Um, ouch
24 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in New Rules of Lifting for Women Tags: DOMS, front squats, NROL4W, Squats
So the other day I accidentally ended up doing workout 1B from the New Rules of Lifting for Women. Today, therefore, I decided to do workout 1A. Yeah, what’s your point?
It’s a simple workout; squats, push-ups, seated rows, step-ups and jackknifes. I don’t have access to any kind of squat rack, so I decided front squats would make a reasonable substitute for back squats, and that I’d start light with 20kg. I haven’t squatted in a long time so I knew it’d be tough, and indeed the first set was challenging. What I didn’t expect was the burning, cramping pain in my quads that developed just as I was about to start set 2. Oh my. Apparently I’ve let myself go even more than I thought…
The second set didn’t feel particularly awful, and the rest of the workout was fine, but an hour later I already had pain in my quads that felt like really bad DOMS.
This should not happen after 2 sets of 15 (light) squats, and it does not bode well for tomorrow…
New rules, revisited
22 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Free weights, New Rules of Lifting for Women, Workouts Tags: NROL4W, workout
So today I found myself in a gym, with 40 minutes to kill. That never happens! So I had a flip back through my blog to find an early workout from Alwyn Cosgrove & Lou Schuler’s New Rules of Lifting for Women. I wanted to do workout 1A, but there’s no squat rack here (I know, right?!); workout 1B, however, was perfect.
The Olympic bar was in use, so some quick improvisation was in order. My super quick training session looked like this:
So that was an unexpected but highly enjoyable workout. I don’t have time to do the programme twice a week as it demands, but I think I’ll dig out the book and write out some workouts I can do at moments like this. It’s far too long since I lifted free weights consistently, and I feel the love affair rekindling 
Stats
06 Oct 2011 2 Comments
I am getting worryingly interested in the stats offered by wordpress about my blog. There is something mystical about being able to see what search terms someone has used to find my tiny little corner of Teh Interwebz, but something dangerous too.
By far the most commonly used term to find me is “kettlebell pentathlon”. This is gratifying, since it’s something I’m interested in and it’s nice to share it with people. But it also makes a tiny little bit of me spam those words over EVERY SINGLE PAGE just to see what happens. This part of me must not win.
It is also apparent that one day this week someone, somewhere on facebook linked to my blog, because I got well over 100 hits in one day, and most of them were on my pentathlon post. And I have no way of telling who, because the referrer was just “facebook.com”. That same little part of my soul wants to start trawling facebook to find out WHO WAS IT!!???!!1!!
But it won’t win. I hope….
Eeep!
04 Oct 2011 1 Comment
in Anecdotes
Uh-oh.
Something awful has happened, blog land. I’m in breach of blog pact, and the wrath of the Simple Dog is about to be unleashed upon me. My problem here is not a lack of subject material, but a lack of hours in the day to spend putting thoughts to keyboard, so I think a series of mini-posts are the way forward here. I wanted to tell The Story of the Grand Eurogamer Expo Adventure all in a oner, but instead I shall string you along, all string-like 
So the last time Tony and I went away was last November, putting a grand total of 10 months in between trips. Also, the last trip was a visit to my mother’s, which, fun as it was, does not rank high in the all-out excitement stakes. We wanted to go to last year’s Eurogamer, but due to total ineptitude (ie complete and utter failures to actually buy tickets or arrange transport) failed miserably; this year we were better prepared.
The Eurogamer Expo is an annual event, and is basically an excuse for several thousand excited geeks to get together in one place, play video games before they are released, talk to the developers, and get loads of free stuff. For the princely sum of £10 each, 8 hours of joyous geekery was ours!
So I took a lovely sunny Friday off work, and we started the day with a fry-up of epic proportions at our favourite café. The train to London was actually rather enjoyable (no doubt helped by the cans of Stella Artois that hitched a lift with us), and the day was only marginally dampened by the discovery that our hotel room for the night was in actual fact a bright orange shoebox. Seriously, I’m barely exaggerating here.
But that was just a further kick in the pants to get out of the hotel room and out into the streets of London. The Earl’s Court area proved to be busy and vibrant, and after a leisurely recce (Earl’s Court exhibition centre located, venue for breakfast chosen, beer consumed) we went for a burger. This burger practically deserves a post of its own because it was almost a sexual experience; seriously the best burger I have ever had in my life. There was bacon. There was cheese. There were onion rings. There was even a little pickled gherkin on top. Win!
The burger led to further beer, and an encounter in a bar with a lovely man who gave us top tips about all the best bits of the expo. And thus, well fed and watered and armed with information, we retired to the Orange Shoebox of Joy to get our heads down in preparation for the expo itself….
Emergency post
25 Sep 2011 2 Comments
This is a spur-of-the-moment, emergency blog post in order to avoid breaching the terms of The Blog Pact. It’s been a busy weekend, and I have much to say, but I cannot guarantee that I’ll stay awake long enough to say it. Hence the emergency post.
I shall endeavour to tell you tales of London, cosplay and free stuff in the very near future, but in the mean time you shall have to be satisfied with this little piece of awesome, which made me happier than I care to admit.
