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Pickup was good. I got my first big block today .. which is usually a good sign my timing is coming back. Not sure it's ever happened just start of week 2 of restarting bball so that was cool. I still haven't tried dunking but i don't want to be a dunker anymore .. want to be respected for my game not some parlour trick i can happen to do because i squat way too much and it's only a 22" inch jump to touch the rim. I may do a dunk session at some point but right now just getting back in shape is priority #1.

there's no way you won't get above 160 SPM on a 200m sprint.

Guess i'd have to find out! Morning run step freq was 151 today btw (that's just for the last 4km, the first km was just a warmup at v. slow speed and i didn't start the watch until end of warmup). I was checking it intermittently and it was around 155 .. but i think i must have had periods where it dropped below 150 to average 151. That would be super interesting to track, step freq thru the entire run.

Quote

I really regret not taking up todday's offer to train with him back when i was in LA.

yup.

Dont think i was willing to receive the advice i needed at that time. To be clear if i had got it from him personally i probably would have embraced it but the whole thing about the teacher and the glass full thing applied, i hadn't emptied my glass at that point. And that's what I needed before I even reached out for his hand. The point i am now .. ive tried the things I believed to be true and not having seen the results i started revisiting and revising my approach. hence the running emphasis when i had never run before etc.  I think i still have his old posts of what he wanted me to do at the time (sprint focus) and i just didn't wanna change up focus from squatting. btw squatting never went anywhere until i started doing daily squatting and i would never have done that either.

That leads me to another strand, if daily squatting works so well .. what can i do for daily training the upper body? Im not goign to be able to do it now i don't think but at some point. Daily dips? Daily curls? Which exercise? Pushups?

I always find as I get heavier when i drive the ball, i become more and more unstoppable. My momentum just thrives on heavier bw. And even when lightweight, I remember in university days my friend remarking 'you're like a steam engine' cos i was hitting so hard (weighed lightweight too). He was much stronger than me but when driving the ball i would able to generate a lot of power nevertheless. So becoming actually heavier and more powerful and practising my driving i think i can become pretty much unstoppable. My problem is i intinctually shy away from contact .. which negates one of my abilities .. and because of that, the defender can neutralise me by guiding me away from the goal cos i'll keep taking off the accelerator lol.  I need to reprogram myself to embrace the contact cos more than likely im winning that battle almost every time. If it's a much bigger heavier guy im going to be a bit quicker, and get him to achor himself momentarily to allow me to make a move around him. if it's a smaller guy he'll bounce off me. Why shy away? Just something I need to consciously work on. I am playing today will try to get as much contact as possible.

Oh and yea and cadence. Woke up and just shuffling around the house and i drag my heels pretty much always. It gives me a weird gait, i never knew just thinking pick up my knees would fix that. Will keep working on it and make it habit and then hopefully it will carry over to the court and track as well.

Old man joggers lol. No problem, i'll keep that in mind, just let the body internalise the most appropriate speed for the activity at hand. But i must tell you, i don't think my cadence ever gets above 160. Now i want to go to the track and just do some all out 200m sprints and check the cadence and see if i'm right about that. If it turns out i have low cadence regardless of the type of run - any drill you can recommend welcome

i bet if anyone here actually saw me move in real life they could suggest changes that would make huge differences to my ability as an athlete just by observing. I really regret not taking up todday's offer to train with him back when i was in LA.

Bodyweight(AM): 85.0kg (11 Jan)
Diet compliance: 1/1 days
Daily Squat: 55/55 days
Daily Run: 55/55 days
Basketball skill work: 

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Morning:

  Slow Run - 7.65km, 49:50, 6:31/km pace

Noon:

  BS 6x120, 1x152.5, 10x132.5(PR), 14x120(PR)
  BX 10x80(+band, PR)  

Evening:

  Full court pickup game  ~ 1hr  

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Notes:

• While i wanna gain weight i didn't think i'd hit 85kg so soon. Increasing bw for another 18 days including today. Still unsure what my upper limit shud be, i feel 86.5kg is prob a good place to end, from there can cut to 85.0kg in a couple of weeks max. Any longer cutting and i'll get weaker and lose muscle, so 86.5kg for now. Then again maybe 87kg would work too cos you lose some glycogen easily and cutting 1.5kg of fat is do-able once that happens. Will see.
• Kinda regretted the morning run but i wasn't sure if i'd get nice conditions like this again for a while this summer so went for it. I know cardio will help keep bodyfat down down while putting on bw but it's a fine line before you start eating into recovery and gains. Lets hope i find a nice balance.
• I worry if lots of slow running is not just making me even slower as an athlete. When i look down and see how my feet are moving glacially it just seems weird af ha.. i feel like im some old man jogger. lol. But signs are promising i felt kinda quick in my first basketball session of the season last friday.
• I haven't been logging but today my cadence was 149 which is what ive found my 'faster' runs to be. It probably started around 145 for slow jogs so ive made very modest improvements. Need to do a lot better but will be interesting to see what it is for a fastest GPS run, just to compare. Unfortunately i haven't got the records to check against. Next time i do one, i'll keep an eye at cadence.
• I went so long (~11 days) between ohp/chinup workouts that by the time i did it (yesterday) my body had detrained those muscles and my abs were torched today. weakened core is bad news for squatting so it was a subpar squat session. Forced it all the same. Hopefully the rest of the week will be better.
• I went to put some shots up tonight and got invited into a full court pickup game. Was craze. These philipino guys .. a few of them are good ballers too but the rest are meh. Lots of cherry picking and almost every second basket was transition fast breaks. I welcomed it cos i wanted to run lol. Suprisingly my fitness held up okay .. but i did find myself winded after a few bouts (i was actually trying to play hard on both sides of the court). Maybe that's where the interval training will help?

