A Study In Movement

From my sister

instituteforinfinitejustice:

“i always tell my residents this, so i guess i should tell you, too. to survive this you must: start with taking off your gloves, this blood is not yours. go on to the next patient. throw away your scrubs at the end of the shift. and then go home -to your husband, your girlfriend, your kids and hold them. hold them as tight as you can. cause without them, you’ll never survive.”

I lost my footing on consistent workouts after two weeks but I’m aiming to get back to 4 days a week of real training.

Today I took a step back and re-tested myself with the JT Hero workout from CrossFit with 3 reps of the basic ring series 1 as a warmup and then some static holds to finish out the workout.

Basic Ring Series 1: 3 reps

I’m really starting to enjoy this series more and more as I get comfortable with it. It serves as a great warmup for the rest of my exercise and I think I’ll soon transition from a basic pull-up to the proper muscle-up at the beginning.

JT Hero Workout: 21/15/9 reps, for time.

• Handstand Pushups
• Ring Dips
• Pushups

This workout is rough in all senses of the word but I think I managed a much better effort and level of efficiency than in comparison to my last attempt although I only knocked about 2 minutes off of my time. My ring dips are getting better after a recent breakthrough on body position at the bottom of the dip and I knocked out more than 2/3rds of the first set of 21 handstand pushups without stopping.

Final time: 17:49

Static Holds:

L-Sit: 8 counts

Back Lever (straddle): 9 counts

Front Lever (adv. tuck): 12 counts

Planche (adv. tuck): 6 counts

After nearly a week off the rings I hopped back up on them for a basic set of exercises.

Four Corner Balance Drill: 3 reps left leg, 3 reps right leg

I asked Andy Fossett of Gold Medal Bodies for a bit of advice on some leg exercises and he suggested these. Interesting, slightly odd, and honestly not as intense as billed. Even in a full squat they feel like simple bar exercises that dancers do all the time. More like a warmup for mobility than a training exercise.

Adv Tuck Flanche: 4 reps x 8 counts

Added a rep and really trying to improve my lockout in the arms and not letting them bend.

Bulgarian Ring Dips: 4 reps

Adv. Tuck Yewkies: 3 reps, 2 reps

Much better technique doing this exercise for a second time.

False Grip Pullups: 6 reps

Felt much better about my false grip in this set.

Basic Ring Series 1: 3 reps

False grip pull-up, to inverted hang, to back lever, to inverted hang, to front lever. Really worked on my technique moving between the various positions.

Full Back Lever: Held at 45° for 2 reps of 4 counts

Really glad to be back up on the rings after five days off of them. Definitely feeling my progression and improvements, although small sometimes, are very noticeable.

I’ve taken a few extra days off this week from working out because I rocked my body with a 3 hour parkour session on Sunday. Added to that, I stressed my left elbow, most likely the bicep tendon, doing more than my normal share of gymnastic training on the rings last week and agitated it by doing cat jumps in parkour.

So a couple days off, but I have to say that parkour training was a full body powerhouse of a session. I was sore in ways I haven’t been since I trained capoeira back in Montreal.

I’m excited to get into something I’ve been putting off for a long time mostly due to the stress of injecting myself into a new social scene. It’s rewarding though, making myself uncomfortable, because I’m more than physically adept at jumping, running, climbing, and springing my way over and around urban spaces. I just needed to break the mental barrier to get to it.

I’m going to resume normal training on the rings tomorrow after giving myself an extra three days for my tendon to recover but it’s hard not to get up there just to be on the rings. I’ve been feeling really good about my progression but I don’t want to set myself back with a real injury, so today it’s going to be some stretching and yoga to keep my body moving but nothing strength focused.