SeaSeaRider's Workout Log - The Quest for Awesome

Sat. 8/18/12:

Deadlifts:

65lbs x 5

105lbs x 5

135lbs x 5

135lbs x 5

155lbs x 5

155lbs x 5

185lbs x 5

185lbs x 5

* Deadlifts felt good; this is a deload week of the Wendler 5-3-1 and I basically disregarded the laughably low weights prescribed... I figure, week 4 is for my own personal judgement. I wasn't sore from the first 3 weeks of increasing DL, so whatever. If it feels good, do it? Right?

SL Deadlifts:

95 lbs x 10reps x 5 sets

* hamstrings jello-y by the end. This will hurt tomorrow, I think.

Glute Bridge:

65lbs x 10 reps x 5 sets

* damn! this was like a laser-beam to my glutes-- so isolated and sooooo good!

Hamstring Curls:

36 lbs x 12 reps x 5 sets

* maybe should have done these earlier in the workout.... By the time I got to this exercise, my hamstrings were uncooperative, to say the least!

Handstands:

60 secs

* getting the balance much better now that I'm doing handstands for longer and daily. Can't wait to hold this in the middle of the room for 60 sec! As it stands, I'm getting brief (3-4 secs) moments of balance that seem to relate directly to the pressure I transfer into my fingertips, as well as actively focusing on getting my shoulders directly over my hands. Feeling good.

Stretching:

Splits, front and side variations, german-hang stretch for shoulders, lots of ballet-related stretching using head-height bar. felt so awesomely good after the pummeling I gave my legs today.

Fri 8/17/12:

Friday I worked out twice... I dunno, I guess once wasn't painful enough

Full-Tuck Planche on parallettes:

7 sets x 15 secs

* This is feeling pretty chill... When I try to straighten my back to the advanced-tuck, however, everything falls apart. Maybe I need more core training to bridge the gap.

L-Sit (parallettes):

8 sets x 20 secs

* getting better at inching my hips even with my arms. Still feeling difficult, though.

Handstands:

3x 60 secs

1 set of alternating one-hand handstands against the wall; twice on each side for about 5 secs each time.

* still working on a free-standing handstand. I'll get there someday. I did have an "aha" moment of about 5 secs in which I balanced perfectly... Then I got so excited I fell out of it. Baby steps.

Inclined sit-ups:

2 sets w/ 25lb plate on my chest; I lowered until my torso was parallel w/ the ground, held for 15 secs, then did 15 crunches, then 10 twists to each side with the weight at shoulder-level. OUCH!

EZ-bar Triceps Extensions:

2 sets of 15, 35lbs.

* this felt hard, probably because it was at the end of workout 2 for the day. Go figure.

Bench Press:

45lbs x 10 reps

55lbs x 10 reps

65lbs x 10 reps

75lbs x 10 reps

85lbs x 10 reps

* holy crap. I alternated these with sets of dumbbell flyes w/ virtually no rest between all 10 sets. OOFTA!

Dumbbell Flyes:

15lbs each hand x 10 reps

12.5 lbs each hand x 10 reps

12.5 lbs each hand x 10 reps

12.5 lbs each hand x 10 reps

12.5 lbs each hand x 10 reps

Pectoral Machine:

15 reps x 60 lbs

15 reps x 60 lbs

* gym was closing; didn't get to finish last set. That's alright, at that point I was cool with it

Side Bends:

30lbs (barbell) x 10 reps each side

30lbs (barbell) x 10 reps each side

* made sure to complete range of motion/twist so that my lowered arm crossed in front of my legs. What a stretch and workout combined, and boy do my obliques know it!

Ring push-ups:

5 sets, 5 reps each

* wow. way harder than the ground. Rings just may be the coolest invention ever.

Sun 8/19/12:

Felt the need for a "rest" day today... Super sore from 6 days straight of training. So, I went bouldering at the Buttermilks and worked on a project of mine, Perfectly Chicken (v5), on the Smooth Shrimp boulder:

It's coming along nicely; progress on bouldering projects is a lot like progress in gymnastics movements: every millimeter forward is a simultaneously infuriating and enthralling success!

To make the transition from tuck to adv tuck you need stronger serratus anterior, stronger upper pecs and stronger shoulders (anterior delts specifically), as these are the major muscles holding you up.

Of course most of the rest of your body is working as well, but core strength is almost certainly not the issue. It virtually never is.

Thanks, Josh. I am currently training the heck out of my pecs, so hopefully that will help although, if you had any exercise suggestions to isolate those muscles needed for advancement, I would be really grateful. My overall conditioning is pretty good; I'm a rock climber and yogi and I've been training major lifts for about 8 months, so my core is relatively solid... However I'm always looking for those pinpoint-type auxilary exercises to boost my progression!

