Monday April the 9th 2012 (Kettlebell/short cycle jerk)

[Jon Dyer]

Today decided to continue to concentrate on the short cycle jerk 10 minute set with 2 x 12kg. Yes, I know that is a baby weight and by rights I should be ashamed to even post this, but my mentality is, I want to be able to perfect my technique and work up to a high volume (over 100 reps) before increasing the weight increments.

With the jerk I had initially had problems with the 2nd undersquat, so I was performing more or less a push press, but I became very self critical of my training and disected everything into its parts. Did "single arm jerks", "KB bumps", "lockouts", "rack holds/walks" (all of the associated supplemental exercise with the 16kg bell and higher). My current rack hold PR is 10.30 with the 16kg bells. If I had access to more equipment I would be doing this with 2 x 24's, but I only got (2 x 16, 2 x 12 + 1 x 16, 1 x 20 and 1 x 24) The solo bell are RKC type bells and they are really not the go for the type of training I do, though I love to use them for grip exercises (bottoms up presses, KB leverages, etc).

So here was the result today (130 reps with 2 x 12kg bells with jerk in something like 9.30) I was pleased with the result as a few days ago, I only got 97 reps. I have noticed I do well in controlled bursts, not in regulated tempo. What I would do is do 20 or so reps, listen to my heart beat, wait for it to slow down a bit and then contine, I did this for the whole set and it worked well. I think next time I do this I should be able to do 150 reps. Once that is achieved, I will start to use 2 x 16 and repeat my previous training.

To build up the volume of my jerks, I have been doing ladders with the 16kg (5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, then back down, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5/so in total 105 jerks) I would try and complete this as quick as possible, last time I tried this I did it in 9.30 minutes.

After this I had a pretty good buzz, so I decided to try something I been thinking about for a while, which was discused at the IKSFA camp in Singapore, which I attended. The "progressive load protocal" in which you would choose a exercise (lets say squats) and do 100 reps at a light weight (for example 12.5KG).

You would work out once a week (lets say Monday) and every week, you would increase the weight increments by 2.5kg. Even though this is not a lot of weight, imagine in 10 weeks, you would have increased the weight by 25kg. I am pretty sure this is the method that Sergei Raschinsky used to achieve his World Record in squats (212 reps with 100kg).

So I attempted this with a bar (small shite one, I guess was 10kg) loaded with 2 x 10kg plates (so 30 kg in total).

I set the pace pretty fast, but after so many reps paused at the top very briefly to suck air and let my heart beat get down, which was freaking amping. I am lucky my buddy was there to note this pausing, so he wrote down the reps at which I sucked air (25, 33, 37, 43, 50, 58, 65, 69, 73, 77, 80, 87). I got all the way to 100 without putting down the bar.

I am not sure if this is aloud or is cheating, but give me a break, I am a noob and it is going to take me a while to slowly build up my strength and endurance.

If this was not enough I decided to do 100 deadlifts at the same weight after taking I guess a 3 minute break. I did them in 20 rep bursts, but once I got to 60 (could be 80, have to ask my friend) I had to put the bar down for a few seconds, before finishing the rest of the set.

Ab work (jack knife to pull over 10 reps, Russian twists 10 ea side) repeat this x2.

I also did some overhead lockouts with 2 x 16.