RoryQ

Great blog... I wasn't able to concentrate much past seeing the burger really, but sounds like it was a great trip... I trust the Smith St installment is coming up next.

Another agnostic. I suspect not only do we not have the necessary tools to penetrate to the truth, we lack to mental faculties to actually fully understand it.

That's cunning... I like it.. Next time someone in our house is complaining about the amount of appointments I am making for tattoos I will explain, calmly, that whereas we used to figure appointments on an annual basis we are now working it out on a monthly basis. Hence, every four weeks, the slate is wiped clean - obviously. I can see how this plan will necessitate me selling the contents of our home in order to fund it, but at least I'll have badass tattoos when I am sleeping on the sofa. If I can't find a buyer for the sofa, that is.

My rule of thumb has been to only go to phsyios who are attached to actual sporting clubs or athletes. The one I go to right now is the lead for the Irish athletics association, and does (in physio terms, not biblical terms) a lot of youth rugby players. Her attitude is 'ok, you've broken yourself, what do we need to do to put you back in training' rather than the 'You should just stop training - don't you know that stuff's dangerous?' attitude that most G.Ps trot out. I can only handle being told that 'walking is all the exercise you need' so many times.

@irezumi He (s)nailed it!

Petri- Sounds like you've got what must me one of the more common muscle imbalances lifters get. I had a similar diagnosis on my right shoulder and lots of band pull-aparts, rows and lateral raises during my warm-ups sorted me out inside of about 6 months. Best of luck. When you can press again pain-free you'll feel like a million bucks.

'Aliens' was on TV last night. Seeing it so closely on the heels of 'Prometheus' really made me realise how much better 'Aliens' is. I know we're talking about a different type of movie, but 'Aliens' has all of what I liked about 'Prometheus' too ... Strong visuals, a cohesive design aesthetic, great female lead... Plus it just works better as an action horror - the plot hangs together seamlessly. When I flicked over to it it was at the point of the landing scene, where the female pilot with the mirrored aviators is landing the drop-ship in front of the facility. It's pissing down rain, Hicks is asleep in his full armour, and Hudson is mouthing off. There's a palpable sense of menace and tension, and even the minor characters like Vasquez and the guy from the Company (I forget his name) seem to have great cartoony qualities. Compared to all that, 'Prometheus' with its Lawrence-of-Arabia android and Noomi Rapace banging on about God begins to look a little lacking. In 15 years time will we remember the minor characters of 'Prometheus' the same way we do the likes of Newt and Vasquez? I doubt it.

@Our Endless Days There'll be a sequel, according to Scott. Might answer some of those questions (although I suspect he's delighted that Prometheus has sparked such debates about what was going on, motivations etc). As mentioned earlier, what sticks out for me about it is the visuals... Such beautiful cinematography and design.

This is a great clip of a talk that physical therapist Kelly Starrett (mobilitywod.com) gave to the staff of Google. It doesn't deal with lifting as such (although his blog does, on a regular basis), but I think it has quite a wide application considering how many people work sitting at desks or something similar on a daily basis. If you spend, say, 5-6 hours a week training that's a lot less than the 40-60 hours some people spend sitting at a desk.

I saw that, Gregor- pretty messed up. I always thought that the big boys weren't intimidated by the paltry market share that craft brewers get... But here's evidence to the contrary. Recently Beam international bought Cooley distillers, which was Ireland's last independently owned distillery. Cooley had been making whiskey for various third parties who produced their own bottling (for example, Slane castle had their own whiskey made for them by Cooley, which was doing pretty well). Anyway, Beam announced within a year of taking over that they were no longer producing any whiskey for these independent third parties... Instantly putting them out of business because the only other distillers on the island are also owned by multinationals and none of them are interested in supporting independent competitors in any way.

Some conditioning today because my girlfriend insists on making baked lemon cheesecake and I insist on eating three portions rather than just one. When I do conditioning days I like to pick 3-4 blocks of around 10 minutes solid work, with 4-5 minutes rest between them. In terms of what the work blocks are: In the past what's worked best for me are things like sprint work, carries and drags, kettlebells swings/snatches and short metabolic conditioning type bodyweight/dumbell/barbell circuits (this is one of the few times I will use some of the less badly programmed CrossFit metcons in my workouts - for instance, 'Cindy' ... Or a shorter version, at least). It might sound like a lot of work, but for me it works well for conditioning purposes twice a week - I usually see myself lean out pretty quickly. Then I get slightly fat again and the cycle begins anew. Ah, the circle of life. Today I did:- -6 x 2 minute rounds of bag work / 30 seconds rest between rounds. First three were just hands, second three were '8 limbs'. Not such a heavy block because there's quite a bit of built in rest, but I wanted to ease in. (rest) -12 minutes of double kettlebell swings with skipping for active recovery. Reasonably puketastic. (rest) -10 minutes of turkish get-ups, alternating sides. Shoulders went quite shaky towards the last 3 minutes so went to half turkish get-ups to avoid any silliness. And that was it for today. Later in the week I will try to ramp it up a bit more. I've already done my upper body lifting day yesterday, just got to get one more conditioning day and my lower body day in before Sunday and I'm good.

