I Don't Do Cardio: June 2010

Monday, June 21, 2010

...And it starts

Today marks the 1st day of my 6 week competitive cycle. This is exciting. Sure, there are much more important things ahead before the CT Open on 8/1, like my wedding and brewfest, but regardless, I'm excited.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

ME Day at Westside

Friday, June 18, 2010

Where's the Content?

I think this is something that my body needs. As much as I’d hate to admit it, my body needs the rest. And while I’m not just sitting on my tuckus, I am taking it a little bit light. Instead of going for max on Snatch yesterday, I was happy to hit a heavy single, 100kg, and pack up and go home. Today will be much of the same. I’ll probably hit something like 125kg and take a bow. Heavy, sure, but nothing that will leave me reeling and needing another week to recover.

I’m doing this because I need to. My body needs it. Also, The CT Open is on 8/1 and I’ve got my 6 week plan to (hopefully) peak at the right time. It’s a plan.

But the rest got me to thinking. I know most people program rest days into their workout schedules. Lately mine have been Wednesday and Sunday (Soon to be Friday and Sunday). But do you ever take rest weeks? If you do, do you do nothing or the same but with less intensity? Or do you do something completely different? I remember when I was swimming we would go play basketball on rest days. Absolutely we would get our Heart Rates up but it was nice to give our shoulders a solid rest. This taught us to be a little bit more athletic and explosive and to use other muscles that were being neglected in swimming.

There are lots of ways to rest and recover but I’m not sure which is the right way to handle this. For now, I’ve decided to take the “lower intensity” route to keep my body in the same. Maybe after the meet I’ll just take off (my honey moon is the weekend after, so even more rest) from training and come back 100% rested and right to tackle some (hopefully) big weights.

Feel free to spout off any advice or what’s worked for you in comments because I’d love to hear suggestions.

Note: I did get up to C&J 126. But CFC got a gift, a log. Thanks Kevin. I played with it a little bit Clean and Pressing it up to 190# just to get a feel for it. Lots of fun.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Auburn Sprinters

The Auburn Swim Team has a monopoly on male sprinter talent. Not only do they recruit from all four corners of the world (USA, Brazil, Australia) they also practice really smart and hard but have programmed recovery work. For people who didn't swim, the recovery video below will look very, very difficult, but in comparison with their normal output during a practice, it's nothing. Also, their practice splits are faster than my best meet times. No big deal.

Swimming Videos on Floswimming

Dryland:
href="http://www.floswimming.org">Swimming Videos on Floswimming

Swimming Videos on Floswimming

Recovery:

Swimming Videos on Floswimming

Not for the faint of stomach:

Swimming Videos on Floswimming