Day 6 Results

Day 6 - Fri, Jan 8, 2010
Okay, so I was seriously slacking today. I had a chiropractic adjustment this morning, and that seemed to really wipe me out as far as energy is concerned. I was a little sore from my adjustment in my upper back & neck, so I decided to do the challenge with caution today. Swings and snatches don't hurt your back, and, if done properly can help. However, I've had so much stress built up in those areas, that I'm being gentle & somewhat overly cautious.

Anyway, I wound up starting my challenge around 10:30PM. To keep things interesting, I did some light kickboxing to warm up for about 10 minutes. I also interspersed a little bit of boxing,etc during the swing portion of my challenge (why, I have no idea..lol). I started with swings today and then moved on to snatches. Despite the late hour, I was really into a groove on my swings.

Anyway, here are today's results: swings excellent, snatches not so much :-)

Swings: Ever since day 2 of the challenge, I could tell that the 16kg is now too light for me (at least for 2H swings). The "flop" in the bell during both the descent and ascending portions of the movement are a tell tale sign that it's time to move up to a heavier bell. I used the 16kg for the first 20 swings. I was feeling great, so I abandoned and moved to the 20kg for the remaining 180 swings. Boy, those swings felt RIGHT! As we always say, you have to use the right sized bell to get the job done. Honestly, I think that my "right size bell" for high rep 2H swings is the 24kg. 1H and H2H swings are probably still at 16kg for now. Anyway, the execution of the 2H swing was perfect with the 20kg bell. For the next 7 days, I'll use the 20kg and practice more 1H and H2H swings with the 16kg. I love the way swings feel with the proper weight. The hips, glutes, hamstrings, & core all feel incredibly engaged (as they are supposed to). I'm excited about this part of the journey. I felt so good with the 20kg that I almost did a couple of snatches with it, but I held off...shouldn't have, but I did...

Snatches: I started my snatches (left side first), but this is where things went to crap...My hands were killing me, despite corn huskers lotion & castor oil. Tape was of no use tonight, and I'm trying not to use at all. I need to pick up some kids sized socks to make a new sock sleeve. I tried it the other night, but my sleeve was a little too big and kept sliding around all over the place. My irritated calluses are healing (thanks to the PedEgg, castor oil, and lots of lotion), which is a good thing. But, I keep going through ups & downs of feeling okay and feeling pain. Tonight I felt pain, so I stopped. I got 10 left and 10 right. I'll try it again tomorrow.

After the challenge, I did another few minutes of kickboxing and some core work. The core work was overkill. Your core is so engaged during swings & snatches, and it was really obvious when I was doing some (eekkk) crunches and planks. They were fun, but kind of unnecessary tonight :-)

In other news, I received excellent progress reports from some of the other ladies tonight. Everyone is doing an awesome job! For those doing the 'swings only' portion of the challenge (200 swings in 10 minutes or less), I am going to change that slightly starting week #2.

So, how did Day 6 go for you?

Other random updates: I've been pleased thus far with myself during this challenge. I know it's only 6 days in, but I'm happy. I'm off to a solid start with the challenge, and it feels great to be getting back into consistent kettlebell work. I haven't done that in quite some time. I've actually been neglecting myself and my own training for the past few months. It's been kind of hit or miss for me, but the past 2 months have been a rejuvenation period. I've been reserving the time for myself & my training, and haven't been letting other things get in my way. I am enjoying being able to focus on my own development. My journaling is also very good; my diet still has room for improvement. I have noticed that I've been working so much on my daily kettlebell challenge this week that I've been pretty lax getting my weight-based circuit training sessions in. So, that will be something to balance.