AYCE notes... (And sun!)

Went to a very enriching Mass Saturday evening. Holy Week is upon us.

Sunday morning we headed out to the beach to hang out and eat BBQ with my brother and his family. I loved being at the beach again. It was Elina's second time, and she took to it like... a fish to water? Alex was intimidated by the waves, but he'll learn quickly (or it's the plank!). I swam, tossed kids, and did some hand walking on the beach.

Granted, all this frolicking resulted in a lower back kink and some sore wrists. I had trained grip-crushing Saturday afternoon and was puttering making pinch blocks and a DIY (very rudimentary) version of the Titan's Telegraph Key Saturday night, at a savings of close to $100 (I'll post a video soon). I believe that my open-palm thumb trainer achieves the same effect at a tiny fraction of the market price.* (How do you patent a lever, anyway?)

By this morning, however, my back felt great and I actually ended up in the gym. All day I felt zapped, and even considered taking tomorrow off. Although "how you feel is a lie," how you perform is not. Auto-regulation means putting in the time, but not sacrificing quality performance on the altar of a fixed numerical scheme. I'm exhausted and will sleep after finishing this post, to wit:

AYCE Press 
50 min., 227 lbs.
MOOD/MISC.: sluggish, dizzy (?), distracted by the larger than usual number of dudes at the gym; how I long to be able to train at home; warmups were included as opening reps in the following exercises

db bench press: 5x5 @ 80 lbs.
[Felt slight impingement in right wrist. Same as on my FSQ a couple weeks ago, and during my CoC drills Saturday afternoon.]

FSQ: 5x5 @ 215 lbs.

MP (belt): 5x5 @ 125 lbs.

"The Bench Shrug": 12, 12, 12, @ 185 lbs.
[Right wrist felt weak, hard to keep fist straight upward.] 

+ + + 

My copy of Kelso's Shrug Book should arrive tomorrow, but I've already decided to incorporate shrugs as an assistance "finisher" in all workouts on my current program. Seeing as it's Holy Week, I'll take it a bit easier this week, and will take Friday off from work.

-------------

* Apropos DIY gym equipment, this evening I bought the key components that I believe I need to make something that achieves much the same effect as Joe Kinney's Secret Weapon. Assembly (no welding!) won't happen till next week, at the earliest, so I'll have to wait until then to see if it works like I'm envisioning my design should. Even then, I will not rush into using it. All I hear is that it's "painful," "unpleasant," "intense," and so on. I learned the hard way about three years ago that one must not overdo it with grip training. Still, if I can save $200 and achieve the same effect--more power to me.

At the same time, there's an interesting, albeit contentious at times, discussion on this thread about the ethics of "hacking" elite training equipment. I can see the problem if I were to use Kinney's own design specs without giving him royalties, but I think anyone is in his rights to produce a similar device for his own training goals. I'm not looking to sell my little device; what I'm using is readily available at almost any hardware store. (Indeed, though I did not see this page until posting this update, the design should give you a rough idea of what I've got in mind.) As I get closer to achieving my grip goals--merely closing CoC #3 for reps, by the way--I will be perfectly happy to pay for the actual Kinney device, if its specs provide the competitive difference needed for success. Meanwhile, ghetto works if ghetto can git'er done. I think Randall Strossen strikes the right balance here. It's no small irony, Strossen notes elsewhere, that Kinney's own training depended on "hacking" various Iron Mind products. Share and share alike, say I, while giving credit where it's due. 

Fitness update - August 2012

Wednesday, 15 August 2012
45 min., 100kg

Warm-up: Jumping jacks, lunges, medicine ball tosses - 5 min.

Stretching: 10'

Upper body: 11'30"

Lower body: 10'20"

Aerobic: 7'30"
T-bell swings - 25 @ 15kg x 2
Lunges with 5kg medicine ball - 24 x 2
Walking medicine ball tosses - 15 x 2
Walking high kicks with medicine ball - 20 x 2 
Medicine ball slams - 20 @ 5kg

+ + +

I used a sling I had hung over a rafter, with a sturdy dowel in the loops, for my reverse and narrow-grip pull-ups, as well as for my hanging knee lifts. Next week I'd like to start using my eagle loops for reverse, close-grip, wide-grip pull-ups, and knee lifts.

My time on the circuits dropped again, which is nice, even allowing for some delays due to messing with equipment here and there. I like using a lumbar support I found on a chair at home for my ab exercises (it's the Ab Mat on the cheap!). Due to my shin splints, I did not run or jump, but the drills I did were a good challenge.

I think I'll practice head stands, hand standing, and grip crushing tomorrow.

Fitness notes - July 2012

Wednesday, 11 July 2012
20–30 min., 104kg 

I felt too nervous trying handwalking and handstands on the stone floor in the quad outside my apartment, which made it hard to focus and really try, so I ended up doing wall stands. I used four interlocking rubber mats to protect my head on the floor.

Stretching

Wall stands: 5–15 sec. several times

Wall-aided salamba sirsasana (asana column): 5–15 sec. several times

Tripod headstands: 10–30 sec. several times

By the end of this workout, sweat was literally dripping off of me. 

The key, I realized today, for training the salamba sirsasana, is to move my body a little farther from the wall each time I practice, so I can gradually learn to balance with confidence, until I can do it without a wall at all. 

Thursday, 12 July 2012
30–40 min., 103kg

I was still quite sore from my Quick Mass workout on Tuesday, but I was also antsy and needed some kind of exercise, so I walked the track for thirty minutes while practicing Pimsleur Spanish. Every lap I did about 50 meters of jump rope jogging, followed by another 50 skips or so in place. After all that, I practice handstands for about ten minutes. Boy howdy, what a difference practicing on a firm, safe surface made! I wasn't scared of crashing onto stone (as I had been Wednesday night), but also wasn't weakened by an uneven grassy surface (as I was last week). I did several good tries at handwalking, and held a few handstands for nearly ten seconds. The key, as Patrick Barrett in How to Do a Handstand advises, is that I didn't just blindly hop up into a handstand again and again. Rather, I analyzed how I fell, to which side I leaned, etc., and tried to correct for those flaws on the next attempt. I really felt secure when I tucked my buttocks and pointed my toes upward as high, so to speak, as they could go. My traps have been nicely sore from the handstands, though my neck is a bit kinked from last night's practice.

Until next time!