NaterMania

Hey slizz how the training coming? Couple of my usual questions lol

1. What type of scapular work are you doing exactly? Is there one or two muscles that are the most important? how can one tell if they are setting their scapula?

2. Is their a video on how to do the thoracic neck extension and trap recruitment for handstands? Have not found one on youtube.

3. Did you say or do you take creatine on non workout days?

4. Would the heavy tire sprints you do build quad hypertrophy, or just type 2 endurance?

5. Made any new vids yet? lol

mikelmarion said:

Hey slizz how the training coming? Couple of my usual questions lol

1. What type of scapular work are you doing exactly? Is there one or two muscles that are the most important? how can one tell if they are setting their scapula?

2. Is their a video on how to do the thoracic neck extension and trap recruitment for handstands? Have not found one on youtube.

3. Did you say or do you take creatine on non workout days?

4. Would the heavy tire sprints you do build quad hypertrophy, or just type 2 endurance?

5. Made any new vids yet? lol

1) That's complicated and constantly evolving as I am able to do more things correctly. Y-T-I-W drills are a staple, with three variations on scapular activation now. one version retracts and maintains retraction, then has slow movement. Another has the retraction happening along with the slow movement, and a third starts like the first but when I get to full flexion and abduction I protract and retract the scapula (this I do prone and at various inclines).

I also do a sort of pulsing around the world thing, and I am starting to do weighted wall slides that are inspired by Matt Wichlinski (probably spelled that wrong) and his version with the PVC. I did this with a 15 lb bar and it felt great, I can feel a giant knot in my right upper trap (no surprise there, with my shoulder history) starting to loosen up and allow more movement / contraction. I am somewhat sure, because of that, that this large local contracture is what has been messing up my muscle activation in the traps just in general.

Other than that I am doing rows of all kinds, bodyweight and dumbbell and cable, some band work and some HS pressing work.

2) There is not, but our forum member Yuri has a great rant on handbalancing and how to train for it! There is also an excellent recent discussion here.

3) I haven't been taking creatine lately. I am learning that it appears that you don't actually need it (meaning you don't benefit from it) if your diet is super awesome, but I don't know about that. I never took much anyways, 3g per day is all you need and loading is not necessary. Loading just fills your muscles in a week instead of about 30 days.

4) To some extent, but mostly muscular endurance and capillarization.

5) no new vids, I really should but schedule has been tight. I am using a planner now, so perhaps I will be able to work some new vids into my more organized schedule.

Heading to work, but have to log this:

Made good leap forward yesterday. While performing Yuri's method of wall HS press negatives, which by the way is very very good, I felt about 5 pops and cracks in the upper t-spine from T5-T1-ish. It was extremely painful, and was cramping pretty good. I performed graston from the tips of my fingers to my shoulders, from sternum to shoulder, and then had my friend work from my spine to the shoulder from the base of my skull all the way down to my lats. Basically the entire upper torso, starting with the hands and ending with the center part. This took about 10 minutes and immediately reduced the cramping and pain by about 90%. There is still some residual cramping but ROM is much better and I can assume a posture and control my scapulae in a way that I couldn't before last night, at least for many years.

I am very happy about this. Continuing constant mobility work to keep the gained ROM, and now I can start working the pressing variations more often since I can use the muscles properly! Yay!

Have been working negative HS presses, 1-2 reps per day. Making good progress.

My rocking and sliding presses are getting better all the time. I also chained together 2 reps of HeSPU freestanding with ease, sort of an impromptu thing since I worked hard yesterday and today was something of a rest for HS work. Felt like I could have done 3-5 for sure. HS is feeling very solid, obviously.

I found I can do a single rep of one arm push ups with one arm one leg and no assistance when bracing the off hand on the opposite hamstring, but this is REALLY hard right now... haven't been doing any pressing strength work to speak of besides a little HSPU work.

Have been working on freestanding PB HSPU twice a week but these take a lot of balance! Much harder than on the floor, in my opinion. My bars are at the park and are not as thick as real PB either, so that's a part of the difficulty as well. I am starting off in a shoulder stand and pressing up. Pretty tough, start losing my balance about halfway up.

Slizzardman, I was wondering on how you suggested integrating the protein/whey drinks with meals, since obviously you would be getting more protein that hour than your body could handle.

Sliz what do you think of this? Is this the type om ems your using?

