WRP: Week 5

I started the week with 12 sets of 5 reps of Shield Cast, Outside Circle and Inside Circle with the 15 lb. heavy club. Rest was about 2.5 min. between each of the 3 exercises. My form got really bad for the last couple of sets. So, I'm going to take an idea from the Mark Wildman Introduction to Heavy Clubs program that I bought - drop the exercise volume and go up to the next level fo complexity. The paid program organizes the exercises into 3 levels. Level 1 is all simple movements. Level 2 are a mix of simple and combination movements, and Level 3 is all combination movements. The program rotates between the 3 levels. The idea is that you will progress to more complicated movements, so that when you drop back to Level 1, the simpler movements are easier to do. When the movements feel easier to do, you can do more of those movements. When you have worked up to 10 or 20 sets (depending on whether you're training with a fixed-weight club or the Adex adjustable club) of 5 reps of the movement, you will have gotten much better at that movement, and are probably very close to maxing your possible gains in strength, hypertrophy, and endurance from that movement, at that club weight.

Shield Cast, Outside Circle and Inside Circle are Level 1 of what I call the Wildman Reconditioning Program (WRP) for single-arm heavy club. The exercises at Level 2 of WRP are Single-Arm Pullover, Inside Pendulum, Outside Pendulum. It's not hard to see why Wildman wants trainees to practice at Level 1 before progressing to Level 2.

Single-Arm Pullover - The Shield Cast is more forgiving in that the club pulls your torso upright and teaches you to keep the elbow in line with your shoulder. In the Single-Arm Pullover, you have to pay more attention to squeezing the glutes and tightening the abs. I really like what he says about saying things aloud, by the way.

Outside Pendulum - Outside Circle practice should get you used to rotating your torso and shifing your weight from foot to foot, while keeping your spine straight and upright, not turning your hips that much, and not moving your feet at all - this is all to prevent injury to your knees or back. Outside Pendulum has the same requirements, but adds an additional challenge. The bottom part of the movement will require you to hinge at the hip, but you still have to keep the spine straight

Inside Pendulum - I don't think he has a "for overweight or deconditioned people" version yet but this video is still applicable. The requirements and challenge are similar to Outside Pendulum.

For this week, I did 5 reps per set for each exercise, as before. On Wed. I did 5 sets. On Fri. I did 6 sets. I'll sleep on what I decide to what direction to take my training for next week. I switched from Isochain to heavy club training in the first place to improve the strength and conditioning of my forearms. I feel like I got the gains I could have possibly gotten for my forearms for this training cycle. Another reason was, I wanted to see if the heavy club work would result in my still-recovering shoulder feeling better - since this club work was supposed to traction my joints as well as condition the external rotators.. I felt there was someimprovement but it didn't come as fast as when I was training on Isochain.

WRP and GMB Elements : Week 4

For this week, I did 9 sets on Monday, 10 on Wednesday, and 11 on Friday for each of the 3 exercises in Wildman Reconditioning Program - Shield Cast, Outside Circle, Inside Circle. I did 5 reps per set. I gave up on practicing sessions of GMB Elements on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays, due to DOMS in my shoulders and upper back. If my body adapts to the steadily increasing volume of heavy club work so that the DOMS subside, I may practice Elements again. My left hand starts to fatigue in the last couple of sets of the workout. I can complete the workout but it's a struggle to keep the club stable. Despite my effort to practice CST style intelligent grip - shifting the load more to the middle, ring, and pinky fingers when the club is in line with the forearm, and shifting the load to my thumb when the club is perpendicular - I wore off some skin on my left thumb. Hopefully I'll remember to apply a couple of coats of liquid bandage on Sunday to try to protect the skin for the Monday workout.

WRP and GMB Elements : Week 3

I worked up to 8 sets of 5 reps per side in each of the 3 drills in the Wildman Reconditioning Program - aka the heavy club version of Mark Wildman's program for overweight and deconditioned individuals.

On Tuesday, I did GMB Elements Session 11 for 30 min.

On Thursday, I felt soreness in the shoulders and upper back, so I decided to do leg training instead. I opted to do this leg micro workout, because it emphasizes endurance and power to some extent:

WRP and GMB Elements : Week 2

I began the week thinking that I would work up to 10 sets of 3 reps in each of the drills in WRP. I thus did 4 sets of 3 reps per drill for my Monday session. By Wednesday, I decided to increase the reps per set instead of number of sets with each session. My hypothesis is that this will be a shorter path to 10 sets of 5 reps, than working up to 10 sets of 3 reps, then increasing the reps per set per session. So for Wednesday, I did 5 sets of 4 reps, and for Friday, I did 5 sets of 5 reps. I had just enough stamina do be able to do the sets of 5 reps without getting so exhausted that I could not control the club anynmore. This is not to say my club technique was perfect - I did have a rep here and there where I tried to bring the club back to Order position but then lost control of the club. Overall, however, I did not have any accidents resulting in injury.

