Workout 4.12.10

This workout was on top of eight miles bike riding and two hours of Parkour training in City Park which made for quite the full day.

Warmup

False Grip Pullups: 8 reps

The other day I felt a breakthrough in my false grip and it has made all the difference as I work towards a proper unassisted muscle-up.

Dips: 8 reps

Handstand Pushup: 8 reps

Rather than just doing handstand pushups on the ground, I laid out two cinder blocks about a foot and a half from each other and did my handstand pushups on them for a larger range of motion. Definitely made them that much more challenging.

Statics

Back Lever: 22 cnt, 10 cnt

My longest back lever hold so far.

Front Lever: 12 cnt, 10 cnt

L-Hang: 10 cnt, 6 cnt

I decided to add the hang to my statics for a change instead of the L-Sit. Pushing forward into the hands as I hang from them and maintaining the L position I think will be a good addition to other piked exercises later on.

Planche: 15 cnt, 10 cnt

Probably my best planche hold yet in an advanced tuck position on the rings.

Dynamics

I decided to add a semi-crossfit style workout back into my repertoire for the day as I’ve been focusing almost entirely on gymnastic and ring training lately.

Lawnmowers: 16 reps

Narrow Rows: 10 reps

Doing a set of rows with both hands on one ring instead definitely shook things up a bit.

Narrow Rows: 8 reps

Same as the former but instead of gripping the bottom of the ring I gripped the sides of it to work on grip strength.

Strap Hang: 6 cnt

Got bored and decided it’d be fun to do a little more grip exercise hanging from the strap for my rings instead of the rings themselves. Sort of like a rope climb.

Pistols: 5 reps right, 5 reps left

A set of pistols while holding a stone weighing about 12lbs out in front of me. Felt more balanced on the pistols with the counterweight of the stone although the extra weight was noticed in the press back up.

Pull Press: 6 cnt right, 6 cnt left, 8 cnt right, 8 cnt left

More experimenting with the rings. Had the two rings set about 32 inches different in height and was pressing down with one arm and pulling up with the other. Switched sides and then repeated the whole thing. An interesting isometric working two both pulling and pressing at the same time. Felt great with the contrabody tension across the back.

Workout 27.10.10

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

Workout 23.9.2010

After the experimental set the day before I opted for a more routine oriented workout involving a simple warmup and then a modified Fran kind of workout.

The “Fran” is a CrossFit workout that is comprised of thrusters with 95lbs. and pullups in three sets of 21, 15, then lastly 9. It’s a killer workout and the goal is to get it all done as fast as possible. I forget my last Fran time but I doubt it was very good.

I don’t have a bar with an extra 40lbs. of weight, so I opted for a three exercise Fran variant: pullups, overhead squats, and pushups. Both pullups and pushups on rings instead of a bar.

Warmup:

  • Mountain Climbers, on rings (16)
  • Lawn Mower (16)
  • Lever Swings (15) I was exceptionally pleased with my swings, probably best form I’ve had yet with a nice little hang time in full front lever at the top of each swing.

Fran: Total Time @14-16 min.

  • Pullups 21/15/9
  • Squats 21/15/9
  • Pushups 21/15/9

Finale:

  • Ring Dips to Failure (3)

Ring dips are one of my weakest exercises to begin with so using them as the finale after doing that insane Fran before hand really killed me. My left elbow gives out a little early and I can feel it go and bailed after 3 dips rather than push too hard.