Recent doings…

I've been well out of the loop, I know, but this is mainly because I've picked up some new extra classes and have moved into a larger apartment. What I should have posted in the past week or two is roughly (from memory) the following:

6 June 2011
Warmup: gryo ball, flail
Midi Red gripper: 10, 9
Heavy Grips 150: 9, 8
CoC #1.5: 8, 8 (l.h. 4 closes? r.h. 8)
CoC #2: 8, 6 (l.h. 3 closes? r.h. 4 closes?)

9 June 2011
Warmup: flail, gyro ball
1" wrist roller:
2" wrist roller:
Wrist levering:
4x4 pinch block:
1x4 pinch block:

10 June 2011
Sling rows: 15, 15
Kettlebag curls: 12 @ 9kg
Kettlebag-sledgehammer curls: 12, 10 @ 12kg
Pushups: 50, 50

11 June 2011
Kettlebag sledgehammer curls: 12, 12 @ 12kg
Pushups: 50, 50
Kettlebag delt flyes and press: 5/5/5, 5/5/5 @ 9kg
Tricep extensions: two chest-expander coils

14 June 2011
Swimming:
35 mins, 800m: 100m breaststroke, 100m legs only, 100m freestyle, 300m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, 100m freestyle
[It wasn't until about 350m that my old training came back: hands slice in high and close to the head, torwue the hips and shoulders, stretch each stroke. By the end, I had remembered to count how many strokes I took per 50m: 42, 41, 39, 38. A good progression! I need to get my cardio back up to snuff. How I love swimming!]

Grip training:
Warmup: Midi Red gripper (10 closes), gyro ball
Heavy Grips 150: 9 reps (l.h. 6 closes? r.h. 9 closes)
CoC #1.5: 9 (r.h. 7 closes? l.h. 4 closes?)
CoC #2: 1, 1 (ø closes)
Heavy Grips 150: 9
[I finally determined tonight a major factor in the disparity between my right and left hands: the design of the crushers favors the right hand! To wit, in the right hand, the spring inserted into the handle in the thenar-phalanx joint is nearly a centimeter from the flesh. By contrast, when the gripper is "flipped" into the left hand, the thenar spring is only a couple millimeters from the flesh.

I have discovered the handicap in this, namely, that the closer the origin handle is to the palm of the hand, the less leverage that hand has. This is because, as the fingers closer towards the palm, the sooner they "run into" the palm, the less power, indeed, the less geometric space they have to crush inwardly. Those extra millimeters in the right hand give the right fingers the essential extra geometric leverage to crush, a space lacking in the left hand. Indeed, this is why setting the gripper correctly is so important. The thenar handle is placed towards the center of the palm precisely to increase the leverage of the fingers to close to that handle. A gripper casually set too far back in my right hand will make that hand as weak as my left hand.

The upshot is that I think I have taken to training my left hand with the gripper (at least a heavy gripper) upside down. This puts the thenar spring farther from the flesh and gives it a "right hand feel." To wit, whilst writing this note, I ran into my training room and did a few upside reps for my left hand (Heavy Grips 150 x 4, CoC #1.5 x 2, CoC #2 x 1), just to see how it felt. And it felt stronger, considering I was already tapped out from a proper grip session a couple hours before.

Oh, and, incidentally, if you're psychotic, or me, you'll notice a difference between June 14's grip training and the previous crush training is that I did fewer reps for warmups so I'd have "more left" for the heavy grip training.]

I've also done some random drills while watching movies: chest expander curls, shrugs, bowshots, tricep extensions, etc. But, frankly, due to a very unpleasant case of eczema in the thigh-groin region (!), I've basically been unable to do serious lower-body training. Which is immensely frustrating and irritating. That's what finally got me back into the pool, and I invested in a book of 30 tickets to keep my feet to the fire, as it were (a little sunken capital is good for rationality).