It rained pretty hard when I was at the track, made it hard to really get much done and all the little injuries, like shin splints, seemed to really bother me. Nonetheless I still managed to stay relatively focused and got an acceptable session in. I felt as though I'm slowly becoming a little bit more technically proficient piece by piece so hopeful it will add up and make a big difference.

The Good

• Focused
• Knee was acceptable

• General strength and mobility

Today was kind of an odd day, just the way the meet schedule worked out, I had an eight day week so today was kind of an extra day. Since tomorrow is a tech day I still kept it closer to an off day, because at this point I felt like I could use a little break from getting beat up repeatedly. Hopefully the rain holds off in the morning.

The Good
Shins were better than they have been

The bad
Unfocused
Didn't get much done

TODAY'S WORKOUT
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
Runway Rehearsal x5
Mobility

Tomorrow
Tech/explosive weights

Today was off, I needed today off.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
10 minute bike ride
45 minutes of mobility (hip extension)

The body was pretty beat down today, knee was bothering me and was what curtailed the session this evening. I had some acute pain but I'm hoping that with two down days it will be all set for another tech session on Sunday--although it is supposed to rain all weekend ):
   My shins were really bothering me and overall I felt pretty listless and flat.

The Good

• Hang snatch went pretty well, failed my first attempt at 170lb's but just because I was rusty, still strong enough to pull 200ish if I tried to max out

Felt a little beat up physically but pretty good overall. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to open up my hamstrings. I am hoping to be able to fix a few things tomorrow--I am going to test out a 15 step approach to see how it feels (Down from 17) and I'm going to focus on running smooth instead of forcing it. Considering my five step approach is comparable to my full approach at the moment speed isn't an issue... Also hoping to continue working on the first phase, trying to stretch out to about 5 meters off a short approach.

The Good

• Energetic
• Knee was better than I was expecting

Felt okay, not spectacular but acceptable considering that I competed on Saturday. My three step bounds were 17.40m (ish) which should be good for 18.00m+ on a fresh day. Did a couple first phase passes off of nine steps and got up to about 4.50m, last one kind of hurt my knee a bit but nothing serious. I would like to see them go over 5.00m consistently off of 9 steps, need to work on getting front side. Weight room was blah... That's all I'm going to say about it.

The Good

• Felt mentally focused
• Had a 12.60m jump from five steps

Well, I'm not sore which is a sign that I should be fairly fresh to get some tech work in tomorrow. It felt good to at least do SOMETHING even if it wasn't CNS intensive. I need to slow things down and find myself, I have a lot of pent up anger and frustration from not being able to jump the way I want to jump but hopefully I can filter that anger in a productive manner and light things up in Two weeks time.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
800m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
Standing oblique twists (on bar) 3x6@25lb's
Decline leg raises 3x10
Hanging leg raises 3x10
Pull-ups 3x5
Med-ball twists 3x10@20lb's
Abdominal pull-downs 3x10@200lb's

I'm definitely not as beat up as I was this time last week but my right ankle is a little sore and my knee is uncomfortable., I took today off, to my dismay, and tomorrow is going to be pretty light too before I try to get a solid technical session in on Tuesday. More so than the physical discomfort, the wounds from yesterday's meet are still fresh and it's going to take a while to build back up my confidence and pride.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
20 minute bike ride
45 minutes of mobility.

Tomorrow

• General strength/mobility

I don't really know what happened. I felt really great warming up but when it came time to jump I was flat as anything... A solid 13.10m. I am incredibly flustered and frustrated at myself... I don't really understand why I've been jumping so poorly to be honest, I know that I'm technically garbage at the moment but I still thought I would have been able to jump close to 14.00m even still. Last year at Nationals I felt flat too but still managed to jumped 14.13m...
I need to slow things down and focus on hitting the positions I need to hit. I'm going to try to get two technical sessions in this week, a short one on Tuesday focusing on going off of five steps and another one next Saturday starting at five and building up as far as I can. It's going to be long trip home but hopefully I can stay optimistic... Or as optimistic as possible. Two weeks until I jump again and this time it matters

Well, this is it--I'm as ready as I'm going me. I'm currently trying my best to manage inflammation before I go to bed. I am massaging an anti-inflammatory into my knee, heel and ankle and hopefully when mixed with a little bit of ibuprofen in the morning my mind will be at ease. It seems the closer I get to the competition the more pessimistic I become. But I'm just as ready today as ever. Some of my biggest performances have come through pain. Besides the localized inflammation I am feeling great, loose and ready to jump. My five prompts for tomorrow are chin up, destroy the board, full extension, frontside and long lever. If I can stay focused and keep those in mind I should jump very well indeed! I'm excited!

