Tuesday, 31 March 2009

FGB Follow-up

I must have done something right.

My knees aren’t any worse this morning than yesterday, so I must have managed to cling to half pie decent squat form during the wallballs after all.

My elbows aren’t feeling like I hyperextended them with the Push Presses.

My butt and hamstrings are sore and my quads aren’t. That is almost unprecedented after a squatting movement for me so maybe the hotel room squat practise sessions that messed up my knees were of some value after all.

I suspect most of my knee pain is muscles working in patterns that they not used to and pulling my kneecaps into places they shouldn’t be. Stretching, massage and practise of the movements will (hopefully) sort that out. Now I just have to do them.

Monday, 30 March 2009

Fight Gone Bad

Three rounds of:
Wall-ball, 10kg ball, 10 ft target (Reps)
Sumo deadlift high-pull, 20kg (Reps)
Step-ups, 20” box (Reps)
Push-press, 10kg (Reps)
Row (Calories)

15 15 14
14 25 24
15 20 19
18 22 19
5.5 4.5 4.5

This was what I needed, a good all-round workout.
My knees are still phenomenally touchy so I tried to stay very tight in the wall-ball and lost time there. I know I wasn't always successful either so I'll pay tomorrow I think.
SDHP and Push-presses were very light.
Step-ups to spare the knees again.
Rowing is indicative only, my rowere doesn't really measure calories and I fumbled the start on two of the 3 rounds too.

So that's what as total?
234.5

Nothing flash, but it will do.

HSPU

Minor progress, but a major breakthrough.

At my father-in-laws and playing around with handstands and headstands with a couple of the nieces, with the other "grown-ups" watching. I helped one of the kids with her handstands into a bridge and supported her extending that to a handspring or whatever the term is.

I proved once again that I can't do a HSPU or even a negative with my hands at normal handstand width. I very quickly reach a point where I'm completely unable to control my descent and freefall my way to the round. At my strongest after a lot of time practising handstands I managed to achieve a negative once and it was very very hard to control. At home that means my head hits concrete so the whole thing gets me very nervous and uptight. At my father-in-law's I'm doing it over grass so I wasn't so scared.
I played around a bit and found out how to get up into a supported handstand with my hands out at about twice shoulder width. That was also hard for me because I always plant my hands just a little outside my shoulder width when I lunge into a handstand and the concrete meant I wasn't inclined to experiment. With my hands out wide, achieved by kneeling down, planting my hands and then kicking up with my hands already in place, I was able to do a nice controlled negative that I would be able to do even on concrete, i.e. not slamming my head into the ground. I couldn't come back up but right now I haven't trained much for about a month, so that may change. Even if I can't I may have the toehold I need to make the jump from piked HSPU to full, albeit with a wide spacing. Over time I may be able to pull that in until I'm at the correct hand spacing, but even if I can't, at least I'd be be able to say I did the full exercise instead of a sub.
I managed 4 and on the 5th the rate of descent was increasing so I stopped and was very happy.

Friday, 27 March 2009

Playing with a C2

The hotel I stayed in in Sydney had one of the better gyms I've encountered. Not huge, but enough gear to be useful, and some clear floorspace.

They had a (Model B?)C2 which I thought had flat batteries when I first wandered through the place. Later I remembered you had to row a bit for the display to activate on those.

So one morning I rowed 2K, no idea of the time. When I looked for the overall time I found it gave you 500m splits and found my first 500m was my fastest. Now as I had been what I thought was "sprinting" for the last 500 and just sliding the seat back and forth for the first 500 I found that really interesting! My splits weren't at all fast, 2 minutes and change/500m.

So the next morning I did
3 RNFT
Row 1000m
10 manmakers

As a WOD that's pretty wussy, but I was just trying to wake up. Mainly though I watched myself rowing in the mirror, watched the numbers and tried to analyse what was different in the times I was getting better times/500m.

It turns out that when I thought I was sprinting I was doing most of the work with my arms and when I was going fastest it felt like I just slid the seat back and did a half hearted flick on the handle with my arms. I knew I was supposed to do most of the work with my legs but I didn't know what it felt like when I did that. I think because the resistance of the rower is very light I wasn't able to feel my legs working particularly hard compared to a squat or deadlift and didn't realise that's where most of the pull was coming from. I'd love to play some more with a C2 and a mirror so I could bed the feeling in and drop that 500m time well below 2 minutes. I think if I got the movement sorted and learned how to get a really solid push with my legs I could make some progress.
Hard when my rower at home has even less resistance than a C2 and doesn't give me that /500m time.

Fascinating and fun.

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

Monday, 2 March 2009

Helen

3RFT
400m
21 x 22kg dbell swings
12 pull-ups

16:46

I decided I needed to get back to some mainpage WODs.

Not a blistering time.
I wanted to keep moving rather than rush in and die part way through. Smooth and let fast come. Running (not done enough)and pull-ups (rafter) were the time eaters.

After/cooldown
Put the junk back in the shed.
Hacky sack
6 Straddle headstands
Stretch.