Sometimes it seems like my greatest breakthroughs occur by accident. As far as my training goes, well I have been on a serious rowing kick for the past several months. As I result. it was only recently that I picked up the kettlebells again. I am tentatively planning on going to the North American Outlaw Kettlebell meet in May so I felt like I should get back to the bells for a bit.
Getting back into long cycle this time was great. I say this for a few reasons. First it is nice to do something different. Don't get me wrong, I love rowing, I know it sounds totally perverse but I love the erg. I also like my ski erg. By the way, I still need to do a formal review of that along with my new dynamic Erg (which is really fun). Anyway, too much of the same thing equals no fun plus overuse injury. Crop rotation is your friend. I digress.... The other nice thing about this revisiting long cycle is that I am no longer chasing anything. Like the rabbits we talked about last post, anything you chase will try to run away. This time it just came right to me. Relaxed with no serious goal I noticed something. For the first time I was not using the alternating rack to rest. I am not sure why but I seem to be able to find rest in the rack now. I do not think I am more flexible, I have not been practicing the rack or really thinking about it at all. I am probably aerobically better conditioned from the erg and maybe less "tight" because I haven't been lifting as much. I think the real reason has to do with the fact that in the past I never really walked away from the bells for very long. It was a relentless death march of money sets and assistance work. I knew what to do but when the fatigue hit I resorted to what I had taught myself, the side rack resting position. I couldn't get away from it because there was never any distance between me and it.
It is hard to walk away from something you enjoy training with. It was only because I found something else I liked doing that this happened in the first place. In any case I think the result is kind of cool. I am working with my old friend, the Rostov program, again. Maybe I'll pull that one out of the vaults and post it here.
Bottom line I guess is keep up the variety, don't take training too seriously and if you aren't improving, walk away for a while.
Good points, I've had a similar problem. I walked away for a while and now it seems like things are clicking in. BTW Rostov is brutal, I've been doing a modification of it as I can't actually do all that is required but it's still kicking my ass.
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