Today's training & a couple of news

Some general info on my current training status

I'm making very good progress with the One Arm chin (OAC), I started a program designed by Alexander Lechner, a very cool (& STRONG!) guy. If you understand German, go and check-out his very informative blog: http://www.einfaches-training.blogspot.com/

At the moment I completely ditched weighted Pullups in favor of the OAC, I still can't do more than 3 days of it or my elbows start to hurt.

In terms of pressing-strength, I'm working on the One Arm Handstand. Made good progress, unfortunately it seems I overdid it and my wrists started to hurt, so I will let them recover before I attack them again ;)

Also, I've started, once again, to incorporate glute-ham raises and I can almost do a negative. Still not sure how healthy they are for the knees and I may discontinue them as my right knee always feels awkward afterwards. Besides that I do quite a few hip extension movements, mostly bodyweight and sometimes double kettlebell one legged deadlifts (those really fry the hammies and the glutes and are a great balance exercise too).

In terms of kettlebells, besides teaching basics to a couple of clients I mainly use the double longcycle in my own training. I love simplicity and this may be one of the hardest exercises ever besides hitting every single muscle in the body.

Supplements
I've cut back on all supplements as I feel more and more that most of the mare a complete waste of money. At the moment I only take a little dose of fishoil and magnesium.
Mike Mahler was kind enough to send me a couple of bottles of his liquid magnesium oil. Lot's of people had amazing results with it and contrary to oral supplements it is supposed to increase DHEA levels. I'll keep you updated. You can check it out here: http://www.mikemahler.com/magnesium.html

Foam Rolling & Trigger Point
I've been using these techniques for a couple of weeks now and it is simply amazing. Every hard training athlete should religiously use it, it's that amazing. In a couple of days my hip pain got much, much better and the muscle tonus around my thighs completely changed. I can understand now what Pavel meant by healthy muscle tonus in one of his books.

Meditation/Qigong update
I've ditched the Zen stuff as I've come to the conclusion that I already sit enough. Besides the Little Nine Heaven Qigong I've also started to practice Zhan Zhuang training, one of the oldest forms of Qigong. It's harder than it looks and (at least for now) the feeling is even more intensive than the one I get while practicing L9H. So far I've worked up to 15 minutes.

Kettlebell Workshop
As my friend Dominik Feischl has already mentioned on his blog, we will do a kettlebell seminar in September, soon there will be more infos about it on kettlebell.eu, Dominik's awesome Naturtraining-blog and of course here ;)

http://kettlebell.eu/
http://naturtraining.blogspot.com/

Finally, today's training

Some mobility, breathing and 30 minutes of Little 9 Heaven after getting up.

Went to work, luckily there was only one client so afterwards I did my own training.

I started with 15 minutes of joint mobility, then it was all kettlebells ;)

The cool thing about the place is that I have access to all of the different kettlebell sizes and I did a Steve Cotter inspired weight pyramid:

C&J with 2x 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 12; 5 reps each

Double Cleans with 2x 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 12; 5 reps each

Double Jerks with 2x 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 12; 5 reps each

Rack holds with 2x 32, 28, 24, 1 minute each

Stiff-legged double deads with 2x 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 12; again 5 reps each

Finished with 50 1A Swings with the 16

After that I did some core training, leg-raises (different variations like one-arm holds) and gatherings.

Then I did mobility and flexibility work.

Finished with 15 minutes of Zhan Zhuang practice.

Will do some foam-rolling in the evening.