I’ve survived the holidays with minimal damage to my body, soul and mind. Beginning with Thanksgiving and ending with New Year’s Day, the American holiday season is fraught with minefields. Ones you miss and ones on which you land solidly on top. I did manage to avoid a lot of them but the main challenge I had was chocolate chip cookies. They seemed to be everywhere I visited and I’m not quite capable of eating just one. Yet I was able to navigate the waters and add less than 2 pounds to my body. You see, with eating off my plan I still managed to be fairly compliant. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 80/20 I’d say. And that’s about what the Primal Blueprint goal would be.

My training went well this week. I was in my second week of the Marty Gallagher experiment and I know that the plan MG has me following is going to help me hit my Tactical Strength Challenge goals come April. For example, I want to dead lift 2.5 times my body weight by September of this year. Plan on getting to 415 by the spring. This week I did 3 work sets at 265 with 5 reps.

My pressing went well too. Felt really strong on the military barbell press using 105 pounds for the work sets.

Front squats seem to be the most unnatural lift for me. At 6’3″ 184 I’m not the most well designed machine for squatting. That’s a real good reason to make sure I continue to get better at them. At one time I hated pull ups and mainly it’s because they were tough. They still are but at least now I can do 1 or 2 of them:). Practice, practice, practice as they say.

I continue to practice my basic kettlebell movements. Specifically I spent a good deal of time on my two handed swings this week, as well as Turkish Get Ups. The basics are so important to mastery.

Also, did some kettlebell snatches and outlined my training program to peak my snatch numbers at the TSC. Chris Hardy and I worked on the periodization for the snatches and I feel great about my plan.

Finally, Dr. Hardy did some great work on my left shoulder. He felt that I had some shoulder capsulation that was more than likely a result of football related trauma. He was able to really get into the ball and socket and my ranges of motion are much more in line with the right side now. After the work he did, I went back to a light kettlebell press to re-pattern that exercise.

Looking forward to a great week ahead!

Train With Purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC