Some personal gibberish + question regarding leg strength

(This became a wall of text. I am truly sorry for that. My two questions can be found in the end, in both bold and italics!)

As my nickname might suggest, I am one of those who tends to think a lot more than i do. Now, however, I would like to get started with some gymnastics at home, focusing on basic strength.

In my lower 20's, I went to the gym a lot. I increased ~16 kg in weight and got up to four times stronger in some of the exercises. Needless to say, I was super skinny when I entered the gym my first time. I was only interested in looks at the time, and "forgot" to build core strength. This resulted in me finding myself in need of chiropractor visits... I also totally neglected cardio. "You can't be good at everything", I thought at the time, "you need to focus".

However, after four years, the gym bored me, it was all about doing the same things a lot more. So I quit. I tried some gymnastics in the town where I live - they were TOTALLY unstructured, NO strength training whatsoever, just fooling around - I guess I simply lacked the skills needed to join in. I also tried some martial arts. They were either too violent for me to really thrive (kickboxing), or demanded a lot more technique than physique (my view of beginner's capo eira). Somehow, I found gymnasticbodies.com, got super fascinated and extremely interested, bought me a pair of rings and found out that, "shit", "I've got nowhere to hang these things" and "wow, I am EXTREMELY inflexible and have a NO core strength". I went on trying some running, but my left knee hurt a lot, so I quit running altogether too...

So I thought - I can't train, what about making a career instead? So, the last three years, I have been working a lot. This year, I realized that careers are not for me. I have tons of reasons, but they do not belong in this discussion.

During my "oh shit I just can't work this hard it is truly killing me"-period, i found ashtanga yoga. At the time, I felt it would be nice for my body to start with something soft, something not very demanding. My view of yoga has changed since then. I am finding some really nice psychological effects in the training and could keep on only for those. I also absolutely LOVE the underlying progression. During my yoga sessions, I realized that my left leg has been rotated inward, causing pain when running. This in combination with me skipping my old and expensive training shoes and moving on to running on my toes in really light shoes has been a huge paradigm shift for me.

I used to be really externally oriented in my training, focusing only on results. Now I intend to focus on the execution instead, on form! I want to enjoy the training in itself, results may come as a bonus!

I have a dream. I have been watching youtube videos and reading books about the Ironman triathlon. Triathlon really, really fascinates me. Completing an Ironman is a long-term dream for me. I have met and discussed with people twice my age (I am now in my late 20's) who have started training quite late in their life and now "compete" in yearly Ironmans, for fun! This is the life that I want!

I think life is all about finding what you enjoy doing and then just totally go for it. In my case, I tend to enjoy repetitive endurance training, since it puts me in kind of an hypnotic state! Yoga does the same for me. I truly enjoy biking and running, but, I'm yet to get used to swimming..!

Now, I think it is time to get to the point:

• 
  [*:g2lxjt7x]My first step in my long-term Ironman plan is building endurance (mainly running, but also biking), strength and flexibility.
  [*:g2lxjt7x]In my second step, I will have to cut back on yoga and strength training and instead focus on swim technique.
  [*:g2lxjt7x]As of now, I am not totally sure about my third step, but I think I will just follow my body, try to enjoy the ride and continuously look for weaknesses that I need to address. I will try periodization, sometimes training high volume with low intensity, other times lower volume with higher intensity, and go with the flow.
  [*:g2lxjt7x]At a certain point, I will start racing. I will start with shorter distances, learning what to do and what not to do, and build up to my final goal: The Sub10h Ironman! (Nice long-term goal, isn't it!?)

But, right now, I am at my first step. I do not enjoy the thought of entering a gym ever again. Been there, done that. So, now I want to try gymnastics out! I have bought myself an excellent rig from http://www.tacticalathlete.com/ (The TAPS). So, now I finally have somewhere to hang my rings! :wink:

Right now, I am just fooling around with them while building up to the prerequisites for ring training as suggested in the book. It is super fun. But - I have realized that I am very unsure about how to attack leg training! In order to bike hard, i REALLY need strong legs! These, I want to build either at home or outside!

