American Parkour

Joe,

Here are my 2 cents:

I used to do a ton of skull crushers back in my bodybuilding days... after a loooong absence (15+ years) and having resumed training 4 years ago, I have never needed to isolate training for the triceps; bear with me while I digress a bit to make a point on awesome dips are.

These are my press and bench press records, which are probably not a big deal, but bear in mind I'll be 40 in a couple of months:

bench press: 330#
press: 195#

Not superstar marks by any stretch of the imagination, but interesting nonetheless because of the fact that when I was in my 20s, my training revolved around maximizing the bench press (I used to compete), but back then, despite being much younger, my record was 20# lighter at 310#.

Before I used to train Bench every 5 days, and I did a massive amount of isolated tricep exercises, having skull crushers at its core.

Nowadays I will train bench once every other week, alternating with flies (solely for aesthetic purposes), inclined flies once a week, press once a week and do weighted ring dips once a week.

The irony is, I train much less than I did back when I was in my 20s, and although my training really revolves around squatting, I haven't stagnated. I think the fact that I'm training less has a lot to do with it (resting more), but I also think the dips have played an enormous role in this. Just food for thought

Often times, the way to overcome fear is to break it down into a progression.

For instance, if you fear a 6' drop, try a 2', then a 4', then a 5' a few times... now 6' doesn't sound that bad anymore, does it?

For precisions, I take wooden blocks, place them 4' apart, and gradually increase distance. Now, blocks are only 4'' high, so... well, find something 1' high, then 2'... see a pattern emerging here?

My squat goes up 20 lbs when I listen to ACDC... just thought I'd throw that out there :-P

On a more serious note, I read this article about a month ago and decided to incorporate it into my training.

I train with a friend who had been trailing me in strength for a long time. I devised a plan where I'd increase his squat weight by 10 lbs, and I'd drop mine by 10 lbs (we were both doing 5x5). The idea was, we would now squat the same weight and would compete for reps...

If I did 6 reps, he would have to do 7 on his next set. We followed the same approach with Press, Deadlift, Box-Jumps (for reps), etc., all of which I had greater training on and up to the change could outperform him on.

My expectation was that he'd continue to trail me by a rep or two on each set. Much to my surprise, not only did he give me a huge run for my money, now I am the one playing catch-up!

The good thing is that now I am the one who's ramping up my reps on everything.

Ultimately, we both have been learning that tapping into the competitive aspects of your brain can give you a huge boost, not only in training, but pretty much in everything you do!

I went to school with him (graduated a couple of years ahead of him), and remember thinking "This poor kid".

His heart and soul are so strong, he has become an icon in Venezuela. He has taught us all a lesson that, no matter how grim the prospects, no matter what others may think, if you believe, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to!

I'm feeling better, guys. I did some tuck planches today, and to my amazement, I can hold them longer now due to losing about 6 pounds (went from 156 to 150) Thanks for all the support, fellas.

Good job! It's a start. Just remember, there are bad days, but they're always followed by better ones ;-)

I'd be worried about overloading your central nervous system with so many deadlifts.

I don't know how long you've been practicing this routine, but you want to be weary of fatigue in your spinal erectors, especially given your squat goals.

I used to squat 3 times a week. After a few months of doing this, I actually began to really shy away from it. Reason being, I found I was losing the mental edge to push myself through a heavy set. Part of the reason why is because my core was so beat up, I felt it simply wouldn't sustain me through more reps on the heavier weights; this was through a routine that had very little deadlift in it (maybe once every two weeks).

Mental fatigue will play a huge role in your training, especially because, from what I am reading, dumping the weights upon failure doesn't seem to be an option for you... probably because you are using metal plates with a squat rack, as opposed to using bumpers and/or a power rack. You will shy away from pushing yourself through that additional rep, or adding the additional 5 lbs.

As mental fatigue begins to kick in over the course of several weeks of exposure to this volume, you will find yourself actually dropping weight and not even knowing why. You simply won't feel the confidence to pull off the heavier lifts.

I would keep the squats on mondays and wednesdays, and if you feel you must, deadlift every friday. Or better yet, deadlift every 10 days, so if last week you deadlifted on a monday, this week you will deadlift on wednesday and squat the other two days.

I've always jogged on and off, so cardio is already taken care of.

The word "Cardio" just kills me. The most obvious reason for that is, if you think about what your bodies response to "Cardio"-like exercises, such as Jogging, Rowing, Elliptical, etc, and you compare it to your body's response after you've done a 200m dash with some connecting vaults, you'll pretty much understand that jogging doesn't quite do the trick

The reason for that is, jogging covers a completely different metabolic pathway than more explosive type exercises, such as interconnecting vaults, running, etc.

David- Thank you. Have you ever lost the ability to feel music, and can it be gained back?

DJ, have you studied music?

The feel for music comes and goes, especially if you stick to the same type of music. It will come if you can relate to what the music is conveying/expressing, and, because you are constantly evolving in life, it will go away once you are transitioning to a new phase.

A good example is, I used to listen to Metallica a lot. Now I listen to it and feel completely alienated.

Often times, I get tired and bored of the same music and stop listening to it for a while. Then I'll pick it up years later and it really hits home.

In the case of your own music, sometimes you can be too distanced from yourself and your own feelings to convey what it is your feeling, and sometimes you simply haven't practiced enough or studied enough to bring out what you have inside.

As with anything, rather than insisting, it's best to step away for some time and come back to it when you feel ready. Everyone goes through this.

I never feel successful because I never actually define success. I just keep raising the bar.

I don't know about this "Fear of success". I recently heard a politician say something along the lines of "I have been successful in everything I set out to do", and my first though was "Wow, that guy must be really successful", but after thinking it through for about 2 minutes, I thought "Yeah, that guy is a real loser"

Why did I think that?

It boils down to what success is and how we approach it. Success is, in its core, setting out to accomplish an objective and succeeding. It is said that if you are unsuccessful, either a) Your goal was unrealistic, or b) you didn't carry out a good strategy to accomplish your objective. That politician probably never set the bar very high, so he would never fail, or maybe he did fail and just twisted the facts a bit (as we know politicians do)

Further thoughts delved into "Well, if you're always successful, you aren't really challenging yourself", and "If you're consistently failing, then you really are".

Then those thoughts grew into... "Chances are, the brightest, most innovative people, set off objectives by establishing how far they can realistically take their goals, and then think how to take it one step further".

Those who do this, flirt with failure all the time. Success is just a passing reward that fuels the desire to take things one step further. Sound familiar?

So, it's not success you fear, it's failure. What you have to be weary of is, sometimes you desire something so intensely that your every thought is consumed by achieving it. Because it is so important to you, you end up elevating that goal to a height that you perceive as beyond your reach.

Jericho will be hard-core into Parkour.... BOOYAH!!!