First post in almost 2 weeks

because my ship has been making port calls in Philly and Ft. Lauderdale. In that time I have slacked off in my training.

However, I have made some developments to my regimen, and I've gotten a few good workouts in.

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As far as new exercises, I've really started to like double snatches (with my two 20kgs) and Sots Presses. The double snatches are just a great explosive exercise with great power and cardio benefits.

I've been trying to work on my groin flexibility for a while, in the hopes that I can progress to full overhead squats w/ 2 bells. These sots presses seem to be the best stepping stone in this progression, and the feel awesome on both my groin and my shoulders. With the Sots press, I lower myself to the squat position w/both 20kg bells racked, and then do single presses on alternating sides. Since I don't have the flexibility or the stability to do the sots press with a single bell, I rack both, and use the non working arm for balance, sinking it low between my legs to keep my weight forward, so I don't fall backwards.

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As for workouts, I've been doing two, primarily, though I want to work in AOS Newport as soon as I get home.

The first workout I'm doing now (meaning over the past week and a half) is a repeating circuit that looks like this:

10 Pullups
5+5 TGU's
5+5 Single Leg DL's
5+5 Sots presses
10+10 Windmills
10 Renegade Row-Ups (row left arm, pushup, row right arm, pushup, repeat)

I've only done this circuit twice through in a single workout, due to time constraints, but I plan on doing 3 cycles per workout from now on. As muscle fatigue develop, I just drop the bells as needed and continue when I can (i.e. I can only do 7 pull ups, so i drop, rest a minute, and hit 3 more).

This cycle is awesome for my functional strength gains, as well as systemic/muscular endurance and it's also pretty good for cardio, as I suck wind pretty hard while going through it (especially at the end of the second set of TGU's or Renegade Rows.

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The Second workout I've been doing (usually every third exercise day) is a Tabata regimen where I do a long warm up (8-10 minutes) of hip circles, knee circles, RKC shoulder warmups, and leg swings. That gets my heart beating and my muscles warm, and then I wait until I'm completely recovered before I start.

I then do the tabata protocol with 2 armed jerks, and I typically am able to do about 7-9 reps per set. I rest as long as I need (about 10-12 minutes actually) and then I do the tabata protocol with single arm front squats (very deep). I can do 6-8 reps per set.

Both of those sets really work the muscular endurance of my whole body, but more so the put my cardio to the limit. My lungs are burning and I collapse to the ground after the squats. When I'm done I feel like I've gotten an incredible workout.

I'll post more to talk about how this is going for me, but I feel like it's paying off already.

Time to go bell!