Mo Coppoletta (The Family Business) recently had his gallery updated on their site - must be the first time in years. Anyway - I thought this was cool. I really like the stone shelf and the way the flames are done.

So it's three 5-rep worksets on the main exercises, precded by two warm-up sets..?

@tammy The force is strong with you.

For our UK members - M&S have been selling a Meantime brewing 750ml bottle of naval porter for the past while, which is very good. I see now they're doing 750ml bottles of red ale as well - looks to be from Meantime also. I've got a bottle but not uncorked it yet.

Kyle- a typical day's food for me looks something like this at the moment .... Your comments would be appreciated. Breakfast: If cooked it'll be 3-4 pieces of bacon, 1-2 eggs and something like 1 piece of potato bread or a banana + apple. If uncooked then probably 30-40g worth of cooked meat (antipasti etc) and a few pieces of fruit and yoghurt. Gone off oatmeal lately but I could revisit that. Lunch: Large bowl of something like beef chilli with kidney beans, possibly a small amount of rice or similar but mainly protein-heavy. Dinner: Another fairly protein heavy meal - maybe more chilli or a steak or a couple of homemade burgers and 40-60g worth of carbs in the form of vegetables, rice or whatever. When I remember I fit in maybe 1-2 30g whey protein supplements on top of that (with water usually versus milk).

My mate's 30th party last night. 1 x old fashioned 2 x pints tuborg 5 x shots of something multi-coloured (it was like waves of alien fighters attacking earth, they just kept coming) 3 x more old fashioneds Quite sick today. When I left the bar my girlfriend realised she had forgotten her umbrella. I duly went back in - just in time to seperate my friend who was grappling with a bouncer trying to eject him for being 'too drunk' (quite a feat in a bar in Dublin on a Saturday night). I ended up dragging him out myself, which was better than letting the bouncers relieve their bordedom by giving him a hammering. Of course, once outside he called me a 'homo' for frogmarching him out and then fell asleep in the taxi - classic 30th behaviour. Today went to an Indian and had an amazing Goan meatball curry. Nothing like a load of spices to shake out the hangover.

Saw 'The Raid' on Thursday. Excellent Indonesian action movie about a SWAT team who go into a multi-story appartment block full of criminals in order to arrest the guy living in the penthouse. Predictably, they get caught halfway up and end up getting it from all sides. The trailer sold this as a martial arts movie, and there is an awful lot of the indonesian martial art of silat showcased ... But I was actually surprised when I saw it how slick of an all-round thriller it is. To be honest, when I watch martial arts movies my brain eventually shuts off - there are only so many 5 minute beautifully choreographed fights you can watch before they all start to look the same. But 'The Raid' actually has some good plot twists, character development and good soundtrack on top of that. I gather an american re-make (possibly with an MMA fighter in the lead role) is already in the works. Then today I saw 'Prometheus'. I actually thought of starting a spoiler thread to discuss this movie, because when I walked out I felt like I had more questions than when I went in. A few minutes of googling found some interviews with Ridley Scott which kind of cleared up most of my questions. If you're a fan of 'Alien' and 'Aliens' then this is obviously a must-see but just in general terms what blew me away about it were the cinematography and soundtrack. The opening shots (not sure where they're of) are really just beautiful - a visual feast.

Same here. I think her shoe collection far outstrips what I've spent on tattoos. At the moment she has no tattoos. This Christmas she should have a fully outlined backpiece, whole back and thighs. That'll be interesting... The shoe'll be on the other foot. Or whatever.

Hmm. I have some flames crossing my left knee from a dragon that goes the length of my leg, and I remember the muscles around it flexing involuntarily during that session (moreso than the pain). I didn't really think about it too much when I made the appointment for my other knee... Which is in just under a month. Guess we'll see!

I spend so much time sitting at a desk or driving a car these days that I'm super conscious about trying to really nail the idea of a super stiff musculature to support the spine... I Read Stuart McKenzie's 'Ultimate upper back fitness and performance' and while its full of great exercises, the one I love the most is the plank and its variations. Even just using bodyweight you can smoke yourself if you do it right. Chuck weight like plates on your back or side and it changes again..

