Monday, July 23, 2007

Big day at Stones Gym.

Being the Rifstonian, a nickname given to me by Big Chief McGoldrick, he of 5 time World Highland Games Champion and Best Caber Tosser in History fame, my garage dungeon gym is Stones Gym. Because it really is about 'if you have the stones' and I want to be reminded of that so as not to slack off.
Rifstonian refers to some stones Jim and I got for some practice throwing when he was getting ready for a comp and teaching me the basics of stone putting in my backyard. I got an 85 lb stone, a 100 pound stone and a 125 lb stone. These are the Rif Stones, as Big Chief told it and the gym was the Rifstonian Institute ,or Stones, for short.They now guard the entrance to Stones gym but once I put them over head ran a bit nowand gave them a shove. Great fun.

Today is MaxVo2 day at Stones; it seems , and Tracy and I are training together for this and its' surreal. Today I had set my sights on 45 sets with the 16 and it looked like Tracy was going to do the SAME!?! I definitely had to Man Up here. Little did I know.

Snatch 16 kg
couple sets of swings and snatches to warmup then

50 sets of 7 reps per arm
15 sec on
15 sec off
350 snatches
12,600 pounds

Now in and of itself this was not so bad. But the thing is; Tracy did this with me with the same DAMN WEIGHT.Same 7 reps per cycle. AND when I got to 45 sets and was ready to stop, as planned. she called me out to go to fifty! ANd I really really really did not want to.I had planned on 45 and wanted to do 45; stick to the plan.I was thinking fifty for next week .
But whatcha gonna do?
I finished my last five sets.


Two minutes in I think, stiff and slow.


ten minutes in, finally warming up



the last two minutes, past warm. cooked.


Stick slides
5 sets of 5

Halos
4x8/8 with 12 kg

Rack walks
1400 feet in 200 foot sets
30 sec between sets.

Man this kicked my ass. I could barely finish the walk, my ARMS were cooked and it was tough HOLDING the 16 kg in the rack,lol! But I love this training and the key is that the damn bell feels LIGHT and I feel like I can really THROW it around. Too tight is slow.This is really helping loosen me up an make my hip snap and snatch groove that much more explosive.

And man I cannot believe how freaking strong my wife is. she was hurting too and had trouble finding her groove at first and just toughed it out and got things under control. What she did would be at least the equvilant of me doing it with the 24 kg and there is just NO WAY I could come close.I do wonder how many sets I could do with it, hmmmm?
Now what to do next week?

Thanks to Joe who took the video for us.Plus he pulled an EASY 482 , which I will post soon.

Datsit,gotta stretch

17 comments:

Royce said...

Holy hell man. That's gotta be awesome training with her. Monster session for both of ya'll.

Mark Reifkind said...

man it was HOT in there too. THe last five sets I felt like i was snatching inside an oven.

Royce said...

Plus you didn't count on doing them so it must have felt doubley bad!! But hey 350 snatches, man thats cool. And her with the 16 too, good lord.


the one thing neat about training in the park or in my garage is that my tolerance to heat has gone through the roof. The last few summers have been intolerable. I'm barely noticing it now. Probably ha something to do with carrying less insulation. LOL

Mark Reifkind said...

I was fine til I realized we were going past the finish line. THEN I started hurting,lol.
I totally agree on the heat tolerance thing. thats how I really tell when I'm in good condition, the heat doesnt bother me.
I took the fan out of the gym a few months ago.

Brett Jones said...

rif and tracy,
Awesome work and this is what I will be implementing for my conditioning as I think the "light" weight will allow for great CV work and very little low back/leg fatigue.

Mark Reifkind said...

thanks brett, I can't wait to get your 'feedback'.

Or lunch back;whatever comes first, lol.

Unknown said...

Your girl rocks. Rif, do you have a 20 kg?

Mark Reifkind said...

tim, yes I do. kenneths protocol calls for the 16 kg for mena nd the 12 kg for women. I plan on staying with the light bell on mondays.

Unknown said...

Yeah, i was only joking. Tracy is tough as nails though...

Chris said...

That was awesome. Very inspiring.

Pete said...

Rif,

you two ROCK!

Pete

Geoff Neupert said...

That workout plus the heat in the garage is a great combo for bodyfat reduction, no?

Nice workout.

Never catch me doing that stuff though--well maybe never. If Brett's going to do it, who knows?

Mark Reifkind said...

yeah geoff, training in the heat has always been great for me for getting leaner.
I use to do mid day runs in miami in august when I was a crazy marathoner.

guess I am still crazy,lol. Just with more muscle

Mark Reifkind said...

lol, got ya tim.

Anonymous said...

Rif,
Your love and adoration for Tracy is inspirational. Your comment on my blog nearly had me in tears!

Anonymous said...

oops, I mean the comment on HER blog, not mine :p

Mark Reifkind said...

thanks sara, she be my woman!

195 x 1 x 11 , 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 35, 25

  Not great sleep and a bit sore ( no aspirin for last three days) so all in all it was a strong day . Just definitely not 'fresh'  ...