I have read the book. It contains what I believe is an excellent selection of exercises, and, it emphasizes plyometric training, something which I strongly believe to be great training. I will try.

But. Since I am the kind of person who really enjoys knowing the goal before I begin, I have two questions for those of you who are actually training also your legs, at home:

• 
  [1] Most of the training seem to be pretty straightforward. I will start in the beginning of the progressions and just keep moving forward. Eventually, I might buy myself some kind of weight. But! How do you guys train your hamstrings at home!? How do you keep yourself to the ground!? I just can't think of any really good idea! :oops: Since I do have a TAPS unit form Tactical Athlete, it would be great if there were a way to attach something to this units which simultaneously keeps both it and me on the floor - but I am not sure about how to do it! This will probably take some thinking!
  [2] I have read a discussion in this forum regarding strength and force. This is yet another paradigm shift for me. Since my long-term goal is all about endurance, I do not want the most strength possible, what I want is probably an "optimal" strength/bodyweight from which I can build force. From reading a book about triathlon, I have found out that I should probably be able to free-bar squat 1.3-1.7 my bodyweight. How do I translate this to gymnastics training? How do I know where to aim!?
  

Hi Philosopher! A very entertaining story. Some parts sound familiar

I can (only) respond to your first question: "How do you train your hamstrings at home?"

It boils down to finding something to put your heels under so that you can do NLC/GHR.

There are several options that come to mind.

The one I use is this one: I put two wooden boxes about 50 cm separated from each other. The boxes should be about 30cm high. On top of of these boxes I put a plank (or is it board? I'm not a native English speaker). On top of that plank/board I put a stack of weight disks, about the same weight as my body weight. Then, I put a soft mat in front of this and simply kneel on the mat and put my heels underneath the plank. From that position I can train NLC. The weights on the plank are needed to counter balance my weight.

A 2nd way is to put your heels underneath your car. Someone on this forum does it like that and has posted a video demonstrating this, but I cannot remember his name.

A 3rd option could be to put your heels under a stall bar if you would have that.

A 4th option is to ask someone to hold your heels while you're doing them.

Option 5: I've looked at the TAPS you bought, and perhaps you could make two loops around the iron bar that runs over the floor, and put your feet in these loops. You can make these loops with straps like the one you got with your XR (but they can be a lot shorter of course). If you would then put weights on the feet of this TAPS device, to prevent it from falling over, you could probably also train your hamstrings.

Perhaps this can give you some inspiration?

Honestly, even if people look down at it, the Insanity program is just really good for lower body. I used to bike frequently and then one day I took a nasty spill down a mountain and then i stopped cycling for a couple years. So, two years later I did one month worth of the Insanity program and decided I'll see how far I could cycle. Without touching my bike for two years, I picked it up and rode it for 85 miles. I was blown away with that result, I even had some energy to spare.

I'm sure people here understand how to design a program such as Insanity, but if you don't want to think about then I think it is a good choice

Work on some form of the Single Leg Squat. Do some floor glute ham if you can set it up at home. If you can't do that, work glute bridge slide outs where you use a frisbee or furniture carpet slider to hamstring curl as you hold a glute bridge. Do it one leg or elevate the leg to make it more difficult.

I used to do floor glute ham at home by sliding my ankles underneath the sofa sideways and using it as an anchor.

Blairbob said:

work glute bridge slide outs where you use a frisbee or furniture carpet slider to hamstring curl as you hold a glute bridge. Do it one leg or elevate the leg to make it more difficult.

Could you please explain this exercise more or possibly show a video. What's a glute bridge?

Thanks for your advices!

I think I might have solved the hamstrings issue: The TAPS device has a metal thing going between its legs, parallel to the bar I've hanged my rings in. If I place a pillow or something on this metal thing, and attach a band/strap/whatever to the unit, I think it will be possible to place my lower legs on the unit itself, and have my feet under the band/strap/whatever.

Wow, so bad explanation, point is, I think this will result in my bodyweight pressing the unit down to the floor! That would make things work for me.

The second question regarding strength and force, well, in reality that is a question that do NOT need to be answered yet, maybe in a couple of years or so... But I still think it is an interesting question!

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there ya go