Saturday, July 18, 2009

Return to Long Cycle: Ups and Downs

As I said in the last post, I returned to training Long Cycle. My knee continues to improve, but its not 100%, and I think it will be a long time before it completely heals and is back to normal.
Despite that, I have set a number of pr's in my LC training since the last post. The chief accomplishment is the increase in my rpm's using the 20kg KB's for LC.
I had hoped to up my rpm's to 9 rpm for 5 minutes, and eventually 10 rpm for ten minutes in the next few months. In just a few workouts, I maintained over 10 rpm (close to 11) for 5-7 minutes. And last week I had a 98 rep 10 minute set, maintaining 10 rpm for eight minutes, and 9 rpm for the final two minutes.
I decided to return to 24kg KB's and had two workouts in which I met or exceeded 8 rpm for 5 minutes (42 reps and 40 reps respectively, both efforts bested my previous pr's from before the injury). I crashed and burned the next workout and only managed 8-9 rpm's with the 20kg bells before calling it quits.I just don't think I'm up to using the 24's every workout yet.
Still, I have progressed very quickly, despite the knee injury, and should be able to reach 69 reps with the 24's by December.
At this point I think its wisest for me to continue using the 20's for most of my workouts. I know KB orthodoxy would call for me to use the 24's for one set, then the 20's for another, and then some OAJ's with a heavier bell. But with my knee injury I think it's best to use lighter KB's to rehab my knee, and to work on pacing and longer sets than I could with the 24's.
I'll let you know how that works out.

1 comment:

  1. Well, IGX isn't taking posts, so I'll put tonight's workout here:
    LC 2x20kg 7 min. Rpms 9,9,9,9,8,8,8. Went slower than I wanted. Had a long stressful day at work, should have stuck with OALC.
    Did an easy set of deadlifts (150 lbs), stretched and called it a night.

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