Its me and it's her (the wife)

[Alex Burden]

Thursday morning and the plan is to take it easier and focus on core.


Warm up
4-500m jog around the gym floor

Tabata - Du/Su

Wife = Su: 41,48,51,52,55,31,50,51 and she tripped a few times
Myself = Du: 28,26,26,30,33,28,28,29 also tripped a few times



Core
Stability Ball 1 arm DB press - 6x8 reps/side
Stability Ball Side Crunch - 4x12 reps
Dip bar Crunch 8x5 reps

All of the above were performed by squeezing the abs first (vacum) and then performing the movements. Concentrate on control, stability and the squeeze.

Med ball sit-ups 4/6kgs - 4x8 reps and i set unbroken for 1min wife; 12 myself 14.



Cool down
General stretch and mobility for 20min.

[Vic McQuaide]

Way to stay on the accessories.

Cheers
Vic

[Alex Burden]

Friday , both slept really deep so when the alarm clock rang we were both in that zombie zone, took a good 10min to wake up fully. Apart from that we were both feeling really good.

Plan - focus on quality not quantity



Warm up
Extensive shoulder/lats warm up
Resistance band
barbell press S2O

15min i would say


Quality
Strict HSPU/ Box holds - 10 each

All strict HSPU are singles
Box Holds - 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds

Wife - her box holds were solid and she had excelent body position. 90 degrees and head through her shoulders. She varied her holding time up and down based on how she felt. She was very pleased With how this Went and i was super impressed.

Myself - it was now time for me to test my shoulders again, after the injury back in november i have not really tried them. My emphasis was on my approach to the wall, hand position and body control. I had the advantage that i could rest between reps as i timed the wife on her holds.
First 2 reps my hands were a little close, widened my stance and they felt great. Nice and smooth all the way. On my final round i did 3 singles instead of the 1 rep, they felt great and i felt nothing in my shoulder. very pleased With that, so that was 12 in total and not 10 for today.
Progression - to learn how to kip in the HSPU. I have the strength for them.



Rope climbs/holds - 10 each
We took turns on the rope.

Wife - worked on her holds. Jump, lock in rope and stand. No problem what so ever. She was able to lock the rope in a strong position strait away.

Myself - i am 6 feet tall and once i jump and grab the rope there is not a lot left. I lock in the rope and i can touch the bar at 15 feet. Very fast and smooth.



T2Rings - 5x10 reps each + 1 extra unbroken

Wife - started with K2chest to get the feel of things and check on her shoulder status as the weight at the bottom of the movement puts the most strain on the body. She then proceeded to do T2Rings for as many reps as possible during the rounds. 2 of the rounds she completed the full 10 reps. pleased with that. The wife did notice that T2R are harder and that it got her heart rate up.

Myself - All unbroken, not a problem at all. I used the start to practice for when i will work on my kipping muscle ups. I made sure my hands were in a good position on the rings when i jump up to grip them.

+1 unbroken
i thought it would be good to see what we could do.
Wife - T2rings and K2C - 22 reps
Myself - 12 reps

Wife held on and blew me away. I lost my kip during the middle and started to twist a little for some reason on the rings, so i jumped off instead.



Cool down
Upper body stretch/mibility for 20min

and that was the end to a great week.

[Alex Burden]

Monday morning and i am feeling 50/50, not sure if i am coming down with a cold. Wife is ok but feeling tired, i snore so i woke her up a few times.. This weekend we went out to our summer house to check the status after the storm 10 days ago. thousands of trees have blown down in the area and 6000 houses still without electricity. We had 10 trees blown over, all 10-15m/30-45ft tall. So we spent 4 hours non stop making them safe and putting branches in piles and sawing everything up into small easy to handle stocks. After we were done we drove home and i was so tired, it took Everything out of me, totally drained of energy. Wife was also tired after all the work and she was a beast pulling all the branches away from my safety zone.

So based on the fact that i think i am coming down with a cold (runny nose) i moved todays plan to another day and the new plan was to keep my heartrate down. No idea how it would go.


