Topic: Kria's training journal

[Kria]

Going to keep a little training journal here because i want to look back on it later and 1. see what i did to get wherever i am and 2.remember how it felt getting there.
Comments/suggestions/etc welcome

Current goals/focuses:
*Build up to deadhanging pullup (not assisted or swinging or anything)
     Finally hit a breakthrough here! I still have to curl my whole body up for momentum to get my chin up to the bar but i don't have to jump. Baby steps
*Roll form (NO banging on shoulder bones, drill it into my body so much that when i trip walking i instictually roll out of it xD)
    Taking a few steps back here after some very unsuccessfull rolls on harder surfaces. Going back to the duct tape trick, hehe!
*Vault, vault VAULT! ( Not any specific vault, just moving with vaulting in mind. go back to my railings and counters and experiment more with ways to get over them, every chance I get and every way I can think of. really just a movement experiment, will be better defined later.)
      This will probably include lengthy bathroom breaks during physics to play on the railing coming out of the bleachers
*Tree climbing skills (get better grip and arm strength, be able to climb faster and higher on different sizes and types of tree)
    Climb at least one of the four climbing trees I know of at the moment every day after school. on weekends or if I'm not to tired/late I'll do more, and I'm always looking for different trees to climb.

Main conditioning focuses:
*Strengthen ankles and ankle stabilizers
     Do exercises to strengthen ankle stabilizers and jumping and landing muscles in my shins and calves every day, includes sets of calf and shin   raises (4 sets of 30 shin and 35 calf each throughout the school day) and walking around on inside, outside, toes while flexing and heels of feet (1 1/2 circuit around the house each once a day)
*Upper body
     One assisted pullup with slow letdown every time I walk past the doorway with the bar, dips on the bed frame, and one good tree climb every day after school
Definitly making progress here! Benching max is 25lbs better than last time, I feel more comfortable trusting my arms to move me around doing things like vaults, QM and pullups, and some actual muscles are starting to be defined in my arms instead of all jello xD

 

Completed goals:
*Basic two-handed vault form (more push and straighter direction on exit, no stutter steps or nervousness, sucessfully vault pelvic-bone high railing)
    DONE, 1/30/11! feels so good to finally get over that railing! Still not done with the 2-handed vault though

[Kria]

12/26/10
First day actually getting into town to run around. My dear best friend thinks "you and your par-core" is a little crazy and wasn't shy about telling me that, and it didn't help that i can't really do much yet and kinda brought me down. So i hung out with her little brother part of the day xD He could be a great traceur someday, he's got no fear at all. I felt a little silly running around with a 9-year-old who moves better than i do, but it was fun
When i got home later i noticed my knees feeling a little tired-er than normal, the same feeling i've gotten before after a long ski camp where they're getting overworked. A few years ago after a hard weeklong camp my knees were killing me for weeks and i don't want that, so taking a rest tomorrow from landing and jumping.
So instead i worked my core in the evening (different types of crunches, leg lifts and v-ups) and really got to practicing vaults. i found a sturdy bedside cabinet thingy, about mid-thigh high, moved it out to the middle of the room and just started moving around and over it with my hands. i eventually got some string and strung one string straight out from each corner of the cabinet, to sort of extend the length of the thing i was vaulting over. it had about the shape of a wide, low stone wall. Just worked on basic two-handed vaulting over it, never tore the string down but i feel like I'm lifting my hips more than my legs, and it's stealing most of the momentum. Might get the video camera out next time to see what i need to do.
I'm moving back into good training nutrition, the christmas sugar fest yesterday kinda screwed my system up xD Made an effort to get a real breakfast today(cereal, yea). Lunch was late and i was starving so i had some pizza, but relatively healthy pizza as far as pizza goes, lol. dinner was the good meal of the day. Note to self- drink more water, don't get dehydrated- training day or not.

