Kettlebell ICT: Week 3 Completed

These are the kettlebell weights I used:

Session A

A1 Snatch 12kg
A2 Press 16kg

B1 Snatch 12kg
B2 Bottoms Up Goblet Squat 16kg

Session B

A1 Push Press 16kg
A2 Bottoms Up Goblet Squat 16kg

B1 Push Press 16kg
B2 Supported Row 16kg

I increased the weight to 16kg for the goblet squat and supported row. I felt more confident that my low back could handle this load for those exercises.

Compared to last week I did not always need to rest for the maximum 2 minutes between the paired A1-A2 sets. At times, I was ready to go with 5-30 seconds left on the timer I'd set to 2 minutes.

I added the following to my recovery day routine:

Tall Kneeling Arm Raises To Side - 60 seconds per side
Quadruped Sidebending - 60 seconds per side
Monkey 180/360 - 2 to 4 minutes.

These are from GMB's article on fixing shoulder restrictions: https://gmb.io/shoulder-fixes/. They are recommended for addressing my main shoulder restriction, which is the back arch when reaching overhead. While checking out the Monkey 180/360, I found that GMB recommends the 3-point Bridge so I also added that to my routine.

Kettlebell Arm Bar

This is the exercise that I was doing when I suffered my first shoulder injury. Trainees have always been advised to work with a relatively kettlebell for safety. I foolishly chose a relatively heavy kettlebell instead. The consequence of that choice was that I lost control of the KB while practicing the exercise and dropped the KB, which in turn injured the shoulder.

I was trying out the KB Arm Bar in the first place because practicing it is supposed to improve shoulder mobility and stability. The KB Arm Bar also improves t-spine mobility and lat strength, and fine tunes your overhead mechanics for presses, Turkish Getup, etc.

I did not attempt this exercise again until this week. I just never thought of buying a KB light enough to allow me to practice the KB Arm Bar with less fear of re-injuring the shoulder.



Zack Henderson recommends including the KB Arm Bar as part of one's upper body warm up, holding 45-60 seconds per side for 1-2 sets.

The lightest KB I have is 8kg. It is enough weight to challenge me to maintain the vertical position of the working arm, while working into the stretch. Some time may pass before I feel confident to try this exercise with a heavier KB.

Kettlebell ICT Week 2 Completed

These are the kettlebell weights I used:

Session A

A1 Snatch 12kg
A2 Press 16kg

B1 Snatch 12kg
B2 Bottoms Up Goblet Squat 12kg

Session B

A1 Push Press 16kg
A2 Bottoms Up Goblet Squat 12kg

B1 Push Press 16kg
B2 Supported Row 12kg

I rested the full 2 minutes between segments. No new issues introduced for the low back or shoulders. Between sessions, I practiced the exercises which are recommended in Kettlebell Strong! for improving mobility for reaching overhead.

Kettlebell ICT Week 1 Session 1

Today I started an experimental program called Kettlebell ICT. The goals of the program are fat loss and strength gain. The program is experimental because there are no documented, pre-existing results from anyone completing the program.

I suffered a low back injury this past August while attempting an isometric seated row. My back has recovered enough that I don't fear a back spasm from something as mundane as putting on my shoes while seated, straining while sitting on the toilet, etc. However, experience has taught me to be conservative with my loading choices for the posterior chain when beginning a new exercise program, hence the choice of relatively light weight for the Snatch and Bottoms Up Goblet Squat.

This program will be a good experiment for me. I wasn't able to do much lower body training during the couple of months spent recovering from the low back injury. Then I went on a 2-week vacation for the holidays, eating a lot. This resulted in bodyfat gains, and some loss of strength.

This first session went fine, except when I attempted to press with my left arm, immediately after snatching with my left arm. Simply beginning the press set with the opposite arm after the snatch set seemed to fix the issue.

These are the kettlebell weights I used:

A1 Snatch 12kg
A2 Press 16kg

B1 Snatch 12kg
B2 Bottoms Up Goblet Squat 12kg

Easy Muscle Schedule B: Week 1 Complete

Wednesday session went fine as it was the calisthenics day. Practicing dips and pull ups is paying off. I like setting up the rings less than shoulder width apart, because this setup makes it easy to keep the shoulders externally rotated throughout most of the movement, which turn minimizes irritation to the shoulders.

