Marlon's Circus Training Log

Sunday March 6th:

-Rest Day

Monday March 6th:

Weight Training:

-Short warm-up, some jump rope and Ido shoulder mobility Rom routine

-Found my Back Squat 1 rep max; 265lbs

-3x8 cuban presses 25lbs

-3x8 good mornings 75 lbs

Hand balancing (2hr):

Coach Sommer wrist warm-up, Ido scap routine, Ido shoulder ROM routine.

-Straight, tuck, straddle, pike, warm-up

-6 Straddle OAH (3 on bench, 3 on canes each arm)

-6 Straight OAH (all on bench each arm)

-6 partial straddle OAH (all on bench each arm)

-3 straddle OAH on canes each side (working on moving my free arm.)

-4 Tucked side flags each arm with assisting hand on ground

-4 Negative One arm press handstands with assisting arm on ground

-5x1 Pike Press handstands

-4.5x1 Stalder Press handstands (couldn't quite finish the last one)

Straps (1hr):

-3 Piked 360 pulls

-5 tick tocks (flat tuck FL, Straddle BL)

-3 Assisted one arm pulls to meathook each arm

-side planche warm-up

-some temp changes from meathook to side planche

-one Arm one leg roll-ups

-regular roll-ups

Hand to hand(1.5hr):

-Standing in hands

-hand to hand

-other contacty stuff.

Notes:

-I got a gym membership and I've started working towards a double bodyweight squat and to improve my deadlift along with other assistance work for my lower back. I'm going to find one rep max's this week and then start in on Jim wendler's 531 program.

-hand balancing felt great today, my bodyline is improving a lot, and I'm actually learning how to not move my body around when I hold one arms. For my straight and partial straddle OAH I'm leaving one finger on the ground for now just to work to rack up some time in the position and improve my bodyline.

Tuesday March 8th:

Gymnasticbodies conditioning:

-2x 1min 15 sec wall handstand holds

-2x 30 second dead hangs with shoulders down

-1x 5 one arm hanging shoulder shrugs (each arm)

-4x15 tuck FL

-1x5 tuck front lever pulls to invert hang

-1x5 tuck FL rows

-1x5 Flat tuck FL pulls

-At this point my shoulder started to hurt so I just stretched for about an hour did some active flexibility work and decided it would be best for me to take the rest of the day off.

Wednesday March 9th:

Hand to hand:

-Fairly normal hand to hand training, some hand to hand, some standing in hands, other random stuff.

Notes:

-I gave the paleo diet another attempt starting this monday, by this day I felt like crap, completely exhausted, presumably because I was crashing from a lack of sugar before my body adapted to a high fat low carb diet. Unfortunately, my will power gave out and like last time I tried to go on paleo, I didn't make it past the sugar withdrawal phase of the diet change to see if I actually like paleo.

Thursday march 10th:

Gymnasticbodies Training:

-did all my static holds

Hand to hand:

-Started choreographing the intro of our new act

hand balancing:

-Warmed up my handstands on my own

-shared a hand balancing private with a friend of mine

-Did some more hand balancing after the private lesson, I got my first solid straddle one arm where i was able to bring my hand all the way up by myside

Straps:

-Warmed up meathooks and side planches

-3 or four temp changes from meathook to side planche

-Got my first one arm pulls to meathook They were shockingly easy today, even though they felt impossible every other time i've tried them, I did three singles on each side, so it seems pretty solid too.

-Did some roll-ups

Notes:

-Straps is coming along so well, it's weird to have new tricks coming so easily all the time when hand balancing has had such an incredibly slow and steep learning curve.

Friday march 11:

Gymnastic Bodies conditioning:

-3x 1min 15 sec wall handstands

-2x 30 sec dead hangs with shoulders down

-2x 10 sec single arm dead hangs with shoulders down (each arm)

-4x 15 sec L-sit

-4x 15 sec Bent Leg straddle L-sit

-4x 15 sec Horse stance

-3x (Wide arm muscle up > 3x Bulgarian Dips > Wide arm muscle up negative)

-3x (5 sec Flat tuck FL pull to invert hand >5sec Flat tuck FL > invert hang > 5 sec Flat fuck FL)

-1x 5 Flat tuck FL rows

-2x 2 Straight body pulls to invert hang with bent arms

Notes:

-Another day Feeling totally exhausted. Took the rest of today off. Although training wasn't terrible this week and i had a couple great PR's per-say it wasn't close to the amount of volume or consistancy i want it to, so I'm gonna push hard for one more day of good training tomorrow and say this was a de-load week because that's pretty much what it turned out to be.

-My lats are sore today, and I actually can't remember the last time they were sore. I think that means I'm finally using proper motor recruitment patterns in my back during pulling movements, at least I hope that's what it means. My front lever certainly does feel a lot different than it did when i started really focusing on retracting my scapula 5 months ago.

dude, why in the off day you not do a high rep training like this :http://www.dragondoor.com/articles/high-reps-for-low-rep-athletes/?CategoryId=12&pg=7

the pump after this training is great and you will feel great too, all this blood will help your joints and muscle recovery! In the next day you will feel read for the REAL training, believe...

