Lifting

As the weeks come and go I am feeling more and more ready to get a competition under my belt. This Saturday I did two sets of some hard sprinting 200m, 150m and 100m with the second set in spikes to test out the hamstring. It felt a little weak towards the end of the workout but I still finished strong and I can put that one on the tool belt.

Today was a normal Monday with some hurdle starts and then a light pole-vault practice before the weights. Things are still progressing in those two events and I hope to get some video up of some hurdles so you all can see that event as well.

I thought tonight I would post a link and talk a little about Athlon Elite, the place where I spend most of my evenings pushing dumbbells. My weight coach, Ryan Joiner, and I are always in constant discussion about which things are best for me as a decathlete to lift and which things are best for me to stay healthy. Luckily most of the time these things are one in the same. It gets difficult when I begin to feel to worn out on the track. One of the hardest parts about being a decathlete is overtraining. With so many events to work on and so many things to lift a lot of times I will find myself completely exhausted when it comes to the track.

As I get older I'm beginning to realize how "less is more" helps benefit my career. I talk about it a lot but doing it is something different. Decathletes most the time are workaholics who can't contain themselves. I fall under this category and it has been one of my downfalls through out my years competing. But through the help of Jack and Ryan we are starting to realize how much I should do and when I should do it whether the weight room or the track.

We have worked the weight program down to only two days a week with more technical work on the first day and more Olympic lifting on the second day. Olympic lifting is one of the core exercises that most professional athletes should do. It involves explosive power and speed which basically describes all ten events of the decathlon. At the bottom of this post I am putting a link to the Athlon Elite blog where back in December Ryan did a post about the "Mother of all Exercises: The Squat Clean". He did a flip video of me doing the exercise and broke it down so can see each movement that is done. Pretty cool stuff.

So the bulk of the weight room (especially Fridays) is spent doing exercises like the squat clean or other similar variations. It's not easy to say the least.

The week ahead looks like some hard running tomorrow coupled with some javelin and medball and then a rest day Wednesday to recuperate for the rest of the week. More picture and video to come! Click the link below and check out the video at Athlon.

Athlon Elite Blog