Pogo's Training

Tuesday, 12th April 2011

morning:

yoga

split stretches

mobility

MU practise

ring HSPU practise

tried lowering and retracting shoulders during the MU practise. very difficult to maintain especially during MU transition.

afternoon:

FSP SSCs

WOD:

1 x 10 x cast wall walks

5 x pike box press HeS

10 x straddle box press HeS

12 cycles ring strap HS

cast wall walks were good. stronger than last time, but still not near perfect form throughout the set.

pike press HeS felt good - head about 12" elevated. good balance with testing out pike flexibility and abdominal compression strength.

straddle press HeS also good.

ring HS were really tough. I decided to try holding the HS with feet lightly touching the inside of the straps. holy crap!! much harder - is no mystery to me now why it's next in the progression and why it makes such a difference. there's a whole lot more stabilisation going on.

anyway. only got 2 rounds in like that - all 10 remaining cycles were feet wrapped around straps.

Thursday, 14th April 2011

NADA

Friday, 15th April 2011

morning:

2km jog

yoga

split stretches

some mobility

MU practise

afternoon:

FSP SSCs

WOD:

3 sets

MU -> 2 bulgarian dips -> bwd roll to flat tuck BL -> pullout to flat tuck FL -> regrip - MU -> L-sit -> press shoulder stand -> RTO support -> bwd roll to flat tuck BL -> pullout to flat tuck FL

skipped the statics. had my daughter over for the weekend; so she, the boys and I had importing lazing about on the couch watching movies, to do.

Monday, 18th April 2011

morning:

yoga

split stretches

mobility

afternoon:

FSP SSCs

WOD:

3 sets:

1 emb. BL == inverted hang to flat tuck 10s

5 x rev tuck yewkis

1 emb. L-sit == dip to L-sit with back as flat as possible

5 x tuck PL dips

1 emb. FL == inverted hang to flat tuck 10s

4 x tuck tick tocks

very tired this evening. while the FSPs are getting easier, they wore me out. asthma is playing up and the reduced lung capacity and wheezing are making me very weak and tired.

Tuesday, 19th April 2011

morning:

yoga

split stretches

mobility

afternoon:

NADA. my breathing is getting worse, to the point where the wheeze isn't going away for more than about an hour between meds. off to the doc this morning (wednesday) to hopefully whip my lungs back into shape.

Wow. Almost 2 weeks since my last post. After my asthma got hold of me, I went into a bit of a spiral of lethargy and self-destructive eating. It's disturbing how much damage one can do to oneself in a couple weeks of concentrated health/fitness sabotage.

Anyway. I've been spending the last week trying to drag myself back into the swing of things. Feeling a lot better, eating a lot better and "playing" at various strength elements. I'm not sure what the plan is from now on, but I am convinced that my prior routine was too much. 4 days per week of FSP SSC + WOD was mentally draining and leaving me physically lacking in recovery. Whether it is due to my age, lack of sleep (this is likely I know), or some combination of whatever else, I think I need less volume.

I've been enjoying the process of "playing" at things, but I know there's a distinct danger of my creating imbalances by missing important elements and/or concentrating on specific areas. In any event, I'm going to stick with it for a while if for no other reason than to "reset" my motivation, because it feels like more fun.

The biggest concern is how to incorporate the FSPs. I don't really want to forgo the SSC protocol because it has been working; I'm getting stronger in the static positions. But this is the thing that I think has been draining me the most. Perhaps I should retest and reset at a more conservative level? Or I may toy with the idea that I've seen thrown around of having 2 "heavier" SSC days and 2 "light" SSC days a week - although I'll be more conservative about the "heavy" days.

All in all, I'm slowing down because my body needs it and I'm in no hurry to run myself into the ground.

hey pat, nice that you're back at it anyway.

I guess cutting on the volume can also mean doing less, you may simply do half of your FSP, doing different statics on different days.

just a thought.

Thanks mate; I really like that idea. I really want to keep at the statics, and I don't want to cut the per-FSP volume, but alternating FSPs each day will give me the volume reduction I think I need.

Thanks for figuring that out, Swarovoski. That's really helpful.