Plan - singles



Warm up
Wife hit the rower and did her warm up for squats
I warmed up for squats

light mobility

15min max



New Plan
Find your 1 Rep Max - Squat - 20min clock

Wife - 35x2, 40x2, 45, 50, 55, 57, 59kgs/130lbs = 94% of 1 rep max
Myself - 50, 70, 90, 100, 110, 120, 125kgs/275lbs = 90% of 1 rep max

During the warm up we were not allowed to to go heavy, i went to 50kgs and wife to 35. Clock started and it was time to go. Good solid lifts for both of us. Wife is way stronger than she thinks she is.



5min rest



Find your 1 Rep Max - Squat Clean - 15min clock

Wife - 25, 30, 35, 40, 43, 45kgs/95lbs = New Pr by 2kg/4lbs
Myself - 70, 80, 90, 95, 100, 105kgs/231lbs = 97% of 1 rep max

So rather than front squat it was a good progression to work on speed on the bar from the mat and at the same time simulate the front squat.
Wife did really well and boy does she have a lot left in the tank, at least 5-7kgs easy. I was super pleased with my result, i had a full grip on the bar and so so quick under it where the bar landed perfect in the front rack position, solid squat up.



5min rest 5min added to change shoes.



Find your 1 Rep Max - Deadlift - 15min clock

Wife - 55, 65, 75, 80, 85, 90kgs/198lbs = 97% of 1 rep max
Myself - 120, 140, 150, 160, 165, 170kgs/374lbs = 97% of 1 rep max

Great progression from squat cleans, go in heavyish and go for it. Wife was so solid all the way, driving well with her heels, chest up and back locked in. her goal is 100kgs/220lbs, i think she can hit that soon. I had no expectations today, i thought maybe 155kgs would be the limit but that was easy and i kept going. Very pleased with 170 today, Close to my Pr.


On a whole we both did really well % wise compared to our Pr's. Now considering the wife was tired and i was 50/50 i am looking forward to a perfect day when we are both at the top.

Squat
wife - 94%
Myself - 90%

Squat Clean
wife - 104%
Myself - 97%

Deadlift
wife - 97%
Myself - 97%



Cool down
just cleaned up our mess basically

Then the wife proceeded to go for 1 set unbroken single unders. our youngest boy has challenged her to this and they have 1 week to show their result. Wife Went 323reps.

[Alex Burden]

Tuesday morning. So i am still 50/50 and the wife might also be getting a Cold . This means that we follow the same principle as yesterday, keep the heart rate low. Mondays plan has been pushed forward again as we are taking no risks.

Plan - grip, back


Warm up
very light row for 5min
some pipe work for the shoulders

15min max



Pull ups, strict - 15min - sets of 4 reps
The wife did assisted pull ups, she did really well, slow and controlled throughout.

I used a close V grip from a sitting row with a 2 second pause at the bottom. This was to make it harder at that sticking Point and i was forced to activate my lats more from the start.

The reason for the time cap was to make sure we concentrate on quality. We must have complete 10 rounds each.



Rope climbs/holds 10 each
This morning i had to cut the rope at the gym. The rope was way to long and someone tied a knot at the bottom, the trouble was that the knot was still on the floor so when you decend from the rope there was a massive chance to twist your ankle. So i taped the bottom of the rope real tight and cut the end off about 3 cm/1" from the floor. I never told the owners of the globo either, i just did it and threw the knot in the bin .

So this was all fine with the rope but it made a difference for the wife. The weight of the knot kept the rope in place for her and made it easy for her to lock the rope With her feet, now the knot was gone the rope was loose and flying around. It took her a good 5min or so to re-learn how to lock the rope with her feet again. She was really pleased after that. I told her that you need to overcome change when it happens, take your time, Watch and repeat. After that she did great.



Med Ball G2OS - 20 each
Wife - 22.5kg/50lb
Myself - 40kg/88lbs

The first round of 10 we alternated just to get the feel of things. The final 10 were in sync and did nto take that long to complete.


****addition edit.. forgot these

Farmers walk 1 arm KB OH - 20m lenghts
Wife - 12kg x4, 16kg/35lbs x 6 lengths
Myself - 24kg x 4, 28kg x 2, 32kgs/70lbs x 4

Felt quite easy today, no big problem. OH position was really good and solid


Cool down
stretch for 15min or so.


Not a lot today but the BW movements make it hard. Both pleased With all of it.

[Alex Burden]

Wednesday morning and feeling 80/20, wife is 90/10 ok. Whatever i had planned for this week has now been moved to next week, low impact all week and recovery is key.

