040 : 022 base building + miscalculation

Disclaimer: I am doing this one tomorrow. The individuals subjected to this particular session asked me if I was mad at them, and I may have miscalculated or perhaps misread what they needed for the day. The plan here was a relatively steady grind, 15-20 minutes, akin to a good hike (there isn’t much elevation in southeast Michigan) With a dedicated block of hypertrophy coming up, I want a few steady state “cardio” workouts that I can build on without interfering with the main message, and this was supposed to be one of the starting blocks… 

will update tomorrow.

range finding

3:00 accelerating c2 bike – nasal breathing only

2:00 c2 bike – max sustainable speed with nasal breathing only

4x :30/:30 nasal breathing “work” with free breathing recovery

4x :30/:30 free breathing work, nasal breathing recovery

work

5k c2 bike

every :90 seconds (starting at 0:00) player must do 3x d-ball squats ~ 30-50% BW + 10x step-ups @ 10” box holding ball (5x each side, shouldering it is ok) + 3x more d-ball squats

finisher 

1-6 pull-up ladder

3 rounds

notes

I knew it wasn’t going to play out the way it did in my head when the guys spent almost the entire first minute on the squat + step-ups + squat piece. I considered changing things on the fly, but became interested in the psychological effect of getting such small bites at the bike. A lighter ball would have probably gotten the experience I wanted, but I’m going to do it heavy tomorrow (aiming for <:45 seconds on the bike) to see how that weighs on me.  

addendum

Just over 19 minutes, the experience was a mixed bag – It actually played out pretty close to my expectations, although with a 90# ball it was a little more “spikey” than I would have liked, if I used something closer to the 60# I could imagine building on this, perhaps a 10k in the future. This was actually a good reminder of a mistake I haven’t made in a while, I put the workout together on the fly and the experience was appropriate for me, but not necessarily the people in front of me. Competency here is predicated on a certain degree of comfort breathing while bracing coupled with work tolerance in the low back and lower extremities. The player who had the hardest time with the above workout has some challenges in all three of those traits. Facing one, maybe even 2 in a longer session might have been seen as “challenging” but 3 good “fuck you’s” in the same session can sometimes come off as personal. I actually liked this session, although I would point out that if you know you lack some of these traits, go lighter. if you’re not sure, feel free to fuck around and find out.