Friday, 30 October 2009

Miek

Half Michael with the last bits round the wrong way

3RFT
200m run
25 situps
25 x 20kg Good-mornings

12:48

Not exciting, as I expected.
The video camera is working again (a known fault with that model that slapping it on all sides fixes, go figure) and the good mornings were good. Back flat (enough) and ROM about what I expect. Hamstrings must lengthen, my goodness they're tight!

My squats in the warm-up weren't brilliant though. Fine in all respects except depth. I was high! I haven't squatted high in decades!

Thursday, 29 October 2009

Deadlifts

5 x 85kg
5 x 87.5g
5 x 90kg

20 x 72.5kg

No video, the camera's sick.
Those were harder than last time. I think the new bar is a little heavier than the old one, I'm still a bit tired and I'm also a bit shaky still from the metcon the other day. It was a doozy.
Still, I made my weights and the reps weren't disastrously bad, so good enough for now.

Monday, 26 October 2009

Video failure

3RFT
10 x 30kg HPC and overhead
3 Rounds
3 pull-ups
6 push-ups
9 squats

21:07

My video camera seems to have died, or at least is extremely unwell. I watched 7 minutes of the workout and the warm-up.

HPC were too much shoulder and arms, almost no leg and I received the bar with my hips forward most of the time. Presses/Jerks were not locking out solidly and too many jerks had my hips forward again dammit. At least I know why I keep hurting my back on heavy push-jerks.

Pull-ups were the best of the workout.
Push-ups were just bloody hard. I have real issues keeping my core tight (which showed on the presses and cleans too) and I did several reps over for lack of ROM. Just never going to be good at these.
Squats; not a disaster. I let my chest drop too often and I wasn't sinking my hips. Knees stayed out and I initiated the movement with my hips. Hamstrings were engaged to some degree, but I need to bring them in much much more. That's a big part of why my chest drops and knees travel forward a bit too much. Buns of steel, need buns of steel. :-)

Cashout
3 Kick ups to supported handstand
6 (I have no idea actually, a whole bunch trying to get them right, but 6 was the intention) "hollow-rocks". More like U shaped bumping back and forth.

Sunday, 25 October 2009

Armaggeddon

From a post to The Shadow and Flame forum.

==========================================================================

I don't have many photos to share and I'm not going to try and match Leaflock for a report, but Armaggeddon went something like for us.

Park around the back of the showgrounds and save a princely $5 by walking around to the front. Excitement meant that the walk was not remotely an imposition. Dismay at seeing the line snaking back and forth across the showgrounds all the way out to the road. Relief when as E-ticket holders were were waved through to the front of the queue to hand our tickets to be "scanned", i.e. glanced at by one of the security staff.
This meant we were in Armaggedon ahead of a good 80% of the crowd. OK, cursory look at the stage/panels area and then where's a map so I can find Weta? That's not them, coming back to that one, nope still not ... that's them! Nervously approach the guy wearing the brown jacket and as he was the tallest person there (Magnus having more of a horizontal component) and having been completely unable to find a photo of Dave Tremont anywhere introduced myself and asked if he was Tim. Told that Tim was off at the airport picking up Alan Lee (how casually they toss these names off!) and that Tim is "up here somewhere", indicating a person who apparently has Ent ancestry. So I'm talking to DAVE TREMONT (capitalisation intentional, thanks Leaflock).
And I did. Although I think I deserve an award for most use of the word "cool" in a conversation. Something I doggedly pursued throughout the day. :oops I kept hearing the word coming out of my mouth and do you think I could stop it? Not a hope!
Gave him the badges and he seemed genuinely surprised that one was for him. Dave is an incredibly nice guy. Very humble, apparently completely unaware of the awe his talents are held in. He did not look at all comfortable with the idea of the crowd about to descend on him and I think would have been quite happy to head back to his workshop if he could have. The silly thing is that he's an absolutely brilliant and very easy person to talk to. He'd brought samples of the Weta Tanzen chainmaille in on of the first incarnations of the sprued injection moulded raw state and explained how the design had been modified from that. Still an incredibly manual operation, but the moulded rings are definitely a cool technique.
Feeling guilty about monopolising his time and realising that my wife hadn't been visible for some time thought I'd better find her. Wandered around futilely attempting to do so and sat down to watch Frances (who has blonde hair now) and Steve (can't find him on the Weta workshop site, looks a lot like Gino) from Weta applying make-up from the upcoming "Under the Mountain" moving to an actor named Matt last name unknown because I've forgotten and texting and ringing my wife. She eventually found me there and we basically hung around for 2 hours or so while they worked. Applying the prosthetics was interesting, but the way the make-up popped to life when they applied the finishing airbrushing and painting blew me away. It started out looking quite good and transformed completely with the paint. Oh and I do NOT want to wear those scleral contact lenses! Poor Matt clenched his hand around his cellphone as they went in and they could use the fact that it still worked afterwards as a marketing point for the phone.
We talked to Frances for a bit as Matt, Steve and the writer/producer of the movie (didn’t ask his name and won’t cheat by looking it up now) wandered around the hall and went off to a panel.
Headed back to the Weta stand and found that the crowd had made it through the gates and seemed to like Weta quite a lot. Met Tim, definitely Ent offspring and Jaffakitkat who graciously decided not to lurk this year. Bought eye of Sauron pins and a book for Alan Lee to sign, which he did. And then he asked "Would you like a sketch?".
Me(speaking); "Yes please if it's not too much trouble".
Me (thinking); "Woohoo!"
So I have a genuine dedicated Alan Lee sketch in the front of my "Art of the Fellowship of the rings " book.
Gushed something completely fatuous thanking him for the sketch, his work translating Tolkein's work into art and probably the colour of his suit. Blanked out a bit toward the end.
I'm pretty sure that was the only conversation of the day where I did not use the word "cool" though.

