Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Windmill Wednesday

The title of this post is a bit misleading, as kettlebell windmills were not part of my planned workout for the day. But I ended up doing a couple at the gym because my boss wanted some photographs of trainers working out with kettlebells. So I did a couple windmills, a couple renegade rows, a couple pistols. I was happy about the windmills because I used 30 pounds and my shoulder stayed perfectly stable throughout. That's major for me because of my hyperflexible joints and tendency to be slightly weak throughout my posterior chain. Maintaining scapular retraction and depression is challenging for me, but I can tell I'm improving. So, go me.

Anyway, on to the details of the real workout. This started out as one of those GVT things with decreasing rest periods (60, 45, 30, 15) between supersets

superset: bench press, 5x5x90; DB rear delt raise, 5x5x12

superset: DB incline press, 5x5x30; DB renegade row, 5x5x15

Then I wanted to practice my kettlebell clean & press, so I did them laddered with pullups, 4 rungs to the ladder, 3x. I thought about trying it with 14 kg but ended up using 12 kg because I was feeling a bit fatigued and really wanted to make sure I was using good technique.

Oh, also took ballet class. I did about half en pointe, which in a weird way is helpful for kettlebell training because when you rise up you go through the same process of full extension and lock out at the joints, and that's where your stability comes from. Or maybe what I mean is that the kettlebell training is helpful for the pointe work, because that has gotten better too lately. Anyway, there's definitely a connection that I need to think more about.