Adarq.org

All good mate! Never mind a hijack.

Trained with LBSS at his gym in DC as he mentioned in his journal. Really good session. Insanely jealous of his facilities as I was of T0ddday's at USC (see discussion above). I just practiced my 1-step DLRVJs in between throwing lobs. So bummed I couldn't get one for him! Next time. Real-life LBSS is also a champ, got me into a nice gym I never would have known about and shouted me a beer later that night after the Independence Day fireworks. Cheers mate! Will return the favour one day I hope 

- paused speed squat 100kg x 5,5

- DB OHP 40kgs 3x8

- pull up x 10,10,9.5,3

- MB OH toss x 5

I'm currently in NYC (Brooklyn). Stating the obvious here but it's a very awesome city in the true sense of the word. Was in Philadelphia a few days ago, also a very impressive place. Only managed one session since D.C with LBSS, at a gym in Philadelphia. Haven't trained here yet, but there's a nice aths track 5mins away as well as a YMCA with a court. Training venues have been a lot easier to locate this time around compared to previous trips!

400m/ADEs/activation etc.

Squat: worked up to 3x3@115kgs, no bands or box available

Core: tried some of the weighted core stuff that I did with T0ddday in LA. I find these really tricky - long torso problem maybe? It's just so hard to get past the sticking point on the way up. Work to do here.

They had a nice spot to jump at this pipe that seemed about 10' (could touch with SVJ):

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWnfvAYDkas" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWnfvAYDkas</a>

I just did 10 1-step LR plant DLRVJs, then a few multi-step DLRVJs, but they aren't any higher yet (of course the one I film is a botched RL plant!). I would kill for a space like this at my gym back home so I could jump whenever.

You know you listen to 2 much hip hop when somebody mentions Brooklyn and your first thought is Jay Z.

The training facilities in the US look great. How's the food over there? Is it true that all the portion sizes are huge? Which city are you heading to next?

You know you don't listen to enough hip hop when someone mentions Brooklyn and your first is anyone other than Biggie.  Lol.

Portion sizes being huge... Lol.  Kinda a myth. Maybe slightly larger at some places but nothing crazy for the most part.  Especially in the cities you visit - LA, NYC, DC - you are not going to be shocked at the portions if someone takes you out to. Decent restaurant...

However there is one exception... We have a certain class of chain restaurants with names like  claimjumpers, Fridays, etc.   These restaurants have shockingly huge portions.   It's nuts.  I went to one of these in a CA suburb where they listed calories and I tried to imagine the worst meal possible it was a appetizer, meal, desert combo where you could go cheese sticks, Alfredo pasta, massive brownie sundae...  No lie, this would net you 2000, 3500, and 2000 for a total of almost 8000 cals (I'm sure you could ask for some ranch sauce to hit 8000).   And that's without drinks!  Throw in some sugary lemonade and you can get a 10k cal meal at these places!

Thing is if u visit urban centers in cities these places are really rare and almost extinct.... However the occupy space in every large strip mall all across America...  So basically American restaurants sometimes have massive portions but visitors are disappointed because no where worth going is going to have anything like the suburbs...

also, acole, those one-step jumps are looking better. but you still don't seem to be adding that much speed with the first step. you're mostly just bouncing off that foot and then planting. i try to think about using each step to accelerate my center of gravity forward and down. getting low is probably my most important cue at this point.

the proof is in the performance, obviously: if you're jumping higher with subsequent steps, you're adding power. just food for thought.

Haven't trained since last session, unless you count 3-4hrs/day walking around and going up/down subway stairs. I got asked to talk at a lab at Mt Sinai yesterday so that soaked up a lot of time getting ready for that.

One thing of note (pretty much for the whole trip) is that my L knee is still has this fucking annoying weird sensation like a water balloon is bouncing around in there. I say that because it's never really 'hurt' that bad in the way that tendinopathy or a tear would hurt. I've noticed it more with all the walking, which might have irritated it.

Given that I really don't feel much pain around the actual kneecap (inconsistent with chondromalacia, although occassionally I feel something like that going down stairs sometimes), I'm almost sure now that the lobulated ganglion cyst that got picked up on the MRI in Feb must be the cause. The location makes sense (near the tibial attachment of the PCL, about 3.5cm large) for where the sensation is. It probably hasn't drained and is causing pain with repeated movements like walking - the chondromalaica diagnosis might be a red herring. So I might need to go back and get another MRI or at least an ultrasound to assess whether it needs draining. But if that were the case it's not such a big deal (just a needle to aspirate it and possibly corticosteroids), if it can be dealt with easily I can finally get back on track once I get home.

