Ruli's Log

[Ruli]

i wasn't as sore as what i thought i would have been on tuesday, which means my body is slowly but surely getting use to the workouts.

did L3D2 yesterday afternoon. not my best of workouts as i was a bit under the weather, but nevertheless i made the effort, which i'm glad i did.
the workout was done untimed.

[volleyball_man]

The goal is not to "get used to" the workout! If your body becomes adjusted, you need to mix it up!

[Ruli]

where do i start....or should i rather ask, how shall i describe it!?

if anybody told me that a 92kg (202.5lbs) frame could feel like a ton of bricks, i would have have told them to go take a long walk on a short pier.

that was until this morning when i attempted L3D3.

92kg's of bodyweight actually felt more like 2 tons of bricks!!!!

chin-ups has been my nemesis sine I started SF, but this morning it was my demon. I sh@t bricks with each and every rep. And doing the 16 in sets of 4/3/2/1/2/1/1/1/1 didn't help either. It was probably the hardest chin-up session I had since my first one.

Push-ups were done in two sets of 22 & 11 and squats were done in one go.

And for the most important part of it all: 7min's 20sec's

I stand by what I said two weeks ago:

i suspect that i'll be on lvl 3 for more that the 2 weeks i've been on lvl 2, but i suppose that's the nature of the beast!!!

[djjd5000]

Wow - good try Ruli! Keep in mind that you were feeling under the weather all week...

Well get to level 4 soon enough!!

Hope you're feeling better. Good luck this week!

[Ruli]

since my last post i haven't done any workouts - and it was not due to injury. for the last three, four months i've had some serious shit in my personal life which diverted my focus away from SF, and a couple of other things. i'm not quite out of the woods yet, but as they, life carries on, regardless.
be that as it may, yesterday i returned to SF again, and am i glad i did.
to ease myself back into the swing of things, i started with L2D1 and managed 25 rounds. i'm confident that i'll break 5 min's on friday, which means i'll be back on L3 next week.

[Ruli]

i felt monday's workout in my muscles today. my warm up was a bit longer than usual, to prevent injury.
tackled L2D2 today, with a total time (excluding rest time) of 4min's 6 sec's. this is a personal best for me for L2D2.
i am amazed at how well a person's body can "maintain" it's strength. considering the fact that i was very inactive lately on the SF front, i am surprised at how "easy" i could still do the routines - and my time is testimony of that!
now all that remains is for my physique to show those results!!!!

[djjd5000]

Sorry to hear about all this shit, Ruli. Keep your chin up!!

Good luck and keep at it!

[Ruli]

thanx dj.
yes, i try to keep my chin up, or shall i rather say, get my chin up - over the bar that is!!!! that's one of the reason why i got my ass back into gear again and got back into routine - it gives me some purpose and focus.

back to business though:

L2D3
chin-ups - 6/3/2/1/1
push-ups - 20/6
squats - 26

time: 3:45

although my PB for L2 is 3:30, today was the most chin-ups i could string together in one go: 6, beating my previous best by 2.

looking forward to give L3 a good go next week.

You all enjoy your weekend!

[Tryhoster]

I see that you too like me tend to do the last chin-ups 1 by one tanking less rest possible to gain time...

i personally try to do 4*5 (on L4) but i can do only the first 3 groups of 4 reps.

Do you think that doing more in the first set can help for time? or is only a better training for you?

[Ruli]

I must be honest try, I haven't experimented with how many reps per set and what influence that will have on my time. The only reason why I end with two sets of one rep each, is because by then I CAN only do one rep!!! my approach at this point in time is to do reps till failure. maybe if I only did 4 reps in the first set, I would have been able to do 4 in the second and third as well, leaving me with only one rep to finish. who knows what my time would have been!?
I know I will be on L3 for quite some time, which will give me plenty D3's to experiment. i'll keep you posted on my "findings".

[Ruli]

L3D1 - 22 rounds.

i'm quite chuffed with my result. i started of with a bang and after ten minutes i couldn't see myself going the full 20 min's, but i prevailed!

[Ruli]

on wednesday i did L3D2 - untimed, concentrating on form.
up and until now, most of my WOD consisted of chin-ups - i'm too scared to give pull-ups a go yet in fear of stuffing up my elbow again. neutral grips doesn't seem be be a problem in the pain department though, so i'm slowly introducing them into my routine. for D2, i did chin-ups in rounds 1, 3 & 5 and neutrals in rounds 2 & 4. might change them around next week.

did D3 this morning and, although i have said it in the past, it's worth a repeat: take your two day's rest between D2 & D3 - that extra day's rest makes D3 so much more "fun"!!!

L3D3

pull-ups: 5/3/3/3/2 (the first two sets were done with neutral grip, the rest were chin-ups)
push-ups: 20/13
squats: 33

time: 4min's 43sec's

although i'm tempted to progress to L4, I feel that will be a superficial move at this stage. Although challenging, I find chin-ups not that demanding as neutrals or pull-ups. I will therefore only move to L4 once I can do L3D2 using only neutral grip and be able to do D3 under 5 min's, with 75% neutral grip pull-ups.

[Tryhoster]

With my setup (indoor bar) i can do only chinups, the door frame doesn't allow me to have a good movement range with other grips

Now i feel guilty for being at level 4

[djjd5000]

Bah - I figure you're still lifting your own body weight, regardless of what grip you're using. It's not like we're training for the olympics :)

[Ruli]

thanx for the comments guys.

my take on SF has always been about personal preference (i.e. what works for you and what not), as well as personal circumstances.

try, if you're set-up doesn't allow you to do anything but chin-ups, it's unfortunate. i might be in the same position in a week or two. my own set-up now allows me to do any of the three grips, but i'm moving very shortly and don't know what the set-up will be where i'm going to.

as for lifting your own body weight dj, you're absolutely right. my personal preference is just to be able to do SF doing proper pull-ups - which is the hardest and most rewarding (from a difficult/strength and "looks" perspective) of the three grips. unfortunately, due to my injury, i cannot at this stage do pull-ups and i doubt if i ever will be able to do them, so i will have to settle with neutral grips and hope that my elbow lasts, otherwise it will have to be only chin-ups for me!