I love trees
"Murder you darlings", is a phrase attributed to Quiller-Couch, (a gent of sorts
from a century ago), and basically means one needs to take an objective view on
their personal work (in this context anyway), or at least gain some emotional distance
so as to accurately judge their own work, to see what’s really there, as opposed
to what they want to see. My affinity for Steve Justa’s work, as mentioned
previously, led me to experiment with my training program. Well, that kind of
failed, but also resulted in some valuable insights. I say kind of failed
because whilst I was getting stronger overall, my press was lagging. Heavier
kettlebells were genuinely feeling lighter, but the overall volume, or lack of,
saw little progress in pressing. True, it takes more than a month and a bit to
appraise a system, but my press hadn’t improved, and at worst felt more
difficult.
Further reasoning as to change of plan is that it took me
away from my goals of wanting to eventually certify as an SFG. There, a half
dozen lifts are taught and honed to perfection. Me practicing dozens of random
lifts was a distraction. Remember, one of my all-time favourite quotes belongs
to Saint-Exupery, “Perfection is finally attained not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”. Makes sense. In
training, specific stimulus produces specific adaptation, thus, I need to focus
on the core lifts of the SFG, if I want to really excel at them, and nought
else. This is also my approach with my clients, and I was leading away from
that.
To rectify, I shall practice the necessary lifts. They are;
-
Double Swing
-Get-Up
-Double Clean
-Double Press
-Double Front Squat
-Snatch
As you can see, quite bare. In addition, five pullups are
required to pass the entry test, so those will be trained also.
I have settled into a 5 x days per week frequency nicely, so
I’ll keep that. The basic outline will be revealed over the coming weeks when I
post my weekly sessions.
Masterpiece
I am further experimenting with my training template (because
it’s in my nature to constantly improve). This time, I want to try Fatigue
Cycling, as outlined in Pavel’s masterpiece, Beyond Bodybuilding. This is
another one of my favourites. There is so much training knowledge in here that
most people will never truly absorb its total contents. Anyways, I won’t do too
much talking about it as I’d rather just get stuck in and then analyse the
results, whether favourable or not. I am using the principles with kettlebells
so it’s definitely something new.
So that’s that. My snatch training, on the other hand, has
been progressing well. Details will be revealed further on. I also need to
clarify that I also have chronic issues with my arms. I have hypertonic muscles
in both arms, which basically means I have very tense muscles as a result of
insufficient restoration. I experience pins and needles sensation in both hands
constantly. If I went to a doctor I would in all likelihood be diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome. Continual self-massage has helped enormously, so I’ll keep that up
and see how that turns out. On the other hand (get it?), current treatments are
corticosteroids, wrist splints, and if those fail then surgery.
F**k that.
If anyone thinks I am dismissive of medical
intervention then they’re right- for myself, I am, and only for myself. For clients, my professional recommendation is to listen to the doctors. There is no double-standard here, I simply take responsibility for my own health. I now realise the musculature in both my
arms have been chronically stressed for over a decade, and with the increase in
training my arms have now had enough. It means just as it took a long time to
arrive at my current condition, it will probably also take a long time to
rectify it. Surgery and splints, also anti-inflammatories, in my opinion, are
treating the symptoms and not the cause, and is reflective of the
medical/pharmaceutical community in general. The cause is the hypertonicity of the
muscles, as evidenced when I “release” the muscles via self-massage, resulting
in a feeling of ease of movement and disappearance of symptoms.
To sum up;
-
My initial Justa Singles/kettlebell adaptation
wasn’t quite as successful as I had envisioned; it works, just not what I was
after
- I will experiment implementing Fatigue Cycling with
kettlebells
- I’m hammering my arms, as they suck
