Rafe's Training Log

Organization vs. Intuition

I go through periods where I feel inspired to be very structured and rigid in my training, and others where I feel much more like following my innate desire for play and seeing how that directs me. I think there is a necessity for balance between these two approaches for optimal training, and it's natural to bounce back and forth between them. I often find the best gains are after a period of structured training when I switch to a more intuitive format. 

That's what I am doing right now and I won't be updating my log much for awhile because of it, however my training is progressing nicely. I did want to post today because I hit a big personal milestone.

04/3/10 First strict bar muscle up! There was slight asymmetry to the movement but no grind, no sticking point, so I feel the asymetry will fix itself quickly. I feel like the format I have settled on is really working for me.

The basic structure I have been going to has been two focused: full body strength workouts, a week alternating between three different methods, max effort singles or triples working up to a max, dynamic effort 5x3 focusing on speed and explosiveness, and repetitive effort, either three sets of near 10 rep max, work up to single set max reps, or 20 or 30 reps in as few sets as possible. Exercises are Deadlift, RDL, Pull up, Dip and Muscle up. I do single leg squat work and handstand and varied other drills (cleans, box jumps, capoeria movements), in addition to this I do one day of gymnastics progression and one or two days of sprints and one to three days of two 1 mile runs, with parkour trained as much as possible but just based on desire.

In addition I have cut my weight from 213 and about 18% BF to currently 199 and about 11%. After 2 weeks off of cutting I will be back on the wagon starting tomorrow, looking to cut to 192 and about 8%. 

My muscle ups, which have been the bane of my existence in parkour, have been improving hugely recently. Climbing in general is an area of growth and with my feet finally feeling better I am starting to feel very light and explosive with my jumps. Fun times.

03/02/10

Once again falling behind on the log but this day is worth noting, I deadlifted 435 at a BW of 197 PR is 440 but at 214. 3 strict muscle ups PR, 3 good handstand push ups(no training in 3 months), Pull up and dip with 75 pounds added weight. 

2/20/10-3/2/10

Lost track of my log

Over the course of the week, I did 3x3 pull up and dips with 50 pounds and another pull up and dip day I can't remember what exactly I did. Ran sprints tuesday and thursday, did hard parkour friday, and got down to 196.5 in weight, So making progress, Also built a slosh pipe and played with it a fair amount, and did lots of weird stuff.

Deadlift monday  355x3,365x3, 370x3(7.91 seconds) , tuesday  a ton of varations of deadlifts, snatch grip, suit case, single leg, plus weighted pistols and step ups, Thursday, 365x1  385x1 405x1, 425x1(Felt very heavy), 

3/2/10

Sprints 5x40 in damp grass wearing vibrams best time of 5.25 thing which seems about right if I am around the 5.0 4.9 range on a track with spikes.

30 minutes parkour course run up slanted balance beam gap to juggenaught box turn jump to cat pull cat sideways to percision, to kong roll to side vault, fun course

Deadlift 345x1 355x3, 365x3 375x3(7.9), pull ups 3x3 25 pounds speed focus, dips 3x3 25 pounds plus band resitance.

02/19/10

Did some light moving around on my foot it was feeling allot better able to gently run and very light jumps weird movements though would cause the foot to cramp and sending shooting pain through the join. Did some shadow boxing and bag work. 

Strength training PC 135x3, 165x3, DL 225x3, 315x1, 365x1, 385x1, 405x1, 415x1(10 up from last week), Rack Pull 425x1, 435x1. 

Strained my next somehow doing the bag work and decided to skip pull ups and dips will catch them up tomorrow. 

02/15/10-02/18/10

02/15/10

20 minute run with dog barefoot, unfortunately jackson stepped into me and has his leg swung back it collided with my foot bruising my 3rd and 4th toes. I did no intially realize how bad it was and finished my run and drove down to gasworks to do a parkour session however the pain in my foot quickly shut me down and by the time I got back to the house I was in enough pain to need to skip teaching. Fell into a pretty bad funk considering this is my forth flukey injury since september and I haven't been able to stay healthy for any significant period of time since then, immensely frustrating.

