Category: training session

Getups in the sun, and when to drink water

Training yesterday was great. There’s no better place to exercise with a kettlebell than on an open field under the big blue sky. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend it.

NL 166 Kettlebell Swing Bottom The Brilliant Beast Blog
NL 166 Kettlebell Swing Mid The Brilliant Beast Blog
NL 166 Kettlebell Swing Top The Brilliant Beast Blog

I love the sun, and I make sure to get some soak time every day. However, training under the direct sunlight is a different beast. It is draining, especially when you’re doing weight training. There’s just so much more going on, with the sweating, the heat, and the radiation all working on you. Not a bad thing, but definitely a situation to navigate carefully.

It was in the low 80’s by the time my wife and I got our gear to the park. Kettlebell getups require the practitioner to look directly at the weight during the first phase. Since the kettlebell is held straight up in the air, it may be very close to the sun around noon. I had to make sure to stay relaxed, breathe, and face as much away from the sun as possible.

Still, both us were getting a little wobbly here and there. It’s easy to get distracted at a park, when there’s people walking past, the sun in your face, and lots of trees and nice nature stuff to look at. With the kettlebell held up overhead, it’s critical to stay focused with the eyes and with the mind. Keeping your eyes focused on the weight, and on the horizon as you lunge to stand, makes all the difference in balance, form, and strength.

It helps to pick a spot near some shade. That way you can hop out of the sunlight during rest periods to stay cool. My wife does most of her swings in the shade, and getups in the sun where it’s drier.

Another thing to consider is when to drink water. I don’t drink any water during my training, because it distracts me. So I drink a good amount beforehand, and as much as I want afterwards. If you’re training outdoors, bring a full bottle of water in case of emergency. As long as you are relatively healthy, and drink plenty of water before and after, training without water breaks shouldn’t be a problem. There is evidence that early humans tracked prey all day, through the middle of the day, drinking water before and after the hunt (Lieberman, Daniel. The Story of the Human Body: evolution, health, and disease. 2013).

This session was a timed trial with the 24kg kettlebell. Here are my results:

  • 100 Swings: 9:19
  • Rest: 1:00
  • 10 Getups: 8:26

Goals:

  • 100 Swings: 5:00
  • Rest: 1:00
  • 10 Getups: 10:00

So I’ve got some work to do on swings. My main issue today was the sun. Going back and forth to the shade to rest took too long, but I needed a hat nearby to rest in the sunlight. Maybe I’ll do timed swings in the shade.

Live powerfully.

Steve

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Copyright © 2017 Steve Ko, All rights reserved.

Peter Lee Squat Form Check

Brilliant Friends,

Peter sent me an update on his squats. It was awesome to see him making tweaks on his technique and form. Below are notes I sent him.

Thanks for sharing Peter!

Squats are looking much more solid from last time.

Strengths:

  • Your grip on the bar is great. Shoulder and wrist flexibility are good, and upper back looks super tight. That is key!
  • Squat #3 was great. 0:24. Good depth, good control, good spine alignment. Awesome man.

NL 74 Peter Lee Squat Form Check The Brilliant Beast Blog.jpg.png

Improvements:

  • Bottom of squats look more stable.
  • You got rid of the butt wink.

Focus on hip mobility:

You’ve gotten a lot more stable at the bottom. There’s no sliding forward now, which is great. Now, you need to get more depth while still keeping your spine aligned. Squat 3 was solid. The others could be slightly deeper.

This was a constant battle for me: getting depth vs. keeping my back straight. The lower I went, the more my low back would want to curl under and do the butt wink.

It is all about hip mobility. Picture the thighs as needing to open up enough to lower yourself. If they can’t open up and outward enough, your back will bend to try to get you lower. So whatever the limitation of your hips, at that point your back will start to bend.

The tension is in your pelvis. Increasing your hip flexibility will enable you to go lower while you still keep your back in tact. It takes some time, but the result will feel amazing. Try this before training sessions. I do them religiously. You can watch the whole thing to get all the philosophy, I just marked it where the exercise starts.

Most importantly, keep the spine in line as you are doing now. The depth is about hip health and range of motion, but spine alignment is equally if not more important.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Strength Training Session: Madcow Cycle Six, Day Two

My Brilliant Friends,

I want to share some clips and details of my training this past Friday. I’m on my second run of a training program called Madcow, which you can read about here.

Training looked like this for me on day 2 of cycle 6:
Day Two: 5 repetitions each set
  • Squat 142, 177, 212, 212 – completed
  • Overhead Press (OHP) 84, 101, 117, 134 – completed only three reps
  • Deadlift 208, 249, 291, 332 – completed
Next session will look like this:
Day Three: 4×5, 1×3, 1×8 six sets
  • Squat 5x(142, 177, 212, 248), 3x 290, 8x 212
  • Bench 5x(91, 113, 136, 158), 3x 185, 8x 136
  • Row 5x(72, 89, 107, 125), 3x 147, 8x 107

The bolded numbers are the work sets, and the rest are warm up and warm down sets.

More on Day Two

Day Two is a fun session with OHP and Deadlifts. These two exercises only occur once per cycle, so each time I do them I’m trying to hit a new max. On Day Two, the squat is a lighter session with no maximum to hit.

