Tom and Riyad .. some new fellow lifters

Weight: 178 lb

Morning:

Z-Health: Neural Warm-up Level 2 (Dynamic Joint Mobility Drills)

BW x 1 x 10 Heavy blue band Goodmorning
BW x 1 x 5 Ab wheel on the knee rollouts, 5 sec hold and rollback
(BW + 10 lbs) x 1 x 10 Reverse Hyper

Afternoon:

Today I worked out at Anytime Fitness, and was greatly rewarded as I met two very fine lifters which I'll write about later.

255 x 1 x 5 Conventional Deadlift (PR)
230 x 1 x 5 Sumo Deadlift

Barbell Power Clean
165 x 1 x 5
165 x 2 x 3
155 x 2 x 3

135 x 5 x 5 Barbell Goodmorning

24kg x 10 x 20 Swings on the minute
24kg x 6 x 1/1 TGU

It was nice to start off with a 5RM deadlift PR. It was rough but each rep was solid. My sumo dropset was also solid. Following that I trained a co-worker to conventional deadlift. We went very conservative and he will begin a linear PttP cycle starting tomorrow.

The barbell power cleans were very challenging. The most difficulty occurred after the second pull during landing the bar on my collar bone and deltoids with my elbows flared outward. I'm going to have to perfect this before I increase the weight. From my research, racked barbell front squats should help get me comfortable with this awkward position.

On the way over the gym, I stopped at the hardware store and purchased two 3' pieces of braided thick nylon cord. I used them during my barbell Goodmornings by tying them to the bell in the positions of where my hands would be while the bell in on my back. After stepping under the racked bar I grabbed hold of the two ropes with each hand to keep the bar stable as I stepped back and performed the five sets of Goodmornings. This was a lot easier on my easily tweaked left shoulder.

Shortly after finishing with my co-worker I could not help being impressed with a very ripped gentleman who was performing heavy barbell rows using a T-bar on one end of a one-side loaded bar. I introduced myself to Tom and explained I was mainly Kettlbell training oriented. He had heard of them and proceeded to attempt to teach him the two hand swing. With a bad case of quad dominance and not enough time, we will have to pick this back up in the future. Although predominately a body builder, he impressed with five reps of three wheel trap bar pulls. He had worked up to 295 x 5 with conventional previously but tweaked his lower back and switched to trap bar pulls. I thought my super tech Gymboss double countdown timer was impressive but he a very fancy chemistry labratory timer with three countdown timers .. I'm sure it was a lot more than twenty smackers!

Later I watched a high school senior doing barbell high pulls with 100 lbs. I remarked to him that I thought he was really doing a great job with them and that got us discussing each others training protocols. An extremely nice young adult, it turns out his name is Riyad Mohammed and he was originally form Tobago, Trinidad. He is a sprinter on the track team with what sounds like a pretty decent strength and conditioning coach, his coach having his guys train large functional lifts ala Purposeful Primitive.

After making my request, Riyad demonstrated to me his hang power cleans with 135 and they were solid. Like myself, he has problems with beinng able to properly rack them after the second pull. I had him drop down to a lighter weight where it was much easier for him to flare his elbows and have the bar rest properly on his shoulder and collar bone.

Previoulsy Riyad had seen me perform some 24kg TGUs and could even approximate their name as "Turkish somethings". Showing great interest in the Kettlebell, I had him two-hand swinging in five minutes .. to his credit, all the power cleans and high pulls he had performing had given him a natural hip snap.

In all a great day to be sharing Kettlebell knowledge and enjoying as others pursued their training with dedication and hard work.

Total Volume: 19780 lbs