Metronome for static hold times!

I just tried out my max hold time and actually got my girlfriend to time me rather than counting in my head like I normally do. To my astonishment I realised my tempo of counting was double that of the watch! So holds I was sure I was going to be progressing on from I realised I was barely competent at. A hold I thought I was sure to get a minute was actually 30secs; I was gutted. Some exercises I may even have to drop back a progression. Since this happened I've downloaded an electronic metronome for my PC and set it to 60 beats a minute. Just thought I'd warn any newbies like me who might make this daft mistake. Anyone interested can download an electronic metronome from here for free:

http://www.nch.com.au/metronome/index.html

Failing that you could buy one, which would be much more portable than a PC, but I work out in my room. Think a cheep one is about 5 quid.

Ha! I love it! I'm pretty good at counting in my head but I'm sure I'm not perfectly accurate.

BTW, you know you don't have to hold a position for 60 straight seconds before you move on, right?

I thought that was the stone rule? My max time on a weighted bottom pistol was 30secs but thought I'd have to stay on it for another cycle. Why can it be less? I'm at the back end of injury recovery as well bare in mind and aren't keen about rushing and getting re-injured.

Never heard of anyone holding the bottom of the pistol.

The 60 second rule is 60 accumulated seconds for the training session, i.e. 6x10 seconds, where 10 seconds represents half a max hold of 20 seconds. You can move on to the next progression once you hit a 15-20 second max hold, assuming that you take some time to consolidate the gains (e.g. steady-state cycle).

If you want to take it easy because of any injury, you can of course do longer hold times and easier progression, but that has nothing to do with the 60-second rule.

I have never thought of using a metronome, I might just dig my old one out and mess with it a little bit if I can find the thing. I used to use a Sunbeam Bread Kitchen Timer I got at a local grocery store for like $1.99 Works great and can count up or be set and count down. I recently got a cheap wrist watch that has a timer (both up and down) and use that now. The old timer I gave to my gym and it still sees lots of use

Metronomes are kind of expensive for the purpose. My problem is that I count slow. So, I may feel like I mad no progress when I did. Metronome would be the best way to get an accurate measure of success, obviously.

Wait a second, here is an idea. Download a metronome program, makes a cd, or audio file you can load onto an mp3 player, then use that, and you can bring it anywhere. Make the rythym one second intervals. I'm going to do that.

Just realised aswell, there's no bloody wonder my gains have been so modest when I've only been doing a maximum of 30seconds combined for each exercise! Doh!

Now that you mention it I might get a friend of mine who owns a recording studio to make an mp3 of the metronome at 60 beats a minute for my ipod. Would be very boring listening compared to my usual metallica but helpful non the less! lol

I find that I can look at the timer on my phone (mobile/cell) to count everything except front levers. I had a play with strapping my watch to the bar, but there wasn't enough light on the screen to make it usable, and the weight of it meant that it kept pointing towards my hips. Rather than busting out the blue tack I decided to use the phone's countdown that rings a bell at me when the hold time is up 8) . It's worth a look.

Animalonfire said:

I find that I can look at the timer on my phone (mobile/cell) to count everything except front levers. I had a play with strapping my watch to the bar, but there wasn't enough light on the screen to make it usable, and the weight of it meant that it kept pointing towards my hips. Rather than busting out the blue tack I decided to use the phone's countdown that rings a bell at me when the hold time is up 8) . It's worth a look.

Yea i thought about using my phone timer as well but wasn't really sure how much time I'd loose getting up and balanced on the lever. Especially now I started doing levers on rings last night. I spent bloody ages trying to stop swinging before I could start! Think I'm quite proud of myself for the metronome idea though. Especially since I got one free online! heyhey

Counting breaths sometimes works for me, and reminds you to breath

Counting your holds gets better once you get used to it. Probably after a year or so you can count accurately under hard tensions.

Best to use a watch though set on the floor or on something in front of you so you can watch it and be like WTF why is it counting so slow.

i hold my stopwatch between my teeth and peer at it down my big nose... maybe i should try the metronome, it's hard to breathe with a stopwatch in your mouth :shock:

Click at the stopwatch and take a 5s bonus...instead of 30s countdown, take a 35s countdown (you can get still, decline bla bla bla in 5 seconds).

sean.albo said:

i hold my stopwatch between my teeth and peer at it down my big nose... maybe i should try the metronome, it's hard to breathe with a stopwatch in your mouth :shock:

That's hilarious! You should post a vid of that for comedy value! Awesome.