02/17/10

28 years old today not feeling much like celebrating with the injured foot. Did manage to get a basic work out in, 3 campus routes up the rock wall, 3x10x185 Stiff leg deadlift. 2x5 pull ups with 37.5 5x1 with 37.5 1x5 dips with 37.5 1x4 1x1 3x2

02/18/10

16kg KB 30 swings, 10 one arm swings per hand, 10 flips, 10 push press per side, 10 cleans per side. 3 Campus routes. 3x3 WAPHS

2/12/10

Sprints 2:30-3

One mile trail run warm up,

3 50 meter warm ups, 5 full out 50s, 1 full out 100. Technique felt solid not popping up to early but power felt lower then normal. Nobody to time no stopwatch.

Parkour 6:00-6:45 light flow work, barefoot stuff, balance, climbing.

Strength 6:45-8:00

RDL 185x3x8, Push Press 135x5 140x2x5, WASPHS 3x3, 2xCampusing route on rock wall.

Really felt the RDL in my ham string, feel like my press weakness is due to mid torso strength not sure how best to attack it. Press to handstand felt ok not as good as monday but seemed to groove in over my sets.

2/11/09

Skipped Parkour ran out of time and felt a little less then perfectly rested. 

Strength training

Pull up and Dip 3x5x35 this was hard doable but just grinding and hard every set. Power clean 3x135 3x155 3x185, Deadlift 3x225, 1x295, 1x315, 1x365 2.7 seconds, 1x375 no time, 1x405 3.6 seconds, 1x415 F, Rack Pull 1x415 1x425 F. I broke the 415 of the ground but it was going to slow so I dropped it the goal is stay in peak power, phospaghen range no grinding on my deadlifts. Going to incorporate more rackpulls to build up grip and mental strength for heavy deadlift. The two failure busted my CNS pretty good felt wrecked for the rest of the day, Recovery was good though and I have felt good today.

2/5/10-2/9/10

2/5/10

Light day in preperation for long weekend. Ran barefoot sprints in the wood 3x30, 3x10 starting with left leg forward 3x10 starting with right leg forward, 2x100, all figures very roughly approximate. Felt very awakened and alive form this training not fatigued at all aftewards.

Strength training: Push press 3x5 135, Rock climb route 3x3, Romanian Deadlift 185x3x5. Probably could have handled a heavier RDL but wanted to save my legs just a bit and my grip was giving out from the rock climbing.

2/6/10

Have been realizing I need more time to myself, so spent an hour and half at whatcom falls park in the morning just wondering through the woods no planned training just trying to reconnect with my childhood method of self maintence, took my shoes of and felt the dirt under my toes, washed my face in the water of the creek did a little bit of parkour nothing to serious.

1:30 pm met with friends Ben and Dane for a training at larrabee state park. Beautiful clear weather, tide was out, a perfect day to train. We ran down through the woods, chased a beautiful deer, jump across the creek jump from my 06/07  video a couple times, swung on a rope swing, more gap jumps over the stream, vaulting over tree limbs. Ran down to look at a jump only dane has done before probably 13 feet across with 3 to 4 foot drop but off a kind of scary take off over a rock ravine in the stream and into bushes were you can't see your landing perfectly. I have always been very intimidated by the jump, but today the jump just seemed smaller, walked back for good run up thought about timing it and just decided to go, no hesitation no thought just run jump, fly through the air, land softly, so much fun. Then down the beach, traversing, running from rock to rock. Hit the famous series of 5 tic tacs did it 4 of 6 times without any problems, best I have ever done on it. More rock running, more climbing, more cool tic tacs and jumps. Foot started to ache so I slowed down a bit watched the sun over the water and shore birds while Ben an Dane climbed. Finally stopped by a big sand slope were Dane did flips and ben and I sparred. Improved my ability to fight of the clinch, and to land various palm strikes, slaps, hammerfists, and axe hand strikes. Perfect day.

2/7/10

Skiing first time in two years in celeberation of my birthday on the 17th. Took me a while to get my legs back under me but be the end of the day I was flying down black diamonds again wonderfull feeling. Spent my best runs on canyon for those who know mt. baker, nice soft snow, just dropping of chair six, hitting a nice jump just before the turn into canyone looping in speeding down the wide loop into the canyon, carving back smoothly, wonderful feeling. I miss skiing

2/8/10

Light day, just wandered around in whatcom falls again barefoot, waded through the stream deadlifted, shoulder, pressed, and carried around various logs. Simple fun training. Made me thinking again about the intangible values of training with natural objects outdoors their not as measurable as barbells but challenging in all sorts of different ways and there is simple the benefits to the pysche for me of training in nature.

