Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Quest

As I approach the final day of my 12-week quest for dunkage I feel pretty good about what I have accomplished, but I am nowhere near being satisfied. My original goals at the beginning of the program were to dunk a basketball and have an Olympic lifting total of 200 kilograms. With one day left (in the 12 weeks) my Olympic lifting total (combination of the Snatch and Clean and Jerk) is 198.5kg and I am able to dunk a mini basketball slightly larger than a softball. Although I did not fully accomplish either of my goals I made gigantic improvements and learned a great deal about how to effectively implement a goal-oriented training regimen.

I am planning on maintaining a very similar training regimen and continuing to train towards my goal of dunking a basketball. I am confident that my oly numbers will improve steadily if I continue to train and research as avidly as I have over the course of the last three months. I will keep the blog going as I continue to train towards “dunkage.”

Lately I have been reading a ton of literature written by the head of Westside Barbell—Louie Simmons( http://www.westside-barbell.com/). Westside is an incredibly successful power lifting gym in Ohio and Louie swears by an “adaptation week” after every four weeks of training. During an “adaptation week” one trains entirely different exercises or modalities in an effort to allow the body to adapt to the stress that had been placed upon it and congruently ward of plateaus in training.

So for as long as it takes me I am going to continue to train the Olympic Lifts, plyometrics, and the occasional CrossFit WOD in an effort to allow myself to dunk a basketball. I will conduct an adaptation week on the fifth week of my training cycle in which I will participate in activities that I have not trained in the previous four weeks. For example I am planning on focusing primarily on gymnastics during my adaptation weeks.

On a side note...Is there any subject matter that anyone would like me to post on? I have been posting on topics that I find interesting, but I would be more than happy to address anything that anyone is curious about.

2 comments:

  1. Coming within 1.5 kg of your lifting goal is pretty legit. I'd say for all intents and purposes that goal is pretty accomplished. What was your lifting total at the beginning of the 12 weeks? Also, your vertical increased by at least 6", right? Pretty awesome.

    I'd be down to hear you talk more about food. Do you do anything special pre or post workout when it comes to eating? Do you take any supplements? Got any favorite recipes or meals you'd like to share?

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  2. My Olympic Lifting total was 180kgs at the beginning of the 12 weeks.

    Thanks for the post suggestions. I'll do a pre/post workout post in the near future. Also, the whole supplement topic is extremely interesting as well and I will address that too. The recipes and meals sound good too.

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