Easy Muscle Week 4 Complete

Not much to report, other than my shoulders continue to hold up

I added standing forward bend to my cooldown routine. I like doing this stretch on the stairs, so that my hands can hang freely in the air. If I did this stretch on the living room floor instead of the stairs, my fingertips would touch the floor. My low back has been sore the day after my Clean + Press sessions, though not in a way that signals injury. I figured standing forward bend, followed by sphinx pose, would help reduce post-workout back soreness.

I also started hanging from the pullup bar for some spinal decompression, lat stretch, and rebuilding my grip endurance.

Today's Music Discoveries

Ten Supreme Fender Rhodes Albums

Easy Muscle Week 3 complete

Easy Muscle allows you to choose the total time for a given workout. The first two weeks, I set the timer to 20 minutes. This week I increased the time to 25 min, which should increase the number of sets done, and thus the training volume. Training volume will go up in 2 weeks, so I need to ramp up towards that volume increase

Not much to report this week other than my shoulders continue to hold up decently, compared to my first attempt at Easy Muscle A, during which I had to give up double clean + press and switch to single clean + press.

Lymphatic Tapping

Heard about this form of self care for the first time today.

Easy Muscle Week 2 complete

Double kettlebell Clean + Press training has been more enjoyable since the mid-week switch from The Giant X1 to Easy Muscle Schedule A. I don't feel a need to go back to Week 1 of Easy Muscle, because the Giant X1 Week 1 training was actually more difficult than Easy Muscle Week 1 training would have been.

On the recovery days, which are the days between the C+P training days, I tried some workouts from the GMB Resilience program, which aims to make one's joints and connective tissues more resistant to injury, as well as improve proprioreception, motor control, etc. to help avoid accidental bumps and falls. It's intriguing but I think it's a better fit with my overcoming isometric strength training blocks, because some of the exercises require me to exert a surprising amount of force. In my hypertrophy training blocks, I have to be careful about piling on too much extra training, which could affect recovery from hypertrophy workouts.

So on my recovery days, I'll do a GMB Mobility session. GMB Mobility changes focus areas from session to session. Today you might be working on hips. Next session you might be working on spine. Next session after that you might be working on rotation and side bending. The C+P is a full body exercise, so mobility improvement in any of the focus areas for the GMB Mobility session of the day should be beneficial to C+P performance.

I still like the P3 method but I also like changing my mobility training from time to time.

Switching from The Giant X1 to Easy Muscle as my current training block

I got through the Monday Giant X1 workout fine but the sets that prescribed reps close to my Clean + Press rep max of 7 were pretty tough for me. I took at look at what Giant X1 prescribes for my Wednesday workout, and did not feel I could handle it.

I then took a look at other Geoff Neupert hypertrophy programs that incorporate the C+P, and thus share similar characteristics to The Giant X. I wanted to continue trying to build muscle with the C+P but under a program that would not be as difficult for me as The Giant X.

• Easy Muscle Schedule A: 8-week C+P only program that I'd previously attempted with double 16kg kettlebells, but then had to switch to single KB training because not having the mobility for double KB press was hurting my shoulder.
• The original The Giant - specifcially 1.0 and 1.1: The Giant comes with 5 training schedules, each lasting 4 weeks: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2, and 3. 1.0 is the lowest difficulty level and is practically identical to the first half of Easy Muscle A. 1.1 is meant to be done after 1.0 if you want to do another 4 weeks of The Giant, but the difficultly level jumps a little more from 1.0 to 1.1

Between Easy Muscle A and original The Giant 1.0 I decided to switch to Easy Muscle A. I liked the ladder concept in Giant X1 but I underestimated just how difficult it would be for trainees working with weights that they cannot already C+P for 10 reps. Easy Muscle Schedule A also recommends training with the heaviest weights you can C+P for 10 reps, but it does not ask you to train too close to your rep max as early on as Giant X1 does.
The load cycling in Giant X is supposed to produce faster results compared to the original Giant but the higher rate of progress does not come for free - you're going to work harder for those faster results. While I'm not built right now to handle the demands of Giant X, I'm not ruling out trying again in the near future. One possible scenario is finding a C+P rep max of 3 with double 20kgs and a rep max higher than 10 with double 16 kgs - in this case I'd favor the ligher weights because I know the lighter weights would allow me train with consistently higher volume compared to the heavier weights. I'd probably be looking for a more challenging way to train double 16k C+P than Easy Muscle and Giant X would be a possible choice. One of the original Giant programs is also a possibility as some of them are challenging in their own right. Those programs are all 4 weeks long - I could choose of 2 or even 3 of them. For example I could do Giant 1.1 then 1.2 for 8 total weeks of hypertrophy training, with the option of following 1.2 with Giant 2 to extend my hypertrophy block to 12 weeks.

While Easy Muscle Schedule A is more suitable to my current fitness level, it's still a routine that requires effort to produce results, and it's effort that will make me sweat, get my blood pumping, and make me breathe harder. Completion of this schedule should get me closer to my goal of being able to double C+P 20kg kettlebells, which itself would be yet another step towards the more ambitious goal of double C+P with 32kg KBs.

As it is, the Wednesday workout under Easy Muscle looks less daunting than it would have been if I stuck with Giant X1.

The Giant X1: Week 1

Day 1 was fine. For my cooldown I did modified pigeon stretch to address the outside hips and half pancake stretch to address the side muscles,lats, and hamstrings. I forgot to do a backbend stretch such as the sphinx. I felt DOMS in the lower back and shoulders the following day.

Day 2 was more of a challenge because of one of the sets (ladder rungs) was very close to my C+P rep max. The first time I did that rung, my form degraded after the 5th rep but I managed to complete it without incident. I was only able to do the ladder for that day twice. The 2nd time I did the hardest rung, I felt more in control and did not notice as much form degradation. For cooldown I did a P3 session. I felt lower back DOMS the following day. Thus, it doesn't seem to matter whether stretching or a P3 session is better for cooldown from a Giant X1 session.

For Day 3 I managed to do 50 total reps