Sorry for the lack of updates! Things have been crazy busy lately, so I've had little time to sleep let alone update this log. Anyways, I'll try to give a quick recap of everything that I did over Thanksgiving break. I've eaten far too much to remember over the weekend, so I'll leave my diet out of this post. Suffice it to say that I was genuinely full for the first time in a long time. Also, being home really helped me catch up on sleep. It's scary how little I've been sleeping lately.
11-28-08 through 11-29-08
Nothing structured, but this was the day that I built my parallettes! I probably did about 4 hours of collective work on them. Specifically, I worked on L-sits, tucked planche holds, shoulder stands, planche to shoulder stand presses, and handstand push ups. I think the longest I've been able to hold an L-sit is about 5 seconds (I know, pretty lame). Planches have been giving me difficulty on the paralletes, mostly because I can't seem to position my arms correctly. I can do them fine without the parallettes, but the difference in hand positions is really tripping me up. Also, full ROM handstand push ups are extremely difficult. I suppose I'll start drilling them, but I'm not even close at this point. My shoulder stands are alright, although I'd like to get a full handstand press soon. I also did some varied core and upper body exercises throughout the break including hollow holds, praying monkey push ups, one-armed push ups, pull ups, headstand press ups, V-ups, bicycle crunches, and probably a few other things that I'm forgetting.
11-30-08
Some more unstructured parallette training. Not as intense as before, but I'm trying to work on L-sits every day. Met with MIPK for the Sunday session. Not much of a turnout; I ran the session and there were only 2 other people there. We did some light warming up in the areas of Dental that weren't covered in snow or ice. I worked on my flag holds; I'm noticing some definite improvement. After warming up, I moved the group into Chemistry for some indoor training (there was no salt on the sidewalks and no one had plowed anything; I decided it was too dangerous to train outside). It really wasn't much of a session; I gave a few pointers on tic-tacs and wallruns, plotted out a few precision circuits from bench to bench, and drilled some vault flow. I found out that you can precision from handle to handle on the benches, so I worked on that. To end the session, I ran a core and push up circle. We did some basic hollow holds and some leg hold variations, and then we did a circle of 10 push ups.
12-1-08
More varied parallette training. L-sit work, shoulder stands, planche, etc.
12-2-08
Met with MIPK today; it was another low turnout. Before everyone arrived, I worked on my flag holds. Not much improvement there, but it feels better each time I do it. Mike took us to a parking garage where we worked on endurance drills of both strength and mental willpower. It was a cat hang drill, but the gates that we held onto were frozen metal pipes. We moved from rung to rung for as long as we could stand the cold. After that, we did some cardio work on the stairs: jogging up and down, broad jumps down, QM up and down, one foot up each step, traversing. When we came back to ground level, we did some light conditioning: dips, push ups, and squat drills, ab holds, climb ups, pull ups on a chain, precision work, foot placement. When I got back, I did some more conditioning. I did about 5 typewriter pull ups, about half of a typewriter archer, and 10 L-sit pull ups. After that, I did some more parallette work. I actually found a drill that might be useful. It's sort of like an ice-cream maker, but for planches. I did about 10 of those, but I don't think I'm doing the technique correctly. It might take me a little while to figure it out.
Anyways, here's my progress on my holds.
L-Sit: 15 seconds
Tucked-planche: 18 seconds
Tucked front lever: 12 seconds
