Training Diary: 1st Feb – 8th Feb 2016

My Training Diary Catch Up…

I’ve been busy doing all kinds of things recently, so I haven’t been adding to my training diary. Rather than back-date it, I thought I’d just do a catch up post and write down the week’s workouts in one go….

Training Diary – 1st Feb – 8th Feb 2016

Workout 2nd Feb

I had just enough time to fit a strength workout in between personal training sessions. I wanted to get some strength work in – I was going to struggle to do any olympic lifting as the gym wasn’t set up for it.

Some of the bars I needed were being used, so I opted for a few sets of slow, strict pull ups to start. They’re still not a strong point of mine, so the more work I can do on them the better! Problem is though, my physio tells me I have dominant lats so I can’t over do it!

Still, the workout was a good one. I hadn’t done any really heavy deadlifts for a couple of weeks and I hadn’t done any heavy barbell bench pressing in a long time, so it was good to see I’d maintained some strength there.

A good start to the week in the gym.

• Pull Ups: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
• Cleans: 5, 5, 5, 5
• Clean and Press: 4, 4, 4, 4
• Deadlift: 3, 3, 3, 3
• Barbell Bench Press: 3, 3, 3, 3

Workout 3rd Feb 

Some of you will remember I’m working on my Olympic lifting. Essentially I’m taking it step by step – picking a lift and working on it over and over again. There’s only a handful of the lifts, but they are quite intricate and potentially dangerous, so I’m giving them a lot of time and focus.

Again, I had 45 minutes been personal training sessions in Stockport, so I used the chance to do some snatch practice.

This was the equipment I used for my whole workout. Sometimes what’s necessary isn’t interesting…

I’ve slowly built myself up in the weight – I started with an empty bar and added more until now I can snatch 60kg with respectable technique.

That’s a light weight in Olympic Lifting circles, but it’s a start and I know that once I built the technique fundamentals my lifts will go up quickly. I’m now hitting 100kg cleans fairly easily, I can squat 160kg, deadlift 180kg and bench press 120kg, so the base strength is there – I just need to marry that to technique!

It doesn’t make for the most interesting training diary update, but it highlights the importance of doing the necessary work as well as the glamour work.

• Snatch: 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

Workout 5th Feb

Usually my Friday workout is the biggest of the week in terms of volume, but today was a different focus. For a few weeks now I focussed on strength, but today I wanted to ease off the strength work slightly and spend more time on a bodybuilding approach.

I still went all-body (I haven’t done split routines since about 2005) and wanted to get some heavy squatting done (I hadn’t squatted up to this point in the week). I started with heavy thrusters before getting the heavy squatting work out of the way.

With the hardest exercise done I went into the bodybuilding exercises I haven’t done for a long time, such as the rows and flyes. I did some reverse flyes with the cables but felt I wasn’t hitting the right muscles (maybe this was fatigue, I don’t know), so switched the dumbbells and it felt better.

Pre-habilitation done, I went a bit bro again with my curls, pull downs and lat raises which I haven’t done much over the last couple of years.

• Thrusters: 3, 3, 3
• Barbell Back Squats: 10, 8, 6, 2
• Barbell Bent Over Row: 8, 8, 8
• Cable Flyes: 10, 10, 10
• Cable Reverse Flyes: 12, 12
• Dumbbell Reverse Flyes: 10, 10, 10
• Alternating Dumbbell Curls: 16, 16, 16
• Rope Tricep Pull Downs: 12, 12, 10
• Lat Raises: 10, 10, 10

So this was my training diary catch up – I’ll try to keep it up to date, but sometimes stuff has to slip! Rest assured though, it’ll never go too long without an update and even if I don’t update it, I’ll add a catch up training diary like this article.

I have also kept up with my promise of a weekly sauna because it helped me recover when I did it last. If you want to know why I’ve made it such a big part of my recovery, check out this post.

As ever, here are my shoe and wrist wrap recommendations (I’m including these because they have made a huge difference in my training)…

P.S. I’m giving away a FREE eBook ‘101 Health and Fitness Tips’ to everyone who subscribes to my VIP email list. By joining the list you’ll have access to exclusive content, discounts, offers and products from both me and selected partners. Click here to download!