The Best Laid Plans...

I wanted to up my training to six days a week because, well, I'm kinda compulsive. But the value of having been around the block more than once means the territory you walk in starts to look familiar if you're paying attention. Tuesday and Wednesday nights I barely got any sleep. Thursday was to be a platform day. It wasn't. It was sushi night with our friends instead. I slept very well that night.

Yesterday was supposed to be heavy, very heavy. I wanted to press the 48kg for doubles. I got one set on my left and only one rep on my right. Wrong day for that type of training. CNS was very tired from lack of sleep, and lack of rest. It'd been a crazy week in my other business.

So yesterday's session was framed on the background of Roman's ideas/evidence that elite weightlifters only improve through an increase in intensity, not volume of loading. The temptation was to perform a high volume of work since my CNS would not allow me the enjoyment of heavy loading. I refrained. I absolutely need to keep the volume low enough to focus on making loading difficult enough to be perceived as an increase in intensity by my CNS without lifting heavy. Generally, I believe for me this is 25 total reps per exercise or less. Although, some exercises I will extend the sets as my body continues to learn the exercise "intra-session." This is a "play-it-by-ear" type of thing.

Yesterday's training session ended up looking like this:

A. Z Lunge with contralateral loading, KB in Press lockout position:
24kg/5+5 x 7 sets. This was one of those "intra-session learning" times. These felt different, but not always better each set. I performed an extra set on the right side. It felt perfect.

B1. "KJ" KB Presses: 2x16kg/5+5 x 5 sets (A KJ KB press is named after SrRKC Kenneth Jay--he improves his pressing strength my handicapping his leverage by pressing 2 bells in the same hand.)

Rest 60s then...

B2. Chins, bodyweight only, focusing on bone rhythms.

Rest 60s then back to B1.

Pizza for dinner.

Next week, we'll see if I can get 6 sessions in. If all goes well it'll be 2x 3-day cycles of the following:
1. O-lifts
2. Z-Strength
3. KB conditioning
-Repeat-

The first cycle will be light, the second, heavy (heavier).

I'm also thinking of building my 2-week cycles into the following 6 week format:

Weeks 1-2: Hypertrophy focus
Weeks 3-4: Strength focus
Weeks 5-6: Power focus

Then repeated. It's just a thought, and a familiar one at that. I think I've had this before--I'll have to go back and check my journals/notes/etc.

What's the end goal? Well, admittedly, I haven't come to rest with the idea that I should surrender my dreams of weightlifting. Rif, of course, and rightfully so, will warn me against this. He is my voice of reason. On the other hand, I have Z-Health, which he does not. It has changed everything about the way I move. It allows me to dream and right now, I'm not sure which is more important--listening to reason or following my dreams. However, I wrestle with that particular dream whenever it rears its ugly head. I don't want to be "that guy." He's the one who still dreams of glory at age 42--recapturing his lost youth and sacrificing everything that stands in the way of that "glory"--wife, kids, etc. My only desire is to get back on the platform--to compete at Nationals, the one thing I robbed myself of in 2000. I think I'll be satisfied when that happens. I'll also be 35. Young enough for many, many other things, but old for weightlifting. We'll see what the future holds.