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Ball game last night. We got up by 9 points and was a decent game. I played alright without being outstanding. Had heaps of rebounds and a huge block with about 2 min to go which was nice. Only 8 points but I missed some easy shots so really should have had 15 at least. Fitness is still less than desirable but I'll get there once I get my body right. Have 5 games left of regular season so could be coming into form just in time for finals.

30/07/13

Work life, sick family and kids who don't sleep are throwing my training into disarray at the moment. Have stopped using the gym near work and am back to the garage gym of a night time. Convenience is good but have to get used to 9pm workouts again.

No ball this week as was looking after sick family. Wife has flu and bronchitis, son has flu and daughter has cold so loving this at the moment 

Squat-
bar x 10
60 x 5
95 x 5
105 x 5, 5, 5, 3, 2

Felt absolutely horrible. Didn't feel tight and was feeling the force in all the wrong areas. Not sure what the hell is going on. Maybe I haven't been consistent enough lately or could be shitty sleep and eating lately. Who knows. Bit disallusioned atm.

Felt some pain through the lower back post squats. Got the heat bag going on them and felt ok the next morning. Not great but no real pain in lower back. Hams, calves and feet felt like rubbish though.

plus keep working upper body. and maybe unilateral stuff for your legs until the realignment allows you to do bilateral stuff again? just a suggestion. hope you feel better.

also, for core, new favorite exercise is windshield wipers. challenging, relatively unloaded, and easy to progress (i.e., start in a tuck with small range of motion and then gradually work on extending your legs and your ROM). added bonus of challenging grip.

plus keep working upper body. and maybe unilateral stuff for your legs until the realignment allows you to do bilateral stuff again? just a suggestion. hope you feel better.

also, for core, new favorite exercise is windshield wipers. challenging, relatively unloaded, and easy to progress (i.e., start in a tuck with small range of motion and then gradually work on extending your legs and your ROM). added bonus of challenging grip.

Thx. I actually don't feel too bad normally but definitely notice it post workout. Do have to be careful with upper body though atm too given the pelvis is affecting my spinal alignment too. I feel it sounds a lot worse than it is but and should be able to get in this week sometime to get the alignment done. I am being wary with the training given this alignment thing tends to happen to me a few times a year. My body responds well to treatment though which is a plus but I don't want to have to rely on getting alignments done every few months.

Will give the windshield wipers a go. I really don't do any core work now which I'm really learning is probably a bad thing. Also, got myself Kelly Starrett's book (still working my way though) and have already picked up some key items to get cracking on over the next couple of weeks.

You sound like you've had some good results from it.

Ball game last night. Played rather well despite the pelvis situation. The other team's big guy had no idea what he was doing so was relatively easy game. We won by 39 and I had 19 with probably 15-20 rebounds. Feel pretty banged up though today. Aiming to get into Osteo early next week. Have lost 4-5" off the vert easily maybe more. Also my sprinting speed just wasn't there. Didn't try any dunks last night. Just not worth it. It seems the brunt of the force here is felt in my calves, ankles and feet which is shit considering my ankles are relatively dodgy anyway.

14/08/13

Finally got back in the gym. Was going to wait till after I'd seen my osteo but thought I'd get in there and do something. Have been working through my goals/lack thereof and putting together a bit of a plan for myself too. Don't have it fully sorted but feel like I'm getting back on track. I have basically revised my whole training plan although the end result of my actual training doesn't look that different. Funny that.

Warm up- will be spending some decent time in this zone going forward
90/90 hip lift
Lunge iso hold- L-60s, R-40s (only had 30s rest between sets- will reverse order next time and see if R is weaker or it is the lack of rest)
Push up iso hold- 30s (want to build to 60s here)
rollover into v-sit x 10
mountain climbers x 10
pec and lat stretches
shoulder dislocations x 10
imitation snatch complex- am teaching myself the snatch and will be including this in all warm ups. Started with the bar when I should have started with a brookstick (will do that next time) as the back felt very susceptible on overhead squats
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUL_mYxtHXY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUL_mYxtHXY</a>
(forgot to add hip flexor stretches in)

Squat
bar x 8
60 x 8
80 x 6, 6, 6

Incline Bench
bar x 8
40 x 8
60 x 6, 6, 6

Snatch Grip Deadlift
60 x 8, 8

Notes:
Warm up- felt good and ready to go post warm up. The snatch complex really had me breathing hard at the end and I know I got 75% of the technique wrong too.

Squat
The goal here is 8 reps and to build some work capacity so not taking as much rest between sets. I have adpoted a stance of just outside shoulder width with feet as straight as possible and a focus on really pushing out the knees. Legs weren't too bad but really felt the pressure and strain on the mid-lower back after 4 reps in each set. Fingers crossed this will be resolved once the pelvis issue is sorted.

Bench
I lose my strength here the quickest of any other lift. Felt ok without being stellar.

Snatch Grip DL
Am going to incorporate these for higher reps at a lower load and build from there. The grip will be the main issue here. Form was pretty good mobility of getting into position didn't seem to be an issue. Need to work on locking these out properly without  hunching a bit.

Overall- Not having done any training in 2 weeks I knew I would struggle. This coupled with an average of 4-5 hours of sleep a night (1 year old daughter) for the past few months really doesn't help things. All in all though good to get a nice light session to come back in on. Will add to that over the coming weeks and get some consistency going.

So I had a pretty awesome weekend 

Started off all good with seeing the Osteo on Friday. She worked some of her magic and the body was feeling v good. She's been experimenting with different techniques and strangely enough she did some work on my liver meridian around the rib cabe and arm pit which released my extremely tight IT band. Mind = blown!

Normally I'd give the body a couple of days to settle but I felt so good I decided to get in the gym Sat morning and take advantage. Did an extended warm up, body felt nice and warm even though it was only about 10-12 degrees in the garage. Performed some warm up sets of deadlifts and did 3x5@100kg. Was super careful on these sets with my form and bracing and all the stuff you're meant to do. Then move on to do some front squats. I use just the bar and do I rep and have massive pain in the lower back. Now in the past I'd try and push it and work around this but with the way my body has been I called it a day. So fricken pissed.

One strange thing is that considering how cold it was I was wearing my full leg compression tights under my clothes. The only other time I have worn these whilst lifting I was squatting and had the same problem with my back. Didn't think about it at the time but when I sat down afterwards I remembered. Now I know that's a pretty tenuous link but quite the coincidence.

Considering my training (or lack thereof) lately I've come to the conclusion that I have pretty weak hams and upper back with tight hips. I don't think the lower back itself is the issue. I believe my lower back problems are all driven our of the hips and hamstrings. I do think any training I do from here has to be focused on getting myself healthy and up and running again at the expense of any real strength gains. I've had a lot of time to think about my training over the last couple of weeks and I have come to a realisation of sorts. I have always chased three numbers. A 200kg deadlift, 150kg squat and 100kg bench. This is under the assumption that something magical will happen once I reach these numbers. This has also been at the expense of conditioning work or dare I say it cardio. When I have been consistent I have done quite well with a deadlift of 160, squat of 140 and bench of 90. Really though for the amount of time I have been training it's pretty weak progress. Now do I really need to chase these numbers? Maybe. I'm sure I need to chase some numbers. Maybe these numbers, maybe not. Maybe these lifts and maybe others.

So what do I do from here? Really good question thanks for asking. I don't know yet but when I do I'll let you know too.