Friday session was a struggle with the 24kg Clean and Push Press, with one or two unassisted reps with left arm out of the 15 minutes, and better performance with the right arm. I tried to jerk the 24kg but lacked the technical skill. The double 16kg KB clean portion of the session went more smoothly. The Clean and Push Press practice felt more like a strength workout than a hypertrophy workout. In other words, I don't think I got enough hypertrophy stimulus from that exercise. So I tried to make up for it by doing this chest expander routine, with exercises somewhat spread out through the rest of the day.
Overhand Vertical Pullapart - 3 springs - Drop to 2 next time

Underhand Vertical Pullapart - 2 springs - Increase to 3 next time

Horizontal Pullapart with mechanial drop set of Underhand Vertical Pullapart - 2 springs - Drop to 1 next time

Horizontal Pullapart (1 spring less) - 1 spring

Back Press - 2 sets - improves behind the neck pressing mobility, as well as working the shoulders and triceps. Whether the mobility gain translates to improved mobility for double KB press, double KB jerk, etc. remains to be seen.

Sideway (Tricep) Extension - 1 set, followed by mechanical drop set of Overhead Tricep Extension - works triceps which have been pre-exhausted by the Back Press, to increase pump in the triceps

Bicep Curl - 1 set

Bicep Curl (1 spring less) - 1 set

Reverse Curl - 2 sets - All these curl variations are for stimulating strength and muscle gains for the biceps and forearms. There is no direct benefit for pressing but these exercises should help improve elbow health and performance in the kettlebell clean, as the biceps help control the descent of the KB out of the rack position into the bottom position.

Lateral Raise (scapular plane/Y raise) - 2 sets - Finish off delts which have been pre-exhausted by the earlier exercises, to stimulate muscle growth.

Easy Muscle Schedule B: Day One and Chest Expander accessory routine

Day 1 of Schedule B is a kettlebell day. First exercise is the Clean-and-Press. Second is the lower body exercise of choice.

The recommended weight for the C&P is a weight which is heavy enough that you only do 5 reps with that weight. If the weight is too heavy to press, you are allowed to push press it. Despite having a couple of weeks to practice the double-clean with 16kg KBs, I was still pretty bad at cleaning a single 24kg KB for the first few sets. I eventually got more comfortable with cleaning the 24kg KB. However, push press was a struggle with my left arm. Out of the entire Clean-and-Push Press session, I managed to push press the 24kg without assistance from the right arm just twice.

I had much better luck with the lower body portion of Schedule B Day 1. The instructions seem to prefer the goblet squat or the double KB front squat. However my fear of leaning forward while working on assisted pistol squats several weeks ago left my knees feeling sore, and not in a good way. So I opted for the double KB clean instead. The knees don't have to flex as much in this exercise. Another reason is it works the posterior chain, which my low back needs, without as much risk as the KB swing, and gives me a lot of practice of the clean.

My failure to consistently push press the 24 kg KB with my left arm might be due to a mental or emotional block - that is, the lack of confidence that I can actually do it. Another possibility is that the left arm/shoudler is just too weak. The 16kg KB is just too light for the Schedule B guidelines. I did Easy Muscle Schedule A earlier this year with a 16kg KB, and I worked up to 7-rep sets. This is why I know the 16kg KB will be too light. But the main problem is if I can't consistently push press the 24kg KB, I'm not really stimulating muscle gains for my arms and shoulders.

So the solution I decided to try is to use my nice Baraban Chest Expander for assistance exercises to stimulate strength and muscle gains to improve my left arm overhead pressing. These exercises would be done in the afternoon after the Easy Muscle KB sessions, and are mostly taken from Alex Leonidas' workout video:



Overhand Vertical Pullapart - 2 sets

Underhand Vertical Pullapart - 2 sets

Horizontal Pullapart - 1 set, followed by mechanial drop set of Underhand Vertical Pullapart

Horizontal Pullapart (1 spring less) - 1 set - All these pullapart exercises should stimulate strength and muscle gains in the upper back to improve shoulder stability, as well as stimulate some gains in the delts and triceps.

Back Press - 2 sets - improves behind the neck pressing mobility, as well as working the shoulders and triceps. Whether the mobility gain translates to improved mobility for double KB press, double KB jerk, etc. remains to be seen.

