Good Workout and a New Toy in the Making

Today's workout pretty much focused solely on k-bell juggling. I did circuits of:

10 same hand flips one each hand
10 hand to hand flips
25 two-hand flips

I waited about 60-90 seconds in between circuits and if the bell dropped I immediately picked it up to complete the desired number of reps.

I performed six of the above circuits before moving on to 3 sets of 25 anchor pulls and 3 sets of 6 TGUs on each side.

After my workout was done I set out on making a new tool to add to the repertoire. I recently read an article from Steve Maxwell about making your own Macebell on the cheap - since I don't have the $200 to lay down on an "authentic" Macebell, I decided to give Mr. Maxwell's advice a try.

Here's a picture of the homemade Macebell setting up, should be ready to use in a few days. All it took was a heavy-duty shovel handle, a bucket of Quickrete and a mini basketball. I already had the b-ball, so my total investment was about $14.00 and maybe twenty minutes - can't wait to give it a try!

This Week on TSB

New piece up on TSB, this week I talk about trying to make sense of all of the confusing information handed out on the internet regarding your diet. Check it out here...

Making Sense of it All - The Diet Edition

Thanks for stopping in, and I hope you enjoy!

Inventory Sucks but Stomach Viruses are Worse

I've got "physical inventory" coming up at my day job this week, those of you who've ever had the pleasure of working in a warehouse or retail establishment probably know my fate all too well.

It's days of prep followed by hour after hour of monotony, counting thousands and thousands of pieces of thousands and thousands of items - it promises to put a proverbial damper on my Thursday and Friday evenings (maybe very, very late evenings) and, worse case scenario, much of my Saturday afternoon as well. It wouldn't have been so bad but for Thursday being one of my intense training days - which could have been transitioned to today - enter the dreaded stomach virus...

My son (just under two, and visible in both my more recent card tearing and my most recent bending videos), came down with a nasty stomach bug yesterday evening. Poor little guy threw up more than half a dozen times since the first.

Knowing that a normal training session would be impossible this evening at home with my wife at work I opted to make my lunch hour a training session of sorts.

I managed two hundred Hindu Squats, one hundred push-ups and somewhere around thirty pull-ups before my time expired - tonight I'll hit some grippers and if time allows after I get the kids to bed maybe even a few k-bell snatches.

Sunday's Workout & New Video

Sunday was beautiful in my neck of the woods, so my workout was done completely in the backyard, and pretty much entirely with k-bells and some grippers.

30lb k-bell
100 snatches switch hands every 25 reps
100 swings switch hands every 25 reps
60 cleans switch hands every 10 reps
60 high pulls switch hands every 10 reps

16k bell
3 X 10 Bups each hand
3 X 10 snatches
3 X 10 C & P

Fifteen or so minutes of juggling - same hand flips, hand to hand flips, two hand flips etc. I finished up the k-bell portion of my workout with some BUP tosses from hand to hand and caught it on video...



Finished up the workout by hitting some sets for max reps on my HG200, working my way to 100 reps on each hand.

Good workout!

New Article up on BMF Sports

We've breached new ground over on my second home - BMF Sports now has a section devoted to endurance sports training. I know much of my training now involves feats of strength and borderline crazy activities, but I certainly spent my time in the trenches with endurance sports.

I put together a little piece on cross training, but not in the sense that most people think of it. In most cases when cross training is mentioned it's primarily in terms of strength or skill athletes working on their "wind" - in part because it's widely known that many endurance athletes don't want any parts of weight training.

Well, in The Strength to Endure, I discuss precisely the reasons that more endurance athletes should hit the weight room, have a look and let me know what you think.

Hope you Enjoy.

Good Workout Yesterday! + Tried Protyme protein powder

My hands were a little bit burnt from the recent gripper/kettlebell work, so I decided to not really do anything that would directly effect them yesterday. I opted instead on doing a bit of a variant of the old "Squats and Milk" routine, sans the milk.

I performed pretty much everything in one giant circuit with virtually no rest between the individual exercises, the weights were really nothing special but they weren't necessarily intended to be. I wanted to work intensely and quickly without stressing my hands, and I wanted to do something completely different from what I've been doing lately.

Warm-up
Squats 155 X 20
Dumbbell Pullovers 35 X 20
Stiff Legged Deadlifts 175 X 15
Dumbbell Pullovers 35 X 20
Dips bodyweight X 15
Axle Rows 90 X 12
Dips bodyweight X 15
Axle Rows 140 X 5
Dips bodyweight X 15
Axle Rows 120 X 6

Was in and out of the dungeon in about thirty five minutes, feeling great.

I'm normally not a huge supplement guy, aside from ACT energy drinks, I haven't really been taking anything, but when my sponsor BMF released Protyme protein powder I had to give it a shot. At 110 cals and 26 grams of protein with zero fat, Protyme certainly fit the bill in terms of keeping in line with my diet. I've tried a number of protein powders in the past and haven't really been a huge fan of any of them - most either didn't taste very good, or were a royal pain to mix without the use of appliances.

I was pleased to find that Protyme mixed up super easy in a simple water bottle, after just a few seconds of shaking - no lumps (that's a first from my experience.) Protyme actually tastes good as well, really good in fact - it was smooth and left no aftertaste - and for the first time that I can remember, I didn't have to force down the last of the bottle.

Props to BMF for putting together another incredible product, that delivers exactly what it promises on the label.

Thanks Bud!

Grippers and Prasara

Worked grippers for the last two nights in a similar scheme to my previously posted gripper workout:

HG150 X 100 each hand
HG200 X 50 each hand
Some Vulcan Play

I think I'll continue with this schematic through the rest of this week and then graduate to the HG200 for my initial volume set and the HG250 for the secondary volume set.

I've been practicing some poses from the Prasara Yoga book and I've learned one very important thing - when your mobility sucks yoga is a hell of a lot more difficult than it looks! I've focused on my breathing and on fluid transfers between poses that I can actually do and I am noticing a bit of a difference - my mobility is still in the toilet, but getting a little better and I don't seem to be as easily stressed at work, sothings are looking up on that avenue!

I also put in a request for a price on a twenty pound clubbell from one of the gents on the gripboard (the clubbell is another genius training modality from Prasara Yoga man Scott Sonnon), if the price is right I just may add that to my ever growing collection of grip/conditioning toys.