TODAY'S WORKOUT
800m jog
30 minutes dynamic mobility
Static mobility

Today was a long day, I caught the bus to Moncton at 7:00am and did a very quick session in the afternoon. Regrettably I started at 2:30pm which was in the heat of the day, I was still travel weary and sore. I did a pair of runways which actually felt pretty effortless, two sets of submaximal bounds and two light five step triple jumps which didn't feel good at all, they hurt and they didn't feel fluent. I think I just need a good night's sleep and some time to get my legs under me--as long as I can manage the pain I think I should still do well this weekend.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
400m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
Runways x2
Bounds 2x5
Five step triple 2x5
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

I'm leaving for Moncton in the morning (7:00am grrr) for the National Championships. I am going to try to do runways in the afternoon on the warm-up track and possibly a little bit of light bounding/five step approaches depending on how the knee feels. Then I will be taking Friday off or pretty much off (maybe strides) before jumping on Saturday morning. Even though I currently feel not the great, tired, still sore and inflamed, I'm confident that I will be ready to go and read to SUCCEED on Saturday. I want to at least get back to where I was last year so I can start thinking about moving forward. Considering how flat and out of practice I was this week and still managed 13.70m I see no reason why I can't give my pb I go and jump 14.40m+

TODAY'S WORKOUT
20 minute bike ride
20 minute visualization
1 hour of mobility

Tomorrow

• Runways/short approach

Well today didn't go exactly as I had planned--my knee was bothering me and I was just generally sore everywhere and am still feeling the effects of jumping on Sunday. I am very optimistic about this weekend however, I feel like my nervous system is primed and I'm ready to get back to where I was last season before my health declined. I will be taking 2/3 of the next three days off and the third will be a pre-meet stimulus.

The Good

• Last runway felt really good, really focused on pushing down and if I can recapture that feeling again this weekend very good things will happen.

Pretty much an off day, wasn't feeling great but could have been worse too. My body is sore from yesterday but I did everything within my power to try to recovery so I can hopefully get an at least acceptable session in tomorrow. I think I will. Before I go to bed I'm going to jump in an ice bath which is always a blast, but it will be worth it! My knee feels a little beat down so It's on red alert at the moment making sure it doesn't worsen.

The Good
Feeling generally fine besides some stiffness in my external rotators and a little bit of knee discomfort.

The BAD
May not be at 100% for tomorrow

TODAY'S WORKOUT
20 minute bike ride
Hanging leg raises 3x10
Med-ball twists 3x10@20lb's
Plank 2:00 min
Side plank 1:00 min