Sideway (Tricep) Extension - 1 set, followed by mechanical drop set of Overhead Tricep Extension - works triceps which have been pre-exhausted by the Back Press, to increase pump in the triceps

Bicep Curl - 1 set

Bicep Curl (1 spring less) - 1 set

Reverse Curl - 2 sets - All these curl variations are for stimulating strength and muscle gains for the biceps and forearms. There is no direct benefit for pressing but these exercises should help improve elbow health and performance in the kettlebell clean, as the biceps help control the descent of the KB out of the rack position into the bottom position.

Lateral Raise (scapular plane/Y raise) - 2 sets - Finish off delts which have been pre-exhausted by the earlier exercises, to stimulate muscle growth.

When I got to lateral raises with the chest expander, I noticed a strength gap between my right and left side. Just like in Leonidas' video I was down to one spring on the chest expander. My left delt was noticeably weaker than my right delt. I had no trouble raising my right hand above my right shoulder, while I was unable to raise my left hand above my left shoulder. I worked the left side first, then did the same number of reps on the right side

M left elbow tendonitis flares up when I play guitar so I've started using the Theraband Flexbar again. My grip strength improved to where I could use the blue Flexbar for the Tyler Twist exercise. This video shows the Tyler Twist but also recommends an exercise in which you bend the bar into a U shape and then slowly release for the eccentric exercise benefit.



The following day, I had some minor DOMS in my left tricep but otherwise felt fine. Easy Muscle comes with a generous amount of info in the form of a manual, schedule, training videos, etc. However it does not include instruction on the Push Press. However I also bought another program by Geoff Neupert called Kettlebell STRONG which does include video instruction on this exercise. As I reviewd the videos, I realized how bad my Push Press technique was. So on the next kettlebell day of Schedule B, I'll try the Clean-and-Push Press again with the corrections in mind. If I'm still unable to do the Push Press, then I'll try substituing the Jerk for the Push Press. On the one hand, the Jerk is is more technically demanding than the Push Press, especially with double KBs. On the other hand, the Jerk is next exercise to attempt, when the KB is too heavy to Push Press. This is because the Jerk practically eliminates any pressing activity from the arm. In the Push Press, you use the legs to launch the KB upward while pressing at the same time with the arm. In the Jerk, you also launch the KB with your legs, but immediately after launch, you drop your hips while straightening your arm at the same time, so standing up from this hip drop is what carries the KB to the top, instead of your arm pressing it up.

The System - Rehearsal video

Completed Easy Muscle Prep Week 3

Being able to execute full ROM ring dips again feels good. Turning the rings out (i.e. thumbs pointing away from the torso) at the bottom of the dip is more challenging for mecompared to RTO (rings turned out) at the bottom of a ring push up, but I'll keep working on RTO at the bottom because it engages the shoulder external rotators to protect the shoulders. Working to maintain RTO as I start pushing my body out of the drip also seems to protect the shoulders although the movement eventually forces the rings back into parallel. Sets of 2 were no problem, aside from the effort trying to improve the RTO.

I have mild DOMs in the obliques and low back from doing 3 reps of 1-min. 16kg kettlebell suitcase carries after the upper body exercises. It's a different feeling from low back spasms, which is a more acute kind of pain and emotionally alarming.

Easy Muscle Prep: Week 3: Did my first set of full dips

The original plan for this week was to do 15-20 minutes of alternating sets of 4 ring push ups and 4 bar pull ups with autoregulation then 3 rounds per side of 1-minute 16kg kettlebell suitcase carries.

During the Monday session I felt like I was in danger of setting off a back muscle spasm on the last (4th) rep of a ring push up set, unless I squeezed my butt as hard as possible. All of my back spasm/spine popping pain problems happened on a pull rather than a push, but after experiencing minor, but still somewhat disturbing back spams while sitting on the toilet or lying on the floor in supine position for a P3 mobilty session, I've been paranoid about threats to my back.

So for the Wednesday session, I decided to try doing ring dips instead of push ups. I've been warming up before my strength sessions with reverse shrugs and knee raises as recommended in the below video. I just did a few reps of each exercise, stopping well short of failure, and 2 sets. The Red Delta Project advice to warm up with these two exercises, and practice ring push ups with rings turned out at the bottom of the movement - proved to be on point for working towards a full ROM dip on the rings.


I,ve planning to do 3 reps of each of the these exercises next week - ring dips, pull ups, and double 16kg kettlebell front squats. So for today I did 2 reps per set of ring dips and will do that again Friday. I was pleasantly surprised that the amount of effort per rep was lower than expected.