Been reading some Pavel Tsatsouline stuff on kettlebells. I think it's his original book in fact - 'Russian Kettlebell Challenge' (I also have 'Enter the kettlebell' which, incidentally, is the better of the two). Pavel writes (at least, I assume it's really Pavel) in an entertaining way but I can't help but roll my eyes every third line. It's the needless hyberbole he resorts to. Everything is either for mewling girly men or it's a badass russian-approved method that will take the injured and weak and turn them into men hewn of pure iron with eyes that shoot bullets and hands that have AK-47s for fingers. He's advocating some proven and well-regarded training protocols and movements (grease-the-groove, ladders, a lot of well-chosen exercises etc) - why all the spetsnaz-related B.S? Well, I guess it's both entertaining and has been proven to work for him, so it's a moot point. Anyway. Seems to me there has been a gradual change in some RKC technique over the years. in the book I was looking at today it seems to me that Pavel is photographed at the bottom of the swing with his 'head up' (his word) and looking directly ahead. He references not looking 'down' because this can lead to the rounding of the back and injury. Nowadays it seems like many are aware of the need to 'pack the neck' to avoid shear force on the neck and more and more I see RKC guys and others trying to maintain a more neutral neck position on their swings - that is, they're not quite looking down but they're not breaking the alignment of the lumbar / thoracic spine and cervical spine the way Pavel seems to in these early photographs. I guess stylistic changes do come in, taking account of current best practice, in RKC, which is commendable. Anyway, inspired by all this I did a KB conditioning session at lunchtime for some variety. Warm-up -Some super light high volume one-arm swinging to warm-up (12kg KB) -Halos around the head with the 12kg to warm up the shoulders a little more -Some wall slides, again for the shoulders -Scap push-ups, as above -Some light snatching For the workout I did a few blocks of seperate 'work'- -12 minutes of one-arm swings with the heaviest KB in the gym... A 16kg. Simply not heavy enough, but basically I just tried not to stop and make the 'pop' up from the bottom extra explosive. The few times I did put the bell down I jogged for active recovery. A 24kg would have worked better for this but it still got my heart going. Then rested two minutes and -Another 12 minutes of single arm snatches with the 16kg. This annoyed me because the limiting factor was simply my palm getting shreddded. An element is possibly slightly dodgy technique on the downward swing, but it's also simply because I'm not doing any snatching anymore and my hands are soft in the wrong places now. Some more rest and then -5 sets of 10/10 walking lunges with a 12kg in each hand, superset with single leg RDLs with the 12's. Still too light but screw it. Finished off 5 minutes of non-stop turkish get-ups with the 16kg, focusing on form and alternating hands. Felt like this was OK weight-wise. I've done TGUs with the 32kg in the past but I think my shoulders would need to work up to that these days. Some core work to finish- planks.

Sweet!

Kyle- I've never seen (or heard!) a pec tear, but I've heard a couple of knee ligaments go... The worst I ever heard was an achilles tendon snapping during a sprint class. The drill being performed involved jumping from a box and taking off into a sprint, which I gather is a not uncommon drill to improve start speed or whatever. Anyway, a guy took off and after about the second step it was like someone fired a starting pistol. 'CRACK!!!'. I drove the guy back to his house and I remember him feeling his lower ankle in the passenger seat of the car and the conversation went something like this- HIM- 'You know the way you have an achilles tendon just above your heel and you can kind of feel it?' ME- 'Uh, yeah...' HIM- 'Yeah, well I can't find it on my left leg now.' He had surgery the next morning! Ouch. Complete tear, they had to stitch it back together. I try to be conscientious about warming up... The potential risk just aren't worth 'saving' the time involved.

Cue some unsolicited internet advice : If your shoulder hurts when you press then I'd be inclined to try and figure out what it is. Personally, I had no problems with my shoulder ROM (hypermobile, if anything) but I still got that classic front-right shoulder pain when I benched. Eventually it went from something I casually wondered about to something that stopped me flat benching until I fixed it. I think it was a pretty vanilla muscle imbalance, but I'm glad I caught it relatively early. I know you said you went to a physio but in my case I ended up going to three before I found one who actually could relate the problem to the programming who had caused it and had a solution. In my case, that was shitloads of band pull-aparts, lateral raises, extern raises, band hugs and rows galore (inverted rows, barbell rows etc). Fixing years of low-rep pressing without much in the way of heavyish rowing to balance it out except pull-ups. Ironically fixing my back and developing some scapular stability actually also improved my benching since I finally had some foundation to press off. And then I found a new way to injure myself :rolleyes: If you really do feel tight in that position you could try rolling against a lacrosse or hockey ball. Stick it anywhere it feels tight and work it in there. Junction of your pec and shoulder, maybe even your lats and around your upper back.