[Kria]

12/27/10
Had to get up early to drive to the airport to pick up a friend. I spent all day in the car so i didn't get to do much of anything, but i did my core workout in the evening and did some handstands, which i'm normally really bad at but seem to be getting better

12/28/10
Went for a short run/random exploring/balancing on fences thing in the morning. I learned the hard way which types of fences are great to walk and cat balance on and which types will have a log roll sideways and hurl your ass into the snow xD On the way back i went through the fields on the edge of the woods, behind most of the houses, just looking around. I found some places that'll be really fun to train at in the summer! Also did a little bit of core work and really started testing how close i am to deadhang pullups. I'm close to being able to get myself up by swinging, it's a start.
 My knees were still sore yesterday, and since i have to go to a ski race in only a few days i'm going to not do anything with them until after then (skiing with sore knees sucks bad. On that subject, I'm tired of racing and i haven't even been to a race yet. :/ )
I also made a weird little ball out of a pair of socks and just started squeezing hard and rolling it around with my fingers to work on grip and hand strength. It's kinda funny, I've always had better grip than actual arm strength, so i could hang on to something just fine but couldn't pull myself up to save my life xD

[Kria]

12/29/10-1/20/11

These past few weeks it's been eat, ski, school, maybe sleep, repeat. Not much time at all for real training besides some light workouts in track and vault and roll practice whenever i can find it, including the hotel hallway last week- perfect for rolls because it was just a bit less forgiving than grass. I was proud of myself that i wasn't back to square one with rolling even after a two week break from it, i got the form back faster than i thought I would. Also almost faceplanted into the concrete in front of mom, coach, teammate and random elderly couple that same week learning the hard way that monkey faulting is very, very hard when you're wearing a race suit that won't let you bring your knees up high enough xD
On the subject of vaults, I got some accidental proof that I'm close to consistantly getting the two-handed passably right. Two interesting situations kinda forced me to practice them this week- Me and a friend took a wrong turn running on the cross country track and i followed him down a hill through the field and, surprise, over a waist-high chainlink fence to get to the right trail. I hesitated for a second before the thought of vault the fence, stupid jumped in and I did it xD it still feels like I'm lifting hips more than feet but I kept a lot more momentum than usual coming out of it. Also, yeaterday I wound up with two friends chasing me around the front of the school for giving them bunny ears on a yearbook picture (favorite pastime of mine, hehe) and vaulted a small (maybe mid-thigh high) fence two or three times back and forth running around with them after me xD I could actually feel my hand push me foreward on the exit, yesss!
Even if they weren't the best vaults and I want to get the form better, I think it's proof that I'm getting comfortable with the idea of getting over an obstacle using my hands that I can do it without a lot of thinking; all vaulting felt really uncoordinated for me at first.
Still short on time for much real conditioning, but I did my usual core workout and some handstands and QM today.

[Kria]

1/21/11

Finally had a few hours in the afternoon without anything to do and got some serious training done. Started out balancing on my fence, which I'm getting better at both on my feet and cat balancing. It was very windy but i got good at leaning with the wind and not letting it knock me over. Last time i couldn't make it between two posts cat balancing on the fence, this time i got about one and a half before having to bail out and i wasn't wobbling the whole time. I still can't figure out why cat balancing  is so much harder than walking on the bar, it's twice as many limbs to balance your weight between...
Also decided to try and conquer another little mental block of mine connected to vaulting- if it's over the height of the bottom of my pelvic girdle (which is waist high for me, that's where the pants sit lol) then the parkour part of my brain that's developing doesn't see it as vaultable. Even maybe two inches higher, the top of my pelvic bone, its like I can't get over it at all. (I'm my own measuring stick, so pelvic bone, bellybutton, ribcage etc are my measures of height for this kind of thing xD)
Since most railings and stuff are about top-of-pelvic-height, i need to get over this. I found a ground-level balcony railing that's about that height and started two-handed vault progressions trying to get it down. It felt much better after a few tries even though I can't vault it at speed yet, and it seems easier to keep the right form when you HAVE to lift your legs up and sideways the right way. I just seem to have an issue with tapping my  outside leg on the fence, which sometimes lets the inside one drop and I have to pull it through my outside arm and leg to get it over... just gonna keep working it whenever I have time, I guess. Part of that could be needing more jumping and arm power to get myself up there and over. On the subject of conditioning, I had time to really do that today too. Full body;heavy core workout, tuck jumps and pistol progressions, assisted push and pull ups... felt good to really work myself for the first time in a while. Hopefully I'll have more time to do it more often.

Also, random parkour-to-life-philosophy moment: Note for band geeks, thinking like a traceuse can be a big help. "Drill the HELL out of quadripedals high notes. Get down on all fours into your highest register and just MOVE."

