and spent some quality time doing holds for time on my newly created two hand pinch apparatus.

No major weights were lifted, but there was a good bit of volume. After the "pinch fest" I did some figure eights and basic kettlebell swings.

I finished up with a bit of "research" for my new squat theory and still had a bit of energy left for a little play on the Vulcan.

Vulcan
Lvl 3 X 5 each hand
Lvl 5 X 2 each hand
Lvl 6 X 1 each hand
Lvl 3 X 5 each hand

I purchased a tetting hub from one of the fine gents on the gripboard and am hoping that it will be here within the next few days - I've got some big plans for that hub!

This week on TSB

I'm a writer for TSB magazine, have been for a few months now. For those of you who don't know of TSB it's a pretty gnarly online men's magazine with advice on dating, success, social life, technology, fitness (where I come in) and a whole lot of other interesting stuff.

It can be funny, clever and downright crazy depending upon what you check out when you drop by - I honestly don't know why I haven't been linking to my articles over there.

Here's a link to this last week's piece on spring fitness

You can peruse the "Alpha Living" section if you'd like to find previous articles from me and moving forward I'll link to each new article for those of you who'd like to check them out. My focus thus far has been getting people (mainly beginners) motivated to get off their tails and get healthy and as the weeks go by I'll probably begin to touch on some more advanced topics.

If you do decide to head over there - thanks and I hope you enjoy!

The First Test

I had laid off of the gripper's for a few days in hopes that the cut in the webbing of my hand would heal and it's actually been feeling good so I decided to give the grippers a shot. Before the cut I had been working the #3 with some regularity since it arrived and felt light I was starting to make some progress, hopefully this will only be a very minor set back.

When I first put the #3 in my hand for a negative rep, I could tell that the heavy knurling combined with the excessive force needed to close this beast was going to be too much for my hand (hopefully I'll be fully recovered by Friday) - thankfully David Horne's Vulcan Gripper has no knurling!

Vulcan

Level 3 X 5 each hand
Level 4 X 3 each hand
Level 5 X 2 each hand
Level 6 X 1 each hand
Level 7 X 1 each hand
Level 9 X 3 sets of 3 negatives

I'm also working on an interesting theory for improvements on the squat - at this point the theory in only in it's infancy, but I'll report more as my research unfolds - all in all it was a pretty good night!