New Personal Record

O.K. I haven't posted in a week but I had to decompress a little after Bob dying and the freak at my kids school ( a little alcohol, little time ) but hey don't worry, I have not missed a workout ( I am patting myself on the back right now !).
So, I Have a new personal record to report in tonights workout, first of all I can only do 8 or 10 strict pushups, and I have been reading about russian powerlifting theories ( yes I know I am obsessive, I have to constantly read if I don't I feel.........depressed) so they have a technique called ladders, take your 8 rep max weight on any exercize and do this, do 1 rep, rest, 2, rest, 3 rest, 4, rest, 5, rest so your sets look like this 1,2,3,4,5, then start over. I did three sets, my scheme looks like this. 1,2,3,4,5 1,2,3,4,5 1,2,3,4,5, I read up on the science behind this and still don't completely understand it, but it is a loading and unloading powerlifting cycle compressed to minutes instead of weeks. Any how, 45 pushups, I am going to try for 5 cycles then test my bench. Amazingly to me this is not my PR.
The pics are of a kettlebell swing, it is the most brutal ballistic move in KB practice, it is deceptively simple, there are three factors to consider.
1) no rest between reps: any other movement that I do has a lockout point or rest point, this is a constant motion, like pedaling a bike with your whole body.
2) forces in play: force =mass x acceleration, so the faster I work or the harder I push the more force is applied in the line of the acceleration, ie pulling away from me. I took the time it takes do one upswing, and roughly measured the arc, then guesstimated the speed, then the peak speek, there is roughly 180 pounds of force pulling on my arm for a split second.
3) little thing called muscle irradiation: squeeze your hand into a fist as absolutely hard as you can, the only muscle responsible for the movement of your fingers is your forearm flexors located on the underside of your forearm, but your arm ( bicep, tricep) shoulder, and probably neck were tensed right, now try this, stand up, bear with me, this is weird, flex your stomach, your butt, your sphincter, legs, chest and lats as hard as you possibly can the squeeze as hard as you can with all your might squeeze everything everywhere, your grip will increase at least 20% if you do this right. How does this apply to the swing? glad you asked!
The swing activates all the muscles in you body at once, some to a lesser degree, but all of them, as you progress in the swing with no rest between reps, muscle irradiation calls upon deeper levels of muscle tissue from your whole body, your entire body becomes more and more contracted with every rep above a certian point ( mine is like 12 reps, I can FEEL it happen ) vast jumps in energy expendatures occur at the point where fast twitch muscle fiber starts being used.
So needless to say I enjoy the hell outta this exersize, on the 6th of jan. when i got my 'bell I could do 5 reps per side before feeling like I was going to die. tonight I did 140 swings..yup 140
70 a side, my sets looked like this 15/15, 10/10, 15/15, 10/10, 20/20. still plenty of rest between sets but 10 reps to 140 in a month, At least I know I am doing something right, give me five or six more........
I cannot take credit for the facts I have talked about here ( except for the math formula, basic highschool math ), I have a book called Power To The People, it is a Russian powerlifting and periodization manuel geared to the common person, the author, Pavel Tsatsouline, teaches people in this manuel how to become stronger ( much stronger ) with two exersizes, and like 25 minutes of exersize a day, and it works spectacularly!!