Tomorrow
Short approach jumps

Clearly rusty... My goal was to get 14.00m to open the season which would be a big confidence boost but I didn't quite get there... 13.68m. It is 70cm off of my pb but to look at it realistically I am very out of practice and I definitely feel like I will continue to improve. The jump that was my farthest actually didn't feel like the best. I landed off the step with a lot of frontside and jammed my ankle (a little sore but not too bad) and got a lot of vertical but not much horizontal. If I was able to hang on I'm sure that would have been a 14m jump. My last two jumps were pretty much write offs the wind swirled around and put me way behind the board so I broke position. Last summer I jumped 13.60m (wind aided!) And then followed it with a 14.38m performance the next week in the poring rain. I feel confident that something similar may happen, but let's go for 14.50m+ this time ;)
Now this is really funny, after the meet I did 4-5 short approach jumps since I won't really have an opportunity to do much this week since I jump again in Six days and I want to focus on recovery. I'm not sure off the top of my head but I think my 5 step pb from last year was about 12.15m and today I hit a hair under 13.00m! Now hold up, let's do the math for a second. I jumped 13.68m bringing in 9.00m/s speed to the board but I jumped about 13.00m from nearly standing? If that doesn't outline the issue, I don't know what does--clearly I I'm not converting the horizontal momentum to vertical lift.
My hop is still tiny as anything. It's hard to tell from jumping but there was a six meter board taped down and I know for a fact that I wasn't over the board for a least most, probably all of my jumps and by my best estimate, I was hoping about 4.80m... That is not good enough!!!! That is a red flag!!! I'm not 100% sure what the issue is but clearly it originated from my knee injury. I've always had issues opening up the hop but they have gotten much worse since the knee issues. Even when I'm conscious of trying to open it up I still fall short. I will have one opportunity to work on it on Tuesday before I jump again although any work I do will be sub-max since I'll probably still be feeling the effects of today. I have reason to be excited and reason to brood over the day, and with a 4 hour bus ride that will get me home at 1am, that's perfect.

The Good
Physically didn't have any pain
Short approach jumps were amazing
Runway felt fairly good.

The Bad
Under hopping
Under jumping!
Felt very rusty

Jump 1- 13.24m- very flat indeed but instead getting discouraged I knew that it would get better. 2.0 wind

Jump 2- 13.52m-felt better but has a lot of wind behind me, definitely opened up the hop better and had a better landing. 3.3m/s wind

Jump 3- 13.59m-felt like the best jump, hop was probably the farthest of any of them but still less than 5m 0.0m/s wind

Jump 4-13.68m-felt decent through the first two phases but had too much frontside going into the jump phase and went straight up. Didn't think it was as far as it was. Not sure on wind

Jump 5-13.04m-Write off, wind was -2.2m/s and I completely broke position to get to the board.

Jump 6-13.40m- Again bad wind, -1.1m/s, hop was very tiny and lost 30cm on the landing. Might have been the farthest if I cleaned it up. And if the wind was 3.0m/s faster it may have even been 14.00m

Can't wait to jump again but I understand that things are going to take time. I am very confident that I'm setting myself up for a big pb at the end of the season but I need to make it through the canada game trials first, 14.20m+ will be pretty safe, I'm sure that I will be much more satisfied after next week's result.

Tomorrow afternoon I will be opening my season, I am nervous--no doubt--but I'm also really excited, I'm healthy and ready to go--time to light things up. My strategy is to stay out of my own way and think as little as possible. I am going to focus on getting frontside, keeping the head up and attacking the board.


TODAY'S WORKOUT
Off

Okay so I'm ready to finally open up my season, I'm a little bit nervous because of how rough the indoor campaign was... I would be lying if I said my confidence had returned. I'm going into this weekend with a very realistic approach, not trying to do more than I'm capable of, just testing the waters and seeing what needs to be tweaked.
   Didn't feel great today but not bad either. I was a little stiff and my bar speed was down a little but that's just because I was tired and it was raining and I was falling asleep and... and... and... It was just not great but it was acceptable. It was good enough for me to give myself a silent nod of approval while leaving the gym.

The Good

• Knee is fine
• Back is permissible

TODAY'S WORKOUT
600m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
3x30m acels (Only 2 maximal)
Hang snatch 5x3@135lb's FAST
Explosive bench 5x3@95lb's
Evening--
70 minutes of mobiity

Tomorrow

• Travel/rest!

800m jog
Dynamic mobility
Standing oblique twists (on bar) 3x6@22lb's
Decline leg raises 3x10
Hanging leg raises 3x10
Pull-ups 3x5
Med-ball twists 3x10@20lb's
Abdominal pull-downs 3x10@200lb's
Good-mornings 3x8@135lb's
Podium snatch grip deadlifts 3x5@205lb's
Plank 2:35
Single-legged glute bridge 3x10
Side plank circuit x3
Evening--
45 minutes of mobility

Very good day, starting to feel like my old self all though my legs are still not completely fresh. However I did hit a flying 10m pb at 9.26m/s! Not blistering fast by any means but it's fast enough to not be a limiting factor. I'm competing the next two weekends and I don't need to "lit it up" I just need to jump far enough to guarantee me a spot on the Canada Games team (14.40m to auto qualify). After the CG trials in four weekends I will have 3 weeks where I will really have a chance to work on bringing more speed to the jump and controlling it. After that another meet and three more weeks at working at controlling my speed and not blowing through the board. And then... 15.00m!

