Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Last Two Workouts

8/7 - Sheiko

Horrible day for lifting, I was not mentally there at all, or had the energy. I pushed through the urge to just go take a nap in the grass.

Bench: 45x5, 65x3, 75x3, 85x3x2, 100x3x5 (80)

Squat: 45x5x2, 95x3, 115x3x2, 135x3x2, 155x3x6 (80)

These were hard due to lack of energy and focus. For the last set I resorted to the music I usually use for sprinting, which shows how desperate things were.

Bench: 45x5, 65x4, 75x4, 85x4x4 (70)

Dumbell bench: 20x10x5

Good Mornings: none.

Fuck good mornings.



8/10 - Sheiko

Much better day than friday, everything went well.

Hang Cleans: 45x10

P. Cleans: 95x4, 105x4, 115x4, 125x4

Easier than I anticipated. Looking forward to training heavy cleans again when sheiko is over.

Squat: 45x5x2,95x3, 115x3, 135x3x2, 155x2x5 (80)

Felt good. Used monolift for last 4 sets. I find monolift distracting.

Bench: 45x5, 65x3, 75x3, 85x3x2, 100x2x3, 105x1x3 (85)

Also felt good. Pinching my shoulders together higher seems to serving me well.

Dumbell bench: 25x10x4


5 comments:

Jake Ceccarelli said...

Since your previous entry is off the page I'll comment on this one about everything.

We're going to start off with a post by The Thinker of Elitefts fame which illustrates the pointlessness of the conditioning circuit you performed:

"Ali, I view the primary motor qualities essential for Rugby, other than sport skill, as max strength, explosive strength, agility, and speed/acceleration

Whoever feels that strength endurance is a factor in Rugby probably has confused this with alactic/aerobic conditioning as there is no place for high rep/low load sets for a Rugby player.

You can easily and optimally train these abilities on the same days of the week as they are all CNS intensive

I would suggest that you train max strength, explosive strength, agility, and speed/acceleration on Tues and Thurs and perform tempo work on days in between"

Now, why is strength edurance (high rep, low load work) not applicable to rugby, since it seems like it is an obvious component one should address? You have to look at the nature of the sprinting/tacking/light jogging to get back into position in the game. Tackles, rucks, even scrums and mauls, are NOT very long (30 seconds would be an agonizing scrum, and 2 or 3 in a row would kill the whole forward packs of both teams). The real important qualities here are max strength and aerobic capacity. Max strength for the super high intensity of hitting or pushing against a person (you're not pushing at 50% are you? You're trying to smash them into the ground with everything you've got) and aerobic capacity because once you do that you jog back and get into position, which is essentially active rest.

Basically with the anaerobic/lactic training you're doing you're training your body to work at the mid range of intensity for a long time. The problem is, you're never in the mid range in a game. You're either sprinting all out, hitting, pushing all out, or getting yourself into position for the next thing you have to do.

Tackling the bags - great idea. perfect example of SPP, which should be the bulk of your training during the competitive period. Don't hurt yourself, but good SPP would also turn tackling the bag into a conditioning drill. Example: tackle, run 50 yards at 60%-70% intensity, tackle again, repeat. Or, tackle, get up, back up, tackle again, repeat.

Why you shouldn't run suicides (more on why anaerobic/lactic training is wrong):http://asp.elitefts.com/qa/default.asp?qid=36036&tid=

When a player has the ball they either run for a few yards and pass or get tackled. Rarely does a player truly break away, and if they do they run 100 meters MAX, in an all out sprint. This is like 95% anaerobic/alactic even in the extreme. It happens back to back maybe once a season, to one person on the team? Better training would be tempos to develope aerobic capacity without compromising the fast twitch fibers, and true sprint training at 90%+ with full recovery for max speed. Agililty should be covered as well, but in special SPP drills which correspond to the sport's technical/tactical specifications.

So, if they suck at actually helping, why do people do them? Because they like to feel like they worked out, and training "harder" is generally accepted as training "better." Just because you were nauseous doesn't mean it actually helped.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

Posting two comments because I'm over the character limit.



Wresting: interesting (not bad) idea for GPP. Don't get hurt, but better than pickup basketball (the sport that injures the most players).

Sheiko: excellent GPP/GSP (general-specific preparation) due to the matching of energy systems and increase of max strength.

Late bus: Worst form of practice.

Tackling with squishy balls: can't visualize, but another good example of good SPP. A drill, designed with a purpose, to increase you're ability in a skill that is a part of the game, made more difficult by wearing squishy things. SPP = practicing your sport, practicing aspects of your sport in isolation, and practicing your sport or parts of your sport with some kind of disadvantage (squishy things).

Deirdre said...

"You have to look at the nature of the sprinting/tacking/light jogging to get back into position in the game.Tackles, rucks, even scrums and mauls, are NOT very long ... The real important qualities here are max strength and aerobic capacity."

Yes and no. For our games, rucks and mauls can drag on for several minutes, hitting, driving, splitting off, hitting again. Urgh. And getting back into position, or following the ball, is not a light jog, most of the time it's a full run, to either be ready for the next play, or following someone else who is running with the ball.

"Basically with the anaerobic/lactic training you're doing you're training your body to work at the mid range of intensity for a long time. The problem is, you're never in the mid range in a game."

Fair. But if it's a hard game, everyone's exhausted anyway, and can't sprint/hit at full intensity. This sort of exhaustive conditioning forces you to train while attempting 100%, for those times when you are exhausted and still need to keep going and try to play at close to 100% intensity, even if you fail.


"good SPP would also turn tackling the bag into a conditioning drill. Example: tackle, run 50 yards at 60%-70% intensity, tackle again, repeat. Or, tackle, get up, back up, tackle again, repeat."

That's what it turns into more often than not actually. Today we had 4 rucking stations that we hit and ran between, rest, do it again. It was good but hard on the legs.


"Rarely does a player truly break away, and if they do they run 100 meters MAX, in an all out sprint... It happens back to back maybe once a season, to one person on the team?"

You'd be surprised. One game this summer, every time we had the ball, the carrier ran it at least 3/4 of the field, albeit closer to 75% than 100%. But every breakaway, whether ours or the other team's, involves chasing them, at close to full speed. Suicides may not be the best prep for these sort of things, but it allows you to sprint 75m after that ball you kicked, then sprint another 75m back when the other team kicks it back at you. Hurr.

Wrestling: Not even real wrestling, but on our knees. Also, I dislocated my partner's shoulder. >.<



Anyway, I think your points about our conditioning stuff are mostly valid, in that I think they usually go on too long, and the intensity benefit decreases as we get more exhausted. The pro to this though is training to push through being exhausted.

Besides those drills, we also do more 'SPP', eg the forwards go scrum and ruck, the backs run lines and practice plays at full speed, with enough rest in between to actually be full speed/sprint for most of those.

Sheiko: No more sheiko after the meet, but definitely PL-style sets for bench/DL/squat included in my otherwise rugby-oriented program.

Thanks Jake!

Jake Ceccarelli said...

"You'd be surprised. One game this summer, every time we had the ball, the carrier ran it at least 3/4 of the field, albeit closer to 75% than 100%. But every breakaway, whether ours or the other team's, involves chasing them, at close to full speed. Suicides may not be the best prep for these sort of things, but it allows you to sprint 75m after that ball you kicked, then sprint another 75m back when the other team kicks it back at you. Hurr."


I'd say that if you're doing this to a team you don't need conditioning because you're kicking their ass.

Juggernaut, the said...

@all comments: tl;dr

@D: good mornings are awesome. all other opinions are invalid.