Spartan Race Training April 2011

For what ever reason this spoke to me. I don’t know why but I have a huge desire to run this race. Maybe it’s becauses it’s there. Maybe to prove a point or put my training to the test. I think it’s to give me a goal to train for other than just general fitness. The Past few months I’ve been dabbling in my training; Pushing to get my anaerobic recovery down, More mobility and power generation all of which has helped my martial activities but since I don’t fight enough nowdays to notice the results, I’ve been getting bored. PLus, deep down, part of me wants to push myself outside my comfort zone and return to the EMBRACE THE SUCK Philosophy. That part of me that enjoys the struggle and the fight.

So my run yesterday didn’t go that well but went about as I expected. Running in the Vibram Five Finger shoes defiantly had a training effect on my ankles. They were no happy but with some movement and mobility training this morning, they are better. Or, it could be the drugs.

And as much as I want to go Full Tilt Boogie with my training, I’m slowly ramping up the work so I won’t hit the overtraining wall.

This morning, was a warmup of Intu-FLow and 20 minutes on the treadmill for a slow walk to warm the body up. Then it was 5 sets of 5 Pullup with a bungie cord assist and 3 sec negative hangs at the top. Then 5 sets of 10 Creeper Crunches. Using the wheeled creeper from the shop, I went into pushup position and drawing the hips into the air and pulling the legs in like I was going into Crow Pose and back out to plank Pose.

Cooldown was Wind Removing Pose to loosen the low back, Downward Dog and Pigeon pose.
As always the first few days of any program will tweek as I go through it and add or modify to get the results I need and want.

Fitness as a Martial Art

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Training guys from work in CST.

At work, we are given the opportunity to train in physical Training(PT) for three days a week. Not many of the people at the shop take advantage of it but I do. It’s a free gym and it has a spce set asie for Clubbell training and Body weight exercises.   So one day as the horn blew to go home, I had a co-worker tell me that he wsa goin to work out with me the next morning.  So when he actually showed up I told him that I was training for my APFT and he was more than free to join me.  I was using exercises from Forward Pressure and Be Breath to help with the pushups and situps.  Marty stuck with me but he wsa sore the next few days. Luckly for him, I only did that for about two weeks before the test.

   After that, I came up with a program that worked all Six Degrees of Freedom of Movement:

   Heaving: moving up and down

   Swaying: moving right and left

  Surging: moving forward and backward

  Pitching: bending forward and backward

  Yawing: twisting right and left

  Rolling: turning right and left

I also worked the HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) protocal into the workout. 20 seconds of hard work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds.

I struggled through some of it mostly the rope pull: Grab suspened 1-1/2 inch rope and leaning back at a 45 degreee or more pull your hands to your chest.   Great total body work.

Marty suffered alot. But afer about 3 weeks, lost 12 pounds. When I asked him why workout with me, he told me that I wasn’t doing what everyone else is. And it works.

Over the past two months tow other guys have join up with me.  One told me this morning that he got more of a workout today than he has ever gotten from just working free weights.

Me, I’m having a blast! Love working with folks who dig deep and push themselves while all the while knowing their limits and seeing results while at the same time keeping a health first and injury frees focus.

The Mobile Gorilla Phase 2 High intensity day

I must have a crazy moment when I thought this was a good idea. High Intensity Day 45 seconds on 1 minute rest Pullups: I have a bungie cord(extra,extra Heavey Duty) that I stand on that allows me to do kipping pullups and provides just enough energy to help me pullup correctly but not enough to do the work for me. It’s great when working for time. Plank Pose: Holding 1 leg stra

I must have a crazy moment when I thought this was a good idea.

High Intensity Day

45 seconds on 1 minute rest

Pullups:
I have a bungie cord(extra,extra Heavey Duty) that I stand on that allows me to do kipping pullups and provides just enough energy to help me pullup correctly but not enough to do the work for me. It’s great when working for time.

Plank Pose:
Holding 1 leg straight out and squeezing the lower body pushing the raised foot to the wall is harder than it looks.

