Blackmonster's Training Log

Well, Since I have been posting my WOD's in the WOD section I guess I should be adding them here too, along with my other training I do on the side.

I'll start with todays WOD.

I had to modify it a bit since I am very new to ring training.

My routine tonight was 3 sets of:

XR SS, Negative Reverse MU to inverted hang, inverted bicep curl, hop back up to XR SS, negative MU down to hanging L-sit, Half Crank, a Reverse Crank that needs some work

5 x15 seconds inverted hang slow negative to hanging L sit and hold the L sit for an extra 5 seconds

5 x15 seconds floor HS negatives

5 x15 seconds German Hangs

Ended it with 2x10 Wall Extensions.

Should have posted this last night 08/10/2011, but went straight to bed.

Did 20 Minutes of HS work consisting of:

-Kicking up to the wall for support and pushing myself away from it and holding for 3-7 seconds until I overbalanced back into it.

-Random HeSTPU's

-When HeSTPU's were no longer possible I subbed Negative HeSTPU's

-Ran 4 miles

Finished up the WOD Which consisted of:

3x sets of:

1x Embedded XR L-sit + 5 Tempo transitions between Lsit and tucked Korean dips

1x Embedded tucked BL + 5 Tempo Tucked Back Lever Curls (ouch)

1x Embedded Tucked FL + 5 Tempo L-sit Lifts on the ground. ( going to try them on parallettes next time )

I was feeling a bit motivated so I followed up with:

5x Embedded Tucked FL (15 secs like the others)

5x Embedded German Hangs

Ended the workout with 10x Bridge Wall Walks as Rx'd

Random experimentation with tucks and straddles where a straight body was not yet possible in the levers.

I'm feeling the need to post up a bit more about myself and my history with fitness, since I am new to the forum. My name is David. I'm 30 years old and I am have a new found love for gymnastics. I got serious about working out about 3 years ago after I decided that I needed to quit smoking, quit drinking/drugs, and stop playing video games. So far I have been smoke free for 15 months, haven't had a drink in about 3 months, and no longer play video games as a hobby. Im completely clean and I intend on keeping this newfound lifestyle. I quit doing everything on my own, and I must say that I feel like a better person without all of the escapes!

It's taken a little while to repair some of the damage of 17 years of smoking, and I figured exercise would be a great way to regain my health. I started with Pavel's Kettlebell training books and jogging (could hardly make it a mile, and I weighed in around 245 lbs) Well, here I am now 3 years since then. My blood pressure stays around 110/65 on average, I can run 8 miles nonstop, I weighed in this morning at 197, and I feel like I am in much better shape coming into my 30's than I was going into my 20's.

I discovered gymnastics about 10 months ago when I found an ad in the paper for adult tumbling classes at a local gymnastics gym. I've been hooked ever since. I now have quite a few new goals, and I am very motivated about improving on the rings and parallel bars. I have got decent floor tumbling skills, I can do a front tuck on the gymnastics floor and a back tuck onto a mat. I can hold an L sit on the ground for about 30 seconds and 45 on the parallettes.

Overall, the thing that I love the most about gymnastics is no matter what, there is always something else to work on... some other variation of what you just learned, or something you can add to improve what you already know.

I'm very glad that there is such a great community here, and I look forward to improving my levels of fitness and skills with all of you.

Hey dude! Welcome to the community!

Sounds like you've made a lot of positive changes for yourself, good work! You've got a great strength base, so it should be interesting to watch you progress with us all!

Welcome!!

That's an impressive history.

Thanks for the kind words I feel happy with the progress I have made so far. When I see other people who can do things that I can't do yet it inspires me to keep pushing. Exercise has pretty much become my hobby. When I'm not working on my gymnastics I am either jogging/freerunning or mountain biking somewhere. I do give myself off days to let my body heal and my mind reflect on my training.

