Monday, August 4, 2008

Like the Swallows of Capistrano, Only More Painful.

Around this time last year, my family and I returned from vacation. It had been two weeks since I cut the lawn, so I went to work. When I was weedwacking the rock wall in front of my house, I was treated to 13 stings from yellowjackets that decided to take up residence in a chipmunk burrow. Under the cover of darkness, I attempted a retaliatory mission by unloading a can of hornet killer into the hole, but they returned a few days later. Professional killers were hired, and the problem was eliminated.

So yesterday I cut the lawn for the first time in about two weeks. When I got to the rock wall, I was greeted by the yellowjackets. They had returned! Only this time, I was treated to just two stings. When I felt the first one sting my palm, I figured out what was going on and ran away from the wall, minimizing the damage to just one more sting to the leg.

I finished the lawn and proceeded to do the only reasonable thing left to do--I terrorized the bastards with the backpack blower. It's great fun! Just go to full throttle, point the nozzle at the hole, and let the fun begin! They can't get to you with 200mph of air blowing in their miserable little faces. Fun and games aside, I'll attempt to kill them tonight.

As far as workouts are concerned, the deadlifting and side presses have been coming along just fine. I can definitely feel a sweet DL groove developing, and I've been able to develop much more tension than in the first cycle. I got an idea of how to build tension for the DL from a video of Brett Jones pulling 550+ pounds. In the video, he takes in a deep breath and you can see him seriously compress the air in his abdomen. It's different from the quick zipping up used during a clean before a hardstyle press, so figuring that out has helped tremendously. This stuff is so new to me that I feel great whenever I figure out a new trick here and there, and the strength gains are carrying over to the handful of presses I've been doing with the 32kg KB.

I have to say, though, that I need to incorporate some short, technique focused KB work into my program in addition to PTTP. The deeper I get into this program, the rustier I feel with the bells.

1 comment:

Amy Jurrens said...

I know what you mean about feeling rusty the more experienced you get. Sometimes I feel as if I've never pressed or snatched a KB before. Then I step back and evaluate my technique. It's probably good to not get complacent with KBs since they can harm you more than yellowjackets!