-SeaSeaRider

Falling behind on my workout logs already... I suppose that's not entirely bad-- it means I'm spending more time training than typing about training 8) I'll just post a couple days here to catch up:

Monday 8/20:

Spent 2.5 hours climbing at Rock Creek. Felt some amazing body tension on a really balancey problem, Camel Love (V4). I can really see how gymnastics/body weight training transitions into ascending rock. Booyah! Unfortunately, I tweaked my ankle a week ago and it seemed to be ultra-aggravated today. I wasn't giving my all on the boulders since I was afraid to land on my foot. So it goes.

Tuesday 8/21:

Pulling day. Fingerboard exercises:

Grips trained:

SET 1

1. jugs (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

2. R/L middle sloper (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

3. 3 finger deep pocket L/ 2 finger deep R (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

4. 3 finger deep pocket R/ 2 finger deep L (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

5. 1/2 pad edge L/ 3 finger mid-depth R (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

Rest 10 min.

SET 2

1. 1/2 pad edge R/ 3 finger mid-depth L (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

2. 3 finger deep pocket L/ R 35* sloper (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

3. 3 finger deep pocket R/ L 35* sloper (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

4. 1/2 pad edge both hands*** (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

*** failed 4th set, alternated one hand in deeper edge for last 2

5. big slopers both hands (7 sec hold/ rest 3 sec/ repeat 6 X)

Uneven Ring Pull-ups:

6 sets of 5-- alternating R/L hands higher, every 2 sets increased difference in ring height by a few inches.

Attempted 1 set of typewriter pull-ups. Too painful on shoulders at that point. Same song and dance when I tried a muscle-up. Maybe I need to train those harder variations when I'm fresh. :?

Hanging leg raises:

2 sets of appx. one minute, continuous leg raises to moving targets (provided by my workout partner-- he'd give me a target at varying heights and distances from where I hung; dictated whether to raise my left, right, or both feet to said targets. INTENSE core as well as shoulders and hands as I was hanging from the rings the whole time)

Wednesday 8/22:

Standing Shoulder Barbell Press:

30lbs x 5

30 lbs x 5

45 lbs x 5

45 lbs x 5

45 lbs x 5

50 lbs x 5

55 lbs x 5

60 lbs x 10

Handstands:

5 x 60 sec. against wall, lifted away and balanced after the minute was up...

**Feeling MUCH stronger here already.

Handstand Push-ups:

5 x 6 reps

**I had 2 stacked weight plates beneath my head, appx. 4 in. higher than the ground for me to shoot for. This felt hard but do-able. Gotta start somewhere.

Dips:

5 x 10 reps

**This hurts my shoulders less every time I do it. Not yet ready to add weight or attempt on the rings :| I'll get there.

L-Sit (dip station):

15 sec

15 sec

28 sec

24 sec

23 sec

** Getting much better at keeping my legs above parallel and scooting my hips in front of my hands.

Tuck Planche (dip station):

17 sec.

18 sec.

15 sec.

** Thanks to Josh Naterman and his useful comments! I focused on my delts, serratus and pecs and I got my back straight! Not quite to an advanced tuck, but hey, I'm happy with that progress in a week!

Leg raises/ Body levers (on an incline bench):

3 X 8 reps

** this felt awesome! With the equipment I was using, I figure this exercise is somewhere in between a body lever and a leg raise to fully piked position... I began the movement at a 45* decline, lifted my straight legs and torso (but with a bend in my hips), to a finish position much like the yoga "plow" pose.

Whew! Caught up now! I'm tired.

Thursday 8/23:

A day for legs!

Barbell Squats:

45 lbs x 5

65 lbs x 5

65 lbs x 5

95 lbs x 5

95 lbs x 5

95 lbs x 5

100 lbs x 5

115 lbs x 5

130 lbs x 10

Walking Barbell Lunges:

50 lbs x 20 (10 reps each side) x 5 sets

One-legged Squats:

5 each side (10 total) x 4 sets

** This was the final exercise of my cycle today; by the fifth cycle of sets, there was just no freaking way I could finish with a final 5 on each leg. I went to absolute failure today and felt shaky for a good couple hours after. Job well done, if I do say so myself. :wink:

Adductor:

100 lbs x 25 reps x 5 sets

Abductor:

120 lbs x 25 reps x 5 sets

Rocking Calf Raises:

25 reps each leg (50 total) x 5 sets + one set of 50 reps w/ both legs... just for good measure.

** Each set I held my idle leg in a different position and played around with hip turnout a la ballerina barre work. Felt goooood.

Ciao for now; going to watch Arnold and refresh my Terminator knowledge.

Sunday 8/26:

Totally bushwhacked today after two days of bouldering near Tahoe... For the sake of simultaneous consistency and brevity, I'll just report that I spent roughly 2 hours Friday climbing on granite, then about 5.5 hours Saturday doing the same thing. Lots of projects, some moderately proud sends... some near-sends that broke my heart and inspired my to train harder.

Today, I meant to rest, went inner-tubing on the Owen's River with my boyfriend, and ended up half relaxing, half paddling-for-dear-life for 3.5 hours.

All-in-all, a weekend well spent :wink: