Hybrid Training. Week 8. Tempo Run

Tempo Run: 2.75 miles; 31:44

Came in 18 seconds over time.  This was a brand new pace, and it was hard to get it "into my body."  So the first 1/4 mile was way too slow, and I spend the rest of the run trying to catch back up gradually.  Also, doing all the math in my head on the fly for making up a 2:51, 1/4 mile pace sucks as the fatigue builds.

Hybrid Training. Week 8. Intervals and Heavy Lower

Saturday:
Intervals - 4, 1/2 mile intervals @ ~5:00

Sunday:
BW - 225

Squat -
up to 325X2, 3
then 257.5X5, 5

Deadlift -
265X3, 3
315X1
325X1
335X1

Hanging Legs - X8, 8, 8

Jumped up to 1/2 mile intervals at target pace.  I probably could have gone for at least one more, but since I don't need to really do more than 6, there was no point in killing myself while I've still got a few weeks until the race.

On my first squat set of 325, I got over my toes on the 3rd rep and missed it.  Had no concerns about getting it on the 2nd set.  Felt pretty solid all around.  I probably could have gone for a 3rd set, but I still needed to hit back-off sets and deadlift.

For deadlift, I'd only programmed in to go up to the squat back-off weight, 257.5, but I just went to 265.  After a couple of sets, I still felt pretty good, so I did a few fatigue singles a la Paul Carter to see how things were feeling ahead of heavy deadlifts next week.  The top single felt pretty slow.  Maybe not so bad for a fatigued state.  Next week, I'm looking to pull a few singles at 342.5 fresh.  That should be do-able.

Hybrid Training. Week 8. Heavy Upper

BW - 225

Bench -
up to 195X3, 3, 3
then 152.5X6, 6, 6

JM Press - 95X5, 5, 5

CG Chins - BWX6, 5, 4

Cable Rows - X8, 7, 7 (straight-weight)

Pretty solid session.  The top sets of bench were moving a bit slow on the 2nd reps, and getting kind of dicey on the 3rds.

I'm signed up for a meet on 9/6.  It's mostly just a practice meet to get another one under my belt before doing my main meet in March.  I have to be careful about pushing the lower body lifts too hard, because I've got a 5K at the end of September, but I should be able to keep pushing the bench, and so there is a chance I could get a small, lifetime bench PR at the November meet.

Hybrid Training. Week 7. Light Lower and LSR

Tuesday:
BW - 226

Squats - up to 260X5, 5

Pause Squats - 245X3, 3, 3

Bench-Grip DL - up to 255X3

GHR Hypers - BW+45X15, 15, 15
super-set with
GHR Sit-ups - BWX15, 15, 15

Wednesday:
BW - 225
Incline Treadmill Intervals - jog 4 min./walk 2 min.; 3.6 miles; 45 minutes

Tried upping the weight on speed squats by 5 lbs., but they were slowing down a lot, so I cut it after 2 sets.  Not sure what I want to do here going forward.

Upping the weight by 10 lbs. on pause squats was fine, however.  Maybe save weight progression for the pause squats, and leave the speed squats fairly light?  Until I'm jumping off the ground?

Worked up to a top-ish triple on BG DL.  This was done double-overhand and I basically went up until grip was becoming a factor.  Movement felt pretty good on this day, and I didn't seem to have any back issues crop up in the interim.

Same with GHR Hypers.

Per the coach I consulted with from CHP, I'm going to start doing incline treadmill work for my Long Slow Run day, until my overall speed and endurance increases enough for me to do the LSR jogging outdoors.  These were boring as hell but fine.  I see my winter stretching out before me...

Hybrid Training. Week 7. Light Upper

BW - 227

Bench - up to 157.5X5, 5

CG Bench (5/0/0) - 155X4, 4, 4, 4

Incline Tate Press - up to 40sX5, 4, 3

Rolling DB Extensions - 40sX6 (immediately following last Tate Press set)

DB Rows -
60s, 70s, 80sX8
85sX5

Rope Face-Pulls - X20, 15, 12 (straight-weight)
super-set with
Rope Stiff-Arm Pushdowns - X10, 10, 10 (same weight)

Had a lot going on this last week with family in town and some other stuff.  So it has been a week since I'd been in the gym, and I'd only gotten one run in the interim.  I had A LOT of energy walking into the gym today.  Since it was a light or "speed" day, I decided to push that energy into accessories instead of the speed bench.  (which was fine)

I stayed at the same weight for the TUT close-grips as I did last time.  These were a LOT easier following speed sets of 157.5X5 then 175X2.  I threw in an extra set, because the last rep on set 3 seemed too easy.  The last rep on set 4 felt more like what I've been used to.