Completed Easy Muscle Prep Week 2

I set the timer to 16 minutes for practicing the upper body exercises - ring pushups and pullups - instead of 10 as originally planned. I arrived at this number by arbitrarily picking a total workout time between 20-30 minutes, and dividing by 3. The idea was that the time allocated for work and rest for each of the 3 exercises would be evenly divided between the 3 exercises.

My body felt fine doing 3 reps per set of each upper body exercise, with rest determined by autoregulation. I didn't record exactly how many sets I did, but recall doing at least 5 sets per exercise, which is an improvement over the 3 sets I did on Monday.

The soreness in the quads from 2 weeks of pistol squat practice never really went away. The knee started feeling uncomfortable as well. I think it's because of fear of any forward lean of the torso. My low back still seems susceptible to muscle spasms, so I've had a fear of allowing the low back to flex in any vulnerable position, such as a deep squat. So I think this fear is throwing off my form in the assisted pistol squat, and thus impacting the knee.

So for the Friday session I decided to do suitcase carries with a 16kg kettlebell, instead of assisted pistol squats. I was thinking of adding KB suitcase carries to my routine next week, to start conditioning my back to work with external load again. But with my knee starting to feel suspect, I figured I'd take a chance with the suitcase carries. I did 3 sets of 40-second carries on each side. The back held up fine.

As it turns out, the suitcase carry is recommended by some for low back rehab. This person said he was a back pain sufferer himself when he started doing suitcase carries 3-4 times a week:
comme

Improving mobility for reaching overhead (lat mobility)

I want to be able to press 2 kettlebells overhead at the same time. In order to do this without risk of shoulder injury, I need to be able to lock out both arms overhead.

I am currently exploring the Geoff Neupert P3 protocol, which aims to cure movement dysfunction by restoring motor control. From what I've observed so far on the Strongfirst P3 discussion thread, the "side lying" position seems to be the hardest to progress through for the majority of participants. I can do about 20 breaths, and 30 reps of each of the head movements, on each side. It took me a while to work up to these numbers. The next step in the progression is quite a jump in difficulty for me, so it's best for me to be patient and let my CNS and body develop at its own pace.

P3 practice so far has indeed seemed to loosen some muscles, including the lats. However, P3 is somewhat promoted as a mobility method for people who hate stretching, whereas sometimes I do get a nice satisfying feeling out of a good stretch once in a while. Tightness in the lats is one of the reasons I"ve had trouble reaching overhead. I found these suggested lat stretches.

In the past, I've explored flexibility/mobility exercises taught by GMB Fitness. Locomotion exercises are key components of the GMB way of achieving fitness goals, including flexibility/mobility. GMB trainer Adele Jackson posted four recommended locomotion exercises for improving mobility for reaching overhead, and general shoulder mobility, along with the recommendation to practice each movement for 1-4 minutes. These same exercises are mentioned in GMB's article How to Fix the 4 Most Common Shoulder Restrictions. The article recommends practicing the locomotion exercises after stretching. This helps consolidate the mobility gains from more isolated stretching exercises.

First session of Easy Muscle Prep Week 2

I did a 20 minute session. The change from Week 1 is doing 3 reps per exercise instead of 2 reps. In the 20 minute period, I managed to do only 3 full rounds of the 3 exercises. I wonder if it is because I needed more rest after each set of assisted pistol squats. I did manage to squeeze in a 4th set of ring pushups.

Before the workout my quads were still sore from last week's assisted pistol squatting. I was able to get through today's training without feeling like I damaged anything in the legs. However, I'm thinking of splitting up the workout into a 10-minute upper body session and a 10-minute pistol squat session, with rest times between sets determined by autoregulation. There would be a rest period between the two 10-minute sessions that would also be determined by autoregulation. I believe that by doing this I can increase the training volume for the upper body exercises, since there wouldn't be any pistol squat sets taking up time between the ring pushups and bar pullups. Practicing the pistol squat in its own 10-minute window would allow me to train this movement at its own volume. For example I might end up doing 5 rounds of the 2 upper body exercises and 3 rounds of the assited pistol squats - thus training at volume levels appropriate to each exercise.