The Good

• Fly 10m pb
• Felt really good with jump squats
• Back squat was nice and crisp.

I didn't feel too great when I first awoke but I felt 100x better after doing some light strides. Tomorrow will be the fist intensive day in since Sunday but the volume will be much lower than it has been. Overall I feel as though I'm moving in the right direction but it is very difficult for me to "rest".

The Good

• Felt a little better
• Slept slightly better

Today was off, and to be honest I think I needed it. I feel pretty run down and I didn't sleep well last night.  I feel like my sleep quality always declines in sync with my nervous fatigue. But I'm expecting to feel a little better tomorrow and hopefully mostly fresh for the next day. The volume is extremely low all the way up to the meet on Sunday.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
20 minute bike ride
1 hour of mobility

Tomorrow
Strides/gen strength

I'm still feeling run down, tired, lethargic and don't quite have my legs under me. Today didn't go as planned, couldn't get any speed on the runway and my bounds weren't great either. I had big plans of what I wanted to get done today but never quite got there. Instead of doing 9 step approaches I went back to basics and just messed around 3-5 steps which surprisingly felt pretty good. The issue seems to be it breaks down when I try to bring more speed to the board, even at five steps I didn't seem to be hitting quite the same positions.
Tomorrow is off, and Tuesday is just strides, followed by a little bit of speed/jump testing on Wednesday. This is going to be a VERY light week as I prepare for competition

The Good

• Real short approach felt good

The Bad

• Tired, lethargic
• Legs were clearly now at 100%
• Hard to focus

TODAY'S WORKOUT
400m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
Runway x1
Runway+hop x3 (1.15-1.17s blah)
Standing triple jump x3
Five step bounds 3x5
Three step triple jump x6
Five step triple jump x2

Tomorrow
Off! Time to recover!

It's been almost 100 days since the beginning of the season, I've yet to compete and my confidence isn't really any greater than it was in February. There's a difference though, between then and now, I have made huge strides in my training, I've completely turn the metaphoric ship around and begun to train like I need to. I can't wait to open next Sunday.
I took today off completely, my body is telling me I need it.

I am not pleased with how today went, I was feeling pretty flat and it showed on the runway. I wasn't bringing good speed to the board and I was sloppy at take-off and my first phase passes were still a tad under 5.00m, not good. It time to take a day off to refocus for Sunday's big session. My mind is telling me to GO GO GO but my body is telling me GO TO BED. I haven't slept well this week, hopefully I'll be able to get a solid 10 hours in tonight since I don't really have to get up particularly early. 

Alright day, didn't have my legs under me so I couldn't accomplish exactly what I wanted to but I still feel like I accomplished something. I started off by trying to open up my first phase seems to be be easier said then done. I had one that seemed to be close to 5m off of 9 steps but most of them were high 4's and my camera battery died early on so I couldn't really tell.
   I did "max bounding" for the first time today but I barely got 18.00m which is comparable to my "Fresh" 3 step approach so it will be interesting to see if I can go 20.00m+ On saturday with my legs under me. I was still feeling the residue of Tuesday's session+all of last week.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
400m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
Standing long jump x3
First phase pass (9 steps) x5
Standing triple jump x3 (8.80m blah)
Standing five bounds x3 (14.80m blah)
Five step bounds x3 (~17.00m haha)
Max bounds x2 (~18.00m haha)
Three step HHSJ  x3 (L:14.10m, R:13.20m)
400m jog
Cool down
Evening--
45 minutes of mobility

800m jog
Dynamic mobility
Standing plate twists 3x10@33lb's
Oblique crunches 3x10@65lb's
Hanging leg raises 3x10
Pull-ups 3x5
Med-ball twists 3x10@20lb's
Abdominal pull-downs 3x10@200lb's
Good-mornings 3x8@135lb's
Podium snatch grip deadlifts 3x5@205lb's
Plank 2:35
Single-legged glute bridge 3x10
Side plank circuit x3
Evening--
45 minutes of mobility