[Kria]

1/22/-23/11
At school literally all day on Saturday due to a bit of a communication lapse. No big, i got to chill out and read for a few hours and then watch the homecoming game. I'm really glad i didn't stay for the dance (in my sweats and t-shirt xD) because there'd be no way I could have gotten up the next day to ski.
Sunday, finally got to train slalom all morning and then helped coach the little kid's team in the afternoon. Even though I planned on going home to vault more I'm glad I stayed, it was a lot more fun than i thought it would be!

[Kria]

1/24/11
Back at school for the full week for once! Today was a weightlifting day for track, went pretty well, and after school i pretty much ran around on all fours all evening and did some rolls. I feel so much more coordinated when all fours than when i started, like I can actually get around with some speed instead of tripping over legs that felt twice as long and strong as my arms xD
There also seems to be rumors of a little pull-up contest between the rental shop staff at the ski area. I don't plan on being in it or anything but hey, somebody put a nice pull-up bar in the back doorway so... xD
I still have to jump, curl, and struggle my chin up to the bar but now I can do five or six of those in a row before my arms start to really protest it. I can also let myself down slower and hold the flexed arm a little bit longer in negative pull-ups. Leetle improvements are still progress

1/25/11
Hurdle technique training day for track, which i seem to be getting better at. I'm used to stepping over hurdle-sized stuff just in my house so I'm fairly good at that, but still have a lot of paranoia about catching on the hurdle and falling... also a learned habit from many a faceplant in the kitchen, I'm afraid xD
Because it was a technique day in track, I made today a conditioning day at home. Alternating like that during the week when I'm short on time could work really well, I'll have to see how it goes. Found some new workouts to do and new ways to do them, concentrated a lot on muscle endurance and high reps. Did inclined sit-up things instead of usual curls and v-ups ( a lot easier on my lower back and still works my stomach) squat jumps, push-ups, and ran around the house doing QM and ground kongs.

1/26/11
Another track weightlifting day and a longer run than usual. Even without running super long distances like in cross country I hope my endurance is staying up...
I got home a little earlier that usual and it was still light enough to go check out another cool spot for vaulting that I spotted a few days ago. It’s a big patio on an unoccupied house surrounded by a sturdy wood fence just over waist high. I can vault over one side of it, off a short (maybe 6 inches) drop on the other side, and land on a patch of miraculously snow-free pavement. Since there’s some no-snow concrete there too, I tried rolling but banged my shoulder a few times. And it hurt. When I go back I’m going back to my duct tape trick.
But my two handed vault is getting better. I could actually vault the railing at speed by the end of the session. I had been safety-vaulting it, tapping one foot on the way over, but one time I just had a little more speed going into it and the momentum just flew me over, no foot touch I still have problems with keeping the momentum going out of the vault, but I take off on two feet and try to get a lot of upwards force so that’s probably why.
Now I know that I CAN vault things above my waistline, and with fairly good form, it may be time to tackle that slightly higher and more inclosed railing closer to my house. It was the one I tried to work with the other day but got frustrated with; I think being closed in on both sides and the roof just makes the rail look tall and claustrophobic.

[Kria]

1/27/11
Tried to go do some vaulting, but track totally wore me out and i didn't get anywhere.

1/28/11
Skiing all day, pretty much. I'm still super sore in the glutes from track. My favorite railing to vault was made unavailable today, but i did do some balancing on my fence. Cat balancing = still hard.

1/29/11
YAY. Happy day! Survived a morning of ski training in one piece, came back to an entire afternoon to run around the neighborhood and find... snow. Lots of snow, and very few places to train much It was a nice jog anyway and i did get some good balancing in.
But I also had to test something a friend of mine said about climbing on those big storage trailers. Yes, it's possible, yes, it's fairly easy, and it's fun. It's a little hard to practice real climb-ups because of the weird handholds but I like the feeling of just being up on this big metal box.
Since we had to go back to the ski area to tune skis, I got to spend some time with the delightfully random pull-up bar over the shop door. I finally did a few pull-ups without having to jump! I still start with arms a little curled and have to swing my body up to get there, but I don't need to jump too Slowly cutting back on my little cheats progression methods, getting closer to the deadhang!
I also had some fun vaulting over the shop counter, which is maybe a foot wide and top-of-pelvic-girdle-tall. In theory it should be harder to vault than the railing that's frustrating me, so maybe I can manage that one now! My guidelines for the two-handed vault being checked off as a main goal were to vault that railing with good form and good momentum. Methinks we’re close to the first goal cross-off!
It’s  been a big moral booster today to feel like I’m really getting somewhere with training and that I actually can learn how to do this