One leggeed squats:
How many reps can you get in 45 seconds? More than I thought and More than I wanted. Worked on trying NOT to roll back into a spinal rock and use that momentum to propell me upwards. On the right leg I just work on on squatting down into a good postion.

Elevated Plank:
Took my gym rings and hung them so I could place my feet in them and settling into a good plank pose, drew the knees to the ches oras faras I could without raising the hips. Quite the burn there.

All in all I would have to say:
RPE was a 9
RPT overall was a 6
RPD a 4

I wanted 4 sets but only managed 2. I think the windshield won today but I do like this format for Intensity level. It gives me one day to work on form and another to crank it up.

Cool Down was Locus Pose , Sleeping Warrior, Wind Removing Pose, and Camel Pose all held for a minute each.

 

Gatalop 2009 Yoga on the Fort

The weekend at Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island Alabama was great. I’m still drained physically from the event. . Friday started with yoga with my friend Maragrete. We just call her Greet. She’s a yogini and dancer as well as a new SCA fighter. Yoga was fun and relaxed. Warmed up with a few Sun Salutations and then moved into the play portion. While not trying to one up each other it was an opportunity to show off what we had been working on. I demonstrated my one legged squats (with only one leg) and Spider Monkey Flow. Greet showed off her Crow Pose and variations. She made it look to easy. Then I demonstrated Flow Fit with her which she loved. Saturday was fighting in and around the fort. Great fun until my elbow, which I’m convinced is tendonitis, flared up. I stopped and medicated so I could some pick up fights that afternoon. I wound up fining a massage therapist who helped it a lot. It’s weird. It only aggravates itself when I’m using a two handed weapon. Single sword doesn’t hurt it at all.

Monday at yoga class, we also worked on Crow and I got some excellent pointers on it. I think it will defiantly help. After Class I asked my teacher about compensation for tennis elbow. I’ve had a case of it before and it really didn’t feel the way it does now. After looking at my Cobra Pose, she said I was turning my elbow pits to far forward and I was hyper-flexible in the joint and that may be a contributing factor. Today, still feeling a little run down so it was some Intu-Flow and light yoga and walking.

 Kind of irritated at the slow recovery rate, I shouldn’t feel this tired still after the weekend. I’m pretty sure there are many factors involved: Intense and somewhat violent Activity. Movements that while familiar and second nature, I haven’t done in a while. Lack of rest, Dehydration, and being off of my regular feed didn’t help much as well. I defiantly see a ballistic HIIT cycle in my near future. Oh and PT test this weekend. YAY!!!!!

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day.

This one was too good to pass up.

Don’t let your muscles lie to you; you’ll get better results if you keep good form. As muscles fatigue, you cannibalize mental function, allowing gross motor function to dominate performance. But exercise is a high skill. Go as far as your technique can hold. Farther is a waste and danger. Exercise is an act of meditation under chaos. Hold the technique in your mind and body so the spirit can push to its unlimited depth.  —-   Scott Sonnon

Yesterday and today’s workouts.

Yesterday:

 

Cold this morning!! I love working out outside. For somereason the colder air makes it more fun. Probably because in the heat I sweat so much I worry about swing Clubbells and they become a missle due to hydroplaning. It give a new meaning to the term Ballisitc swings.

ANyway today is skill day. so it’s pullups, one legged squats and core work specifically plank and more plank.

Pullups: My pullup bar at home is High enough that even standing on my plyobox I have to jump up to grab the bar. Really focuses on packing the shoulders and that everything was in good form when I jumped to the bar. Held for 3 seconds then lower back down. A little different that what I’d been doing but I didn’t jack the elbow up much.
5 resp for 5 set

RPT 6,6,6,6,6
RPE 8,8,8,8,8
RPD 3,3,3,3,3

1-legged squats.: Leg still wants to turn inward so my energy is going up and to the side inseade of straight up. THe cossack squats help bu I’m thinking I need to work on my shinbox swithc two tho compensate for the inner turn.

