ID's Training Log: From Capoeira to Rings

Trapped in a cubicle with room for only my mind to wander, I found it drifting into dangerous territory, as it so often does. It was October of 2011 and having moved back to Atlanta from San Diego I found myself playing less Capoeira, and working more on tumbling (the "floreio" part of the artform). The neglected set of rings at the gymnastics facility I trained at had become more decoration than anything. And yet, in that cubicle, the idea that I wanted to learn an Iron Cross drifted into my head and stuck it self-there so doggedly that I knew it was going nowhere.

That was my first foray into Gymnastics strength training, and my inquiries to experienced gymnasts as to how to learn the cross were all answered. Unfortunately none of the answers stated what I know now, which is "you are not ready to train the Iron Cross until you have mastered many different Basic Strength elements!" I then switched to trying to learn the Muscle Up, then I started working with static elements, and then finally I came across Gymnastic Bodies and BtGB.

However, I still was training in a different mindset, believing that I was stronger than I really was or farther along in my Muscle Up training than I was ready for. The truth is that months later I still could not do a good negative muscle up and was putting significant strain on my elbows.

Once I discovered the Prerequisites thread I realized that I could not do a 60s hollow hold and the arch hold was significantly different.

A German Hang longer than 30s was torture.

For this reason I made a decision that was painful, and humbling: I was going to reset my training yet again. It wasn't easy considering I am coming up on the 1 year anniversary of my rings training and I still cannot even do a muscle-up, but I am at least taking consolation in the fact that there is progress that I can see, which is important for me to acknowledge because it comes so slow that it's sometimes difficult to recognize. Anyways, my new routine:

I have decided to stop working all levers and planches while I develop a comfortable series of 2-3 60s of the plank, reverse plank

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I will try to maintain a balance of Capoeira training with my Gymnastics Training so that

• my Gymnastics training occurs 3-5 times a week
  
• Capoeira 1-2 times per week
  
• Tumbling/Tricking 2-3 times per week
  
• Yoga or some other form of stretching at least once a week
  

I am sure it will still be a learning process and I hope anyone on this forum will contribute any criticisms or ideas of my routines as they develop. I am learning rings simply because of my passion and love of this apparatus, but pretty much all of my other training is being done with the hope that there will be a carry-over effect to my Capoeira game (I feel that handstand work in particular will help with this, along with SLS work).

My current workout routine looks something like this:

3x40 seconds doing the following Prequisites routine

Hollow Hold

Plank (feet elev to shoulder height)

Arch Hold

Reverse Plank

10 second rest between each one, and about 60-90 seconds rest between giant sets.

I then follow this with 3 sets of 20-40 seconds selecting 3-5 of the following:

Dead Hangs

XR Support RTO

L-Sits

Wall Handstands (chest to wall)

German Hangs

I finish up the workout with Strength Training:

Pull Ups Select one of the following variations:

L-Sit Bar Pull Ups (3-5 sets of 2-3 reps)

XR Pull-Ups with False Grip (Currently 3-5 sets of 5 reps)

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Dips

For this I am sticking with XR Dips (3-4 sets of 3 reps)

HeSPU Select one or two of the following variations:

Wall Climbs (3 is my max right now... laaame!!!)

Wall Runs (I can do about 24 shoulder taps before I get tuckered out)

Negative HeSPU (3-4 sets of 3-5 reps)

HeSPU Box (3 sets of 5 reps, very difficult)

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Muscle Up Select one of the following:

Russian Dips (3x3, elbows to bar only right now)

Negative Muscle Ups (3x3)

Jumping Muscle Ups (3x5)

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Legs

Either SLS (3 sets of 6 reps [3 each leg])

or GHS negatives (I can't even do a single negative rep! I've also pulled muscles a few times doing these so I think I might need to find an easier alternative)

and Standing Calf Raises (about 20 reps each leg for 3 sets)

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GOALS

Once I am comfortable with the prerequisites (should just be a matter of a couple of weeks) I am going to reintroduce Back Levers, and Front Levers. Once I've gotten better with Back Levers I'll bring my Planche training back in.

The Muscle Up seems like such an impossible goal! I'm going to continue working it with the above routine for about 3 months and reassess my progress. If it still looks sketchy at that time I'm going to need to revise my training. I have a long way to go with the basic HeSPU work, so I am comfortable sticking with the basics now.

And what can I say... learning an Iron Cross is still the end goal! I can't think about it specifically, but I know if I stick with it it will be in my sights one day.

Saturday 2012/10/13

Warmed up with some running and jumping. IDO's scapular routine.