Having started this program, I really like it's structure and I am going to stick with the M-T,Th Fr schedule and I'll do my tumbling classes on Wednesdays. I guess it's still ok to GTG on off days, I just dont push myself. I try to train throughout the day on whatever I have around me in my spare time. ( find a wall to climb and do dips off the side, work on HS during my lunch, work on vaults in the loading dock @ work, etc..)

I posted my story up hoping maybe it would inspire someone who is struggling with some of the same vices that I was, and let them know that there's others who have been there... and to let everyone else know where I'm coming from. Anything is possible if you want it bad enough... and are stubborn enough to keep going for it

I'm also posting up my 4 mile run I just got back from. I did sprinting intervals the first half, and the second half I just jogged. I didnt want to push myself too hard in case tomorrow's WOD has a lot of leg work. Im trying to get myself down to 195lbs before I go on vacation in 3 weeks. 3 more lbs to go and they are being really stubborn!!

How tall are you?

What do you eat? Post it up and we can double check that you're eating the right stuff. That'll help get rid of the extra weight.

I'm 6'1 with a medium build. I'll take a picture later.

Well, for breakfast I generally eat a healthy choice microwave dinner ( the tortellini pasta w green beans as a side, or the chicken alfredo w broccoli as a side... I like them because they dont come with a dessert, and they dont salt their vegetables ) with some fresh mango slices. For lunch I generally get a 6" sub on wheat with ham, spinach, tomato, cucumbers, and vinegar. I snack on frozen mango chunks throughout the day until dinner and then I eat a lean meat with a vegetable dinner, or something else thats under 400 cals. ( smaller serving of trader joes mushroom ravioli, stuff like that if I feel like I need more carbs at the end of the day ) On my evening workouts I will take a smaller serving of GNC whey protein that is around 100 calories. This is my typical

That being said, I only drink water throughout the day ( lots of it ) and a cup of black or green tea in the mid morning with no sugar. My only vice is that I like dark chocolate. I will eat 2 small squares of dark chocolate after a workout sometimes, or on payday as a reward, but I try not to go overboard with it.

I know the microwave dinner isn't great ( preservatives ), I just dont like regular breakfast food because most of it is really greasy or too sugary and I dont like getting out of bed really early in the morning. I'm game to tweak my diet a bit if you guys have any other suggestions.

Fruits on the side and chopped veggies steam-fried lightly then worked into scrambled eggs for breakfast! It takes about 15 minutes including prep time at the most, but you could prep the veggies the night before and then it might take you 10 minutes or less (10 minutes is assuming you're using harder squashes like I am right now as one of your veggies) to prepare. I like some greens, yellow squash, fresh tomato (which I put in with the eggs, not before), zucchini, broccoli, and onions. It's a giant plate of food but even with 6 eggs and 3 yolks it's like 4-500 calories total, maybe less.

Everything else looks good, especially that dark chocolate! MMMmmmm, I love dark chocolate. I actually like organic cocoa nibs now, but you have to get used to the taste. They have no sugar, it's literally the freshly roasted cocoa seeds broken into chunks.

I think I'll try that tomorrow if I can get up early enough, it sounds really good! I dont know if I will make a 6 egg veggie stir fry, but I'll try something similar I've got til Sept 4 to lose 3 stubborn pounds while getting stronger at the same time. We'll see what happens.

I'll have to try some of the cocoa nibs, they actually sounds pretty tasty!

Finished up the WOD. I did:

4x rounds of:

2x L-sit press to Tuck PL

7x Rear Elevated PPP on the ground

2x L-sit press to Tuck PL

5x XR Dips to L-sit

2x L-sit press to Tuck PL

3x HeSPU on the first large set. Couldn't do any more afterwards so I scaled the rest back to HeSPU Negatives for the last 3 large sets.

Finished with 2x10 Wrist Pushups ( these still hurt quite a bit )

Had a storm blowing in so it helped me keep up the pace

I wanted to GTG on a few other things that I've been working on so I went inside and also did:

4x 10 Wall Runs. These are great for reminding yourself to keep your upper body stiff for HS work.