For cooldown I did a session of P3 mobility. I decided to do P3 five days a week instead of just in the recovery days, between the strength training days. I am close to achieving the requirements to pass Level 2 of the Side Lying position, which is 30 breaths, 30 nods, and 30 neck rotations. I figure I'd be able to graduate to Level 3 sooner with more frequent practice.

Completed Easy Muscle Prep Week 1

Completed the training week without further setbacks - no pun intended - to my lower back.

Feeling DOMs every day in my quads from practicing assisted pistol squats.

Out of the 3 selected strength exercises, I'm feeling the strongest in the Pull Up. I've been doing them with my hands slightly closer together than shoulder width. I currently don't have anything on which to hang rings or suspension trainer at enough of a height to do pull ups or chin ups without having to hold my feet in front of me, which adds extra effort per rep. So I've been doing pull ups on my trusty door pull up bar. I still use the shoulder external rotator muscles and back muscles to generate a spiraling action with my hands, as taught here:



t Even though my hands do not rotate during the pull up, I try to use the spiraling action of those muscles to bend the pull up bar between my hands. The tension, generated by trying to use the spiraling force to rotate the pinky side of my palms towards each other, seems to add more power to the pull up and protect my elbows and shoulders.

Low Back Recovery setback, but not entirely derailed from Easy Muscle prep

I woke up Sunday morning with low back soreness, as soon as I started getting out of bed. It was just like how my back felt every morning, during those first few days after my back injury this past August. The back felt tight and painful. The pain diminished as I started walking around.

I'm not a medical professional, so I can only speculate on possible causes:

• Back spasm during sleep, which apparently could happen
• Not enough hydration during the day and evening before going to sleep
• Somehow tossed and turned in bed, while sleeping, into a position awkward for the back
• Cumulative injury from training with the 24kg kettlebell before the low back had healed enough to tolerate the load
• Combination of the above

I did some yardwork, which involved some squatting down. My back held up fine. I later did a P3 mobility session.
Come Monday morning my low back was mostly pain free when I got up out of bed. I had a "mini spasm" accompanied with some pain, when I was sitting on the toilet. This scared the bejesus out of me but the pain quickly subsided after I was standing again and walked for a bit.

I practiced the Easy Muscle prep routine, as planned last week. The back felt fine until I did a set of goblet squats with the 24kg kettlebell. I did not feel a back spasm or acute pain, but there was just enough discomfort to make me reconsider the KB goblet squat. I quickly decided to replace it with assisted pistol squat, which felt much better.

I decided to work on pull ups (pronated palms) instead of chin ups (supinated palms). Last year I did partial chinups on the Eleviaa rings, which was ok because my shoulder did not let me drop all the way into a full dead hang. But now that I can work out of the dead hang again, I find the rings too low for my taste, even at the highest setting. To do pullups/chinups with these rings out of a dead hang, my knees and feet in front of my torso, which adds difficulty to the movement. For some scenarios this may be ok, but if the goal is to get in as much volume as possible in each session, you don't want to add unnecessary difficulty to the movement.

The DOMS in my lats from the first couple of sessions of Easy Muscle prep subsided. I've made steady progress in the P3 mobility method and continue to practice it on my recovery days. But I've gone back to stretching, instead of doing an abbreviated P3 session, for cooldown from my strength/hypertrophy training sessions.

Easy Muscle Prep: Week 1

My low back is feeling about as good as it did before this latest injury, although I still exercise some caution in getting out of bed.

The next exercise routine I want to do is Easy Muscle, Schedule B, which is one of the three schedules included in Geoff Neupert's Easy Muscle program. Schedule B is the one which has alternating sessions of kettlebell exercise and calisthenics. However, my performance in the two calisthenic exercises - dips and pull ups - is not even close to where I need it to be. Doing one pull up took a lot more effort than I remember, and my technique was rusty. My dip performance was worse, as I felt shaky and needed to use my feet for assistance. Even with foot assistance, I needed a lot of effort to push myself back up.

So, I'll be starting a preparatory program to improve my performance in 3 key exercises for Easy Muscle:

• Ring Push Up
• Pull Up
• 24kg Kettlebell Goblet Squat

The inspiration to substitute Ring Push Up for the Dip came from this Red Delta Project video:

I'll follow the Red Delta Project recommendation to include Ring Reverse Shrugs and Ring Knee Raises in my warmup routine. The rest of the warmup will be scapular pull ups (called "pulling prep" by GMB) and ATG split squats on the stairs.