Plan for today - low impact conditioning



Warm up
shoulder/lat warm up with resistance band
some pipe work for shoulder mobility

10-12min in total

Set up what was to come and tested.



Conditioning - partner

60 min Clock - 3min on/1min off = 15 rounds for total distance/calories
Row & Ski erg - alternate between rounds

Set up:
Ski - 48 drag
Row - 116

Wife: averages
Ski - 480 - 510cal/hr 22-24 stroke rate
Row - 640 - 660cal/hr 20-22 stroke rate

Myself: averages
Ski - 720 - 770cal/hr 23-24 stroke rate
Row - 870 - 910cal/hr 23-24 stroke rate

Results:
Ski - 8633m/431 cal
Row - 9902m/563 cal


We are talking low impact for the 60min, we just about broke out in a sweat and kept it at that throughout. I started on the Ski and the wife on the Rower. The first 4 rounds each were used to find our comfortable level and then we kept to those levels for the remaining time. This was a perfect time to work on efficiency. The 1 min rest was used to bring our heart rate down and relax a little but it was not that high to start with.

felt good for both of us the whole time.



Cool down
general stretch for 15min or so.

Wife unbroken Su's 464, she has a couple of days to increase this and beat our youngest.

[Alex Burden]

Thursday and i am 95% good and feeling fresh... i slept almost 8hrs which made a difference this morning. Wife went to bed quite late and she was tired this morning, she is still 90/10.

Plan - shoulders and core.



Warm up
Extensive resistance band shoulder warm up.
Pipe work and shoulder press with barbell

12-15min i would say



Shoulders - 20min Clock, use the time wisely.
HSPU Strict/box holds

Wife - Box holds for 20 rounds - 20-45 seconds
Her body position was excelent today.

Myself - Strict HSPU singles. in total 20
11 singles, 7 unbroken, 2 unbroken



Abs -15min Clock
Super set first 2 movements for 10min
Stability ball single arm DB press - 12 reps
leg raises, hold V form and perform small circles 10seconds x 2

Final 5 min
Mountain climbers - 6 reps, short rest and repeat

We did not keep track of the number of rounds we did, but it burned.



Lower back 15min clock
Back extensions x 8
Superman holds - 10 seconds

That was some pump after 15min.



Cool down
upper body stretch for 20min.

[Alex Burden]

Forgot to mention that 7 unbroken strict HSPU is a new PR

[Alex Burden]

Took the decision to take an extra rest day today. Back Monday

[Alex Burden]

Monday morning and it is chilly outside -14 centigrade o5r 6.8 fahrenheit... BBBrrrrrrrrr. We are both tired from the weekend. On Saturday we worked 6 hrs cleaning up and burning all of the branches from the fallen trees from the storm on our land, so much!!!

At some point during the day i tweaked my left knee again and it started to hurt again right towards the end, i have felt it since then which is not good. It was only a couple of weeks back that it felt 100% again. The wife has irritated her elbow again due to all of the pulling and tugging of the branches for so many hours, i hope this does not stay for long with her... Little R&R for it and work arounds for a few days to see how she feels.

Plan - start to increase the heartrate again.


Warm up
1km on the rower
resistance band shoulder warm up
Pipe work

warm up and set up with what was to come.

25min i would say



Time to go up

12 min time cap - 4 rounds
6 Dumbbell hang clean and jerks (3 on each arm) 22/9kgs (49/20lbs)
6 Burpees
6 Dumbbell Power snatch (3 on each arm)
6 Burpees


Wife - 8:23
myself - 7:18

The wife did not power snatch as this was causing her pain in her elbow so she did dumbbell hang clean and jerks twice instead, this worked fine for her. I think this was a good start for both of us, the heartrate increased and it did not kill us. We were both pleased with the times. I was pleased with the DB weight and this felt great after the first round, prior to starting it felt Heavy.


8min rest


Partner - AAB _ 200 cal for time
using 2 AAB the wife completed 10cals at a time i i did 15 cals. Alternating

Time: 12.23

It felt harder than usual today but we really did keep a good pace and our average was 16.2cal/min. Communication was good so that we knew when it was time to jump on the bike again. Good pump after that. This was just enough for today and the heart/lungs.



Cool down
20min stretch and mobility


Wife lost to our youngest on the unboken Su's. He did 748 on his first attempt. I Think the wife should have 1 more attempt at it.