Creation of an Explosive Mofo - My Training Journal :)

[coolcolj]

I gotta get a foam roller...

LOL I don't even have one

I'm using a 3 inch carboard roll, but PVC pipes work just as well, a bit hard and painful, maybe wrapped in a towel would work OK. Or put something soft under it to reduce the pressure, like a mattress
tennis balls in a sock, small firm balls etc all work well too.
Household objects like the kitchen benchtop I use is even better for upper body

I have a proper foam roller on order though, a heavy duty high density one. Most foam rollers are too soft and get crushed by someone heavy.

 

[coolcolj]

Fascia - good info, now I know why some things happen...

http://laurensfitness.com/2008/03/06/fascia-part-1-an-important-piece-of-the-pain-puzzle/

 

[coolcolj]

Tuesday 20th May - Micro Cycle 8 - Week 5 - Day 1

Good workout. Upper definitely felt much stronger and looser from all the foam rolling! Plus I didn't even feel as tried and beat-up afterwards
Hang powerclean in warmup complex felt snappy once again --> strong workout

Left my green mini-bands at home, so had to skip the exercises as noted below with the bands...

I did a few vertical jumps between the warm up sets on squats, and my highest was half an inch under my gym best when I was a touch over 200lbs....meh

Body weight at gym - 192.5lbs in winter clothing
Workout time - 1.5 hours
Workout rating - 8/10

General warm up -

4 min moderate speed walk on treadmill
My hip flexor/glute activation move
1 set each of my usual dynamic mobility exercises
scapular pushup on bench x 8
(skipped) behind the neck band pull aparts - green mini-band help 3/4 length 2x 8
lateral deep lunge 2x8
situp complex on swiss ball
single leg RDL mobility + psoas activation walk

3x10 seconds rope skipping - 30secs rest

45lb oly bar complex - slow clean pull, GM onto toes, high hang powerclean, military press - 5 reps each


Full Front and Full Oly Back Squats - shoulder width stance - no Belt

alternating sets between front and back squats, 45 seconds rest between each. Then 2-3min rest between each pairing

warmups
Front Squats - in Nike Free 5.0 trainer - Bar x5, 95lbs x 3, 135x3, 185x3 switched to oly shoes 225x1
Back Squats - in Nike Free 5.0 trainer - Bar x5, 95x4, 135x4, 185x4, switched to oly shoes 225x1

controlled
Front Squat - oly shoes - 245lbs x 2 (+20lbs)
rest 4mins
Back Squat - 4.5 mins rest -
1) Nike free 5.0 trainer - 245lbs x6 (+20lbs)
2) Oly shoes - 245lbs x 6

Warm up sets on front squats with 185lbs and 225lbs felt crazy hard, didn't do my confidence any good, but 225lbs on back squats were fairly easy as they should be for something you can do 10 slow reps with. Although that hasn't always been the case for me, 10RM tended to feel pretty hard in the past....

So I decided to slap on 20lbs. And 245 on front squats scared the hell out of me, but I said "lightweight" to myself and nailed it - that always works
It was pretty hard though, definitely a 90% zone lift. Used the better bar for fronts today, so no collar bone jabbing and blacking out issues.

Back squats were hard, but in a good way. Didn't like the way the 2nd set felt with oly shoes. The elevated heel felt strange, too much quads, but kinda makes it easier.
So when I get to about 275x10 I should be back to my strength levels when I was jumping my best at 200+lbs, or 245x9 paused back then. Good for a 245lb power clean.

Video of the main worksets - depth looks a lot lower than I have ever squatted before, butt looks to be 6 inches off the floor! In a pretty narrow stance too.....foam rolling for the win
right click on link and save first to avoid errors
http://www.members.optushome.com.au..._FrontSquat245x2_Backsquat245_2x6_20May08.mpg


Single Leg Lifts

1.5 mins rest between each side
single leg kneeling deadlift - 2 sec pause at bottom - BW x 5, 2x35lb dumbbells x 8

single leg RDL - 2 sec pause at bottom - bwx5, 2x25lbs dumbell x 8

Upped the total loads 4lbs. Felt pretty easy for some reason, will go to 40lb dumbbells next time.