A well-earned chillout
18 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
Greetings, blogosphere!
This is the first afternoon I can remember in a very long time where I don’t have something that has to be done right NAOW!!1! It’s nice, if I’m honest – very nice indeed!
There’s not much to report on the training front, apart from another pentathlon attempt. My scores (all with 12kg) were:
- Clean – 120 (+30 seconds spare)
- Long cycle press – 60 (+1m14s)
- Jerk – 113
- Half snatch – 108
- Push press – 120 +4s
Pentathlon update
12 Sep 2011 3 Comments
in Kettlebell pentathlon, Kettlebell workouts Tags: kettlebells, pentathlon, personal best
I had my second attempt at kettlebell pentathlon this evening, and it went pretty well! I had a look at the numbers beforehand to figure out what kind of reps I needed to hit to level up and it didn’t seem to be too much of an ask, so I went for it.
My numbers for the clean, longcycle press, jerk, half snatch and push press were…
You’ll need to excuse the shoddy handwriting; my forearms were too pumped to hold the pen well!
I’m really pleased with that score, especially since it represents a move into the ‘high’ category. It’s clear that I need to lift more for the first two exercises since I reached max reps with time to spare – 16kg is going to feel like a big jump though (there wasn’t a pro-16kg available today or I probably would have tried it). The reps will certainly go down, but if I can achieve three quarters of my 12kg reps with the 16kg my score will be the same. I think that’s do-able for cleans and longcycle, though it’ll certainly make the rest of the lifts harder!
I’m likely to be sore for a couple of days, so I’ll make sure workouts for the rest of the week have a different focus, and maybe try pentathlon again at the weekend. It’s been a while since I enjoyed a workout this much – I think the mix of physical and mental perseverance is just what I needed
Pentathlon rankings
06 Sep 2011 1 Comment
in Kettlebell workouts Tags: kettlebell pentathlon, kettlebell sport
Note: If you haven’t read yesterday’s post, do that first!
Just another snippet on kettlebell pentathlon! My good friend Dave found a note that Valery Fedorenko posted to Facebook, indicating what scores are considered average, good, and so on. As Fedorenko himself points out these are very subjective, as they’ll be influenced by age, injury, and any number of other things. But I kind of like having a score to aim for (need nearly 100 more points to level up!), and knowing what Fedorenko considers to be a good score.
Here are the ranks as outlined on facebook:
Women’s Standards
- Less < 360 : Low
- 361 – 540 : Average
- 541 – 720 : Good
- 721 – 900 : High
- 901 – 1080 : Extreme
- More > 1081 : Superhuman
Men’s Standards
- Less < 720 : Low
- 721 – 900 : Average
- 901 – 1080 : Good
- 1081 – 1260 : High
- 1261 – 1440 : Extreme
- More > 1441 : Superhuman
Kettlebell pentathlon
05 Sep 2011 4 Comments
in Interesting stuff, Kettlebell workouts Tags: kettlebell sport, kettlebells, pentathlon, something new
In case you hadn’t noticed, I quite enjoy kettlebell lifting. I’m also interested in kettlebell sport, so I have a lot of respect for a man called Valery Fedorenko – he’s a so-called Master of Sport, and has been winning competitions since he was a teenager. Now in his 40s he is the founder of the World Kettlebell Club and an authority on kettlebell sport, which is the discipline of lifting really heavy things for a really long time (10 minute sets with the bell changing hands only once).
So imagine my delight when Fedorenko posted a video explaining something called kettlebell pentathlon. He describes it as a game, and challenges the viewer to see what they can achieve. Hell yeah!
The rules are as follows: perform each exercise for 6 minutes, changing hands as many times as you like. Rest for 5 minutes in between exercises. Choose whichever bell you like for each exercise, or pick one and use it all the way through – it’s up to you. These are 1-arm exercises – there are no doubles. The maximum rep range is indicated below in brackets – if you can exceed this number, you need to lift heavier. The exercises are:
- Clean (x120)
- Longcycle press (x60) – this is a military press; no knee involvement.
- Jerk (x120)
- Half snatch (x108)
- Push press (x120) – heels must not leave the floor during this exercise.
- 8kg – multiply by 1.0
- 12kg – x1.5
- 16kg – x2.0
- 20kg – x2.5
- 24kg – x3.0
- 28kg – x3.5
- 32kg – x4.0
- Clean – 110 (very happy with this)
- Longcycle press – 60 (and this)
- Jerk – 84 (reasonably happy with this, but could do better)
- Half snatch – 82 (fatigue really kicking in now)
- Push press – 88 (just happy to get these done without falling over or swearing)
.jpg "12kg pro kettlebell")
While I’m on a roll…
30 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Diet, Kettlebell workouts Tags: cake, clean eating, kettlebells, workout
Why not post today’s workout? After a quick dynamic warmup… 3 rounds of:
- Round-the-worlds, 24kg kettlebell, 10 each way
- Halos, 12kg kettlebell, 10 each way
- Single-leg deadlift, 24kg KB, 5 each leg
- Bottoms-up goblet squat, 24kg, 5 reps
- 2-hand swing, 24kg KB, 10 reps
*BakingBeautiful
Allotment Year
