Friday's fortuitous change in pace

I have reached the end of my phase of training and started my new phase at nine pm last night. Thank God. Volume is being slashed quite a bit and I am only training three times a week so I will recover far better in between sessions. Thank God. No more fifteen doubles in the squat; no more endless doubles in the Classical lifts. Wayne wrote an initial program that would have been too much so he rewrote it and the new one is awesome and I really enjoyed it last night. Here is what I did:

Snatch: 4x2@40 1x3@60, 66, 77 1x2@85, 85, 90, 92

Power Clean: 2x2@60, 80, 91, 105, 110

Back Squat: 1x2@110, 130, 145--I took some of the squats out because it was ten at night and I had done some medium squatting the previous evening.

In my last phase I was box squatting onto a 17 inch soft top bench and for this phase of training I am using a 14 inch wooden box. I started using the box squats because it limited the chance of me re-injuring my hip and it also allowed me to work on my squatting weaknesses. The progression for after the London Open will be to move down to the 12 inch box afterwards as well as getting stronger obviously!

I have not Power Cleaned in ages and I really enjoyed it. I am really happy I will only be training three times a week and I have no doubt that this boost in energy will result in better numbers in training and in competition.

Random funny video:




Some good news to finish on is that a joint invitational Irish and Scottish team will be facing California Strength in a controlled team competition on Saturday, November 6th. The competition will be run via skype and the Irish lifters will travel over to Kilmarnock, Scotland to Charlie Hamilton's gym. Myself, Sami Dowling, Cathal Byrd and Kevin D'Arcy will be joining forces with Peter Kirkbride, Graham Kane, Craig Caffrey and a fourth member. Wayne Healy might possibly be joining us; we have Sky News on the alert for a possible press conference from Wayne's agent. The competition will be very simple: add up the sinclairs of each lifter (there will be teams of 8) and all lifts will be given the yeah or nay by the group as a whole: the honour system will apply. The competition will be run at six pm Scottish time and ten am Californian time. It has taken me months to set this up, so thanks to Glenn Pendlay for the awesome idea and all the lifters for taking part in what should prove to be great fun.

I hipe everyone's training is going well and that we are all continuing to learn from our mistakes and also learning from what has helped us! People tend to forget the latter.