Extra stuff, Cool down, upper body and stretches


dip shrug - 5sec hold + 3 reps, BW 20 reps with a slight hold at top on each rep - way easier and more stable!

Upper body/shoulder prehab stuff 2kg dumbell x10 (+1rep)
Push up plus on bench x6, on floor x 10
Lying L-Flye cuff rotation
single arm seated Cuban rotation into press
single arm lying on back subscap rotation
single arm lying on side cross body raise
low pulley cable row to stomach - 30kg x 10 (+1 rep)


Side Plank hold
warmup - each side x 5 reps

40 secs each side - up 5 secs - hard, but not bad.

Leg lowering AB exercise - slow tempo
warmup - supported leg raise x 8
1.5 mins rest - 1x7 (+1 rep)
could get my legs all the way to floor without my lower back coming off the floor for the whole set

Lat machine situp
warmup - BW x12 - going progressively lower each rep
BW x 8 - paused middle and bottom

Stretching for whole body
stretches felt different, due to the foam rolling, easier and less painful.
Overhead shoulder range of motion has improved .

 

[coolcolj]

Feeling drained - red, swollen and dry lips --> cortisol is up

moderately sore all over - upper back, calves/feet, upper hammies, glutes and VMO the most

25 min walk today, no foam rolling

 

[coolcolj]

I did end up doing some "foam rolling" last night

tried out a tennis ball, seems to work well for some upper body parts against the wall. Can't quite hit the upper traps, but front delts, biceps, neck muscles, and upper back/scapular/cuff region. It's not as deep and hard as my kitchen bench top, but useful.

Pretty useless for the lower body though, not quite big and firm enough to give enough pressure, except for the calves and side of lower leg, and lower hammie/calf tie in area. Hit my upper outer calf area pretty hard - peroneus - really sore there. Worked that area for a while, and straight after my ankle mobility improved a lot

Found it ineffective for my feet/ foot arch - way too soft. But I am used to my 3 inch cardboard roll which is hard and painful. Also the edge of my bathroom tub works great as well
Might try a golf ball.

Lying on the floor and rolling around a bit hit the quads and hips pretty good, especially if you bend the knee to prestretch the muscles. But I do have pretty big and bulgey legs and hips so YMMV. made my hammies quite sore though from all the "static leg curling".....

Think I will split up the different types of "foam rolling" into different days.
The most hardcore and painful methods - my 3x21 inch cardboard roll for lower body, and kitchen bench top for upper body on Sunday. It's tiring and makes me sore, so on the weekend is fine, and I get Mondays off.
During the week I'll use my mini BBall, tennis ball and proper foam roller.
And split up my body in different areas so I can spend more time in each muscle, other wise it just takes too long. When I get more loose I won't need to do it as much.

----

anyway things continue to improve at my part time job, getting easier on my body, range of motion improving, and just feeling stronger

 

[Azinine]

I'm new to "foam rolling" and all I've used so far is a tennis ball. Like you, I haven't found it very effective on the feet. Golf ball is a great idea and I will try that tomorrow. Other than that, the only lower body area I couldn't really get was my hamstring area. Not sure why but it felt like I couldn't apply enough pressure in that area. It's certainly possible that my muscles are sufficiently loose in that area but I doubt it.

Anyway, you're the reason I googled foam rolling a few weeks ago so I would just like to say "thanks!".

 

[coolcolj]

I'm new to "foam rolling" and all I've used so far is a tennis ball. Like you, I haven't found it very effective on the feet. Golf ball is a great idea and I will try that tomorrow. Other than that, the only lower body area I couldn't really get was my hamstring area. Not sure why but it felt like I couldn't apply enough pressure in that area. It's certainly possible that my muscles are sufficiently loose in that area but I doubt it.

Anyway, you're the reason I googled foam rolling a few weeks ago so I would just like to say "thanks!".