Prerequisites routine

3x40 secs of:

Hollow Hold

Elevated Plank

Arch Hold

Reverse Plank

Static Holds

3x20 seconds German Hangs

2x30 seconds XR RTO Support Hold

4x20 seconds Chest-2-Wall Handstands

Basic Strength Routine

4x3 L-Sit Pull Ups

4x3 XR Dips

3x3 Russian Dips (Elbows to bar)

3x5 HeSPU

3x6 SLS (3 each leg)

3x20 Calf Raises

Cooldown stretches

2 sets of:

20 V-Ups

10 Handstand Push-ups

My elbows were already feeling a bit strained so I was going to take it easy today, then while doing laundry my elbow connected with a railing right in the wrong spot and it hurt! I was going to do some Neg MU work but the pain was too much and I probably shouldn't have even done the Russian Dips. I think I will probably hold off of transition work for a while.

This is a big routine, but I actually spread it out over a few hours with some generous rest breaks so it wasn't too bad, but it got me wondering if I should split up some of the Basic Strength movements over different training days.

Lunchtime Power Hour

2 minutes jumprope

some German Hangs, then

3 giant sets of:

6 chin ups

5 wide grip Pull Ups

6 PB Dips

1 Hour of Tumbling a few hours later

Due to familial obligations I am not able to get a full work out in, so I took during lunch to get some exercise my way. Normally today I take a 1 hour tumbling class followed by 1-2.5 hours of working out.

Instead I just did the lunchtime routine and just got back from my tumbling class. There's a great teacher there and I got some corrections to my round-off and executed a round-off back-handspring/back-handspring for the first time. Nice!

I was only in the German Hang for a few seconds with my feet on the ground and I was already feeling it in my elbows so I really need to cut back there. That's why I moved the chin ups to the front of my workout. I'll be doing a lot of biceps conditioning going forward.

After tumbling class our Coach had me do 40 pushups and 50 V-Ups. Doing the pushups, I was wondering if training them for endurance with such a high rep count was the way to go... or should I be moving to harder variations and fewer reps? What do you all think?

Yesterday I had a good hour of Capoeira.

Today's routine:

1 Hour Tumbling

Hollow hold, Plank, Reverse Plank, Arch Hold 3x40seconds

RTO Support Hold 2x30seconds

Jumping Muscle-Ups (rings about 9-10 inches above my head) 3x6

XR false grip Pull-Ups 5x4

XR Bulgarian Dips 3x3

3 supersets of:

SLS (3 each leg)

Wall Runs (to failure)

3 supersets of

Calf raises (18 each leg)

Bicep curls (10 each arm)

It was an okay workout- part of taking it easy on my elbows means no German Hangs, and no Transition work. The good news it the Jumping Muscle Ups were pretty challenging for me. The 6th rep of each set was a killer. Saw myself in the mirror afterwards: man, I'm getting a little tubby around the waist! Might be time to drop a few lbs, lol.

Got to the gym an hour and a half before closing... GO!

2x50 sec prereqs (hollow, plank, arch, reverse plank)

2x30 sec RTO Support Hold

2x35 sec wall hs

2x60 sec dead hang neutral grip

4x5 Box HeSPU

3x6 Jumping MU

3 supersets of:

HS Wall Runs

20 V-Ups

20 Push Ups

Obliques

Prereqs 3 supersets 50 sec each of Hollow, Plank, Reverse, Arch

Statics

2x40s wall hs

2x8s L-Sits

Strength/Skill

3x3 HeSPU Negatives

4x3 L-Sit Pull Ups

3x6 PB Tempo Dips

3x3 SLS (each leg)

1x3 Pullovers

The prereqs are kicking my ass... but if I'm doing 3 sets of 50 seconds well, 60 second holds are not far away. I definitely look forward to ditching these because they are absolutely my least favorite part of the routine.

A bout of food poisoning, and a trip to San Diego means no gymnastics training for a couple of weeks now. Just working on my core strength and getting for our annual Capoeira Batizado out here.

It really is interesting to see the difference in feel alone for training Capoeira really hard vs. hard gymnastics training.

The cardio of Capoeira is killing me: my endurance is pretty terrible and I haven't been getting much of a workout with just GST. Really think I need to balance the two out.

Cool stuff man! what group are you a part of?

and what does your solo capoeira training look like at the moment?

Whaddup Capoeirista!

 

I come from Grupo Capoeira Brasil in San Diego. Now that I live in Atlanta I have been training with Mestre Fran and Capoeira Maculele. My solo training consists of... well, a lot of solo work! I actually began the gymnastics journey because I have wanted to learn some of the high-level floreio movements. I thought this would be a 1-2 month process but I know realize it is going to take a lot of time and dedication. Luckily I am surrounded by many talented people to work with.

 

I am also trying to identify and target the calisthenic movements that I think will have the most-carryover for Capoeira, like SLS and HeSPU.

 

What about yourself?

Ah, a long detour from training. I was in California for a month and it was nothing but Capoeira. Great to reconnect with the art and I think I am going to try integrate into my training at least twice a week. Came back looking ripped!

 

Interesting story, in the absence of rings I just did the prereqs routine. While at a park with my cousins we say a set of rings in the kids jungle gym that were hung about four feet of the ground and less than a foot from the bar, lol. I tried busting out a straddle back level and it was the best one I had performed yet.