The badges served their purpose and I was able to spot the other Flamers as we gathered heading into the group photo. They didn’t stop me from getting jaffakitkats’ real name wrong, so sorry jaffakitkat! My wife Lynette operated the pool of cameras assembled for the photos and as Leaflock and cybogobln say, it was so funny to see passersby stop and take our photo. Everyone else was, we must be worth photographing, and we did have an Ent.

I notched up a few more uses of the word “cool” chatting to people and headed back to the make-up application demo which was now a make-up removal demo, an altogether faster process.

We wandered around a bit more and scored a way cheaper than it had been hardcopy of “Unseen Academicals” that Lynette had spotted buried behind a bunch of stuff on the Borders stand. Decided we’d had enough and after saying goodbye to Dave, headed off.

Tired feet made the trip back to the car seem much longer. What Dumba** parked it so far way anyhow?

Missed saying that Magnus is a very nice guy too, I’ve no idea what he did to get him volunteered to drive the truck up solo while everyone solo flew, but I’m sure he was framed.
And everyone has commented on the Smaug and Erowyn statues.
I liked both, but Smaug was just way cool!
Da**it, did it again!

Friday, 23 October 2009

Deadlifts

5 x 82.5kg
5 x 85kg
5 x 87.5kg

20 x 70kg

This time I videoed myself and thank goodness there is one exercise I can do properly!
It was interesting that the differences in positioning between my knees and/or back twinging and feeling solid are almost invisible, at least from the angle I had the camera. I don’t know what that means, have to ponder on it a little.

Thursday, 22 October 2009

Mainsite WOD

2RFT
25m lunges
25 situps

4:34

I should have done another round.
Wanted something that wasn't likely to aggravate this weird tight back thing I have going on and this fit the bill. Now I'll see if it's systemic or localised.

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Weird headache thing

Worked on my motorbike in the weekend. I fitted all of the parts I bought and while the exhaust leak is gone, the oil leak remains. Having had the engine open I can't see how on earth the oil is getting in to that part of the engine. What I thought was a flaw in the casting that allowed oil to work its way past the gasket turned out to be a carefully engineered drain channel to allow oil that got into that section drain out without letting water and muck get back in.
I'd take it to the shop to get it worked on, but I'm really worried that taking a bike in saying "it's leaking oil , make it stop" without having some idea how it's leaking is a great way to be without a lot of money. There's a a 2003 bike for sale in Christchurch right now and I'm worried I'm spending more on keeping things going than I would to get a much newer bike. One problem is that each thing I fix on the bike will probably never need touching again. The engine is very solid and simple, so repairs tend to take well and stay repaired.
I may have overfilled the oil slightly so I'll drain a bit and see if that helps and if not I'll run the engine, let it cool, get it apart and see if I can spot where the oil is getting into that part of the engine. It had been sitting for several weeks before I had it part this weekend and signs of dribbles and leaks may have cleared themselves up.
Anyway, for now the bike is off the road still and I'm chewing up gas and money driving to work.

The headache thing is puzzling. My legs were stiff from Friday's workout, but everything else was fine. I had a massage on Sunday and the guy did some reflexology stuff and found that my back was tight between the shoulderblades, much more so than I knew. Very early Monday morning I woke up with a headache/stiff neck and back that rapidly grew worse until I was in really bad pain. I took the day off work and slept as much as I could once I could and almost every part of my upper body that I had worked recently was aching. It was like the 'flu without any runny nose or fever. I'm still sore today and given that I don't know what's going on (did the massage release something?) I don't know if In should train tonight or when I should start back at all.