RPT 7,7,7,7,7
RPE 8,8,8,8,8
RPD 3,3,3,4,5(due to frusstration)

Plank. Starting to hold it for time. Liftng one leg of the ground doeans’t sound like much but try it for a set time.
Crow work: I place my feet in a rope to elevate the feet more and then get into a Crow Pose. Went 5 sets of 10 for this one.

RPT 8,8,8,8,8
RPE 8,8,8,8,8
RPD 3,3,3,3,3

Cool Down>
Sleeping warrior , Locus pose and Reveolved head to knee progression.

************************************************************************

Today:

APFT Training Day.

Yesterday wsa a good day A litte bit of fatigue crept up on me last night right before bed so I madesure I got plenty of rest. Woke up raring to go.

5 circuits of 10 reps.

Forward Eliptical out of DownDog

Reverse Eliptical out of Down Dog.

Gymtastic Core Work Level 2

30 minutes on Treadmill.

Compensatory cooldown:

Locus pose, Camel Pose, Forward Fold, Seated Spinal Twist.

Felt Great this morning. Forward Pressure is coming along no shoulder pain. Still some tension in the elbows from yesterday but noting serious. Hence the Locus Pose.

Core work still sucks but I can tell the endurance is increasing. I have to make sure I balance out the front plane work with some back plane compensation.

Pulling Your Own Weight

Since I’m working on perfecting my Pullups, or at least performing them struggle free, as you can read here on this site, I thought I would  bring up this article that was written for the RMAX magazine a few years ago by RMAX Faculty Head Coach Joe Wilson, on how to prefect the pullup.

Joe is one of the most “Up” people you’ll ever meet. A world champ Martial Artist, SuperCop and SuperHero. 

CST Coach Jeff Larson over at LyonHart Fitness recently conducted an interview with Joe.

Part 1 http://www.lyonhartfitness.com/home/2009/09/do-you-know-joe-part-i-rmax-faculty-head-coach-joe-wilson.html

Part 2 http://www.lyonhartfitness.com/home/2009/09/do-you-know-joe-part-ii.html

 Enjoy!

 

Pulling Your Own Weight

I am a big fan of pull-ups (or chin-ups if you rather). The reason is really quite simple, other than being a fabulous exercise that works almost every muscle in the upper body, I could not do them for years. In fact, for years I thought that I could not and would not ever do pull-ups. The reason was the same one that I never thought would run, I had doctors and “experts” tell me I could not.

A little history

I have broken my right arm 3 times, when I was 4, when I was 8, and when I was 12. Trust at 16 I was very careful. The second break at 8 years old was probably the worst. I fell off a brick fence and had a compound fracture of the elbow. The bone actually came out of my skin. It was gross and it left me with a permanently hyper extended elbow. Some coaches and instructors have noticed that my swipes look a bit weird on my right side, and they are right. Even with perfect form my elbow sticks out a bit, but so be it. Because of the hyper-extension most exercise involving pulling or curling have always caused me much pain. (As a side note the chronic pain in my elbow completely subsided after 3 months of daily Intu-Flow® sessions). As a result of the pain, I never ventured to get good at pull-ups. Because I have been involved in organized martial arts since I was a tot, push-ups have always been in my life. With lots o push-ups and no pull-ups I had all sorts of muscle imbalance issues but that is another article.