Squat and Warm Ups

Since squats are light on Day Two, there’s not too much stress. However, I use this down time to focus on form and mobility. A few points about my squats on this session:

  • Hip mobility – I always start with this exercise on both sides of the hips to expand mobility and get my hips rotating outward after all that sitting at work.
  • Warm up sets are key to powerful lifting without injury. There’s no way I can load maximum weight and squat it first thing. I start with an empty bar and work my way up. The Madcow program has the warm up built into it, with progressively heavier weights until the work set.
  • Proper depth means that the hip joint goes below the knee joint. Period.
  • You can see that my rib cage is slightly opening up as I go down. This is caused by a couple factors: stiff knees and ankles, and tight hips. I had a two week break since my last session, and was sitting a lot at work. Killed my mobility! To compensate for stiff knees and ankles, my torso extended in order for me to get into the “hole”, or the bottom of the squat. Not good. Supple ankles and knees allow for more outward movement of the knees, allowing the torso to remain upright and straight as it moves down into the hole. Homework for me.
  • Tight hips also contributed to my torso bending. Hip tightness impedes the natural outward rotation of the upper legs as you pull yourself down into the hole. In addition to the knees and ankels, outward rotation of your thighs allows your abdomen and torso to descend upright and aligned, without bending and losing tension.

I’ve been working on keeping my torso a rock solid pillar throughout the squat, to stabilize my spine and allow more effective power transfer from my legs and hips. Any bending in the torso absorbs power and steals it away from upward push. It also puts my back at risk of injury. So I’ve got to work on keeping my legs supple because by the next session, I’m going to have trouble hitting my next 3-rep set if I can’t keep a rock solid torso!

Overhead Press (OHP)

OHP adds some fun to the mix, because it requires a bit more finesse. I have been focusing on keeping my torso solid throughout this lift as well, and it gets tricky for a different reason from the squat. I noticed that when the weight got heavy my ribcage would lift, to allow my pecs to engage the weight.

Keeping my ribcage down

  • minimizes pectoral involvement
  • requires greater mobility of the shoulders, and
  • allows for an even distribution of deltoid engagement front to back.

The OHP requires some animal strength, but more focus and attention. I couldn’t muster the mental focus needed to hit all five reps. Next time!

Deadlift

I try to put out 400% effort on the deadlift, at the end of the session. You can see me taking a pause the top before my last set, and I’m actually taking in a breath before I lower into the last pull. Why do I do this? First of all, I’m spent and needed a pause. It’s better to rest at the top of the deadlift, rather than at the bottom, even though it’s counterintuitive. When you’re standing, you have skeletal support. In the lowered position, you’re flexing just to be there.

But more importantly, I’m getting air into my torso while standing, where there’s not as much pressure, instead of at the bottom, where it’s too late to try to create abdominal pressure. It’s a trick that comes in handy for heavy multi-rep sets, especially when you’re tired and need to rest for a second.

At the top of my last pull, I hold the bar for a count of ten (fast count this time, I was spent!) to increase grip strength. It’s a great opportunity, with no other exercises to follow, to train the grip. If you can hold it for longer, go for it.

Next Session

Some relative max weights to come in my next session. I say relative because I’ve lifted more weight than the ones I’m going to do next session, but for this iteration of Madcow it’s the most yet.

Thanks for reading, hope you do something with this. Love to hear your thoughts below.

To powerful living,

Steve

Madcow: A Snapshot

Brilliant Friends!

If you have reached a couple plateaus on a basic 5×5 strength training program, move on to Madcow.

Mehdi Hadim of Stronglifts 5×5 advises using this program after the basic 5×5 program, and I agree. It’s a bit more advanced than an integral progression, and the jumps in weight from cycle to cycle are larger. So in other words, you’re increasing each week by percentages, rather than by specific weight increments like 2.5 or 5 lb.  Some basic tenets of the program are:

  • Exercises start light and progress to a heavy work set.
  • Most sets consist of five repetitions.
  • Three training sessions in a cycle, with squats on every session.
  • The last session, or Day Three, of each cycle presents a 3-rep max on the squat, bench, and row. This max becomes the next work set for Day One of the new cycle.
  • Do the basic 5×5 first, then move on to Madcow. Don’t skip the basics, if you’re not squatting at least 200 lb. with form.
The program looks like this for me on cycle 6:
Day One: 5×5 each set
  • Squat 142, 177, 212, 248, 283
  • Bench 91, 113, 136, 158, 181
  • Pendlay Row 72, 89, 107, 125, 143
Day Two: 4×5 each set
  • Squat 142, 177, 212, 212
  • Overhead Press (OHP) 84, 101, 117, 134
  • Deadlift 208, 249, 291, 332
Day Three: 4×5, 1×3, 1×8 six sets
  • Squat 5x(142, 177, 212, 248), 3x 290, 8x 212
  • Bench 5x(91, 113, 136, 158), 3x 185, 8x 136
  • Row 5x(72, 89, 107, 125), 3x 147, 8x 107
Cycle 7, Day One: 5×5 each set
  • Squat 145, 181, 218, 254, 290
  • Bench 93, 116, 139, 162, 185
  • Pendlay Row 74, 92, 110, 129, 147

Click here to see the spreadsheet. You can plug in your own numbers and get weeks of programming laid out for you.

To powerful living,

Steve

Overhead Press Madcow Training Session One