4x 20 Second HS's against the wall pushing myself away into a self supporting HS.

2x 20 V sits to end it all.

I'm feeling great after the WOD. Im not going to go jogging tonight to give my legs a break. I'm heading to the grocery store to go stock up on some eggs, vegetables, and fruit and give the breakfast sliz suggested a try tomorrow. ( if I can pry my lazzy arse outta bed early enough before work! )

Im planning on doing some more ring work tomorrow after my job ( tucked levers, dips, and BL presses mostly ), and maybe hitting the trails for some XR mountain biking on Sunday if the weather permits.

Gymnastics classes start back up next week on Wednesday, and I can already tell that I am going back a bit stronger than I left 2 weeks ago. Cant wait to try some new things on the gym floor!

Started the day off with the breakfast Slizz recommended and it was killer! Had 4 eggs w/ 2 yolks scrambled with a whole head of broccoli, a fresh tomato, a homegrown bellpepper, and an entire mango. It hit the spot and I felt great all morning so I think that's going to become my usual as long as I can get outta bed early enough.

I got home from work today and set the XR up in the yard. I decided to have a fun day, so I worked on all kinds of things in no particular order:

Inverted SS to muscle up negatives to inverted hang transitions

Inverted hangs

Inverted pike hang

Russian Hangs

Front and back tucked levers with presses.

Ring Dips

I ended up working out on the XR for about 45 minutes.

I was mainly trying to work on my form, and just get some more time in on the rings so I can get used to how things feel. Afterwards I went back inside, did 3x sets of 25 Vups and 2x sets of 1 minute side planks per side. I rested for an hour and then went on a 4 mile run with a friend of mine. Just got back and I'm feeling great!

Im going to take it easy tomorrow during the day. I might go hit the trails if the weather stays nice and later go do some free running with a group around my town in the evening but nothing too crazy.

It's been a fun day!

Took it easy today until 6pm, then I went out to do parkour with a group around my area until 8pm. Was a nice 2 hour workout!

We hit the usual spots and worked on vaults, cat grabs, climbed a few trees and walls, worked on handstands, hopped between random rocks and walls as well as scaled across the sides of a couple of buildings. Its a great way to work on practical strength and have a good time.

Im still pretty new to it, but a lot of the strength skills from gymnastics cross over pretty well between the two so Im happy with how Im progressing with it.

Can't wait to dig into the WOD for tomorrow.

Geeze, I think I put out a little bit too hard yesterday, as I was still sore by the time this evening came along. I had to scale the exercise down a little bit, but I still got a good workout.

Did three rounds of:

5x GHR Halfs with my truck as an anchor using my arms as a assist on the bottom of the movement.

10x Jumping Overhead Lunges holding a pallet overhead

60m Backward Sprints uphill. It was too late at night to be dragging anything around my neighborhood without disturbing my neighbors

5x XR HLL (didnt have a pullup bar so XR is the next best thing! )

Finish with 60 seconds total of straddle L variations:

2x 15 second Straddle L low holds on parallettes

2x 15 second Straddle L One Hand Center holds

Good stuff

Went and jogged 3 miles to cool off.

Going to bed now.

Just got back from my 3 mile run and Im feeling great. I did really well with the WOD today, and gymnastics classes are starting back up tomorrow! It's going to be interesting seeing how I do on the gymnastics floor with all that I have learned just doing the WOD's with everyone here at GB. After buying the BtGB book and doing much more on my own I am also feeling much more confident that I will be able to progress at a better pace in my class since I now have a better understanding of how everything works. (well, Ive learned a lot more about male gymnastics strength progressions! )

I am really excited about the direction that I am headed in, so full speed ahead!

Nice! It's great to hear that motivation!

