So I have now completed 3 days of the .50 Caliber training cycle, with 5 of the 18 workouts done. Today was the first day that I began to repeat the workouts and it is certainly starting to feel like everything I was warned about. I am already starting to see my strength drop off a little bit and I anticipate that the next time I do these two workouts (Friday) that I will have to take some weight off of the bar. My weight has increased by a kg (to 90kg), but that is not unheard of as initially my body is responding to the strong stimulus provided by the first three workouts, however as my body starts to realise that there is no recovery period coming for quite sometime I should start to see some weight loss.
The lethargy is already starting to kick in, and since starting I have not had one good nights sleep, not sure if this is a result of the training or simply psychosomatic as I lie in bed telling myself that I won't be able to sleep. I am managing to keep eating regularly, the only real hitch being that after Day 1 I realised that I would not be able to consume 80 BCAA caps during my workouts (endless gulping in rest periods just made me feel sick) so I have started to unscrew each capsule and take the BCAAs in powder form. There are two ramifications of this; firstly I look very suspicious as I sit in the Staff room undoing pill after pill and pouring its contents into my shaker, like some drug dealer. Secondly, for those of you who do not know, BCAA powder tastes horrible, but I am not drinking it for pleasure so down the hatch it goes.
The second workout today was particularly tough as it was the 10 sets of 6 reps of Snatch grip deadlifts, my heart rate refused to drop and it was one of the toughest workouts for a long time. This is what I wanted, I wanted a challenge to start the New Year, so I am actually bizarrely enjoying my fatigued state.
Chatting to an S&C coach yesterday raised an interesting point. He is far more knowledgeable than I am, more experienced (polite way of saying older) and stronger. But upon telling him what I was doing he responded "No way" in fact there was an F bomb in there but my mum has declared that she might start reading this. He then said "I couldn't do that, I'd break". Now this is not some boast about me having more durability, or grit than him, he is Northern so undoubtedly he is tougher. The point is that if you have numerous injuries, or imbalances this type of training will lay them bare pretty quick, in fact you'll be on your back before you can say "I did my [insert knee/shoulder/back joint here] a couple of years ago and its never been the same since". I 'd planned this phase of Super Accumulation (which is what .50 Caliber training is) four months ago. I did Structural Balance work for the first two months to ensure any imbalances that I had, had been identified and that I had worked towards correcting these. I also completed a Smolov Jr Squat cycle before Christmas to get used to squatting regularly.
Structural Balance testing is a training tool used by Charles Poliquin to help screen his athletes/clients to see what imbalances they have which could ultimate lead to poor performance or injury. There are a series of Upper and Lower body tests which provide the PICP coach with information to make an informed assessment about what issues the client has which need to be fixed to insure optimal functioning of the body. I have used it with several clients and myself and had very good results with it. Functional Movement Screening is another system, devised by Gray Cook, which is very popular, that also aims to assess a clients movement patterns and alignment to identify any areas of weakness which need working on.
I would thoroughly recommend that regardless of your training goal you find out what your weaknesses are and work towards correcting them. It will help you reach your goal hopefully pain free and boost your performance.
Update Summary –
Added 1 kg, strength beginning to decline, it does not feel like someone has shot my dog yet……just that there is some punk kid next door who keep s firing at him with an air rifle. (Please refer to initial article if this makes no sense – I will continue to refer to my imaginary dog in my updates – a Shot-my-dog scale if you will).
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