Wednesday, August 26

I tried some jumps yesterday, trying to jump my hips above my waist, and putting my weight on my arms. That really hurt my wrist, so I quit. I really hope I'm doing the right thing babying it... I'm kind of afraid that I'm babying it too much and I should be working it harder.

Randomly throughout the day I did jumps attempting to touch the ceiling, not just brush the tips of my fingers on it. I got there once.

After work and an intense house-cleaning session, we kids got permission to go to the park! I ran, but couldn't breathe by the time I reached the park. Last time I ran I could make it to the park and around it once before being that breathless. Cautiously played a little hoops with my youngest brother, then led him and my youngest sister balancing on the edge of the short wooden wall around the playground. I went as fast as I could. I tried running for a little, but I couldn't keep my balance that way. I think we went around 6 or 7 times. I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to keep my balance when turning corners quickly. Thinking about it now, it makes sense. 

I conquered something tonight! There's a jump at the park I've been trying to make for a few months (not that I get there much). It's probably 2 1/2 feet across and maybe a foot high? From the wooden border around the playground to a park bench. It's really not a big deal, but whenever I try to do it, all I can see is me missing it and banging my shins, or twisting my ankle, or going too far forward and hurting myself on the back, etc. I made that jump today, and six more times. After the first 3 times I managed to land it almost silently too! I wanted to do it more, but we had to get home. If I get to walk home from work tomorrow, I intend to stop there and nail it a few more times.

We took the long way home in order to drop a brother off for dog sitting duties. I ran twice more, concentrating on breath control. I haven't figured anything out that lets me continue for any length of time. I also worked on pushing forward with my feet, not up so much. I've noticed before that I can take much longer steps and go faster, but I keep blocking myself from that because I have this fear I won't be able to move my legs fast enough to keep up, or miss a step or something, and will land on my face.

Also did some backward rolls. After several failed attempts I managed to complete one, landing on both knees, not some kind of sideways, one kneed thing. That got my wrist hurting again. 

Thanks a million, Carolyn! 

Thursday, August 28

Sleep: 8 hours.  That's plenty of sleep, but I felt sleepy and tired all day long anyway. 

Pretty much a rest day.

Did 2 rounds of:
13 calf raises
13 shin raises
13 calf raises with toes out
13 shin raises with toes out
13 claf raises with toes in
13 shin raises with toes in

+ More jumping to touch the ceiling. It was all barefoot jumping. I couldn't manage to jump as high as I could the day before.

Your joints and such will thank you better if you focus on proper diet to help you drop the weight (if you're not doing that already).

It would probably be a good idea to also focus on a baseline workout program a couple times a week (maybe APK WOD or something) in addition to your training.

On diet:
http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php?topic=12681.60

Wednesday, September 2

Got up early this morning. Did NOT want to get up, but did it anyway. Hadn't eaten anything but two packets of saltines since 2:00pm yesterday, so I grabbed a stalk of celery while I was getting dressed (It's the only vegetable I could find besides carrots).
Ran/walked, according to my pedometer, 1.13 miles in 23 minutes. Took a different route this morning. Did more running vs. walking than I did last time. Still haven't figured out a breathing pattern that works. Worked on keeping my feet pointed straight, and not swinging my arms sideways. Was about 300 meters from home when I thought I was going to pass out from dizziness, and wanted to do nothing more than collapse on the sidewalk and throw up. I had to get home before dad got up and found out I wasn't there, so I didn't take a break, but kept going. I don't think I've been so hot in my life! My neck and right arm hurt really bad. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong there... I threw up twice and dry heaved a few times, then lay on the tile floor because it was cool. Maybe eating celery before running is a bad idea? I felt like I had a really bad case of the flu. Ended up semi-sleeping for an hour, and got in trouble anyway for sleeping in so long. :\
A good thing from it, stumbled across a piece of a concrete barrier that is the perfect height for me to try to vault! Plus, it's not in a terribly visible place, so I won't feel like the whole world's watching me.