 

I don't know if it was a function of training the prereq movements or giving my body a rest or both. I had also acquired food poisoning a little while ago and lost a lot of weight.

 

Anyways, a nice brief return workout yesterday with one heartbreaking result (more details on that at the end):

 

Light jog

60s burpees warm-up

60s chest to wall HS

2x20 German Hangs on the bar (one overhand grip, one underhand)

2x20 Front lever adv tuck

2x30 RTO support hold

4x3 Negative Muscle Ups

1x30 Back Lever adv tuck

2 minutes Standing back tucks

 

The negative muscle ups were smoother than they had ever been. I was able to control it throughout the entire movement with a nice slow descent through the transition. Everything was awesome until the last set when that old elbow pain started coming back in my right arm. Damn! I had hoped that month off would have taken care of it. I am still feeling it today.

 

It makes me feel like I really wasted my week. If I had been thinking of it I could have used those weeks in California to do some serious biceps conditioning which has worked really well as prehab. I'm going to take a week off right now of doing any movements that aggravate my elbow, focus on my biceps, and try acupuncture to see if that helps at all.

Friday night was a biceps intensive workout, mixed with some handstand work.

 

Sunday:

A quick warm up followed by:

Chest to wall HS 3x30s

German Hangs 2x20s

Support Holds 2x30s

MU Transition "Paddles" (setting the rings to just above shoulder height and just working the transition up & down) 3x12

3x4 Box HeSPU

6x18 (each leg) SL Calf Raise

4x5 Pull Ups

3x6 PB Dips

 

50 Backflips

Hey mate,

 

With your elbows, be careful, I recently added too much volume and intensity that targetted my elbows and they became quite sensitive and sore. I have since fixed them up though.

 

My pointers to you would be:

1. Completely recover your elbows to the point of no discomfort or pain. This is mostly a rest exercise.

2. Reduce the volume of work you are doing that impacts your elbows. Russian dips and MU work.

3. Work to loosen up your forearms and biceps and triceps. Sometimes tightnesss in these parts of the arm contribute to the pain felt in the elbows.

Thanks for the tip Gavin. How long did you have to rest before your elbow felt healed?

1 hour of tumbling

3x5 XR False Grip PU

3x5 XR Push Ups

The backhandsprings in tumbling have been doing a number on my shoulders. To me it feels as if the myofascial sheath is too tough there (though I could just be talking out of my butt), so I my try working the foam roller on 'em.

I picked up on the initial discomfort early on. I rested about two weeks and took out all the movements I was doing that impacted my elbows. I dropped back most of my intensity on the other stuff I was doing as well.

Warmed up with some Capoeira movements

Chest to Wall Handstand 1x60s

RTO Support Holds 3x30s

L-sit tuck 3x30s

Mu transition paddles 12,11, 10

Hespu box 3x4

XR Fg Pu 3x5

XR by tuck 3x30

Bicep curls 2x20 (each arm, 12lbs)

I've been training, but not posting as much. I don't think that is a good thing because being able to review this will be a nice proof of progress, especially since for myself progress comes so slow that it's easy to think I'm not progressing at all, lol.

 

Warm up: 5 minutes of trampoline and Capoeira

RTO Support Holds 3x20sec

German Hangs 4x20 sec

Seated NeMU 3x10

Arch Hold 1x60sec

Superman 1x60sec

Ring Dips 3x5

Parallet PPP 3x6

SL Calf Raises 50 reps each leg

VUps 2x15

 

I've been working out regularly, 3 times a week at least, not as much as I want but I have to admit I have been in a kind of funk. Even with the reduced schedule my workouts haven't felt that challenging so I was happy with this workout where I felt like I really pushed myself, got really pumped, and am currently very sore as a result!

Adapted a WOD from a few days ago for my workout today:

4 sets of:

L-Sit to Planche x2

7 Box HeSPu

L-Sit to Planche x2

5 Parallel Bar Dips

L-Sit to Planche x2

3 L-Sit Pull Ups

with 2-3 minutes of rest between sets.

 

Ended with 2x10 Wrist Push Ups on the Spring Floor.

Yesterday's workout: the rings were out of commission and I was feeling really blah. The gymnastics facility was a real zoo as well, so I just warmed up for a bit with some capoeira and then:

50 backflips

4x7 Pullups

 

The ankle injury I have has kept me from tumbling so I tried to stay sharp with backflips exercise. Fortunately I have access to a foam pit so I threw a mat on top of it and landed my backflips there because there is no way I would do them on the floor in my condition. My abs are fried, btw. Backflips for reps is such an awesome exercise.

Warm up: 5 minutes of running and jumping

RTO Support Holds 4x20sec

German Hangs 4x20 sec (2 bar, 2 rings)

Seated NeMU 3x10

Ring Dips 3x5

Parallet PPP 3x7

SL Calf Raises 50 reps each leg

VUps 2x15

 

The seated Negative Muscle Ups are getting easier... but I still feel a little tension in my elbow so I am sort of hesitant to try a harder variation right now.