Here’s a session from this past week that gave me cause for some positive reflection. It wasn’t a benchmark workout, or a crazy tester metcon. In fact, it was an EMOM (every-minute-on-the-minute) interval workout as part of a deload week (to give me some recovery after two weeks of hard training).
PM
EMOM 6 min
1- 8 deadlift 315#
2- 3-6 muscle ups
+
EMOM 6 min
1- 7-14 thrusters 95#
2- 8-15 CTB pull ups
+
EMOM 6 min
1- 4-8 power clean and jerk 135#
2- 8-15 TTB
+
EMOM 6 min
1- 8 alt’ing DB squat snatch 50#
2- 25-50 foot hs walk
+
EMOM 6 min
1- 50 foot OH walking lunge 50# (1 DB)
2- 8 strict + 8 kipping hspu
+
EMOM 6 min
1- 6 DB hang squat cleans 50#/hand
2- 10-15 GHD sit ups
+
EMOM 6 min
1- 6 squat snatch 155#
2- 8-12 bar facing burpees
The thing that stands out most about this session is the number of exercises. There’s 14 of them! For me, this would have been a major obstacle 1 or 2 years ago. In the past, I’ve needed to spend 60-90 minutes doing movement preparation and rehabilitation exercises just to be able to handle a regular workout and bring down my level of pain/irritation enough to where I am able to perform properly.
I can easily spend 15-20 minutes, if not half an hour, doing specific mobility, progressions, and skill transfer drills for just one exercise like a snatch or a muscle-up. Don’t get me wrong – for most fitness enthusiasts, I’d honestly recommend that they reference this approach and put more care into their preparation.
However, there have been times when this NEED for perfect preparation has held me back. I’ve felt intimidated, incapable, and overwhelmed, when a workout was structured like the one above. I’d feel like there was no way I could perform the movements without pain, let alone efficiently or quickly, without extensive and exhausting protocols of activation beforehand.
So, what has changed? A few things. My coach at Training Think Tank has taken a lot of time to increase my resiliency. My training volume and competition schedule has been manipulated to allow me to rebuild a few aspects of my fitness. Specifically, isometric exercises (static holds) and joint rotations have been used to reclaim ROM in my shoulders and neck, and reduce my level of pain.
You’ll notice flexible rep ranges written into some of the exercises in the session. This allows some self-regulation, and allows me to stay just on the edge of my comfort zone. I’ve been feeling a bit of a cold coming on, so I kept things on the conservative side. Over weeks and weeks, and months and months, this edge of my comfort zone will slowly advance into more elite territory.
As I executed this EMOM session, I was happy to notice less stress and irritation with the 14 compound movements, and I felt much more confident to advance through each new section without endless hours of prehab and warmup. For me, this is a massive “personal best.” Just goes to show you, that progress can be seen in more places than a maximum lift or a time-trial!