Over coming obstacles

when I went through the police academy in 97 I graduated with 6 good pull-ups. That was more than I had ever done and in retrospect, they were not that good. So I got mad and got a little educated and went to work. I found that if I kept my hands supinated (palms facing m-this is usually referred to as a chin-up) I did not have as much pain because the elbow was not in as much of a strained position as it was with a Pronated (palms out Pull-up) grip. (Interesting side note again-now several years into a dpp of Intu-Flow® I can do pull-ups with either grip with no pain…thanks Coach). Once I found Intu-Flow® and a grip that worked I went to work. Fast forward a few years I know can do pull-ups at will with any grip. I do weighted pull-ups, kipping pull-ups, plyometric pull-ups and all sorts of fun things that Coach challenges me to do. What follows is a break down of one or two ways to develop pull-ups. This is not exactly how I did it, because I played with so many protocols and programs that it hindered me. If you follow the basic tenets of CST and remember that all strength (and in my opinion all agility-flexibility-speed-reflexes) is a skill. Incremental progression is the key. Developing the SKILL of a pull-up is essential. You cannot “work out” with something that you cannot perform correctly. Remember we need a RPT of 8 or higher and rpd of 3 or lower before we can push to rpe of 6 or higher. This is not the only way to go. I know at least 4 or 5 different protocols that I have used successfully with clients to achieve pull-ups goals. This is meant to be a basic outline for those that are after that coveted first clean pull-up. In my opinion once you can do one, you are there, and the rest is just details. So I am writing this assuming that you cannot do one clean pull-up with your bodyweight. So let’s develop the skill and start pulling ourselves up.

I will not be making time recommendations because everyone is different. You should stay with each progression until you have the confidence to move forward. Remember we want to be uncomfortable. DO NOT wait until one progression is easy! It may never get easy. Once you can perform it properly start to sophisticate.

First, let me give you my opinion of pull-down on a lat machine…don’t do them. I am simple minded I think that pull-downs do not really help with pull-ups. The neuro-physiological reasons why chin-ups are superior to pull downs are beyond the scope of this article. But to put it briefly: a classic example of the difference between chin-ups and pull downs is the fact that a chin-up is a close-chain exercise (body moves towards resistance) and a lat pull down is an open chain exercise (resistance moves towards the body).
These two types of exercise (open vs. close chain) require completely different recruitment patterns although the exercises may look similar visually. But the fact that is clear, chins work more muscles in better and safer way than pull-downs.

Your most basic chin-up is the supinated chin-up. This type of chin-up has the great range of motion and is great to start with. The starting position begins with a bar grasp in a supinated or palms up position. The hands should be held at shoulder width or slightly narrower. The arms should be straightened in a fully extended position with the torso in line with the upper arms. To begin the ascent, the relatively strong upper back and elbow flexor muscles will be used, as the elbows are drawn down and back. The ascent should continue until the chin clears the bar. It’s important to remember that before initiating the ascent, the athlete should inhale. During the ascent, the pulling action and leaning back action must be done simultaneously. Upon descent the trunk should come back to an upright position. As the descent is completed, the arms should be fully extended and the shoulder blade should be elevated. The legs should stay in line with the torso as much as possible.

The Dead Hang
If you cannot pull yourself up then we must start with the basic and weakest link, the grip. I encourage most people that cannot do one rep to begin by hanging from a bar.
1. Pick a grip that is comfortable
2. Find a bar that is not too high, ideally you can stand on you tip toes and get a full grip, or you have to bend your knees to hang as in a door way bar. It is important to feel safe.
3. Once you have your grip, exhale and just hang. Feel your spine releasing and your shoulder unpacking. This is a wonderful thing to do for your spine even if pull-ups are not in your future. You want to hang and decompress your spine. You will also be working your grip like crazy.
4. I think a good time limit to shoot for is 60 seconds (although 30 seconds is plenty for many people) You could do 5 sets of 15 second hold with 15 second rest and be done in no time.
5. The key is to increase time as you go. Once you are at your target let’s move on.

The Isometric Hold
Next we will be doing some muscle work so pay attention to your recovery. Most of the work will be isometric in this phase, so recovery should not take long, but still pay attention to your body. Isometrics means pitting your muscles against an immovable object and holding for a period of time – usually for a slow count of 10.
I encourage two positions of isometric hold for people.

1. With you chin above the bar as if you have just completed the first part of the exercise. It does not mater how you get you chin above the bar, but once you are in that position make sure you are hanging and hold it for a count of 10.
http://media.putfile.com/hanging-

2. With you arms at a 90degree angle hold your body in the air for a count of 10.
Again with sets and reps it is up to you, I generally encourage between 2 and 3. I do not think that you should spend that long on isometrics.
http://media.putfile.com/iso-hold90
Generally within a week or two you should be able to move on to negatives.

