Training Session 12 with Coach Keith
Today was my last private training session with Coach Keith at Mid-City Gym (sniff, sniff). He started me off practicing some air squats, the swing for kipping pullups, and some pushups. Couldn’t swing too well today because my hands are tore up. Next we moved into overhead squat practice, this time without shoes. By removing my shoes, keeping my toes from going too far out, and lifting my toes off the floor, I was able to feel a really solid connection with the floor. It also helps to push the knees out as I squat (this is a good cue for me - “knees out”) and think about driving my heels into the floor as I stand. I kept the shoes off and applied the same stance and thinking to the back squat and it felt good. Worked my way up in sets of 5 to 185lb and just went really slow, pausing at the bottom and forcing my knees out. Keith had me mix in 20 reps of pushups between sets of squats. I think I did 3 sets total.
Next up was a quick metcon circuit and then some handstand practice. Started with scales (leaning forward with arms out to the side, rear leg goes parallel to the floor to counter-balance) and then the basic move into a handstand. It’s important to keep the hands up in the locked out position (active shoulders) and not to change the angle from the body - you bend at the waist to reach the floor, not at the shoulders. Then we moved over to the wall and practiced getting into the hollow position - think about pushing the lower back out or bringing the shoulders close to the ribs. After some of that, I kicked up into the handstand position on the floor and Keith spotted me. That led me to ask about hollow rocks, so we worked on those a bit. Keith also showed me inverted hollow rocks - lay on your stomach, get into the superman position and rock - which are almost impossible. This led into the (dragon) flag and Keith showed me some cool variations on that, like keeping a static hold at 45°, and stressed the importance of holding the position while coming back up instead of resting at the bottom like I normally do. Then we finished with some single arm barbell snatching and cleaning, just for kicks.
Though I’d kicked around the idea of doing some personal training sessions in the past, I could never justify the cost to myself. I figured that since I’m not a helpless newbie and I have a solid weight training foundation that I wouldn’t get much out of it. Now that I’ve been through it, I can see that it was absolutely worth it. You can’t beat one-on-one coaching with a knowledgeable and able coach. No amount of reading or studying videos online or even self-practice could have gotten me anywhere near where Coach Keith got me over the past 6 weeks. My form has improved on all of the major lifts (though it still needs work), I learned a lot of new lifts and exercises, and most importantly, I can tell when something’s off and have the cues to fix the mistakes that I’m prone to making. I’ll continue to work on these lifts a lot more in the coming months and shoot for some serious strength gains.