Tried out the Tate Press for the first time.  Probably went way to heavy.  I tried to mitigate that on the last set by taking the same DBs on jumping over to a flat bench for a set of rolling extensions.  I used an incline bench for the Tate Press, because I'd seen a video of a guy doing them that way, and thought it might hit the triceps slightly different than CG Bench.  I will either go lighter on these in the future, or do them on a flat bench and finish every set with rolling triceps.

Did some DB Rows, and they felt pretty strong.  Looking back, I've never gone over 70 on these before, so...Rep PR!

Finished off with the same rear-delt/lat superset from last week (forgot to do biceps).  Still hard as hell.

Hybrid Training. Week 7. Tempo Run

Tempo Run: 3.5 miles; 45 minutes

That's gotta be both a time and distance PR for non-stop running.  Now it's time to start progressing it.  I will reset to 2.5 miles.  I'm going to make a bigger jump than I would have expected, but based on some articles I've found on runners world, etc., it may be in range of what is recommended.  I'm going to jump from a ~00:12:50 mile pace to a ~00:11:25 miles pace.  Progress distance from 2.5 to 3.5 miles at that pace, and if that works out, I should be in range to jump to my goal of a 5K in 30 minutes.

We'll just have to see how the pace jump works for me.  For theses first weeks when progression was focused solely on distance, I forced myself to keep to about the slowest possible pace without walking.  There were often times 1/2 way through a run when I felt like I could have still increased the pace, so we'll see.

Hybrid Training. Week 7. Heavy Lower

BW - 227

Squat - up to 240X8, 8

Deadlift -
up to 310X3
then 275X3, 3
then 315X3, 3

GHR - BWX8, 7, 5
super-set with
GHR Sit-Ups - BWX12, 15, 12

Fuck deadlifts.

Hybrid Training. Week 7. Heavy Upper and Intervals

BW - 227

Bench -
up to 185X5, 5
then 155X10

JM Press - 95X5, 5, 5 (slow concentric, slight pause)

CG Pulldowns - X10, 8, 7 (straight-weight)

T-Bar Rows - 115X6, 4

Chest-Supported T-Bar Retractions - 90X15, 15

Intervals - 8, 1/4 mile intervals @ ~2:30

 Had a consult this week with a coach from Complete Human Performance, the company founded by the author of the Hybrid Training program.  Some of the new info gleaned went into this session.

I did a second top set of 5 at 185.  These were do-able but getting difficult.  I felt a 3rd set may have been overkill on this day.

I went for a rep out on one back-off set, instead of doing multiple sets for proscribed reps.

I tried JM Presses for the first time here as another heavy, triceps option.  The movement was much more difficult at much lighter weight than I expected.  Good.

I hit some pulldown and row variations.

The coach from CHP mentioned that he'd had great luck bringing up his upper back with chest-supported scapula retractions.  Never done this kind of thing before, but my upper back was really tired, and fried feeling after this.

Did intervals a couple of days later.  The coach said the important thing is to start getting the combined interval distance to match the race distance and at race pace.  So I added a couple of intervals here, and will look to add two intervals a week until I hit 12 quarter-miles, and then drop down to half-miles and work up to 6.

Hybrid Training. Week 6. Long Slow "Run"

Walking - brisk; 1 hour

Hybrid Training. Week 6. Light Lower

BW - 227

Squats - up to 255X5, 5, 5

Pause Squats - 235X4, 4, 4

Bench Grip DL -
up to 225X3, 3
then 245X3

Hanging Leg Raises - X8, 8, 8

My low back felt a bit touchy from the jump, but everything went okay.  Still feels off today.

Speed on squats and pause squats were all good.