For this week, I will set a timer to 20 minutes, then do 2-rep sets of each of the above exercises, resting for as much time as I need between sets. This follows the autoregulation principle used in several Neupert programs. So I would do 2 dips, rest as much as I need, then 2 pull ups, rest as much as I need, then 2 goblet squats, then rest as much as I need. Then I'd continue rotating between the 3 exercises, doing one set of each, and resting between sets, until the timer rings to indicate the end of the 20 minutes.

I will try to practice the RTO variation of the Ring Push Up, since it's the variation that is closest to a Ring Dip. If I lack the strength to do RTO push ups, then I'll practice the regular variation with the ringsa at an appropriate height, gradually working towards the lowest possible height before switching to

Over the course of several weeks, I will gradually increase the number of reps per set. Barring any unexpected setbacks, practicing this preparatory program should lead to improved technique in these 3 exercise, as well as improved strength and work capacity. Hopefully I'll be able to perform 10 consecutive reps of each exercise with good technique by the end of this program, and the start of Easy Muscle.

Guitar lessons

Soumia Ghechami breaks down how she composed the original track, her approach to chord voicings and progressions, and how she incorporates chords into heavy riffs.

Beautiful guitar chords recommended by Ichika Nito

I've been working through the Jazz Guitar Pathway on Pickup Music. Most recently, I worked through lessons on the major and minor 2-5-1 chord changes and how to practice for them. One of the practice ideas is to practice scales, changing the scale as needed as you play through the chord progression. The practice ideas taught in the pathway are ok but I think the Barry Harris method might be a little better for reinforcing the sound of the chord changes in your head while practicing the scales. Some of the videos on Pickup Music have a gear icon which must be clicked to access teh speed settings, so that the video may be slowed down. One annoying bug is the popup menu with the speed setting appears and immediately disappears. A hack I found is to click the transcript icon. The transcript will take up half the video space. The gear icon should reappear in the other half of the video space. Now you can click the gear and select the speed.

Nice lesson on the Barry Harris approach to practicing scales for a jazz standard and practicing the chromatic scale


If the above lesson is too challenging, this is a more basic intro to the Barry Harris way of practicing scales for chord changes:

Not really a lesson, just a fun backing track for practicing funk guitar riffs, stylings, etc.

Another video that can be used for practicing soloing ideas

Low Back Rehab: Week 4

My low back healed enough so that I could practice all the movements in all the Phase 1 positions of Geoff Neupert's Sore Joint Solution mobility program, aka "P3". P3 practice includes the Dead Bug exercise. While the Dead Bug has a specific role in P3, it just so happens to be the same exercise Neupert recommends for improving your reflexive core stability. So while one obvious way to prevent a repeat back injury is to avoid exercises that caused that injury - the deadlift, bent-over row, and seated row in my case - another approach is to also improve that reflexive core stability. I don't want to find out the hard way, what other exercise might also be harmful to my lower back. So I'm going for Neupert's performance standard for the Dead Bug - either 4 sets of 25 reps, or 3 sets of 30. I've been making good progress towards this standard, achieving 3 sets of 25 reps.I tend to run out of time before I have to get ready to go to work, so I'm going for 3 sets of 30 rather than 4 sets fo 25, because that 4th set just takes time.

After my P3 practice, I do the chest expander exercises to try get my upper body strength back to where it was before the back injury, while waiting for the back to finish healing. Before the injury, my overhead press was in the 105-112 lb. range, which in theory is enough to press double 24kg kettlebells overhead at least once. My drag curl numbers were also high, though I have yet to test how these gains would carry over to my chin up performance. If I can get back to being ready to press a 24kg KB overhead with one arm for 3-5 reps, and be able to do 10 chinups, I'd be satisfied. The KB clean-and-press and the chin up are both part of Easy Muscle Schedule B, which is the next exercise program I plan to do after my back has healed.

Squatting is also part of Easy Muscle. I guess if you cannot do more than 10 bodyweight squats, then you could just do bodyweight squats. Otherwise you would squat with a weight that not too heavy nor too light - just enough so that you can do 10 reps at most with this weight. Before I can figure out what weight is right for me - single 16kg KB, single 24kg KB, or double 16kg KB - I need to make sure my low back has healed enough to tolerate the squatting motion. During the first couple of weeks of recovery from the injury, my low back was sensitive to certain movements. If it didn't like how I was moving, I would immediately feel stabbing pain. Reaching forward while flexing the spine was an obvious no-no move. Squatting down was ok, unless I did one slight thing wrong, and was punished for it with that sudden acute pain.

