Dave's GB Log

Never kept a log before, hopefully it'll help me stay dedicated. Started today with the very first WOD - Dec 22 I think.

5 rounds of:

2 - 6 sec flat tuck BL holds(max hold was 12 sec) + 4 inverted chins

Practiced frog stand press(just discovered I could do it the other day)

Did the WOD from Dec 23 tonight

5 sets of:

2-5 sec tuck planche on parallettes + 5 Chest roll - HeS

I've never tried anything like the Chest roll to HeS. At first I wasn't driving my chest down hard enough, and then after smashing my nose into the ground once, I found a nice balance in between. Heel drive is something I haven't had much practice with, but I think I got the hang of it. I found myself arching my back alot to attain full inverted position, not sure if this is the way to do it, but I feel like my lower back got a good workout because of it.

I've got a few short term goals that I hope to accomplish within the next few months. I'd really like to be able to do a solid pistol, I don't have the flexability for it right now, but I'm working on that. I'd also like to get the tuck planche down, strengthen my back and shoulders enough to get my hips higher. Last year when I had a pullup bar in my room, I got strangely close to a OAC, and then lost alot of pullup strength when I moved from that house. Now I have a bar in my apartment, and am hoping to get back to where I was. I can hold a 1 legged front lever for a few seconds, but my back lever is still in the tuck.

After a week or so of the GB WOD I am hoping to add in some Oly lifting too. I don't know yet if I'll build a custom workout or follow CA or maybe some derivation of a SS routine.

Still catching my breath from todays:

4 rounds of

5 walking circles

20 paralette swings(back and forth, trying to extend in front and back, not a great circle sub because I'm not swingin between relaxed shoulders, but its what I could do with the materials I have)

30 seconds of wheels(more like a flailing jumping pushup)

40' Ag walks, I like these, they hurt in spots I've never hurt.

thinkin about goin out to ride the singlespeed for a while, and then perhaps a sit in the hot tub.

Posting for a few days today. After doing this stuff for a week or so I know I'm in the right place.

Friday's workout:

3 ring strength series

4x5 tick tocks(five is the most I could get before my grip was toast)

My Series was this: Begin with 3 sec L hang, 6+ second slow muscle up, 3 second support(rings turned out), 3 sec tuck planche hold(well, sort of), 3 sec L sit, from L sit lower slowly to inverted hang, 3 second 1 leg FL, pull up and over to a 3 sec flat tuck BL, end

I also began practicing windmills at the rec center at my school, breakin is something that I've always thought was amazing, and always wanted to try but never had the space/confidence/instruction/balls to do it. Always known I was strong enough to try, so now I'm making it my goal to start trying out some power moves. I've also started working on hand balancing, my freestanding handstand is strong, not perfect, but strong enough to where I can shift my weight around from hand to hand.

Saturday morning's w/o

4 sets of:

30 sec ring support swings

10 L hang rope pullups, too cold to set up my manilla rope outside, so I slung a 1" braided rope over my pull up bar and grabbed that

Sunday

kind of a rest day, did some ring/handstand/pistol work and played around with some kettlebells that a friend just bought, those are fun.

Tonight I've also begun working on a full ROM HSPU. I'm going to approach it with a grease the groove outlook. right now i have two .5 inch notebooks on the ground to put my hands on. The plan is to pop off sets thoughout the day, and hopefully every week I can increase the height of the notebooks and eventually work up to hspu's on my parallettes.

Good luck with the HSPUs! Keep us updated. This is something I am working on as well.

Thanks Matt!

I need to start posting everyday because I'm having a hard time remembering what I've done the past couple days, that or maybe I could just write it down. Let's see

Today:

3 General Ring Strength Series

4x5 360 pulls (I can't do more than 5 or 6 these before my grip fails, and they were done in a pretty tight tuck

My ring series was alot more fun today because I found a great tree with a branch much higher than the PU bar I was hanging my rings from. Here it is: Start in 3 sec L-hang, muscle up to support, forward roll followed by a kip to support(is this the same as a forward roll to support? I'm gonna check the vids cus I'm betting no), Cross lower(I don't think I even get halfway down, and the last series I subbed for 3 bulgarian dips)for 3 sec, 3 sec L-sit, lean forward and hold what somewhat resembles a low L-sit with my body leaned forward about my hands about 45 degrees, this followed by a forward roll to hang, pull up and over into a flat tuck BL and then back to a flat tuck FL, done. I actually failed my last series midway through, and then picked up where I left off.

