TRAINING

TRAINING

September 27th, 2006

Someone requested to see it, so here's what I've been using for a make-shift glute-ham bench. First I start off with two heavy weights to anchor my feet. Two 32 KG kettlebells work perfectly.

Under my knees is a soft blue piece of foam. It doesn't matter what you use under your knees, just use something that will cushion them. Otherwise, there is too much pressure on the kneecaps and things start grinding around inside.

And finally, there are some cables attached to the wall which provide excellent assistance. Now, just lower down with your torso and upper legs in a straight line, then squeeze the butt and hamstrings to bring yourself back up into starting position.

You may not have the exact pieces of equipment I have here, but look around and I'm sure you could improvise (just as I have).

In other training news, my iron cross work is feeling really strong. I work the same exercise (cross dips) I showed a picture of in the last training update, but I've taken a step back and started with my feet on the ground instead of elevated. Doing this has helped me focus on the technique and stop rushing the skill. Of course, a higher ring set-up would be ideal!

I've also started putting the iron cross work as the first exercise in my workout, so that I'm good and strong for it. The order of an exercise in your workout plan can make a huge difference in your progress.

Front lever has never felt better. I attribute this to an increased focus on weighted pull-ups (palms away). I had been working heavy weighted chin-ups for so long, which are great for the OAC, but the pull-up has much more in common with the front lever. As the weight for the pull-up increases, I hope to continue to see a carry-over to the front lever. I even started playing around with the one arm front lever... but that's still light years away.

I also managed a one arm chin-up on a rope.

I've been looking forward to a one arm rope climb someday. While I can pull my body up and release the hand, I can't re-grab and hold yet. Guess I need a bit more work on my grip. I'm still happy with the OAC though.

I've been trying several things to break through my planche plateau and will report back on any success. I've also been a bit concerned about my wrists again, so I've been working to strengthen them up even more, which will further help my one arm handstand.

July 1st, 2006

I was feeling a bit stale with some of the skills I'm working towards, and felt like I wasn't giving them quite the time they needed to improve, so I decided several weeks ago to simplify things and focus almost exclusively on bodyweight exercises. The "Power to the People" method helped increase my pressing and deadlift strength greatly, but I needed the change in routine.

I'll discuss each skill I'm working on and various points of each.

The one arm handstand is coming along nicely. This is a relatively old pic, but the idea is the same. I've been working holds with my legs straddled apart and sometimes with the legs together. I've been getting some decently long holds with this skill, I just need to get them a bit more consistently. I've also been trying it out on the parallettes with some success. Of course, I put this skill at the beginning of my workout when my arms are still fresh.

If you haven't checked it out already look at the York Handbalancine Course for some good ideas regarding the one arm handstand. It's talk of balance points and direction was very helpful. I've also got an old time article on the OAH that I'll scan and include in my eventual OAH tutorial.

I've been strengthening up my front lever as well with some prolonged holds of the one legged front lever (top picture) as well as some tucked and straddled front lever pullups (not pictured).

The combination of the holds and the pulls is helping to clean up my front lever again. It's not as effortless as it use to be (when I was lighter!), but it's decent and coming back just fine.

I think the one piece of advice I'm re-remembering about the front lever is to make sure I'm pulling back the shoulders into socket. It helps to engage the muscles of the back.

And this would make the 1 billionth time that I've posted some sort of planche picture on my site...

I'm still working toward a full planche, and stagnation with it was a big motivator to switch up my training and refocus on the bodyweight skills.

I'm actually focusing less on the straddle planche holds and more on straight arm pike presses (tutorial sometime in the future) and tuck planche pushups. This will stress my shoulders with both straight and bent arms, which feels to be a challenging workout. I'll still throw in a couple straddle planches though.

I'm back to weighted squats for my legs.

Because the squat is a quadriceps dominated exercise, I'm also adding some work for the hamstrings through a make-shift glute-ham bench that I rigged up from a foam pad, some cables and two kettlebells (seriously). I'll post some pics of that rocking set-up when I get the chance.

I hate the iron cross most of all. Every time I feel like I've got the groove of the exercise, the next workout kills me. I'm working cross dips (pictured) with my feet on a bench right now and trying to focus on the correct technique and muscle recruitment.

The weighted chin-ups are going great. I feel incredibly strong with the movement, even allowing a pause between reps as I hold onto the bar in a dead hang.

I was working weighted rope climbs for a while there, but it was killing my elbows. Everything feels great with the chin-ups. I'll continue increasing the weight and test myself on the one arm rope climb every couple weeks.

And finally, weighted full-range handstand pushups. Hard to see since I'm wearing a black shirt, but I also have a black weight vest on. I've switched the blocks pictured with a nice new set of parallettes that I made which allow me to go as low as possible with pushup.

Notice that I try to keep a fairly even balance between pushing and pulling skills, and make sure to include exercises that working the pushing and pulling in various directions (horizontal and vertical).

I'm working these exercises three times a week, and I recently added some High Octane Cardio (HOC) or Tabata thrusters once or twice a week to trim myself down a bit. I get some ab work during the HOC and should probably add it the days I work Tabata thrusters as well. In other words, keep the abdominal work for the off days so they don't interfere with the skills that day.

I like my routine now and am looking forward to see the progress it'll bring. It's a bit easier to handle than the full weight routine/full bodyweight routine I was trying to bring together before. It's simplified now.

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