I did a modified version of the APK WOD. I tried negative pullups the first two minutes, but that wasn't really working. If I use the boy's bunk beds, I can do inverted rows (I think that's what it's called?) with my knees at a 90 degree angle, and pulling chest to the bottom of the top bunk, so I switched to that.

First minute: 1 negative pullup
Second: 2 negative pullups
Third:  3 inverted rows
Fourth: 4 inverted rows
Fifth: 5 inverted rows
Sixth: 5 inverted rows (Terrible form here. Actually only finished 2).
Seventh: 1 inverted row
Eighth: 2 inverted rows
Ninth: 2 1/2 inverted rows (couldn't get myself up all the way)
Tenth: 1 inverted row (That was HARD!)

5 crackers to settle my stomach
1/2 cups oats (I didn't have time to cook them or anything) with 1/2 cup milk and lots of cinnamon, + 1 cup green tea.
Tuna salad without mayonnaise on lettuce.
Grapes
Hamburger patty made with mushroom, olives and oats added + beans.

Thursday, September 3

No workout to report.  I Really wanted to try that 10 x 100 meter run to see if I could do it, but didn't get done with everything early enough to get to it.

Food:
Granola
Zucchini peelings from a project my sister was doing.
2 cups spinach boiled in a small amount of water with an egg mixed in. Ate everything including the juice.
Handful of pepper-jack cheeze-its. Wow! I've been craving bread stuff the last two days, and those tasted sooooo good! I thoroughly enjoyed that!

Wow! 'Sbeen a whole week. I don't think I'm gonna be able to remember it all...

Stuck pretty much to diet (ended up with more starch than I ought to have, but not a terrible lot) until Saturday. I always blow it on the weekends. 

Ran a few times with my youngest siblings around 10:00 at night. One night ran 200 meters in my socks. The first several steps were GREAT! I felt free-er and lighter than I have in a looooong time. I think I LOVE shoe-less running, but I had to quit because it felt like the balls of my feet were getting sanded off. Also noted: Running on my own, I feel breathless almost immediately, trying to find a breathing pattern. Running with other people, I don't feel breathless as soon, because I'm not even thinking about breathing, but about beating my younger brother to the light post or something.

Left knee has bothered me all week. I have to make sure my leg is aligned in a straight line, nothing twisted pointing a slightly different direction or anything, every time I step or my knee really hurts. My right knee is starting to hurt today. I guess I'll take it easy on the running and possibly walking this week.

Got to the chiropractor Wednesday to get my wrist fixed. I went then because I wasn't supposed to have to work for the next two days, but had to work the next day anyway. I wore a brace though, and was very careful not to do too much with it. Still ended up hurting at the end of the shift. It is a lot better now. I'm being cautious, slowly adding the amount of weight I put on it. I REALLY don't want to have to do that again!

The weather is starting to cool down, and it was cloudy yesterday. I think it's only supposed to be in the 90s this week. My ankles, especially the left one, get very achy when the weather changes. I'm hoping the exercises I've been doing will have helped, and they won't be so painful this year.

Worked on knees to elbows this week. Yeah... not even close. At first I was trying to do them from a dead hang. I can get farther (I think) if I hang with my arms bent.

Also, did a little light pushup work. I had read about how squeezing the glutes can help with alot of stuff. Sure enough, they make my pushups easier somehow, like I'm a little lighter or something?

Really, really, really looking forward to October 3-10. It's family camping time! Outside all day, every day, with lots of hiking, running, etc.! There's bear lockers to jump on and off, and fire pits to precision on... I can't wait! Only problem for me: I ALWAYS get poison oak when we camp. Always. Nothing I do as preventive measures seems to work.  Last time I work two long sleeved shirts, and long pants tucked into two pairs of socks all the time. I STILL somehow managed to get a little, plus a lot of heat rash. 

