Easy Muscle: Week 6

My body seems to be adapting fine to the increase in volume from Wee 5 onward. On some days I warmed with some movements taken from the Preparation section of GMB's Elements or Mobility. Once I practiced Turkish Get Up with a shoe on my fist as warmup. But I have to admit I didn't warm up at all for some days, other than doing a short Farmer's Walk of the kettlebell from the basement to the living room.

Practicing the P3 mobility method in abbreviated form after Easy Muscle sessions, and in full (4 sets of Dead Bugs, seeing how many diaphrgamatic breaths I can do, etc.) seems to work as far as slowly but steadily increasing how high I can raise both arms overhead with locked elbows. I also progressed in my healing towards being able to hang from a pullup bar with less and less shoulder pain. I initially went with a narrow grip, but I found that a wider grip irritates my shoulder less. Hanging hurts the least after an Easy Muscle session. On the rest days, the shoulder is more irritable when I try to hang. Being able to hang without any shoulder irritation on any day is the next goal - once I get there, progress towards raising arms overhead with locked elbows should accelerate.

With 2 weeks to go in Easy Muscle, I can't help but think about upcoming training. The next training block I will do after Easy Muscle is 6x6 on the IsoMax. High intensity isometric exercise will teach my CNS (Central Nervous System) to use the muscle gained from Easy Muscle to produce higher levels of force than before. My last tested 1-rep max in the overhead press was just under 65lbs. My rep max in partial range press of the 16kg (approx. 35 lbs) kettlebell was about 4 at the time. I've since gained some muscle and my full range 16kg KB press rep max is at least 8, so my new rep max in hte IsoMax overhead press should be well over 65lbs now. I have no idea what my new Seated Row and Zercher Squat 1-rep max scores will be. Some people seem to think pulling strength and squat strength will diminish as a consequence of clean-and-press only training for 8 weeks, because they are used to associating pulling with a rowing or curling movement and squatting with a deeper knee bend than you see with KB cleans. It will be interesting to see if they are right.

The next training block after that will be Kettlebell Maximorum or Easy Muscle Schedule B, depending on whether I have the required mobility for the double kettlebell press. Strength may also be a factor - if I cannot press a 24kg KB or my rep max with it is well below 5, I will go with Easy Muscle as it allows push press as an alternative to the regular press, and it also allows single instead of double KB press.
If I do go with Maximorum, then I will have relearn the kettlebell snatch. This newest version of the snatch being taught by the Strongfirst community looks promising

If I do end up having both the moblity and the strength for 5 reps of double 24kg KB press after the 6x6 training block, I might go with Easy Muscle Schedule B, to work on chinup and dips, in addition to double KB clean-and-press and double KB front squat. The weighted chinup has been found to be a great exercise for progressing towards both the one-arm chinup and the front lever. But before I can train with the weighted chinup, I need to work on my unweighted chinup. I don't know what the magic number of unweighted chinups I should achieve before I can start doing weighted chinups with my lightest kettlebell (16kg). But I do know that working up to high volume unweighted chinups should stimulate the growth of muscles that will be useful for weighted chinups - ie. the biceps, lats, etc. - as well as boosting progress in the isometric seated row on the Iso-Max. I figure that when my average force ouptut on seated row on the IsoMax gets closer to bodyweight plus 16kg, I should be ready to do weigthed chinups with a 16kg KB.