If a Tree Falls in the Forest....

.....and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If I swing 1000 reps, or snatch 500 reps and no one is around to see it....did I do it? Does it count?

It doesn't matter because I train for myself. I will do it regardless of any witness. The only witness I need is my body that reflects the dedication to the consistency of the regular physical challenges I seem to be inspired to rise up to every week.

This morning I had a plan for my class to accomplish 1000 swing reps done in this interval combination,

40 reps, 1 min work, 30 sec rest
40 reps, 1 min. work, 30 sec rest
20 reps 1 min. work, 30 sec rest
100 reps per 4 minute rotation x 10 = 40 minutes 1000 swing reps

The exact swing combinations are not important. But I did make each rotation progressively harder, by making it heavier, or to include more one hand swings, for instance....

10/10/10/10 one hand swings w/12kg
20/20 one hand swings w/12kg
20 2 hand swings w/16kg

repeat the first 2 sets w/14kg
repeat last set w/16kg (or 20kg)

By the time we got about halfway I added snatches into the rest periods...Meg's still working toward her 50,000 snatches afterall....she's my girl....well, all of them are my girls, but she's the girl that makes us snatch more, lol!

here's an example, (no change in bell size because there's no rest period)

12kg
10/10/10/10 one hand swing, 1 min.,
6/6 snatches (R & L) 30 sec
20/20 one hand swings, 1 min
6/6 snatches, 30 sec
20 2 hand swings, 30 sec....now rest for 30 sec before starting the next rotation.

Done. and exactly on time 7:00am. (I did not count the warm up swings, about 100 reps)

Now I'm off to Equinox to do what? Well to be honest, I only have one class, or should I say one student in my Inter/Adv class who happens to be the General Manager of the Club (he's been training with me consistently for over 1 year now) and he's sick today....rare, rare occasion, but....I still have to train! I'm not sick.

I could have easily gone to yoga....double yoga if I wanted to, but that would be way too easy. One of the hardest things to do is train by yourself. No one counting on you. No one waiting for you. No one relying on you. No one, but the most important person of all.....you.

I would usually do another Max based workout, which means snatches, snatches, and more snatches! But I didn't have to take into consideration anyone else but myself. And knowing what I'm capable of, and my own training needs, I could do longer sets, hell, I could do whatever I wanted. And when it's only me I love the "boring stuff" I mean, who's going to pay you to do long ass repetitive single or double movement reps, set after set after set.....in other words....you can't pay for this kind of workout!

500 snatches w/negative press

10 R, 10 L, x 5 = 100 snatch/neg press, 6 minutes work
1 minute rest
x 5 = 500 snatch/neg press, 35 minutes

I chose to do a negative press from the top position of the snatch because my "press" strength is what lacks. Having to lower the bell to my shoulder in the rack position and re-snatch takes longer and is a different skill than casting over to the next snatch. 500 neg presses is a huge workload. Mark says he'd be really amazed if I'm not sore tomorrow....we'll see.

here's a video, back in the day, lol, demonstrating a snatch, negative press. (May 18th, 2008....love the music!)




PS I use negative presses often in my classes for a number of reasons, which I may write about some day in another blogpost......