Days later, my back is not as sensitive to movement but I still have that fear of squatting. So before I can do high volume weighted squats, I need to eliminate that fear. After that? I think a reasonable next milestone would be to work up to 20 consecutive reps of unweighted squats. By the time I achieve that goal, my back should be able to handle 10-rep max testing with the kettlbells.

The condition of my low back also improved enough that I regained the confidence to sleep in bed again. I'd been sleeping in my armchair because it was easier to get up from the armchair without back pain. It feels so good to sleep in bed again.

Low Back Rehab: Week 3

I continued the low back rehab routine that I settled on last week. The low back continued to heal nicely. As of the end of the week I no longer have to constantly monitor my body positioning and movement to avoid triggering that acute, spine-about-to-snap pain.

I also started using the Baraban chest expander as part of my morning routine. The chest expander workout, as influenced by the Alex Leonidas video:

• Overhead press and curl in 2 antagonist sets. 3 springs for both exercises
• Overhead tricep extension and reverse curl in 2 antagonist sets. 2 springs for both exercises
• Vertical Pull Apart w/ Underhand Grip, then Vertical Pull Apart w/ Overhand Grip in mechanical drop sets

6 tips for appreciating art

Tips for appreciating art

Thoughts on Chest Expander video by Alex Leonidas

After my first shoulder injury, I went to physical therapy for as long as my medical insurance would allow, which I recall was roughly a month. Afterwards, I was on my own to figure out exercise programming to bridge the gap between rehab and regular strength training with the shoulder. Part of the answer was to get a Lifeline Chest Expander, then choose exercises utilizing it. I chose some exercises that were published in a Reg Park book of chest expander exercises. Chest expander training did bridge the gap as I had hoped, then I transitioned to ring calisthenics.

I got so into ring and parallette training that I gradually forgot about the chest expander. Years and couple of repeat shoulder injuries later, I randomly found some chest expander videos on Youtube featuring steel-spring chest expanders.

I've experienced the effectiveness of 2-4 second eccentric exercise for relieving elbow tendonitis. Apparently this type of exercise might work for tendons in general, including those that are part of my repeatedly injured shoulder. Every chest expander exercise has a decent eccentric load because it can be dangerous to suddenly relax and/or let go after completing the concentric movement.
Another aspect of chest expander training that I appreciate is how it can be used to target the rear deltoids and upper back for improved shoulder stability.

Here is one of Alex Leonidas's videos on steel-string chest expanders. It's interesting because his perspective is informed by several months' worth of personal experience training with a steel-spring chest expander, as well as his experience with contemporary bodybuilding methods. He is not just repeating what was published in an old chest expander book.

These are the exercises he likes:

• Vertical Pull Apart w/ Underhand Grip - thickness builder, developers upper traps and rear delts
• Vertical Pull Apart w/ Overhand Grip - targets same muscles as above, with more triceps. Suitable as a drop set after the above.
• Horizontal Pull Apart - Rear delts and great for posture
• Archer Pull - targets small muscles of upper back, injury prevention and relief for achy shoulders.
• Curl - of course targets bicesp
• Violin Extension - targets triceps long head
• Sideways Extension - his favorite triceps drill
• Back Press - Compound pressing exercise, great for behind-the-neck mobility
• Overhead Press - Shoulder press alternative that hits the triceps harder

Programming Tips:

• 5-10 rep range. Move up a spring after doing 12 reps for all sets, or 15 for one set
• 2 exercises per targeted muscle.
• 4-6 total sets per workout
• One set per exercise might be enough, especially when doing drop sets - either dropping a spring or the mechanical drop set approach
• If not doing drop sets, 2 regular sets will be enough

I tried most of the above exercises - the one exception being Sideways Extension as it just didn't feel comfortable. I settled on Overhead Press, Curl, Violin Extension, Reverse Curl, and the Pull Apart variations as my exercises of choice. I do like the Archer Pull, but my left shoulder feels a little uncomfortable when I hold my left arm out to the side while my right arm does the work. It will probably feel more comfortable after I've added a little more strength and muscle to my rear delts and upper back. I'll probably alternate between Back Press and Overhead Press as the compound pressing exercise of choice