10 weeks of Q&D

atoastysnowman

New member
Goal: Find a program/training regimen to run alongside Highland Games (HG) practice/competition.

Background: Me - male,43. Have been competing in Highland Games (HG) over the last 18 months as well as conventional strength program + HIIT class 2/3 times a week. Initially made good progress in HG as most new throwers do then things plateaued, slight progress or even regressed a little. Increased time spent strength training dropped off HIIT. Felt beat up all the time (practiced throwing less), no pain no gain right? Well lot of pain no gain, picked up soft tissue injuries trying to get stronger, throws suffer.

August: Enter the Q&D. Have followed it mostly to the letter, do not have an accelerometer, was a bit confused as to weight I should start at (have not done any serious kb only workouts for at least 5 years). As a result probably started a little conservatively. Initially wanted to keep squatting/pressing/deadlift once a week, by week 5 this ceased.

Result:

I had a HG a few days before I started Q&D so I will list those results and then my best throws since (season just ended).

Braemar Stone: 25'7.5" - 26'10"

Open Stone: 29‘7" - 33‘7"

Heavy Weight Distance: 31‘4 - ( no progress)

Light Weight Distance: 46'3" - 53‘2"

Heavy Hammer: 69‘3" - 76‘10"

Light Hammer: 86’7" - 94‘7"

Weight for Height: 13‘ - 14‘ (hair on a bee's dick off clearing 15‘, next year!)

Sheaf Toss: 15‘ - 19’

Caber: degree score only - 1:30 turn

Overall aggregate score for rankings increased by approx 15%, which is awesome.

Never felt beat up or overly sore, remained injury free so I was able to practice throwing more often and practice was higher quality. Also was able to do the workouts at home which was big time saver and convenient.
  • I also used a Myzone Fitness tracker and did the fitness test on the app - which you basically do an activity, I ran on treadmill, and it measures how quickly you recover. 9/16 scored 19 then on 10/17 scored 23. 4 point increase, pretty good considering I did 0 'cardio' in between the two tests.
Going forward I will definitely keep doing the Q&D. I definitely need to seek out a good KB coach to ensure my form is good.

Well if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
 
@atoastysnowman Thanks for posting! Are you doing swings&pushups or snatches?

Why did you cease squats, presses and deadlifts? Or did you just want to do them, but didn't, and by week 5 you no longer wanted to do them?
 
@juancarlos The first two weeks I did swings/push ups only then mixed it up between the two as that was my understanding of what to do, willing to be corrected?

Stopping the squats and deadlifts was a combo of laziness (I would have to drive a whole 10 mins to the gym etc etc) and curious to see how running Q&D exclusively would go. Yesterday I resumed barbell workouts, weights and rep ranges all pretty much where I left off and all was good, should be noted I am by no means lifting huge numbers.
 
@atoastysnowman
The first two weeks I did swings/push ups only then mixed it up between the two as that was my understanding of what to do, willing to be corrected?

Yes, IIRC, you can mix them. So far people reporting on Q&D here have been doing one or the other but not mixing. Just curious about which approaches people choose.

Stopping the squats and deadlifts was a combo of laziness (I would have to drive a whole 10 mins to the gym etc etc) and curious to see how running Q&D exclusively would go.

Okay, cool. And yeah, the best way to get an understanding is to isolate. That's how I will be running it when I get around to it.
 
@atoastysnowman Impressive!

I'm also 10 weeks into Q&D (the swing version) and I love it. I wish I'd done some kind of test so I could quantify my improvement.

My current plan is to continue to the 12 week mark, then do the Secret Service snatch test, then commit to 12 weeks of the snatch version of Q&D.
 

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