[Kria]

1/30/11
FINALLY sucessfully vaulted my problem railing! Also might have discovered something about myself that will help me out later. I had been just doing safety vaults and other progressions for a while, and on one round i just paused for a sec, looking at the railing, wondering what was making it mentally harder to get over than a slightly taller, 3x wider shop counter. Maybe it was how closed in it was, the whole railing section maybe 6ft long, with the house on one side, low balcony roof, pole on the other side. |-|
It kinda looks like a window, I like the idea of it being a little window to slip through the the field outside.
wait... field outside?
and i realize that i never even looked past the railing, through the little window, cuz i was too busy being paranoid about the railing itself. focusing on where I was trying to get to made it so much easier, and I got it the first try when i flicked my eyes up to the field right before I got to the railing.
So, now that I know that I can get over stuff like that, my next step is probably going to be just to play with vaults. nothing specific, just learning how I can move, what feels good and what works- I want to just go jump over a railing for an hour and see what I do, get more comfortable with it. Definitly don't want to get into the mindset of checking off a list of specific vaults as i get them and then forgetting them.

Also got out the digital camra to video rolls. My rolls look and feel pretty good, on the carpet. If i can get lucky enough to find something harder to practice on, hopefully it won't start hurting again... :/

[Kria]

1/31/11
Weight day for track. I seem to have slipped into a permanent state of soreness and tiredness, and i want to get rid of that. Gonna take it easy on conditioning for a day or two to allow for some recovery.

2/1/11
I have officially been snowed in. I don't think it hit 0 degrees once today, all negatives, and storming all day. We did drive into town to spin doughnuts around a big icy parking lot (drivers ED as an excuse FTW!) and i spotted a sweet stone wall/railing'ed steps outside the fire station. possible summer place to train.
I also started on my little vaulting experiment, just going over the back of the couch a little.

2/2/11
Another snow day. I did brave the weather once to see if i could vault my railing in the snow with boots and everything on, and I can't. I did manage to climb up on the storage trailer once, and just sat on it for a while.
Since it was just me and my sister home, i moved the furniture a little to make the whole length of the small couch vaultable, and made it a challenge to not just walk normally around it at all, all day- every pass had to be some sort of vault or jump, and it was awesome! I can't wait to get to the taller railing at school to do more! I also added ankle strengthening exercises as a main conditioning focus- running has given my ankles issues before and i want to prevent that and make the jumping and landing muscles stronger for parkour.
I may have also found a friend to start training with- we'll have to wait and see how this weird little situation goes down tomorrow xD

[Kria]

2/3/11
OK, I seem to have gotten notsick. That's our phrase for when I catch something minor but irritating (common fold FTL) but refuse to admit it. Major pain in the butt, but today seems to have been the worst, hopefully I'll be getting better soon...?
Still had the energy to get out of physics for a while for some vaulting. The one I seem to have issues with on the taller railing is a lazy with the outside leg crossing first (sort of a thief, I believe) where my inside leg likes to catch and force me to bail out of in in a clumsy sort of spin- over...

2/4/11
Band camp time! I couldn't resist, had to vault that same gym railing a few times xD But, just my luck, when i try the thief during lunch I bail it bad and my director (among other people) is watching and laughing. Delightful feeling. /notreally/
Still feeling pretty notsick, and thanks to a stopped up head i could only hear out of one ear for a few hours since the other one refused to pop. And yes, my friends did notice me yawning and pulling strange faces trying to get it to pop xD yea, the band think's I'm weird.
But, afterwards, we stayed at my friend's house for a while and walked over to the elem. school to watch a movie- but I played on the handicapped ramp railing most of the time xD It's an amazing railing, long and not really inclined, and I wish it wasn't snowy outside so I could try balancing and prescisioning on it.
On the  subject of winter, I learned the hard way that you always, ALWAYS check your obstacles; if the temperature is dropping, before every single vault. It was a harmlessly damp patch of sidewalk less than a minute before, then suddenly... ass-busting icerink of a takeoff. Ouch.

