7 weeks to go!

@GregJRutherford has a lot to answer for!

Only 7 weeks now until the UK Decathlon Championships I'm entering. I've got so much to practice and so much training to do I don't know how I'm going to fit it all in on top of the busiest time of the year at work!

In case you haven't read about it before, I'm dedicating the challenge of preparing and competing to the Rays of Sunshine charity which grants wishes to children with life limiting conditions.

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I used to be an international athlete as a Junior and won the English Schools Senior Boys Title in the Javelin in 1994 (63.14m). I got injured in 1995 and stopped in 1996 after trying again and getting injured again. After that I didn't do much in the way of exercise at all until recently when I decided to get fit and lose weight. As part of my return to the gym, I got competitive in indoor rowing and have recently won 7 National Medals in the sprint events. Interest turned back to athletics and I had a go last year at an Open meeting and didn't do too badly at all (54.90m). I have been doing more weights this year to build strength and even had a go at the Devon County Championships over 100m (13.01s - PB due to never doing a proper one before) and Javelin (49.49m - poor!). Not long after, I was talking with Greg Rutherford (GB Long Jump Olympian) on Twitter. He suggested I try a decathlon and hey presto - that was that!

My target is 5000 points - if you're interested to work out what that means, here's a calculator for the points.

So, where was I? Oh yes - 7 weeks to go, eek! Today's training was a fairly short session after work, not aiming to go super heavy on weights but do more of a general circuit style for general conditioning:

Clean and Jerk - 60kg
Snatch - 60kg
Hang Snatch -3 x 4 x 60kg
7 x wide grip chins (PB)
Hang Snatch - 2 x 60kg
Clean and Jerk - 2 x 60kg
Hang Clean - 6 x 60kg
5 x wide grip chins
7 x 90kg bench
Hang Snatch - 2 x 60kg
Snatch - 80kg
Power Clean - 100kg
3 x wide grip chins
110kg bench
Hang Clean and Jerk - 2 x 80kg
5 x 20kg DB hammer curls
5 x wide grip chins
Hang Clean - 2 x 80kg
10 x 16kg DB hammer curls
5 x 90kg bench

That was pretty enjoyable - took about 35-40 mins to do. Felt strong all over in the upper body.

Next week - plyometrics and sprint drills - need to work on speed.

Deadlift PBs

Having had a week off training last week due to work pressures and also giving the body a break, I've trained Monday and Tuesday and now today 'the big one'.


Again, a 10 min warm up on the Concept2 erg indoor rower aiming to beat yesterday.

2694m - 1:51.4 - r24 - still found it tough going but happy to do a further 50m

Then, I embarked on an epic weights session:

5 x 60kg power cleans
3 x 80kg power cleans
1 x 100kg power clean
1 x 110kg power clean =PB
115kg - fail - very close though. 

8 x 60kg front squat - chose these as haven't done them and will help power cleans
2 x 8 x 80kg front squat
4,3 x 60kg hang clean and jerk
5 x 1 x 60kg hang clean and jerk into 2 x overhead squat

10 x 60kg bench
4 x 80kg bench
1 x 100kg bench
1 x 110kg bench
120kg fail - this is my recent PB so slightly disappointed not to get it

5 x 1 x 60kg snatch
1 x 70kg snatch
80kg fail - almost, just didn't drop into it enough to catch it

80kg dead into 10 x shrugs
130kg deadlift into 5 x shrugs
1 x 170kg
1 x 190kg =PB
1 x 200kg new PB
1 x 210kg newer PB - very happy!

1 x 250kg deadlift with straps PB - took 10 seconds and a LOT of effort to get up and locked out but managed to get there without passing out.

erg
30s - 165m - 1:30.9 - r20 df120
30s - 165m - 1:30.9 - r20 max drag
30s - 164m - 1:31.4 - r20 min drag

1k cd slow

That lot took over two hours to get through, but thoroughly enjoyable!

I think one of the reasons I was able to improve the raw deadlift (from 190kg to 210kg) was drying my hands, rubbing them together to get rid of any dead skin and warm them up, making sure I got a good strong grip and then committing 100% to it. Recent strength training must also be helping with grip and forearm strength.


This session was to help all round strength for the Decathlon I'm doing in September. I also need to incorporate sprints and plyometrics to get bouncy again for the running and jumping events.