Bench-Grip DLs were done for speed as well and felt pretty solid.  I didn't feel the need to do an explosive movement following these, as they were fairly fast.  First rep felt like it had better positioning on all sets, than subsequent reps.

Leg raises were kept super strict.  Legs straight, bringing feet down until the back of the heel touches the ground, pause, then lift back up.

Hybrid Training. Week 6. Tempo Run and Light Upper

Saturday:

Tempo Run - 3 miles @ 00:37:00

Sunday:

BW - 225

Bench - up to 175X2, 2

CG Bench, TUT (5/0/0) - 155X4, 4, 4

Rope Face-Pulls - X20, 15, 15 (straight-weight)

super-set with

Rope Stiff-Arm Pushdowns - X20, 15, 11 (straight-weight)

BB Drag Curls - up to 70X5, 4

Hit my distance on the tempo run this weekend, which is great.  Next week I'll push to 3.5 miles, and then look to reset to 2.5 miles and start increasing pace.

Bar moved pretty well with 175 on speed bench.  Final rep was probably too slow.

Tried the TUT close-grips with an explosive concentric; similar to what I did in Columbus with Matt Wenning.  Felt good.  Final reps on each set were getting pretty hard.

Supersetting the facepulls with straight-arm pushdowns using the rope attachment for both and the same weight was interesting.  Pre-fatiguing the rear delts, I discovered I could "feel" them in the pushdowns, and with a slight alteration I could "remove" them from the movement which also made the movement more difficult.  I'll look to keep this one in the rotation and see what pans out.

I guess I did drag curls a couple of times in 2011.  That must have been when I first started and was doing the DeFranco program.  I found this a challenging movement to get down.  Focused on keeping the shoulders down so that I wasn't doing a shrug/row hybrid.  By the end, it started to feel close to right.

Hybrid Training. Week 6. Intervals

Intervals - 5, 1/4 m. intevals @ ~00:02:20/m.

Everything went fine.  Could have gone for at least one more with no trouble.  Right now, I think I'll just work towards 12 quarter-miles, and then go up to half-miles.  I'll be getting a consult on the program in the next week, so the plan may change.

Hybrid Training. Week 6. Heavy Upper

BW - 227

Warm-up -
Rope Triceps Pushdowns- X20
Rope Lat Pushdowns - X20

Bench -
up to 200X1, 1
then 170X3, 3

Dips - BWX20, 8

WG Pulldowns - X12, 9 (straight-weight)

Chest-Supported Rows - 70X9, 7, 7

Solid session.

First single @ 200 felt perfect.  So good, that I probably took the second set for granted, and it was a little too loose.

Had good results alternating weighted/BW dips every week in the past, so I'm going to do that for a bit here.  Felt like the first set may have been a bit high, so I made sure to drop pretty low on the second set.

Pulldowns and T-Bars rounded it out.

Hybrid Training. Week 5. Light Lower

BW - 229

Squats - up to 255X5, 5, 5

Pause Squats - 235X4, 4, 4

GHR Hypers- BW+25X18, 15
super-set with
GHR Sit-Ups - BWX15, 15

Solid day.  Speed Squats and Pause Squats both moved very well.  Challenging to accelerate, but not "heavy."  Focus on keeping knees-out.

Since Wenning specifically recommended weighted hypers, I'm throwing those in today.  I forgot about doing an explosive movement, and just super-setted them with sit-ups.  All went well.

Hybrid Training. Week 5. Light Upper

BW - 229

Bench - up to 165X3, 3

DB Rolling Triceps (w/controlled eccentric) - up to 55sX6, 6

Face-Pulls - 3 sets
superset with
Machine Pullovers - 3 sets

DB X-Body Hammer Curls - 30sX14, 20 (long break before 2nd set)

Solid session.  165 moved pretty fast.

Continuing to hit triceps and lats following bench per Matt Wenning.  I didn't go in with a specific plan of what I would do for them.  Since the original programming for this day had more body-builder-ish accessory work suggested, I didn't go with any barbell work, and focused a tad more on isolation work.

Left tricep was feeling a bit sore during the extensions, and has a lingering soreness that's different from DOMS.  Something to feel out on the next upper body day.