Saturday 3 July 2010

Monday's manoeuvrability

For some reason Blogger will not let me put up videos that are internally hosted anymore which is a shame because for the last week I have wanted to post a brief interview with Rob Adell and some extra footage of California Strength I never put up. When I try to add a video, it uploads and then says it is unavailable. This has only been happening over the last two weeks and it is rather annoying, so if anyone knows how to sort this out, let me know and I will fix it.

I started my new 12 week program today and it is amazingly simple. It has lots of the lifts. Then more and these are followed by lots of squats. Simple, isn't it? I have two months to get in as much volume as I can stand without burning myself out nd the biggest key is to make small and incremental progress. The goal is to keep the goal the goal as Dan John is want to say. My goal is to qualify for the European Championships before the end of the year and I will need a 272 total. I am five kilos away from this and I know I can do it. Right now, I am building a base and on top of the countless doubles I shall execute, I am also improving my flexibility slowly but surely and getting myself into better positions; the soft tissue work is keeping me healthy and injury free.

The competition I am targeting is the London Open in Decemeber and all the other competitions will be a build up to this. The idea is to use July, August and September to build as wide a base as I can and then in October and November I will drop the doubles and up the intensity. This morning, Byrdie was training alongside myself and Coach Lee and we got some really good work in. Since I got back from holiday--which was fun, but in the short term, detrimental to weightlifting!--I am gradually getting back to hitting normal positions and I know I will improve on where I left off. Broz kept hammering away to me how the flexibility training I do needs to be specific to weightlifting and I have been doing a lot of it. I need to learn to open up my hips and vastly improve their mobility; I also need to improve my hamstring flexibility and back strength but I think the hip mobility is the key.

This is a bit of a rambling post, but essentially, I am trying to do things differently in this training cycle. I feel like I have not been improving as much as I would have liked and for the next four weeks, I will make gradual and steady progress rather than doing as much as I possibly can and being burnt out towards the end of the second week. This goes with all my lifts and squats as well as the extra stuff that I do which I mentioned above. I have a very simple goal: I need to hit 272kg and I have the training plan and the motivation to get me there. Now I need to go and do it and follow my own wildly plagurised advice.

Here are two impossibly cool videos to inspire and motivate:



Click here to see what is possibilty the greatest weightlifting video ever.

9 comments:

Christine said...

The Drescher video is possibly the greatest thing I have ever seen. Full of win, my friend!

thatdes said...

Can I ask what hip mobility (and possibly shoulder) exercises you're doing to increase flexibility?

Barry said...

Hi Stock,

I do very little shoulder mobility aside from the basic movements we were all taught when we were kids.

In regards to the hips, I stretch a few different ways. Firstly, I sit down into a squat and try to get my feet as wide as I can while forcing my knees out with my elbows and trying to bring my hips through and between the heels. I do this on and off for at least ten minutes a day and I find it very helpful.

I also started stretching the glutes and hamstrings using a basic rubber band after I saw the videos on youtube and they feel great and help open up my hips. I will post them up on the blog.

Aside from this I do the basic stretches for the glutes, groin, quads and hamstrings; I change up how I perform them, using PNF one time, resistance stretching the next, sometimes by myself and sometimes with a partner. Does any of this make sense of am I rambling?

Barry

Anonymous said...

Nice mate. You will not get 272 before me man!!!! :D

It'll be good to compete against you at the London Open :)

Koing

Anonymous said...

Also when was your comp PB 267?

Barry said...

Hi Koing, my best ever total is 265kg which I got at the end of May with 118/145 and also in April with 116/147. My best lifts combined are 267kg. I am looking forward to competing in the London Open and a few Irish boys will be coming over also, so bring your A game buddy!

Anonymous said...

I see mate, 118/145 is not 265 :P or you meant 120?

I'm looking forwards to the London Open also, but I should be on 280+ by then :D, aiming for 130/160 by the end of the year, but we'll see how I get on, 122/150 is sooooo f0cking close. I just have to put it together.

Love the donny video. I listen to it everytime before I train :D

Koing

Barry said...

You're right Koing, I am getting ahead of myself. 263 is my best total, but for some reason I thought it was 265!

Anonymous said...

Mines 265 :P, but lets f0cking chase Euro qualifies...I'll neeed 305 :D LETS DO IT!!!!

Koing

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