On Tuesday, I did GMB Elements Session 9: Crab and Frogger. 30 min. sessions are just right for me to get some endurance training

On Thursday, I did GMB Elements Session 10: Backwards Bear, Monkey, Transitions between Bear and Monkey. This was also a 30 min. session. I found it more exhausting than the Tuesday session because Crab is not as demanding as the other animal movements in Elements.

One change I'm noticing in GMB Elements compared to my previous work through the program, is the Prepare and Push portions of the workout now vary more from session to session. Last time, both portions were the same in every session. This makes sense as we may have to vary how we prepare the body for training, depending on the movements we expect to train. Similarly in the Push section, which in Elements can be conditioning intervals followed by mobility drills for cooldown.

I noticed that the Effective Strength and Conditioning website has a summer discount code. I used it to buy the new Mark Wildman Introduction to Heavy Clubs program. This program is designed for two-handed heavy club, which Wildman defines as a club being 10 lbs or heavier. I don't plan to switch from WRP to this program at this time, because I'm focused on improving my endurance by working up to 20 sets of 5 per drill. Nevertheless, it's interesting to watch videos from this program to see what the training for 2-handed club would be like. One significant difference compared to WRP, besides 2-hand vs. 1-hand, is the cycling through 3 levels of movement sophistication instead of just building up volume at one weight.

I would like to eventually traing this two-handed club program with my 45 lb. club, which I bought from RMax back in the day. I've done two-handed swings and pendulums with the 45 lb. club. However, I have yet to do a shield cast or what Wildman calls a pullover. I've never felt strong enough to push the club over my shoulder to the back position. There appear to be a couple of paths to develop the strength to practice the pullover and all the other Level 1 exercises in Wildman's program with the 45 lb. club. One path is to build up my strength via other modalities - most likely the Isochain, and skill-based calisthenics - eg. front lever row progression, handstand pushup progression, etc. I would need the strength to push the club up over the shoulder, as well as the strength to pull against it as the club's center of gravity shifts from the front of my body to the back.
Another is to get an Adex adjustable Club or Arc - such a device would allow progression towards the 45 lb. club by incremental loading. I started watching Wildman's Adex Arc videos and am intrigued.

Wildman Reconditioning Program (WRP) Week 1

After the Monday session of Isochain Iron Man program, I decided to switch to the heavy club program as previously described. Mark Wildman does not seem to name the programs that he designs so I'll just call this one "Wildman Reconditiong Program" because the program is intended for deconditioned individuals, as well as those who are overweight, and/or coming off of injury. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Iron Man program. I tried it because I was curious about how it would feel to train like that, and coming off of injury, I knew my body would benefit from endurance-focused training. I observed modest improvement in the hold times in the Shoulder Press and Zercher Squat, as well as the average force numbers. The reason I decided to switch programs is I missed dynamic exercise and wanted to do more of that.

For the Wednesday session, I did 5 reps of each of the 3 exercises, per side with a 15 lb. Clubbell. Wildman calls all Clubbbells "heavy clubs" - even those that are 15 lbs. or lighter. Using the GMB performance scale, I scored Ease=Challenging, Quality=Rough. The following day, I didn't feel any DOMS in my upper back. The back of my neck though was sore.

So for Friday, I did 3 reps per set. I still scored Rough Quality, but the Ease was down to Solid. I'll stick to 3 reps per set until I get to 10 sets.

For my Tuesday and Thursday exercise sessions, I did GMB Elements sessions 7 and 8, 30 min. each. When I work up to 10 or more sets of 5 reps in WRP, I'll need to make sure I don't overtrain via my Elements sessions. I may cut down to 15-min. Elements sessions.

If I finish GMB Elements before I reach the goal of 20 sets of 5 in WRP, I may try Red Delta Project Micro Workouts on the in-between exercise days. Whatever routine I choose for those in-between days should not interfere with recovery from my WRP days. I'll probably try one of the leg-focused ones, because while I can feel WRP working my feet, it's not particularly taxing on the legs. Another type of Micro Workout I may try is a chest-focused one, since WRP doesn't seem to hit the chest hard either, and any improvement in chest strength and conditioning should beneficial when I get around to focusing on horizontal pressing again.

This is the chest Micro Workout that I'll probably try