Most exciting this week, I measured myself. We don't have a working scale. We have two, but one says I weigh 160 lbs, which can't possibly be right. The other says I'm 250 lbs., which, I certainly hope is not right!! I wrote down my measurements in April, but I lost the paper. If I remember those right, I've lost 3 inches from my waist, 8 from my hips, and 2 or 3 from my thighs and chest area. I'm so happy!! I have noticed that my sleeves are getting looser, and my skirts don't stay up so well/go on easier.

Hey first off, i am very impressed with your logged improvement.  It is kinda nice when you can read back and see improvement.  good job with the improvisations. I definiatly understand you on the need to do that.


I started this stuff about 2 weeks ago so i am by no means an expert in the Parkour side of things, but after spending the past 5 years in the army and another 4 before that at a Military College i can give you some work out advice, as i have had to do it myself, and have had to train others.

I just spent the past 33mins reading your entire log so i am sorry if some of this advice is outdated.

on the diet thing, something to remember, the key to any diet is moderation.  you shouldn't feel guilty every time you have a unhealthy snack, it will only drive your morale down.  I am often limited to my choices of meals because of where i am, but the trick is finding a diet that meets your needs and something you can live with.  Over here food is considered a comfort, not "over indulging" in bad things is key.  I do a pretty strict diet of a full breakfast <light on the greasier things...but god do i love bacon!>, salads for lunch with tuna or ham, and i try and eat a small snack every two hours <either a protein bar, or a healthy granola bar, and drinking plenty of water with each snack. you will be surprised how much it will fill you up and how much smaller your portions will need to be for the bigger meals.  stick with it, and keep yourself accountable.  you are doing this for you.

The negitive pullups are a great way to build your pullup strength,  count to five as you lower yourself,  figure out how many you can do w/o stopping.  take that number divide by 2.  now throughout the day, when every you get the opportunity <at least 3 times a day>  do that number.  it is called greasing the groove.  you will be amazed at how easy they become.  when i first started College i could only do about 5, we had a pull-up bar at our barracks between my room and the bathroom.  so every time i had to walk outside to go, i would do some pull ups, i don't have a small bladder by anymeans, but it was enough that by the end of 4 months i had increased to 13 and by the end of the year i was at 18.  now 8 years later i can do the 30pullups required for the APK warm up with no real problems.  but it takes practice and time.

for the pushups <I know Alot about these>  doing drills is one of the best exercises for improvement on them.  one of the ways i improved was the 2 minute drills  for example if you can 30 you would break that number up into 3 parts:  15,10,5  during the commas you rest shake out your arms whatever you need to do to loosen them up.
if you can only do 10 try this break down,  5,3,2  once you can complete this drill no problem move up to 15 total  8,5,2  and keep progressing by 5 <this may take several days  once again it works best if you do this drill at least 3 times throughout the day.  if you can only do them on your knees do the same drill, but once you can do 50 knee push ups,  go to regular push ups.


you had a question about distance... the best thing to find distance is to get a pace count.  if you have a football field or the ability measure 100 meters or yards. walk that distance twice <there and back>  count each step. take both those numbers average them together.  divide it by 100 and you will get how many steps you take will equal a meter.  you can do the same thing running. but you have to remember running pace count is only good a light jog other you will tire yourself out and slow down and take smaller steps.


Dont worry about being able to do everything from the start.  You will show more progress if you focus on conditioning your body first, and then attempt the "cool stuff" later.  this is not saying dont work on the basics, but slow down on the vaults that could get you hurt, or handstands if you are still working on basics.  when i tell people that look at me crazy because of the exercises i am doing <after explaining to them for about 5 minutes what parkour is> they say well show me climb up this wall, do a back flip or something like that.  I explain to them asking me to do something like that is like asking someone who jsut started training for the Boston marathon to run a full marathon.  People train up for a reason.
I hope some of this helps