Bodyweight(AM): 84.1kg (10 Jan)
Diet compliance: 0/0 days
Daily Squat: 54/54 days
Daily Run: 54/54 days
Basketball skill work: 

---

Morning:

 Long TM run - 75 mins, 12km total,  6:15/km pace (PR; minutes, distance) 

Noon:

  BS 6x120, 1x152.5, 8x132.5(PR), 13x120(PR)
  OHP 5x50, 3x60, 5x57.5, 7x55
  Chinup 5x12kg, 6x10kg
  BX 15x70kg(+band, PR)

Evening:

---

Notes:

• Perfect cool morning for a long run, took advantage. Was like 22-24 degrees C.  The notable thing about htis run was i ran the last 10 minutes at above my long run goal pace of 10km/hr. And it feels like ive gone down a cup size which i didn't expect considering how much weight ive gained. ive gained weight and got leaner? that's cool.
• Started a new micro cycle at 13 and 8 reps of 120kg and 132.5kg respectively. Gna build up to 15x130kg and 8x140kg concurrently this week.

LBSS, quick recap:
1. i told him to play more full court basketball
2. he says he can't etc
3. he came up with some running stuff, which was basically 2x/day, but lots of hard running
4. i told him to do most of his runs slow/relaxed, not looking at pace, for ~30 minutes or so, then try to get 1-2 hard sessions in per week
5. he said running was making his squat feel amazing, best thing ever, feels so strong/good etc
6. treadmill vs road vs grass stuff
7. diminishing returns after 2 weeks, slow running isn't for him
8. slow running is dogma
9. he needs to feel like he can progress each workout etc, so running might not be for him
10. he'll stop short of calling it nonsensical
11. he says part of the fun is figuring it out for yourself, which i can identify with

i wrote the brief recap because i saw a devil's advocate comment. i forget exactly what, but it was related to pace etc.

i told him not to worry about the watch, pace, etc.. don't worry about how slow he looks compared to others.

tbh, i think he has problems going that slow because of "ego". maxent has made some comments which elude to that.

i run very slow, most often. even slower than old ladies, who can sometimes pass me. doesn't bother me one bit. so i'm definitely someone who has seen the benefits of running very slow/relaxed. thing is, for me it works best at ~45 minutes or so (and adds more benefit the longer i go). for maxent, it would probably work great at 30 minutes.

so, if he was enjoying his 2x/day running, or even every day running, he should be going hard 2x/week, with the rest of the sessions slow & relaxed .. occasionally throwing in some short strides or ending with them, if he wanted. that'd be my advice.

he wanted to go faster like every workout/week etc, but it just doesn't work that way with running.

Quote from: maxent on January 09, 2019, 06:29:28 am

i'll stop just short of calling it nonsensical tho.

nice. because calling something nonsensical, while not knowing much about the subject, would be well - nonsensical.

 

also you asked if it's mileage or duration .. i told you several times, it's duration! don't worry about miles.

every single one of my runs, i simply write "1 hour" , "2 hours", "3 hours", "30 min", "45 min" etc.. i don't even write the mileage.

if you write the mileage, it makes you run too fast.

running to improve general fitness is very simple. you've already overcomplicated it like crazy. i mean that's not good to do in itself, but to do it with this confidence of calling the time tested basics "nonsensical" and "dogma" is just ridiculous. when it comes to conditioning you're self admittedly clueless, so chill with those "attack words" lmao. you know alot more about lifting/diet etc .. but conditioning is a completely different paradigm, takes a long time to learn/master. it's not easy. and the hardest aspect to learn about it, is how simple it is, yet how hard it is to perform the simple basics. the basics are hard to perform because they are so simple. they aren't shiny or amazing.

bottom line.. to build a strong foundation, one needs to improve their work capacity specific to the total duration of efforts, and total duration per week, per month, per year. etc.

peace!

