Como Zoo Photos

Accomplishment!

So today I realized that i had accomplished 2 of my goals for the new year already:
1.5xbw squat
1.75xbw deadlift
with both being for reps. I thought that this goal would have taken considerably more time, but it was more a matter of just going for a true maximal effort, which i just haven't really felt comfortable doing.

Anyway, the totals were..
4x275lbs for the squat, and
5x315lbs for the deadlift (though it was a trap-bar; i realize that this entirely removes the grip benefits of the deadlift, but since i was looking at this from a leg strength perspective, this counts.)

That just leaves:
5 consecutive muscle ups
20 comfortable, full rom dips and pull ups
30 sec Handstand
10 foot broad jump (measured toe to toe)
10 HLR's
1 arm push up

I think that i will be focusing in on the HLR's, broad jump, and high rep pull ups and dips for the time being, since my wrists aren't 100% yet, and i'm not focusing on strength stuff quite as much.
In other news, i managed a double at bw (170lbs) in the bench press test, and the other day i held a tuck planche on the floor for 10-11 seconds. Admittedly, that planche is measly, but considering that i couldn't even hold it for more than a second just 2 months ago, i'd say that i've gotten considerably stronger in the hold without practicing it. I'll be focusing in on that more so that when my wrists are solid, i can start working on pressing up into a handstand.

Damn.

apparently this is the czech republic's champion rope climber (i don't know if there are weight classes..?). I would love to see this as an olympic sport though.

Parkour, Movement, and Why? By Scott

This was written recently by Scott on .net, and I wanted to post this here so i can always come back and read it. Alot of the ideas i wholly agree with, and I hope to use this piece to remind myself from time to time as to why I train.

A Seed to a Forest
http://parkour.net/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=14126&view=findpost&p=171537

Some shots from Winter Break

For some reason i couldn't get these photos onto my computer at the time, so here they are. I took them one morning wandering around the house, and i was pretty pleased with them. Unfortunately, the lighting in the bathroom was much better in person, and i discarded one of the best shots because everything was far too dark after the transfer to the computer. I really need to learn how to touch up shots in the future.

First my elbows, then my knees, and now my wrists.

Back in the summer time, i encountered some serious issues with overtraining, resulting in me taking around 3 months to gradually repair and build up my tendon strength to handle lots of pulling movements. That process was slow and tedious, but very productive. I experienced a smaller scale version of this in my knees for a couple weeks, which i believe i'm clear of (though i'm not quite safe yet). For the past 2 months, i've been having issues with my wrists; sometimes quite painful with limited mobility, and sometimes just fine. Now I know what caused it; heavy wrist rollers followed by kicking up into a handstand cold, and they just haven't been the same since. I'm not sure as to why my wrists had been capable of handling handstands and other wrist dominant movements (as far as compressive forces) in the past, and not now. But currently, i cannot hold a push up position without pain, and this has me very worried, since i will be starting to prepare for the baseball season (hitting isn't exactly something that can be avoided) in a week or so.

This being the case, i can't say that i hadn't tried resting, and building up slowly, but now i realize that i'll have to do it far slower, maybe taking 3-4 months if necessary. I'm writing this post to document the first week of my rehab, which won't be particularly easy what with conflicts as far as sport goes.

The 3 major exercises that i'm going to do will be:
-wrist flexion
-wrist extension
-finger extension

A Change in the Winds?

For these past 6 months, I have been investing a fair amount of time (though not enough) into getting my dad into shape. As of this summer, he was turning 56, and weighed in a at a hefty 240 pounds, despite being only 5'10". He was quite out of shape, and was suffering from some knee trouble which kept him from walking and doing chores without pain, let alone exercising. The other issues came from his poor self-discipline and awful diet; he was taking in very large excesses of calories, and often ate only 1, maybe 2 meals of packaged or processed foods daily.

Towards the midway-tail end of summer, we finally began to do some basic exercises; he isn't incredibly coordinated, so we had to go through every single nuance of the bodyweight squat, fat man pull ups (i've never used this term around him though) and pushups. We spent about 1.5-2 months just developing his ability to go through basic joint warm ups and routines without a huge struggle.

When fall began, he had begun sporadically writing down what he ate, and we tried to have him exercise 3-4 days a week, topping out at a jaw-dropping 4, and sometimes getting only 1. Up until today, we didn't think that he had made a ton of progress, but he has cut back tremendously (gradually, but still tremendously) on how much he eats, getting in more meals with quality food, and not gorging on liquids and processed crap. I cannot say that he's anywhere close to eating "clean", but the progress has been stable from what i can tell now.

The thing about this project was that i was attempting to use the knowledge i had accumulated over the past 18 months of research and discussion with others to help someone that i care about. However, before 6 o'clock this evening, i was quite confident that i had been failing at this, until my dad emerged from the bathroom, naked (at least covering his giblets, but you know) and told me to read the scale, since his eyes aren't so good. I was astonished to see that he had dropped 18 pounds in these 4 months (mostly water weight, but hey, it's progress!) and was now down to 222.

We know that things won't get any easier, but at least this should give him a confidence boost for the future; hopefully with the emphasis solely on performance and improving his diet until it's somewhat clean, he will be lighter and fitter for it.

It's the New Year!

well, since it is Jan 1, i figure i should put together some goals for my training this year. From this point on, baseball is going to make it harder to focus intensively on my conditioning and drilling until the season ends in july(?), but i'll still be doing my best to accomplish these...


Goals for '08
5 consecutive muscle ups
20 comfortable, full rom dips and pull ups
30 sec Handstand
10 foot broad jump (measured toe to toe)
10 HLR's
1.75xbodyweight deadlift for reps
1.5xbodyweight squat for reps
1 arm push up

as for parkour, i'm not making any specific goals, as i will be focusing on a continual progression; i might make some spot-specific goals, but otherwise i'll just keep track of everything mentally.

Hopefully this is year is a healthy one that brings more progress in everyone's training.