Could it be used for hypertrophy (with eating) Activating fast twitch fibers, and recovery? Would there be a mode to force a contraction? Say like squeezing the scaps, or chest together for time (tut) Are you increasing strength with these or just speeding up recovery?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltg7T7iOkPs&feature=player_embedded

I have no idea why the vid will not attach here

josh14270 said:

Slizzardman, I was wondering on how you suggested integrating the protein/whey drinks with meals, since obviously you would be getting more protein that hour than your body could handle.

Pretty much what you would think... It's going to take at least an hour for that food to significantly impact blood amino acid levels, so you may as well have 5=10g right before you eat. The meat will last you 2-3 hours. If you aren't eating often enough you'll want to use the whey to fill in the gaps. After you ate meat you wouldn't sip much or any whey for 2-3 hours.

slizz are u signed up to take the MCAT this year?

No, don't think I am ready.

slizzardman said:

Bobby B said:

Hey Slizz. I'm going to try sipping on whey protein throughout the day to see how it sits but i cant find how much dextrose you recommended to add in the mixture. What was the ratio you found ideal?

Cheers

For regular day-time sipping 4g dextrose for every 10g whey. During the workout 10 grams for every 10 of protein is better. Sometimes more, but usually this is what makes me feel best.

Sliz, I don't take dextrose outside of during my workout, but is there a limit to how much I should take at that time? I generally train for roughly two hours (beginning to end, including warm up). I take a constant of 10g PRO per hour and 30-40g dextrose in 2L (which I sip 1L per hour). After the workout I get sweet potatoes. Is that too much? I'm thinking of the CHO I need to replace because of my exercise, but I'm not sure if the sipping during the workout or the snacks afterwards are responsible for the majority of CHO replacement.

By the way, how do you feel about beans these days? I love kidney beans with some bell peppers and I've been having them in small amounts with my hourly protein.

beans are nearly worthless without rice in terms of protein. You really need to have both at the same time if you expect to get really good results in terms of dietary protein.

If you are just eating beans because you like beans, hey... do what you like! They are a good source of carbs and fiber. Just make sure they are well soaked (10 hours) before you eat them.

slizzardman said:

beans are nearly worthless without rice in terms of protein. You really need to have both at the same time if you expect to get really good results in terms of dietary protein.

If you are just eating beans because you like beans, hey... do what you like! They are a good source of carbs and fiber. Just make sure they are well soaked (10 hours) before you eat them.

I don't eat the beans for the protein at all, just for carbs and fiber. I'll keep eating them, then. My buckwheat flour is coming in today (I got it from Amazon) and I'm really looking forward to making some pancakes!

Use baking soda and not baking powder for the recipe! I tried baking powder this past weekend and it totally sucked. Was NOT impressed!

It also works well to make the batter around 1 hour before you want to use it. It's great immediately, but much better after an hour. Apparently it keeps getting better for about 12 hours. I tested this and found that not only was this fairly accurate but the batter stays good for 2-3 days in the fridge no problem, so I had awesome pancakes F,Sa, and Su for breakfast!

I highly recommend pouring the batter into the pan and immediately dropping fresh berries into the cooking pancake.

Girlfriend got her first two unassisted pull ups yesterday! Not too bad for a month of training 1-3 x per week for a few sets.

Also, I am achieving proper lower trap activation during prone Y movements, a real step forward. Slow but relatively steady progress with trap work and handstands is still happening. I can now walk backwards under control on my hands for at least 10 feet, which had always been a problem for me until I started this trap work back in December.

\

20-40s freestanding HS are becoming a regular occurrence. I am also noticing that stomach to wall HS gets harder and harder as my shape improves, just because the traps are doing SO much work. It is really all in HOW you do it.

Well, after what felt like a bit of stagnation there has been some good improvements in overall shoulder function. I have felt healthy enough to start doing PB support, various dead hangs and L hangs, more scapular push ups (feeling this very nicely in my rear delts and external rotators on the right side now that they are starting to work more properly), and wall handstands.

My freestanding HS has been a bit spotty lately, but I think that's because I am tired from so much of the other work.

I can now do 10s reps with 15 lb dumbbells for all directions of shoulder raises (10s up and 10s down) for 2-3 reps without my shoulder losing position. This is good. I am able to do 1s up and 1s down with 10 lbs without feeling the shoulder lose position, which was new as of today.