The hammie area is hard for most people to get too. You need something bigger so you can apply enough pressure to it, but not too big. I think a small mini BBall pumped up hard could do it. Or a shotput?
Then stack one leg ontop the other to put more pressure on it

Tennis ball seems to dissappear into my lower body flesh - too fat I guess
Eric Cressey said most people don't get knots there - but I want to hit it to straighten out some scar tissue as it sure does get sore a lot for me after workouts. Maybe the fingers would do the trick
Maybe try hanging the hammie on the top edge of a bathtube and sit on it - that orta hurt real good


I myself wished I had gotten into foam rolling a few years ago! Everyone should do it, you'd reach your goals much faster and be injury free
Unless you can afford ART or Rolfing every week...

 

[coolcolj]

My Comffit foam roller came in, got it cheap from Ebay
One of only 3 types I've seen here locally.

Looks good, works good from a quick test. It's spongey on the outside, but firm on the inside so should resist getting squashed.
Definitely a lot more comfortable than my ghetto carboard roll

I just rolled ontop just then with both shins on the foam roller, with all my weight off the floor and it doesn't wreck like my carboard roll would, but you can still feel it working. So definitely worth getting one.

Now I have a device for every type of massage needed

 

[coolcolj]

Golf ball works great on the bottom of the feet!
I found I had 2 trigger point areas that hurt like hell - the foot arch area and directly across on the outer edge of the foot.

I guess the golf ball is the next step from the tennis ball for the other areas of the body, when it no longer hurts and provides enough pressure

noticed something interesting while lying in bed last night

After all this foam rolling and self massage, my feet no longer turn outwards while lying totally relaxed. They used to rotate so far out that they almost touched the bed. The balled up glute medius was pulling it out I think.
Now my feet point almost vertically even when fully relaxed! Not quite 100% vertical, still kinked to the outer side, but I'm still tight.

Same for my upper body - now I can get my thumbs pointing up and close to the body - whereas before there was a lot of tension and some pain in the left shoulder, when I forced myself into the same position. Still not easy and fully relaxed to get there, but I've got a lot of tight and painful trigger points in my muscles still to work out.

These are pretty good indicators of tightness

 

[coolcolj]

Saturday 24th May - Micro Cycle 8 - Week 5 - Day 2

Bodyweight = 85.6kg 188.3lbs in partial winter clothing

Felt pretty average today, a bit tired, but better than last week.
Tweaked a muscle in my right foot in the morning not long after getting up to go to my part time job, I think when I walked downstairs. Didn't bother me when BBalling, but it did right after, when I walked to the car and it sure aches a bit right now when I roll my foot!

wanted to go to the court with the 8 foot netball rims, but again it was taken over by a little girls netball comp!

Outdoor BBall court - one right next to park with a bent rim - Nike Free 7.0 Trainer

1.25 hour total

1) did some dribbling, shooting and some low intensity moves for about 30 mins.

2) did 25 or so jumps of all types for another 30 mins, resting about a 30secs to a min between jumps, 1-2 mins between some cluster of jumps.

standing vertical jump is up a little. No change to my one step jump, but it's more consistent, running jump was horrible. I am not transferring my run up energy into the jump very well anymore, and I can't seem to do a fast run up on this court, while I keep doing this high jump hopping and skipping crap
And then brake before getting into the jump. Gotta get this sorted.

Definitely felt like I was muscling my jumps. Very quad dominant....maybe squatting in oly shoes is not such a good idea.....legs felt kind heavy'ish.
Maybe I'm still fatigued from the squatting a few days back.
I guess I shouldn't worry about it too much right now, just gotta get my strength back and keep leaning up. And then when I switch back to my paused explosive squats, I'm gonna peak out my jump higher than ever.

The Good - legs felt strong and solid. I landed pretty deep in a few jumps with heels off the ground was able to lock up fast and stable and then bounce out of it.

3) then I did 15 mins or so off high intensity game speed moves around the hoops. Dribbling, drives, low post moves, double clutch shots and tip ins etc nonstop. Was able to sustain my power, speed and shooting touch for the whole time. Fitness is pretty good now.
And my knees and legs felt like the way they used too many years back. No issues at all. Thank you foam rolling


Next week I think I'll go back to that school yard court with the 10'2" and 10'4" rims. It's close to my house and no one ever goes there. I honed my running jumps pretty good there a few months back. Or I can do my BBall stuff there and then hop back home, since it's so close and do my jumps in my garage entrance like I did last year. The ceiling is 10 feet.