I felt kind of beat down today, not overly surprisingly. I find that the fourth speed session in 8 days is always a tough one, today was no exception. It was the first time in I while I couldn't get over 9.00m/s but when I'm fresh next Wednesday I'll go 9.20m/s+ for sure. I am happy with my current approach speed as it's not really a limiting factor. 9.00m/s should be fast enough to jump 15.00m/s. My primary focus right now is opening up the hop phase and getting it over 5.30-5.50m.... not 4.70m as it has been since the injury.
   I did some video analysis from Sunday's first phase passes. With 9.10m/s aproach speed my hop was about 4.70m/s and the take off angle was about 11 degrees! It needs to be significantly farther than that... Can't wait to work on it.

The Good

• Good video session, opened my eyes a bit on the importance of working on my take-off

Today was one of those days that was hard to get started, feeling kind of tired and stiff. I went to the track at my usual time, around 10:30am and the track was being monopolized by an elementary school track meet so I ended up going to the Dalplex in the afternoon and doing one extended session instead of two. It wasn't ideal because of the hard surface (like to do strides on grass) but I felt a lot better after than I did before.

The Good

• Nice easy session to get some blood flowing
• Had some time to think about why my hop phase is coming up short, I think I'm not letting the shin rotate through after the plant. I used to think of pushing along the angle of the shin.

The Bad

• Lower back was sore on the right side--but it's a little better after an ice bath.

TODAY'S WORKOUT
800m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
10x100m strides
45 minutes of hurdle mobility
First phase visualization
Mobility (45 minutes)
Ice bath

Tomorrow--
Fly 10m's and fly 25m

Today was day 90 which means it has been three months since I ended the indoor season. Three months ago my knee seemed like it would never get better, I ended up jumping a meter off my pb and I was absolutely miserable and questioning if I would ever get to where I wanted to go. Fast forwarding to today I have plenty to be optimistic about. I had a huge standing 5 bound sb and 10cm pb (which I'm using as a checkpoint to see where I'm at). My season goal is going 16.00m+ which I can within 30cm of (it was a 50cm season best). Three step five bounds was good too, hit 17.70m which is an offical pb, although I have gone 18.00m+ a couple times I think they were huge faults (like a meter haha) while today I filmed my foot.
   Although everything has been going great I'm not sure how I will perform as of yet. I can't seem to transfer horizontal momentum in the hop phase and I'm still hoping less than 5.00m off of my first phase passes. This is something I'm going to hammer in over the next to jump sessions this week before I open the season. To jump 15.00m I need to approach a 5.50m hop. I am going to cue "attack the board" and "push it away" on Thursday. Overall the sum of my parts are looking great, I just need to put it all together. I also hit 9.1m/s on the runway during my second first phase pass pretty effortlessly and with no wind. That's more than enough speed to hop 5.50m, clearly the issue is systemic of my mechanics at take off. Maybe when I start working on bringing more speed to the board during drills it will help in trying to get a little bit of lift.

The Good

• Bound pb's all around (:
• Feeling good

TODAY''S WORKOUT
400m jog
Warm-up
Dynamic mobility
Runway x4 (runway, x2 with hop, x1 with hop-step)
Standing long jump x3
Standing five bounds x4 (15.70m (pb))
Three step bounds x3 (17.70m (pb))
Jogging Hop-steps x5
Nine step triple jump x4 (Didn't have much left, 12.30m ish)
Evening--
Hang-cleans 6x2@205lb's, 1x1@255lb's
Snatch pulls 6x2@205lb's
Reverse lunge 3x5@205lb's



Tomorrow

• Strides/recovery

 

Not much to say about today, took it off completely. I also had my Russian final so I'm now completely bilingual... I wish haha здраствуй, у меня зовут Данеел, Я живу в Галифаке! Feeling pretty good overall, and the weather has been 20+ and sunny for the past two days (hopefully tomorrow too!)

TODAY'S WOKROUT
Light mobility

Tomorrow

• Technical, weights