So I'm in the same boat as my bike, undiagnosed symptoms without a clear path to a fix.

Friday, 16 October 2009

Nancy

Not a great Nancy, but a Nancy nonetheless

3RFT
400m
15 x 20kg OHS

12:55ish

Just couldn't find the "go fast button" on the runs. I know I finished faster than I started at least.
OHS were too light, at least I think so lacking video. I wanted to force more focus on stabilisig the weight to build my core strength with weights overhead, but in teh wshower I thought of opther ways to do that. Given my problems with knee and hip tracking maybe I should use the other ideas for a bit, stay with jus teh bar and video a coupl sessions to get the form under control first.
Yes, I think that's what I'll do. No hurry in this. Even an empty bar is better than the amount of exercise I'd be getting if I weren't doing that.

Thursday, 15 October 2009

Deadlifts

5 x 80kg
5 x 82.5kg
5 x 85 kg

20 x 67.5kg

Didn't video myself and I wanted to, got home too late and it's raining out so had to lift in the shed which is too small to back the camera off far enough. So tried very had to emulate young Master martin's oh so lovely deadlift form in the mainsite video today.

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Low intensity deconstructed Fran variant

Videoed myself again. My god that's depressing.

I knew my hip and thigh strength is very low and didn't want to complicate already messy front squats with sorting out thrustering, which I've always been bad at.

9 x 5
30kg front squats
30kg press
pull-ups

12:28

The video showed what I thought; Very wobbly knees caving in dramatically. Elbows low, it looked like I had the bar too far away from my throat. I used to front squat with it practically strangling me, where do that go?
The biggest problem was just my hips and knees tracking really badly.
So much to fix!

Monday, 12 October 2009

Totally pathetic Elizabeth

I just watched an out of shape hunchbacked geek with a beer gut (alright a very little one) totally stuff up 45 power cleans. That's right, I finally videoed myself doing the barbell work.

So it was.
21-15-9
30kg Power cleans
Beginner ring dips

11:01

The kyphosis in my back is getting really bad by the looks of it. I apparently don't know how to use my arse to get into a quarter squat to receive the bar and I didn't what the hell I was doing for a full extension but I'm pretty sure I was pulling early.

Christ I am so angry with myself!

Oh and dips sucked. Well there's news!

Thursday, 8 October 2009

Deadlifts

5 x 77.5kg
5 x 80kg
5 x 82.5kg

20 x 65kg

The 5 rep sets weren't too bad, but the 20 rep set was a pleasant surprise. Very little puffing, quite an easy run through. Maybe I am getting some aerobic conditioning back after all.

Well that's 4 workouts this week. A record for yonks. There won't be any more as we're out of town and leaving the house to the step-son, heaven help us.

Off to Welling ton to visit the Weta cave, an ambition for some time.

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

600m "run" (LOL)

600m(ish, must measure again)
3 Rounds
10 x 24" box jumps
10 x 17kg dbell swings
10 x really awful pull-ups
600m

16:34

Running sucked!
Box jumps were OK. I nearly jumped clear over the thing at the start of the second round.
Dbell swings were not as smooth and hippy as I can do. Must fix that.
Oh and pull-ups were thready. 3s at best. Jeez and mastroj thinks his need work!

Bloody hell I need to be able to run better! I should probably actually do more of it eh?

Monday, 5 October 2009

Brand X workout
20-15-10
200m
20kg OHS
20 ring push-ups

15:40ish

Runs were nasty, feeling for Pose and not finding it.
OHS were reasonably solid. Not good though and I didn't tape them again! F**k!
Ring push-ups were a grinding sod. I knew they would be though.

Glad to be in out of the rain.

Sunday, 4 October 2009

Mainsite WOD.

Pack:
18-15-12-9-6 and 3 rep rounds of:
30kg Power clean
Abmat Sit-ups
Back extensions

11:39

Power cleans were bleh. Realised after I'd launched that I'd promised myself I was going to video as many barbell workouts as possible in lieu of a coach.
Slight butt rub on the situps, fortunately the numbers weren't too high.
Back extensions were the first attempt at rigging up a GHD by pummelling a sandbag to shape on top of a plyobox and hooking my ankles under the bar sitting on a raised surface. Not a disaster, but the concept needs development. It would almost certainly work much better for GHD sit-ups.