Andy's Training Diary

Current programme: Winter base: build up swim distance to 2k, runs to 10k, do one long ride a week and introduce olympic weightlifting in a light, explosive way to get some plyometric power.

Best Times:
Half-marathon 2:12.
10k run 59:00
10 mile bike time trial 27:47.
400m swim 9:13
Best Lifts:
Squat 140kg (308lb)
Deadlift 170kg (374lb).
Triathlons:
May 2006: Wellington Novice (200m swim / 13k bike / 3k run). Popped my cherry and did it on a fixed-wheel bike to boot. Swim: 6:26; Bike: 34:52; Run 14:47. Total: 56:05.

June 2006: Burnham Tri - 1:32:56 - 15:00 swim; 42:30 bike; 35:26 run.

June 2006: Bude - My first OW event. Swim: 00:26:30, Bike: [/i] 00:38:47, Run: 00:31:21; Total: 01:36:38

September 2006: Cotswold - 40th in age group G (35-40) out of 53. Swim 09:12, Bike 38:32; Run 23:19; Overall 01:11:04

Training Diary

October 28, 2002 -

Total mileage for week ending 27 October 2002: 32.2

Arms, shoulders and grip at home. Good session with some tangible progress, in the garden in furious winds. Three thick layers, big hat, lots of warmup movements (arm circling, elbow rowing) between sets. Finished with some T'ai Chi (four-directional breathing, form, ton of feathers) which closed everything down nicely. Add chins to this little torture set next time!

Dumbbell Shoulder Press, 10Kg x 10, 10, 10. After recent problems I'm very pleased with that. Consolidate with the same weight next time.

Lateral Raise, 10Kg x 8, 7, 6. Ouch! Keep at it, target is a final set of 10.

Barbell Curl, 15Kg x 10, 10, 10. Improvement over last time: consolidate.

Reverse Barbell Curl 12Kg x 10, 10, 10. Used an overhand thumbless grip to maximise forearm use. Consolidate.

#1 Gripper 5, 4, 4 on both hands. No closure: with hindsight it's easier to use the gripper barehanded. Keep at it.

Wrist roller, 10Kg, once each of the 4 ways. Target: twice each way, then up the weight.

October 24, 2002 -

Bike, 17.5 miles in 1:14; not fast but I had a big load and it was cold, so I'm happy with that. Squats later :)

Squats 55Kg x 10, 75Kg x 10, 85Kg x 10. Cool; up by 5Kg next time.

Standing Calf Raise 215Kg x 16, 265Kg x 16, 315Kg x 16 (14, pause, 2). Same weight next time.

Incline Crunch 15, 6. Bench set to incline position 4.

Didn't feel like I got much from the crunches: do more flat ones. Bokned out on the ride home after 11 miles, bu the ride meant that my legs were less DOMSy the next day. Think energy snacks!

October 22, 2002 -

Early morning training.

Dips @ 76kg assist, 10,10,10

Bench 20kg x 10, 10, 9

Incline bench 10x10, 12.5x5, 10x5

Side laterals 10x10...

Shoulder press 10x3...

...and that's where it ended. Badly dehydrated and hungry after an epic sleepathon (20h in the last 24, or something like that), and no warmup. I really must spend fine minutes on a warmup before these sessions of the big joints get locky and glum. I'll pick this sesion up later tonight with shoulder press, laterals and shrugs.

October 18, 2002 -

Light biceps and grip, to make up for finishing deadlift day early. I plan to make grip work a bit more serious: buying a decent gripper, putting together a grip routine. Since biceps and grip are weak points, the weights used are necessarily light. This session was just:

Barbell curl, 15Kg x 10, 10, 6 (Target: 10 in final set)

Reverse barbell curl, 10Kg x 10, 10, 10 (Increase weight to 12Kg next time)

Wrist roller, 10Kg, once in each of the four directions (target: twice in each)

October 17, 2002 -

Twenty miles on the bike this morning, hard but not too ugly.

October 14, 2002 -

Deadlift day, and a challenge to my grip. It's getting better but I really must work on it specially. This time, the biceps work had to be foregone because my hands were fried, so I ought to have a biceps-and-grip day at home soon. I might also consider wearing gloves, just for the deadlifts. There's only so far it's sensible to take this King of Callouses gig.

Deadlift 50Kg x 10, 80Kg x 8, 90Kg x 7

Stiff-leg deadlift 50Kg x 8, 70Kg x 5 - and then my back was having none of it

Back row @ #8: 10, 10, 8.

Lat pulldown: Aiee! Ping! And that's where my grip went, so no curls, reverse curls or chins.

October 08, 2002 -

Light squats. Let's not think that light means easy. Gods, no. Warmup at 50Kgx10, then 70x10 and 80x8. Strikes me that by adding a 2.5-5 kg a week to that will have me repping a hundred for eight rather than three in eight weeks, and that's a nice solid target. Calf raises, 210, 260 and 310Kgx16, as brutal as ever. Skipped the ab work as I've got evil guts - mild food poisoning from a dodgy pie. Bless.

October 03, 2002 -

Great, a week of lurgy. Out the back of that now and feeling very fat, straight into a light chest day. Appalled at the loss in strength, but it'll come back. Today's fun:

Free bench 20kgx15, 25x8, 25x5. No spotter so I had to be careful, good to be doing it free again, wobbly as all hell. I need to keep doing this until I've trained my body to the form. Middle finger on the smooth ring in the bar's knurling seems to be the right place for my grip.

Free incline bench 10kgx10, 10, 7. Incredibly hard work, mostly in getting the bar off the rack.

Side laterals 10kgx7, 7, 4 superset with dumbbell shoulder press 10kgx10, 9, 7. Need to do these often to make progress.

Dumbbell shrugs 25kgx12, 10, 10. Never sure if I have the form right. Hard on the grip.

Dips with 76lb assist, 10, 9, 4. Really hard work having pre-exhausted my triceps on the bench.

Got to the end and not found the entry you're looking for? Check the archive for older stuff. This blog started on May 1st 2002, so don't expect to find anything before then.