Dumbbell curls are decent, 35 lbs isn't causing any issues anymore. Straight arm dumbbell work with 30 lbs didn't bother me today, sort of did that by accident... was stretching and just did one set of my routine with perfect form. Was duly impressed, I did this about 6 weeks ago and got sore elbows and shoulders as a result. Will have to see how the next few days feel, but it felt like nothing today and that is new. Have just been working 15 lb dumbbells twice a week. Butterfly pulls are getting stronger and feeling better as well. Using 35 lbs.

have been doing zero lower body training other than random sets of SLDL and weighted split squats.

Updates:

I have started deadlifting again, and squatting. 2 sets front squat, 2 sets back squat, 2-3 sets deadlift 2x per week.

first set of each is super slow, 16-20s per rep with 135 lbs, true ATG on the squats. 2nd set is with heavier weight (185 BS, 155 FS) for fairly easy set of 8 reps, 6s each. Deadlifts are done mostly straight leg, but with one bent leg set. Same weights as FS at the moment.

All of this is well below what I can really do but I have decided to start over from scratch. It is working. Without training more than twice per week with 35 lbs for freemotion butterfly and 15-20 lbs for supine dumbbell straight arm work, I can easily do butterflies with 37.5 lbs per arm for reps and same for prone freemotion BL->ML->PL for like 10 reps. Just doing this once per week on Fridays.

Also once per week on mondays, I am doing 8-10 reps of 6s dips and 10 reps of 4s tucked planche push ups with a hollow body at a 45 degree angle below horizontal. Just one set right now, maybe in a month or two I will add a second.

That is not the full list of what I am doing, but simply represents progress due to the rehab. I am now transitioning into phase 2 of 4 in what will probably become a book about how to build a truly amazing functional body. Obviously I will be encouraging people to come to GB as their bodyweight training resource. I am expecting a 4 year developmental cycle for this to be complete, meaning that I will have successfully been training at what I consider to be phase 4 for about a year. From there who knows.

Looking forward to when you put all your training knowledge and developed training philosophy into a well organized book, Josh.

One question about your very slow movements. Do you think they will make you slow? If so, you do plan to have a phase in your program that involves, to put into commercial terms, "supercharge the nervous system"?

Patrick Smith said:

Looking forward to when you put all your training knowledge and developed training philosophy into a well organized book, Josh.

One question about your very slow movements. Do you think they will make you slow? If so, you do plan to have a phase in your program that involves, to put into commercial terms, "supercharge the nervous system"?

Performed as an exclusive program, yes of course the slow movements will make you slow. All of that is taken into account.

Of course as they say... the proof is in the pudding. Where my body is in a few years will be very telling.

Studying for Chemistry final.

Not sure if I will go to May seminar this year, might wait until September.

Shoulder is interesting, slow re-integration of strength work is going well.

Currently doing the basics: 2 rounds of:

45s inverted hang

30-40s full lay hollow

20s low tuck planche, feeling it in the lats

20s tuck advanced L sit ( I know, doesn't seem "basic" but keeping my hips at wrist level works well for me as a shoulder rehab tool)

40s flat tuck FL. (again, not basics per se but I am able to do this properly. Have to remember that this is leftover strength from a 10s FL full lay)

Did the basics after lower body work.

Power cleaned the bar from the floor to shoulders with completely straight legs at the catch. Was very easy on all weights. Didn't even remotely feel the need to bend the legs to catch at all. This will, of course, change when I actually start doing power cleans in 6-12 months or longer, when I feel like it is time to actually do power work.

135 FS

135 BS

155 FS 6 reps

155 BS 8 reps

175 FS 5 reps

175 BS 7 reps

All squats true ATG. It is funny to see people sort of look confused when I keep going down until my butt is under my calves.

155 DLx12

155 RDL x12

155 real hack squats (behind the legs deadlift) x 10

Nice stuff Josh. O chem work for me on Monday I feel ya there.

Everyone is taking chem. I have General II finals next Monday :?

May luck be with us all...

Good luck to everyone on the Chemistry then...

I totally kicked that test in the nuts and stuffed a few singles into it's belt before sending it on its way to the A+ pile.

Nice! I hope mine goes half as well.

I have left a long string of mangled finals in my wake, and I definitely am going to have all A and A+ grades! yay! I suppose there's the outside chance that my health psych class might be an A-, but if it is I deserve it. I just didn't give that class the time of day, quite honestly.

Now for a month of awesome training before summer semester! I am feeling good. I got a little fat over the past few weeks between stress, holidays, and generally straying away from sound eating practices but still around 8.5% with calipers.