Two Cirque du Soleil Hand Balancers

These two brothers are so strong...the stuff that the larger guy is doing is just incredible (though what the top guy is doing is nothing to sneeze at either)

Slumbering men and silly cats..

...aren't so quick to escape a photo..

New Routine

Over these past 6-7 months, i've used two different methods of training, both of which have yielded results:

Summer
ME focused, no endurance days.
M-W-F upper body
T-Th-Sat core and lower

I then modified this going into the school year, allowing for some endurance training.
Fall
Monday: ME upper
Tuesday: ME lower and core
Wednesday: Metcon upper
Thursday: Metcon lower and core
Friday: Me upper
Saturday: Me lower and core

and now, i'm going to change that focus towards metcon/endurance training with each day being total body instead of the upper/lower split. The idea is that i want to continue developing ME strength, but i really want to emphasize endurance, because from the spring into the fall, i will be drilling parkour movements alot more, and during the summer i'm active every day all day, so i need the stamina and joint adaptations to handle things...this is the general idea
Winter
Monday: ME
Tuesday: Metcon (legs focus)
Wednesday: Metcon (upper focus)
Thursday: rest
Friday: ME
Saturday: Endurance (high rep,no particular focus)

because I'm doing full body workouts, i'm not sure how my body will respond to certain workloads, so i'll have to do a little feeling around to see what i can handle while still making gains. I'm still going to be aiming for certain overload goals during each cycle, but i'll have to make sure i don't push too hard.

Hooray for Muscle Ups!

Today I hit a personal best with 2 consecutive muscle ups-they felt so much easier than before. Now i'm hardly using any kick to bust through the transition; my first two or three of the day (I did maybe 10 or so throughout the hour) were so nice-i'm pretty sure there was no leg movement except to balance in the air.

I'm not sure how i'll fit these into training, but i'm definitely going to add them in somewhere; there's no point in developing a strength skill (as basic as it is) and not using it to progress further.

i'm hoping that by this time next year i'll be capable of at least 5 in a row.

What i want in the appearance of a video..

this is joenkkoe from Finland; he's using sony vegas 7 (i think) for editing and a canon HV20 for the camera. Terrific look to this footage-he's also very strong, so it makes the video all the more impressive.

Photography Practice

Lots of snow outside, so i went around the house and just kept snapping pictures. Though they're nothing special (and i can see some things that i should've changed) here are the better ones.

Strength-Endurance

Recently on .net there was some arguing about endurance v. strength, with some people claiming that anything but maximal loads were only training endurance, which set others off, as they began to delve into hypothetical examples(rock-climbing, specifically) This got me thinking, and though i didn't post my thoughts, i felt like writing this down, as it is a component of my training that i'm seeking to improve in.

The examples that were used were comparing the ability to hold onto a difficult hold in rock-climbing(just the ability to hold; a sort of 1 rm effort) and holding onto holds of different difficulty for longer periods of time. Some people were claiming that a person who can hold onto hold x will be stronger than a person who cannot. I agreed with this point, because i think of that limit capability as a true measure of strength; just being able to do it. Not for how long the person can hold on. Then the people who came up with this idea decided that to hold onto that same difficult hold x for a longer time means that the climber is stronger. I feel this isn't correct, and here's why. The way i see things, after a 1rm effort, everything becomes a matter of endurance. The difference between what i'm saying and what people were arguing about is that I am taking into account the varying levels of intensity.

To create a visual idea, think of a tree with branches at different heights, with each height acting as a "level". Each level's branches are harder to hold onto than the ones below it. Now imagine that someone is trying to hold onto the highest branch they can for the longest period of time. With these levels representing different amounts of intensity, then at each level, to hold on, the person requires the ability to endure at a higher intensity level.

This is my idea for training; if you press 100lbs twice, then you are developing the endurance to lift that 100lbs more than 1 time. You aren't training strength, you are training strength-endurance. Now i understand that strength gains would come from this sort of training, but in terms of just abstract ideas, i still see this as a form of strength-endurance training.

Anyway, how this affects me is that i am trying to develop my ability to endure at very high levels of intensity to advance my parkour, bouldering, handbalancing, and other movements. A while back i was reading through Blane's old training regime, and i noticed that he would train his endurance, but with additional weight attached to him. Eventually i realized that he was increasing his endurance on a higher plane of intensity.

pictures from stock photo and slopeypete
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slopeypete/274670081/