[Kria]

2/5/11
Last day of band camp. We were a few minutes early, so i went to check out something I spotted from the bus the other day. The school entrance is surrounded by a stone fence with tall, metal fencing between the pillars, but half-hidden off to one side there's a place with no metal and just stone wall. Yes, I had to vault it once or twice xD
Didn't try to vault the gym railing much after the delightfully public bail yesterday, but i got even mroe time with the cool railing at the elementary school in the afternoon. I'm getting better at two-handeds, trying to work in a split-foot takeoff to make it smoother but still just playing with the feeling of getting over it like that. It took me a long time for that to feel normal at all.
Lazy vaults, on the other hand, I'm fairly good at. I tend to flip my legs out too far and high out of habit, though. Thinking I should drive them over for more speed, like hurdling, maybe...
'out of habit' is something else I realized today... back in midschool, we would play a game on a set of ribcage-high parallell bars called Cricket, which was essentially a lazy vault race in circles around and over the bars xD
Gah, I look back on my midschool years now and hate myself for never using the playground to its full potential... /drama llama moment xD/
Speaking of which, on the elementary school playground, I tried some pullups on the monkey bars, which are higher than the bar in the rental shop. I have to start with my arms straight (still can't get it hanging, but they're straight), so i can't  jump much and it's much harder, but I can get up! I need to swing my legs and core up still, and can only do one or two before the form gets messed up, but its progress Also managed a little bit of conditioning at home in the evening, including my ankle stuff.
Tired, but much less notsick.

[Kria]

2/6/11
Ski training day. Combination of that and still being notsick has made me very tired and not so happy today >.> race training just brings me down so much now. I'm not sure if it's good that I've found something I like better so I can move away from skiing, or bad because knowing that I could be having a lot more fun with my time is just making me grouchy and I'm skiing half-assed at best on almost every run :/
Did manage some rolling practice in the afternoon and my ankle workout.
I'm excited for school (if it doesn't get cancelled, snowing again) so that I can talk to my potential training partner again...

[Kria]

2/7/11
Back in track after all those snow days... running is not fun while still notsick I need to shake this off...
But in the weightroom it was what we call a '5,4,3,2,1 day', which is sort of like a max-out day. And I guess parkour training is helping my upper body more than anything else has yet, because I benched 90lbs with very little assistance when last time I maxed out at 65
I really hated benching for a long time because I genuinly felt very weak trapped under a bar that weighed half of what people half my size could lift... (dumb feeling, i know, everyone progresses differently etc...but ubercompetitive syndrom isn't cured overnight, I guess. And I don't really like the feeling of being stuck laying down under a heavy bar anyway, no matter if I can lift it or not.) It feels great to look back on the last max and how 75 was impossible then, and today that felt light Especially cool when my conditioning is essentially playing around xD gah, I love parkour.
Also did a few rolls (getting better, still on carpet) ran around on all fours a little, and did the usual ankle stabilizer stuff.

[Kria]

2/8/11
school got cancelled early because of the snow. Didn't really get to do any training.

2/9/11
snow day again! Vaulted over the couch a lot and QM'ed around the house- backwards is WAAAYY harder than forwards- and climbed a tree. I got up to about power pole height (yea, there was a power pole right there) and got a lot of snow dropped on my face. Kinda froze my rear off, but it got so stuffy and boring inside that I had to do something.
I did try to make it an upper body thing though, used pullup-like motions to get up to higher branches when there was a gap and stuff... untill my fingers froze. through the thick leather racing mittens xD
Also did ankle stabilizer stuff. it seems to be getting easier to walk around on the insides and outsides of my feet, and maybe a little easier to do calf and shin raises. actually making a point to do it almost every day instead of forgetting or changing the routine constantly seems to be paying off xD

[TraceuseDS]

Yay for tree climbing! I highly approve of this as a form of exercise.

Have you just tried backward and forward QM, or are you mixing other kinds in as well?

[Kria]

Yay for tree climbing! I highly approve of this as a form of exercise.

Have you just tried backward and forward QM, or are you mixing other kinds in as well?

yes! I love climbing trees
I mostly just run around forwards and sort of sideways, different speeds and gaits and stuff to see what gets me around different parts of the house faster, and have been doing "ground kongs" a lot too. I just tried backwards for the first time the other day, I'm suprised at how different it feels.