It is absolutely true that very, very light work for very high reps will cause faster recovery.

It is also absolutely true that THAT was one of the most painful articles I have ever read. How sad, to have so much crap mixed in with a good nugget or two of information.

yeah, i agree... I should have not posted the article, because really have a lot of crap, i should just give the idea that high reps accelerate recovery...

What I do is pair antagonists and do 50 reps of each exercise, they are: pull ups hspu (wall) + tuck Fl row push ups + hammer/reverse curl dips

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll definitely try working some light high rep work into my recovery days and see how it goes. BTW mikael, damn :shock: 50 reps pull-ups, tuck fl rows, and hspu's would definately not be light recovery work for me. I'll probably start with free squats, pushups, and bodyweight rows or something.

ohh i forgot to say that reps are not perfect, you dont need do too much the eccentric part of the exercice, focus on concentric, only go down half and climb up, after this training you should feel just a little fatigue localized, you do not feel tired or anything. But i can do these 50 reps of each perfect reps

Saturday March 12th:

Weight Training:

-Found Deadlift one rep max at 325lbs, I'm not sure how my form is on the lift, I'm going to be putting up video of this and my squat for critique in my work out log and in a digital coaching thread to hopefully get some feedback.

-bunch of kettlebell swings, still searching around for the right amount of weight to use

-3x5 hamstrings curls @100lbs

Hand Balancing:

- handstand warm-up and body line work

- Lots of one arms

Notes:

-Felt totally exhausted by the end of the hand balancing session, I couldn't do a pike or stalder press so i just stopped and went home. I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably over training, so I'm going to lower my volume and take time off from certain aspects of training for this week.

Sunday march 13th:

-Rest day

-took slizz and Mikael's advice and did some light high rep exercise, something like 75 fee squats, 30 pushups and 50 bodyweight rows.

Monday March 14th:

Weight Training (1hr):

-1x5 @155lbs Back Squat

-1x5 @175lbs Back Squat

-1x5 @200lbs Back Squat

-3x8 @25lbs cuban press

-3x8 @75lbs Good mornings

Hand balancing (2hr):

-handstand warm-up and Line work

-6 Straight OAH (3 on blocks, 3 on bench, each arm)

-6 partial straddle OAH (3 on blocks, 3 on bench, each arm)

-6 full Straddle OAH (3 on blocks, 3 on bench, each arm)

-4 Tucked side flags with assisting arm on ground

-4x1 straddle presses

-5x1 pike presses

-5x1 Stalder presses

Straps (1hr):

-3 piked 360 pulls

-meathook warm-up

-meathook/ one arm lever work up

-Side planche warm-up

-side planche holds

-2x tempo changes each side

-one arm pull to meathook (1 on right side, couldn't do it on my left today)

-one arm pull to side planche (only right side)

Notes:

-Squats and deadlifts make my legs feel like jello, which makes hand balancing much more difficult :?

-Noticed a bit of pain in my left elbow the night before this workout, most likely slight tendonitis.

Saturday March 19th:

I took most of last week off from training. Tendonitis in my elbow coupled with feeling very over trained for the entire week previous made the decision quite easy. I didn't stop training entirely, however, I I probably trained almost every day of the week to some degree, Did some fairly short hand balancing sessions that were less regimented than usual, learned a few things on aerial fabric for fun one day, and did a bit of stretching too. But no conditioning, no hand to hand, and very little straps.

Thanks to the light week i feel pretty much great now, I'm refreshed, motivated and ready to get back into things provided my elbow lets me (there is still a tiny bit of lingering pain when I do straight arm work )

I also finally got around to editing together some clips of my self squating and deadlifting. I would like to get some advice on my form, and I think I'll make a thread in digital coaching to see if I can get some help with that. If anyone reading this thread has any advice to give, please, feel free to let me know here too.

2sg38hVTkds

squat looks good

for deadlift try to keep a 1:1 ratio of knee and hip extension throughout the movement. notice how your knees straighten before your hips. when your knees extend first your hips end up compressing more and you lose efficiency of the movement

however, this may be due to the weight not being challenging enough for you. I had a similar problem when I used lighter weights

I was actually going to ask you how you balanced lifting with all the balance and bodyweight work you do. I ended up giving up lifting to focus more on acro and bodyweight. went back to lifting these last two weeks while my wrist was hurting, lost no strength

Do you also train in any other circus skills at all? Object manipulation of some kind? Ever tried slacklining?

Everything looks good to me, I don't think there's anything wrong with how you're deadlifting. It's almost more like a hack squat + a stiff leg dead, but there's nothing wrong with that. I also agree with Yuri, that form may be due to you not being close enough to your max. Personally, I always stiff leg deadlifted over 90% of what I could do with standard deadlift form when I used to lift regularly so I don't see this being any kind of serious issue. Your form is great in regards to the lower back positioning and that's what matters the most, unless you're going to go for some serious deadlift PRs!

edit: In theory that DL form could be due to your smaller hip muscles not being active and/or strong enough to start extending the hips until your legs are nearly straight, but somehow I don't think that's the case with you.