Time for a bit of an update.

I've continued to "play" with various strength skills. I've been leaning towards short bursts of close to maximal strength exercises - trying to rotate them so that I'm not concentrating on any one area. My legs have been somewhat neglected but I have been playing with the odd (assisted) NLC and weighted SLS.

Overall, I'm think I'm at least maintaining strength for now and gaining in some areas - not as quickly or as consistently as I was with FSP SSC + WOD, but right now I just don't have the time or energy for more than I'm doing - O/T at work and full time daddy duty for 3 weeks (usually have them one week on/one week off) leaves little time for the full routine.

As things settle down, I'll try to get back to the FSP + WOD, but cut down the FSP to 1-2 per day to help reduce fatigue.

yeah... me too, there's no way I can keep up with 4 GB strength workout a week.

Well... the last couple/few weeks really haven't gone to plan.

About 3-4 weeks ago, I hurt my right achilles jogging. Freaking JOGGING!! I mean... a couple kms of relatively slow jogging... but I was trying to stay on the ball/mid foot because heel striking kills my knees. It seems 3 days in the one week was too much for me, because I spent the next 2 weeks recovering.

Once the achilles was most of the way healed, I hurt my back. Last Saturday I woke up barely able to move for lower back pain. I experience it every now and then - maybe once or twice a year, max. Usually it just happens and after a couple days it goes away, so I've never actively tried to fix it other than attempting to keep my core strong (which my average standards it certainly is).

This time... well, today is 1 week on, and it is still tender. If it continues to improve I'm hoping to resume some kind of physical activity from Monday, but I'll ease myself into it.

Really am not liking the injuries, especially as they're riding on the back of my already waning motivation and over the top work schedule etc. Ahh well... life's little challenges.

hahaha... I'm in the same boat, It's been one week without any running and right achilles tendon is not recovered yet. It took almost a month to show up but I definitely overdid with barefoot running, gotta start from scratch, very slowly, once this discomfort will fade out.

As for the pain free, it's nothing magic about it, there's not secrets conditioning program, it basically says that everyone have side to side imbalances and doesn't move enough. It all make sense though, he explain things in lay terms and basically every chapter focus on a different area with different sequence of exercises to be performed as an emergency aid (foot, ankle, knee, hip, etc), some may take up to a couple of hrs (though many exercises are repeated in various chapters). Finally it has a chapter for sport related supplementary work (I think this chapter it's pretty assuming and stereotyped) and chapt 13 for basic maintanance with exercises like arm circles, downward dog, cat&cow and other common stretches. I can upload a video with the basic maintenance program if you like. One thing in the book that I forgot about and I've added to the statics I use for warmups, is the wall sit (he calls it air squat).

From a book like this I expected models not to be on super cushioned trainers and loose trackies (btw pics seems taken in the 80's) especially after he stated (rightly I guess) that shoes are the cause of most problems. It really put me off when in his running rules he says to focus on heel-fore-toes motion... this is definitely in contrast with why shoes are the source of many problems. http://www.williamsichel.co.uk/document ... y_Free.pdf (I have to pay a tribute to this old pioneering book)

Anyway, the good point about it, is reasoning why, that to keep functioning well, as a whole, our body need to move.

cheers mate... the vid would be great when/if you have the time and inclination.

when/if I regain the well being and motivation to return to regular training I'm going to make it much more mobility/gradual strength gain based I think. I don't think I have the time/lifestyle/recoverability to sustain the kind of volume and progression I was trying to put my body through.

my achilles is still mildly sore, back is still mildly sore and in the last couple of days my shoulders have been causing pain (particularly raising laterally) and that is without doing anything active in the last couple weeks - a string of rebellious body parts.

on the up side, I've been sleeping a lot more soundly and for longer - about 6 hrs a night on average and straight through. but oddly enough, I feel even more tired than usual - all the time.

think I might start back with lots of mobility work and the WOD (but with the intensity dialled right back so that I can comfortably perform all movements at the suggested repetitions/tempo). I'll leave the statics for a while until my body tells me it's happy again.

I wrote a description of the exercises, watch for the hands in the arm circles and elbow curls. just ask if anything.