Thursday - 3/21 and Monday 3/24

Two good workouts; here goes.

Friday 3/21 - Upper/lower mix

I had a business meeting on Saturday morning with Bill Hartman and Pat Rigsby so I had to combine these two workouts. Here's what I did:

Sumo speed pulls, 5x1@315, 1@365

Good speed overall; technique improved as the session went on.

Inverted Rows, 3x10 superset with
DB Lunges, 3x8

Flat Bench, 2x10 superset with
Supine Ball Leg Curl, 2x10

Ab Wheel Rollouts, 3x8

I trained with my MMA guy today, so the rest periods weren't quite like I would like. Overall, a good session though.

Monday 3/24 - Squat lower body

Today was my best lower body training session in quite some time. The hips are moving the way I want, now I just need to get the upper body on par as well so I can back squat the way I'd like.

Front squat to 12" box, 3x3
Front squat w/o box, 1x3

I'm squatting below parallel with a nice arch and no compensatory movement at the lumbar spine. This is the first time in quite a while I've been able to do this. I'm going to switch up now and do all my front squatting without a box, as I got a lot better left quad recruitment on that final set.

RDL's, 2x6

DB Step-ups, 3x8

I've been playing around with my propulsion point on this as I outlined in my Bulletproof Knees manual, and I've found I need to drive through the mid/forefoot on the left leg and through the heel on the right. I think my hips are starting to square up nicely and the leg development is becoming more balanced.

Glute-Hams, 3x8

Total session time was around an hour.

I also started the diet today; so far, so good. I'll keep everyone posted on that as we go ;)

Stay strong
MR

The Training Blog is up and running!

As many of you already know I've been hard at work trying to revamp my website in the recent months. In that same time period I've also started working for myself full time, gone to Australia and Nashville, and contracted the nastiest cold of my entire life!

Needless to say, training has been a little sporadic, and this blog should help keep me motivated.

Without any further ado, here are some of my short term training goals:

- Keep improving my movement quality.

I've been working really hard to re-train my squat and deadlift motor patterns, and both are starting to feel quite good. The stiffness in my lumbar spine is coming around, while the stiffness in the hips is decreasing every so slightly. I need to have that healthy balance if I want to squat and move the way that I know I can. Loosening up the pecs/lats is the next big project so that I can back squat properly.

- Lean out

There's a high likelihood that I'll be working with Mike Roussell in the near future. Quite simply, I have enough on plate without worrying about my diet - so I'm going to bring Mike on to take care of that for me for a while. He's done some great things with Bill and I'm really looking forward to this.

- Get as healthy as possible

A pec strain a few months ago set my upper body training back a bit. As well, I'm working on getting those last few degrees of knee extension back so that the knees are moving symmetrically. This has been an ongoing process but overall I feel like I'm moving as well as I ever have in a lot of regards.

My goal is to update this blog a few times per week - it may be more, it may be less. Regardless, I hope you all can take something away from it.

Stay strong
MR