That was a great recap!! This morning run something clicked. i was doing what should be on paper an easy run and it felt not easy. Just like every run in the last couple of weeks, when ive complained that there is no such thing. But what i wasn't understanding or whatever is that every run has a background level of discomfort. And the mind is a liar sometimes. always?  Slow doesn't mean enjoyable or lack of discomfort. I guess i got thrown by the idea of a run being enjoyable etc, which would imply ...on first glance a lack of discomfort. But the body doesn't work like that. It's like you go a bit harder or a bit longer and the body releases more some ephinephrines  and this throws off your idea of pain/discomfort, now something that you might have just found uncomfortable could become enjoyable cos the hormones are flooding through your blood. Like you might be working harder but it feels less painful. Maybe the whole time you were describing something that is objectively easy on paper (eg slow pace) without realising i was understanding it to be in an epistemological sense. I start off even run (even every easy run) with great discomfort .. i want to quit because it's v. uncomfortable .. the longer the run is supposed to be the stronger the desire to abandon it because the discomfort seems insurmountable for that long a time, especially at the beginning when the finish is the farthest away. 

and this might be a good place to say that whatever ive been doing actually probably has worked and worked really well. when i started this experiment of daily running some 8 weeks ago i had no running background in my entire lifetime before it. Now im doing a 12km run in 75 minutes and i cut it short cos i didn't wanna get my long run goal today so i have something to look forward to progressing next time. but whatever that means .. the thing is i wanted to quit 5 minutes in. 6 minutes in. 10 minutes in. maybe around 15 minutes i was bargaining, im almost at 2.5km, that's a good milestone for an ez run, end it now. and then my shoe lace got undone and i said not again nike, mo farah your shoe sucks. so i ran another 30 minutes. at 45 minutes i tied my shoe lace and decided to break my long run PR of 65minutes. But somewhere i was thinking i cud prob even do 90 tbh .. something changed around 45 minutes .. running just got ........ easy? effortless. maybe it was cos i increased the pace to a sweet spot (9.7km/hr) but i felt i cud run all day .. form just felt right .. it clicked. and yet the initial discomfort had gone. so if i was doing easy runs the presence of discomfort didn't make them any hard - what made a run hard was  .. i dont know .. objectively it might be HR or something like that which isnt what ive been paying attention to. so i'll just stick the course now. lol.

For the squat if you have a theoretical max of 172.5kg based on 130kgx10 reps but struggle with 150kg it's probably because you're not used to lifting the heavier weight. Your body adapts to what you train it at. If you started practicing heavy singles and also worked on doing half squats with 200+kg to get used to the weight on your back I wouldn't be surprised if you came close to 172.5kg in a couple of months. However, in rare circumstances you might be an anomaly where you're just great at being able to push out 10 reps. When I first started lifting I was mentored by one of my mum's friends who was a bodybuilder. He could easily rep out 12 reps of 120kg on bench but would struggle with benching anything 140kg+ because he was used to doing 8-20 reps with short rests (<1 minute) between sets. 

My 'program' lately has been start with 120kg, do it for a given number of reps (started with 6). then increase the weight each time for the same reps. when i got up to 132.5kg i stall usually, reset back to 120 and add reps, work up again. did it for 8s and now 10s. So far ive got this up to 10x130kg. I think 12 or 15 would be mastering 120kg. My hope is that eventually i'll be able to rep 140kg a lot better. Ive never been able to do more than 5 even when i was able to do 10 sets of 5 with 137.5kg in one workout. so 1rm estimates aren't accurate but that's okay it's progress and eventually if i can 10x150kg i'll be able to do an ez 170kg single (maybe). that's on paper. The easier/lighter i can make 120kg (2 red plates a side), the better i'll be trying to squat heavy for a max rep eventually.

Edit- Congrats on the  . As for running I think you should just experiment and do what you think is best. If your goal is to run 5km in sub 20 then get used to running for 20 minutes and keep increasing the speed.

it's weird how that works. i did a 'long' run at 9.1km/hr for 65mins which was my PR. Tried to improve on it by going up to 9.2km/hr and 67.5min and just hit a wall hard, couldn't break 30 minutes. was trying to work up to 10km/hr on the longer run for 90 minutes, turns out i can't seem to make progress on both speed and duration. My PR for 5km is 24:36 and seems pretty daunting to try get that down to 20.

i dont have a problem with treadmill running. initially going from TM to real world was jarring but after a couple of real world runs they're pretty much interchangeable which was a relief.

But it doesn't shift the dissonance. If i'm at low miles (because athletic background) b/c im slow then it would make sense to progress my speed,  no? And yet of the the various variables that's one you're being told to go backwards in.

Literally all of my objections amount to this, is it ok to do a 40 minute run where you're only getting 5km of distance covered? how does this help make me a faster runner? also if you look at basketball studies, the average HR for a player over the entire match (including dead periods) is 160-180bpm. So would it make sense to do more training closer to that range than say 140. I know what the argument is for long slow running (if you accept it and even if i did) it runs into a wall cos weekly mileage wud be so low to not offer much benefit to faster runs. tbh i can see how it 'could work' if you were sufficiently fast then going submax you can still get a decent amount of km done