Just got back from my gymnastics tumbling class. It was awesome! I felt a lot stronger, and my HS's were a lot better ( especially my HS walks, I got a good solid 4 steps in for the first time ), and my front tucks felt a bit more powerful. My wrists are feeling a lot more solid too, as they weren't hurting at all tonight. ( they have been a problem in the past )

I worked on standing back tucks and they are feeling a bit more solid too than when I left. I am torquing a bit to the right in mid air, so Ive got to work on making my takeoff and mid air tucking more centered and solid. I am really happy, and I feel like I have made some good progress in quite a few areas in the three weeks away from it.

Im going to go do some HeST negative PU and wrist PU before I go to bed.

slizzardman said:

Nice! It's great to hear that motivation!

Thanks for the kind words Slizz Your breakfast idea has been working out great for me too. I have been doing it every day for about a week now, and it carries me over til lunchtime really well. (havent had a microwave dinner since) I have lost about 2 lbs since I have adopted it and and have started eating less for dinner. For dinner I've been doing about a scoop of GNC whey in unsweetened almond milk (not the whey with all of the creatine + additives, but just their regular whey) with a few mango chunks and a good side of veggies such as broccoli heads or a whole tomato washed down with a large glass of water.

Well, while I am on the subject of diet I figured I would post up what I have been doing for the last week and see what you all think about it.

Breakfast:

-6 scrambled (in olive oil) eggs w/ 3 yolks ( I lightly salted these)

-half a bag of raw Kroger spinach

-an entire large broccoli head steamed

-a whole raw tomato or bell pepper about the size of a baseball

-either a handful of blueberries or raspberries

-Large glass of water with a scoop of whey protein

Lunch:

-6 inch turkey sub on wheat with swiss, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, black olives, and vinegar

-8" cucumber raw

-an entire fresh mango

-Cup of Earl Grey Tea without sugar. ( I dont ever sweeten my tea anyway)

Dinner:

-small glass of unsweetened almond milk w/ 1 scoop of whey protein

-a decent portion of some type of vegetable ( tonight it was a large handful of cherry tomatoes)

-about 5x 1" cubes of frozen mango

The only snack I had was a small square of dark chocolate and a teaspoon of GOOD peanut butter ( the salted natural type w/ flax seeds, not the jif or peter pan crap ) pre workout. How does this look for a 6'1 197 lbs 30 year old?

That looks great! I think the only room for improvement would be:

1) Considering ditching the wheat and replacing with something else, either taking the same sandwich fillings and putting them in spring rolls which are wrapped with rice sheets or just making a salad with the sandwich innards and having rice or buckwheat on the side. This is to completely eliminate acidifying grains and wheat gluten.

2) This one is much more relevant! Get more protein. Whey or casein powder, whatever you like. I do recommend whey concentrate, Costco has a fantastic deal for great protein so I do recommend that. It's the Muscle Milk 100% Whey. 6 lbs for 36 bucks. That's really cheap. I personally recommend putting 2 scoops in a half gallon and sipping that just like you'd drink water. It's better to drink a smaller amount every 30-40 minutes than it is to chug 16 oz each hour, but whatever you do with it will help. You'll stay hydrated because you WILL drink more, and you will keep your blood saturated with amino acids without wasting protein.

Had a great workout tonight. My upper body feels very well worked, it took everything I had to finish all 4 giant sets tonight. I know some of that was due to me maxing my pullups last night at the end of gymnastics class, but after doing all of the XR work tonight I know that I am going to be a little bit sore tomorrow. I kept reminding myself to give it maximum contraction throughout the movements no matter how much it hurt or how weak I started to feel.

Ive been keeping my diet consistent, and I am feeling great. I'm going to try removing the wheat from it and seeing what happens. I dont mind giving up bread, since I really dont go out of my way to eat it anyway. Im also going to try to increas emy protein intake without drastically increasing the amount of calories I am taking in, since I am also trying to trim off excess body fat right now.

Bring on the WOD for tomorrow is all I have to say

Peace

hey you're in athens! If you want to work out once in a while let me know, I'm in atlanta.