Negatives
If you cannot do any pull-ups, you should try “negatives”. Negatives are half pull-ups. All you have to do is get your chin over the bar by standing on something or having spotter push you over the bar. Then, you slowly lower yourself all the way down – let your arms hang grasping the bar fully stretched. Keep your feet up and fight gravity for a count of 5 seconds. This will get your arms used to supporting your weight. Negatives can take a lot out of you may require some recovery, so again listen to your body. So far this is the most strenuous thing you have done, so you may start to really feel some DOMS on this. It is normal and part of the process. BECAUSE OF THE STRAIN on the muscles I usually only suggest 2 sets of negatives. Do as many as you can stop just before you reach muscular failure.
http://media.putfile.com/negative

Assisted Pull-ups

This progression starts with the athlete hanging from the chin-up bar. The knees should be bent. Then a spotter should support the athlete at the ankles during the ascent. If extra assistance is required during this phase, the athlete can extend the legs against the spotter’s base of support. (You may use a stool or chair for your spotter as in the video, but be careful).
http://media.putfile.com/2footassist

In the next progression, the same position is used, but this time only one ankle should be in the spotter’s hands. The extra weight of the free leg will increase the overload on the muscles, providing you are overcompensating with the other leg.
http://media.putfile.com/1foot
That is the reason a good spotter who gives you just enough help at the waist is a much better alternative. Next position is the same, but this time the spotter will hold the waist. As the athlete strengthens, he or she will require assistance only in certain parts of the range of motion.
http://media.putfile.com/waiste-help

During this portion of the movement, the spotter should offer only enough assistance to help in clearing the bar.
Once to this point, the athlete will be able to perform the full range of movement without any assistance.

The Pull-up
http://media.putfile.com/wwwmemphismartialartscom-Camron-Sawczyn-Pull-ups
http://media.putfile.com/full-rep
http://media.putfile.com/L-seat
http://media.putfile.com/wwwmemphismartialartscom-Joe-Wilson-pull-up-l-seats
take your time and spend as much time on each progression as you need. It is all about incremental progression. You can do it. Good Luck! Smile

Prasara Yoga Friday

Turns out that yesterday I neededthe rest after all. Woke up feeling tired not fully rested so I just did my regular Intu-Flow® practice.

Today was Prasra specifically Diving Dolphin and Spider Monkey. Still some tightness in my hips and ankles onthe Long leg creep in DD BUT, my Crow Pose is improving. Heck I can remember when I couldn’t get my Knees up on my elbow and now I’m working to elevating the hips and getting a pause in the air a before dropping (slowly)into Upward Dog really digging into the core.

Developing some tension in the shoulders again thats hindering the Wheel. It takes a LONG time to get the shoulders and lower back warmed up enough to make the wheel easy.

Got some cooler weather onthe way Finally. With it drying out, I can get out onthe deck and really hit the Prasra. Workout area at work is cramped and I cover a LOT of area when I work Prasara. Sometimes I wonder if the 12×16 ft deck is big enough.

APFT training today

APFT Prep Today

Good day today. Embraced the suck!

Good Warmup with Intu-Flow® and some light vinyasa flow.

5 sets of 10 reps with 30 sec rest between rounds.

Forward Ellipticals Front and back 10 each (20 Total)
RPE 8,8,8,8,8
RPT 9,9,9,9,9
RPD 3,3,3,3,3

Gymtastic Core work level 2
RPE 8,8,8,8,8
RPT 9,9,8,8,7
RPD 3,3,3,4,4

Core worked sucked. I embracced it.

tread mill. 25 minutes walk @ 14:00 a mile pace

Cool Down: Pigeon, Twisted Scorpion pose, child Pose and Camel. All held for 1 minute.

It’s difficult finding that right balance between the skills I want to work on and the work I need for my APFT.But I only have to go three more weeks until the test. I figure 2 days a week each with some good rest and Prasara thrown in will work. I do have to watch to make sur ei don’t over train but as I usually take the weekends “off” for training, it seems to work out