Heading to a conference for the next 4 days and it's gonna be brutal - three full days of talks from 9AM-9PM (with food breaks, but still...gonna be a challenge to stay awake the whole time). Then a couple more days in NYC before the looooong trip home.

Welcome back. Jealous you've found a gym with a court in it. Sometimes I wished I lived near the city.

Rough couple of weeks since I got back but I've got a few good sessions in.

Got sick of course a couple of days after my last post, nothing too bad but kept me at less than 100% for about a week, couldn't really take time off with how much work I've got backed up, so of course it lingers way longer than it would if I could just sit in bed for a day. Then within the last week or so I got some fairly decent pericoronitis (swelling of the gum around a wisdom tooth), which I've had happen maybe 2-3 times over the last two years. Probably a sign it needs to come out. The top two seem to be clear but the bottom two have always been worrying me as they don't seem to have enough room. I'm a broke-ass student right now after paying for most of the trip (which is OK because it was part holiday) so I need to get into this student teaching clinic...not unusually, dentists are fairly expensive here in Melb. It's just hard to get in to the student place as it's about half-price, so it's always booked up. Teeth suck!

I did have one good track session as written in T0ddday's program (first one) on a clear night when my old sprint group train. Was good to see some of the guys but didn't get a good reception from the coach. He's just a real grumpy bastard now and didn't seem too interested I'd rocked up. I really don't know what his problem is. All good though, I can just do my own thing and get back at a reasonable hour. Not missing the winter off-season work, which has sounded even worse than last year from all accounts.

Coach didn't ask if I'd be running this season and I was glad because I still haven't really decided for sure what I want to do over summer. I really do enjoy racing and I think just following T0ddday's program would get me into a good 100m shape anyway, which is all I'm really interested in running. The only trouble is they've jacked up the prices by about $75 for absolutely nothing extra in terms of meets, in what was already an ordinary program with not enough opportunities to run the 100m (last year there were 5 runs in the normal, with one cancelled due to weather, one extra I had to pay for). They allow you to run unregistered about three times I think for $10, might be much more cost effective.

The other consideration is the basketball team I was playing on is playing over the spring/summer. It would be really good to have a weekly game in which to keep up sport-specific jumping. But then there's all the other reasons why it's not ideal (mostly hacks playing, team is abysmal (even for my current crappy standards), possible aggravation to knee issue). It would be the cheapest option out of the two. My knee definitely feels like it could handle it...don't know.

I could also do the pros again but it's a bigger commitment in terms of travel and it's most likely all rigged anyway. I don't know if I posted this but there was a decent controversy over the Stawell women's gift winner this year running slow all year basically and then improving by about 0.8 of a second over 100m for the final! It happens on the men's side as well. So it's really a bit of a waste of time, money unless I was a lot more competitive and faster.

So while I consider that I'm going to launch back into the weight vest program, been wearing mine when I can (sometimes it's just not practical to wear on lab days but pretty much whenever feasible). I just wish I had T0ddday's nice one, much more discreet looking than mine.

@T0ddday, for the weighted core stuff: it's really impossible to do what we did at USC at either gym as the benches just aren't suitable. What I've been playing with are weighted v-situps with a heavy (9kg+ med ball or plate):



weighted side twists with the same ball, and weighted hanging leg raises with KBs. It feels much more challenging than say 100 elbow-to-knee crunches that I can do fairly easily. I hope that might substitute OK.

Also, for the jumps sessions I'm pretty much just warming up with a few SVJs then doing weighted 1-step jumps like we did at USC courts. That seemed to be the idea moving forward from memory. Over time I can get some more weighted gear to make it more effective.

toes to bar and pull-downs for core.

also, my n=1 is that my knee can feel fully healthy after even 4-5 days of rest and like it could handle anything, but it starts bothering me again almost immediately after i start jumping. so don't take for granted that it feels great now.

Good suggestions. Will try those tomorrow.

Yeah knee is just on wait-and-see status. I did track 1 100% last night after an easy-ish gym session the day before with weighted jumps and working up to 5x110kgs. It feels better than it has in the past but yeah....caution is required once jumps start in earnest.