This was the first pleasant day in a while here in Missouri, shorts and short sleeves. I took the rings to a nearby park and met my friend there who is getting into his kettlebell training pretty seriously, the park was crowded and we got a few looks and comments that made me feel good about the work I'm putting in. As I was taking the rings down a woman approached us and introduced herself as a photographer for the local newspaper. She was very impressed with gymnastic strength in general, and was surprised to hear that I had had no real formal coaching(aside from this great website and amazing book of course, if that can be considered formal). She also expressed interest in trying out the rings next time we come out, and was upset because my friend and I happened to be part of a great photo op that she missed out on since she didn't have her camera. He and I doing our slightly out of the ordinary exercises with a beautiful sunset in the background, and the park crowded with people doing all sorts of things because of this great day we had in the middle of a bitter winter. Long story short, we all exchanged information and I think one of these days she is gonna get that photo, and we will get to be a local celebs(in our eyes).

Moving along, last night, the 21st, I did the handstand walking WOD. I didn't have a convenient way of timing, so I counted steps, and did 210(right then left being 2 steps) within the 10 minutes. Followed this up with 2x6 headstand RLL's, alternating straight and bent arms, and then 10 wrist pushups, which scared the hell out of me when they first came up, but they're becoming easier and easier and less and less uncomfortable.

I can't remember what I did on the 19th and 20th, aside from bboy practice in the morning along with some barbell squatting that I'm going to use for my legs, I have a bulging disc in my lower back, so I'm sort of avoiding any kind of dynamic running, jumping, or (dynamic)squatting until I strengthen up my midsection quite a bit more. I've reinjured it enough to finally realize that I need to move verrrrry slow with it.

After checking out a bboy forum today(Lesson One- bboying is commonly, mistakenly reffered to as breakdancing, apparently) I decided that I also need to begin working on my Toprock and floorwork before just jumping into power moves. I have no rhythm, and no dance background whatsoever, but you have to start somewhere. The windmills are coming along, tomorrow will be the third morning in a row that I'll head to the rec center to work on them(there isn't much better feeling than 8 a.m. rolling around and having already gotten something accomplished for the day), and then I'm gonna give it a rest for the weekend. I'll probably rest from the bboyin and the GB stuff for the weekend, and try to take my bicycle out for a bit, its in serious need of some lovin.

Today's WOD

Embedded PL + MU

Embedded BL + RLL

Embedded FL + Lsit Lift

Finish with back bend wall walks

I did 3 x [5 sec tuck PL(2 rep) + 5MU]

3 x [5 sec flat tuck BL(2 rep) + 5 HeS RLL]

3 x [5 sec 1 legged FL(2 rep) + 5 tuck L sit lifts]

10 wall walks

I took about a week and a half off because of a small twinge in my left elbow, I've learned from repeatedly reinjuring my back not to mess with injury. Fortunately I learned before doing serious damage, thought I would exercise caution with the elbow even though it didn't feel like much. Glad I did.

Today I did the WOD from Jan 9th. 30-60 sec swingin dips, 20' l-sit walk.

I did the swings on my rings, doing I guess what is referred to as the backward swing dip. Start in support, swing back, while swinging forward do dip, trying to reach bottom of dip when I reached the end of my forward swing. Pike at the bottom, drive heels back and push up. Each round I was between 30-45 sec, taking 1 swing in support between each dipping swing. The L-sit walks killed me, I can't do them, maybe get 1 baby step in before losing it. So during these times I took 5 minutes to work on the walks, walk on paralletes(little more luck with this, but my paralletes are only about a foot long), or l sit holds. I think that for this move I need more than more flexible hammies, shifting my weight to 1 hand while in the sit is quite the task for me. A couple things to work on.

Other than that, this morning I did some more bboy stuff, and handstand/handbalance work. Got my windmill down pretty good, working on footwork, swipes, toprocking, and comboing moves.

I also am in the process of retuning my diet. Back in August I went to strict Zone portioning, and it just got into my head. I'm going to take a Paleo approach to food, and not concentrate so much on portions as I will quality. So far its going great, I just grab a bunch of great food, roughly keeping in mind the balance between p/c/and f, no measuring or weighing, just enjoying. Life is good.