[Kria]

2/11/11
Another day at home. Bleh. I did a little bit of couch vaulting, but I'm seriously running out of ways to get over that same couch.
I tried to run around outside for a while, but the snow is really deep and it's actually hot outside (yes, weird). It's not exactly awesome trying to hike through the knee-high snow in full snowgear when it's 55 degrees out. I walked dug a path up a hill behind the house, scouting out some possible climbing trees and maybe summer woodland training spots... eesh, when is summer coming again?
I've just been down all day today, partially because of being cooped up and bored and because I have race training the rest of the weekend, and a big race half of the week on into next weekend. It's the last JO qualifyer in Winter Park, and honestly I don't care how I do anymore. This dumb race has been looming over me for a year, I just want it to be over with.
Also walked on my fence for the first time in a while. Got plenty of snow in my shoes, but it was fun anyway xD
I also found something new to train in the house; I can do mini- assisted climb up things and dips on the bunk bed frame fairly well.
And, of course, I did my little ankle strength routine. Glad that that's becoming a habit. I want to try and find something like that for my knees too... landing-related overuse injuries are the very last thing I want to deal with later.

[Kria]

2/12/11
Skiing day in the morning. It was a better training day than usual. 'Better' as in I didn't quit before lunch because I had the attitude of a cat dunked in apple juice, actually stuck it out all day and maybe even managed to have fun with it, like the old days.
Part of it might have been a little idea I had watching the scenery scroll by on the chairlift. After walking around in the woods, I decided that I really, really want to train a lot in the wilderness once my strength and the weather makes it a good idea. Maybe even learn to go from tree to tree without touching the ground, which would be absolutly invaluable to learn how to do. I've loved climbing trees for a long time, I figure it's just some creative, jumpy climbing xD
So, with a (very) long term goal of being able to jump from tree to tree in the woods, I add improve tree climbing skills to my regular goals. Most of what I need is way more grip strength- like seriously badass, rockclimberlike grip strength eventually, hehe- and upper body, I want to get faster (I'm a pretty good climber but I take it very slow) and I want to be able to climb more types and sizes of trees- I can only get up safely and well in a certain type right now.
Training for this ^ is gonna be just climbing- I have four really good trees to climb right now, and I want to get one good climb in every day after school. I climbed 3 of the four today, and my arms and hands are definitly feeling it
While at the ski area, I got to do some pull ups on that random bar in the back room doorway. It's so weird how much easier it is with an underhand grip on the bar- with that grip I can pull with no jump and almost no swinging, up to collarbone height and just hold it, and hold it, and go down at snail's pace and do a few of those in a row. Overhand grip: struggle and curl and maybe get my chin to bar level with no jump. I can still hold the flexed arm hang pretty well, I want to try and time it sometime.
Also did titanuim ankle stuff, but upped it to sets of 35 rep calf raises and 1 1/2 circuts around the house walking on inside, outside, flexing toes, and heels of feet.  Ankles are definitly getting stronger (and hopefully more injury-resistant )

EDIT: hmm, normally I'm pretty good about typing these late so I don't have to edit them for work I did after I posted...
but, I got an idea from an older WOD post about doing pullups with a clock running, doing one pullup the first minute, two the second, three the third, etc. When I saw the post I couldn't actually do it like that because I have no pullup bar (which I really need to get O.o) but I decided to do it with pushups, and instead of minute, I did one the first 20 seconds, two the second 20 seconds, 3 the third, etc. I got to 3:20, a set of 10, before I had to give out because my form was getting bad and arms were dying xD That's still 55 in all, more pushups than I've done in one session before This might be something I try to do every day, I'll try it again tomorrow and see what happens.

[Kria]

2/14/11
Slow day. Very light running in track (uber coach's speech time instead of workout time, hehe) and some vaulting at the elem. school railing. I think I hit on something interesting there- instead of grabbing the bar and lifting myself up and legs over, floating over it, I learned how to drive over it, low and fast, barely clearing the bar but not loosing really any speed. It actually almost felt like I gained speed sometimes. Seems like the trick to it is keeping my head low and weight foreward, and barely grabbing the bar (almost just tapping it) with my hands instead of death gripping it xD A driving two-handed vault like that would be useful for getting over very fast with almost no momentum loss, while the floating one seems more for higher obstacles that I need more lift on. It feels cool to start finding variations and different tricks to simple techniques, like I'm starting to find my own ways to move
Also did ankle workout, as usual. so glad that that's becoming a habit, even heavy running hasn't bothered them so far, like it did this fall. There were a few weeks when I'd go half a mile before I had to limp-walk back to the car and just quit the run. We'll see what happens when track really starts, but I think I'm on the way to my ankles not bothering me again. guess they just need some TLC before I try to make them really work