2/9/10

Deadlift 185x2x3, 295x1, 325x1, 365x3 in 7.9 seconds, 365x2 in 7.4, 365x3 in 7.6. Wanted three sets of three in under 8 but 2 out of three is better then last weeks 1 out of 3 and my last set was my best and fastest so that good. Dips and pull ups 3x5x32.5

Box jump the beast x2 wanted three could not land the third one, plyo's as before. 1x4 straddle press to handstand wall assisted, 2x3

My jumps have not improved in awhile and its worrying me I just moved to this new program so hopefully it will work but feeling stagnant is lame. The dips and pull ups were grinder just my body did not want to do them but I was able to will through it, the press to handstand felt better especially the first set.

Tuedsay/Thursday

Tuesday 2/2/10

Parkour:  2:30-3:30pm greenlake park with tyson and justin, got a difficult stride challenge in the mowgli tree confidence is increasing feet feeling better.

Strength training: 5:45-7pm Snatch grip deadlift 3x5 at 225, Crimp Grip climb up on box plus 20 pounds 3x3, 3x3 straddle press to handstand.

Press to handstand felt very strong today which was nice.

Thursday 2/4/10

Parkour 1:45-2:45pm  greenlake park with Brandee. Kind of low energy but found some very cool things, including a tree to tree to tree, to tree route without touching the ground really stoked about that one, experimented with some cool tree climbing techniques as well.

Strength training 8:30-9:45pm

Deadlift 225x2x3, 315x3 365x1 2.4 seconds, 385x1 2.6, 395x1 3.5 seconds. Was  hoping to get over 400 put 395 was slow should have droped down to the 375 and pulled 3 more singles but needed get home and eat. Pull ups and Dips 3x5 30 pounds.

Switching to 3x5 on pull ups and dips because I would like more of hypertrophy stimulus.

First day of new cycle

I have decided to do one more 6 week cycle of strength focused training,  the goal is to add 60 pounds to my deadlift for total of 500 for 1RM while building up to 100 pounds added weight on both dip and pull up. I have found the higher volume approach of 5/3/1 did not seem to be helping my i need more frequent exposure to the what I am training with higher intensity and less volume. I also want to get a press to handstand though that may be shooting to high, I will also be trying to add some more variety to my training and getting back into harder parkour training plus preparing for speed and power focused phase at the end of this cycle.  The details are still a little fuzzy but this is the basic outline.

Monday: AM Deadlift 3x3, supersetted with 3x3 drop broad jump and drop box jumps, pull ups for 3,5,max, dip 3,5,max, assistance work
PM parkour skill work
Tuesday AM Snatch grip Deadlift 3x5, weighted box climb ups 3x5
Sprints
PM: Parkour skill work
Wednesday depending on recovery, light parkour run, trail run, or hike
Thursday AM Deadlift 7x1, supersetted with plyos as above only single leg, weighted dips and pull ups 5x3, assistance work
PM: Parkour Skill work
Friday: AM: RDL 3x8, Push press 3x5, box climb ups 3x5
PM: Rest
Saturday: Parkour

Assistance work, will generally be, single leg and lateral lower body movements, single arm or dynamic upper body movements(rock climbing dynos, muscle ups, push press variations), or very short metabolic work outs 3 minutes or less. Still figuring out were to put the press to handstands. 

Weight training sessions have to be an hour or under, parkour 1.5 hours or less except Saturday. Deadlift will be timed no sets over 8 seconds to minimise fatigue. First day

12:30pm Deadlift 135x5, 225x2x3, 365x2 7.4, 365x2 6.8, 365x3 8.4, superseted with the plyo's, pull ups x3 x5 x12, dip x3 x5 x15. No assistance excercises, just warm ups done at exactly 1:30pm. 

8:00pm-9:00 pm Parkour at the gym, routes, cat to cat, spinning tic tacs mostly good stuff for me challening my ability to overcome disorientation and find myself in space, did double kong, some good muscle ups, some crappy ones, finished the day with some good rock climbing starting to feel like I own the routes I am working on it in the gym will have to make harder ones soon.

All in all good day no video. Back at it tomorrow, time for bed.