Rik's Ramblings

I thought about this, but I didn't wnat to clutter up the forum. Oh well.

Shoulder dislocates and the like. Mobility stuff. Also wrists.

HS skill work, Pre-FSP. Switch around, see what I like better.

L-sit practice/work. Basically spend some time on this. I really ought to build Parallettes because both HS and L-sit got tough on my wrists. I didn't do the wrist mobility exercises, though. But it's a good idea anyway.

Rows 3x5-10. I'm pretty decent at this. I'll probably have to start with the rings elevated high. I've lost a lot of strength.

Pushups 3x5-10. I think I'll still be able to do a good number of pushups, but we'll see.

For legs I'm probably going to squat and deadlift 1x a week (because overuse last time) and focus on single-leg work (deep step-ups) the other two days.

Update 25-10-2012:

The hunt continues. My sleep is pretty much back on track now (stuck to a schedule for more than 3 days for once ), so I have ample time to search.

Rik de Kort said:

I thought about this, but I didn't wnat to clutter up the forum. Oh well.

Rik de Kort said:

Update 25-10-2012:

The hunt continues. My sleep is pretty much back on track now (stuck to a schedule for more than 3 days for once ), so I have ample time to search.

I quote. Maybe something appears

Well, since Cory said to make a real log out of it, here goes.

I've been dealing with some nasty stuff which has kept me from training. Mainly my right shoulder and knee.

I am currently seeing a physiotherapist for my knee, but I apparently need to go see a sport's doc for my shoulder (according to the physician). Only that the physician hasn't written the reference yet.

For my knee the diagnosis was knee tendonosis. Caused by doing too much squatting, overuse. After I stopped that, I kept running which didn't do it any good. So currently the plan is simply: 3 sets of 15 eccentric exercises twice a day. I started with squats, but then moved onto lunges.

So what I did just now:

3x15 eccentric lunges with patella brace thing and pushing up as assistance.

30 minutes IR heat on left shoulder because it's been feeling bad because of all the pushing I've been doing with the eccentric lunges. Definitely helps.

Thinking about moving on to partial SLS so I can just use my left leg to assist. I also should keep up a bit more with the shoulder mobility.

I want to do IR on my knee to speed up healing, but up in my room it's not even 20 degrees (celsius), so it gets pretty cold. Maybe I should find a blanket.

As for how my knee currently feels, it's... different. Not sure if it's good or bad, but it's pretty good during exercises. Only yesterday when walking up the stairs at the university (I never take the elevator), it hurt my knee a bit. So I don't think it's good.

I have a lot of trouble classifying sensations like this, which is what got me here in the first place because I pushed too far. "Back off if you feel pain" didn't cut it for me. Now I know when to back off (I noted my left shoulder a couple of days ago), but I had to learn first.

(This had better classify as a proper log entry)

So Cory mentioned the time required was about 10-15 minutes. I'm prone to writing whole diary entries, though.

Left shoulder is still painful. The high volume of 'dips' so long after doing them really is too much. Problem is, I saw this coming, like last week already. And I knew I ought to backoff, but decided to focus more on being consistent with my knee exercises. I'm not sure whether it's the best idea because essentially I'm swapping a knee injury for a shoulder injury. Of course, that would free up my legs so I can start running again.

Blegh. It's just really annoying to be sitting on your ass for so long. I love training and getting stronger. Hopefully 2013 will be a better year, training wise. I've learned a TON.

Did wrist mobility just now, from the Handstand PDF Kit has up on his website, with additional fingertip support (leaning back a lot). Maybe I can start compression exercises soon, but I'll have to clear hip mobility with my physio first.

So here's what I plan on doing once I get back to training:

Shoulder dislocates and the like. Mobility stuff. Also wrists.

HS skill work, Pre-FSP. Switch around, see what I like better.

L-sit practice/work. Basically spend some time on this. I really ought to build Parallettes because both HS and L-sit got tough on my wrists. I didn't do the wrist mobility exercises, though. But it's a good idea anyway.

Rows 3x5-10. I'm pretty decent at this. I'll probably have to start with the rings elevated high. I've lost a lot of strength.

Pushups 3x5-10. I think I'll still be able to do a good number of pushups, but we'll see.

For legs I'm probably going to squat and deadlift 1x a week (because overuse last time) and focus on single-leg work (deep step-ups) the other two days.

This should be pretty quick, maybe half an hour. You can bring this back to like 15-20 minutes if you rotate exercises, so rather than doing a set of rows, 3 min rest, set of rows, 3 min rest, etc., you go set of rows, 1.5 min rest, set of pushups, 1.5 min rest, set of squats, 1.5 min rest, set of rows, 1.5 min rest, etc. Would be fun to try out.

I actually want to post meaningful stuff here, but my log has been quite empty lately because there just isn't much to tell.

In any case, here are my current goals:

First off: get back to a healthy body. Between my shoulder and my knee there isn't really much I can do. Just hollows and arches gets boring after a while. I'm currently working on this with a physio for my knee and I will be seeing a sports doc soon (as soon as my physician writes the damn reference) for my shoulder.

Other than that my main performance goals are:

• 2 plate (100 kg/220 lbs) back squat
  
• Proper pullups. Somehow my right elbow doesn't like them very much, so I'll be focussing on prehab for that as well. I can chin just fine.
  
• 10s Freestanding HS
  
• 30s L-sit
  
• 30s German Hang.
  

The last three represent the very basics, IMO.

Less important are the following (short term) goals:

• Tuck FL Rows
  
• RTO Pushups
  
• Ring L-sit dips

After I complete all that, I want to start working BL and FL and then go from there.

Oh, and ring supports figure in somewhere after the pre-FSP's once I reach 3x60s Pbar support.

I've also been considering the differences between bodyweight and traditional resistance training lately. Bodyweight training provides more coordination benefits, especially inverted, but what about factors beyond that. I've seen it said that traditional resistance training is better for hypertrophy. This makes sense in the fact that you can very accurately scale the resistance by adding weight on the bar, while resistance is a bit more variable with bodyweight training. However, if you're on the rings for instance, you are probably getting more recruitment out of your fibers, so you get more hypertrophy. I really need to learn more about hypertrophy.

Also could be BW training is a bit worse for hypertrophy because the neurological component of a strength increase is bigger, since you are getting a lot of feedback in, say, a HSPU compared to a military press. I think it'd even out over time as you have had a lot of practice with pressing and you start pressing heavy weights, because at that point the path the weight takes will always be the same.

You could do a study on this by doing a study with three groups: two traditional weight training and one bodyweight training. The two weight training groups would be doing either a standard LP, or utilize a double progression system like BWT does, in which you go up in repetitions before moving up in load. The BWT group would use a BWT program that closely mimics weight training.

The reason there would be two TWT groups is because you'll probably want to see whether the dual progression system is the cause of differences (if there are any).

There's also a problem with testing increases in strength: if you're going to measure strength via, say, a bench press 1RM, then the TWT group would automatically get higher scores because they've done it before. This can be solved by doing two strength tests, but with BWT this is troublesome because form tends to break down, which screws up the loading of the exercise. What you can do is take, say, a 3 or 5RM, which correlates pretty well to 1RM.

I suppose you could also add a BWT with incremental loading increases through weighted vests or something and see how that changes stuff.

Lot's of things to think about.

Sorry about cluttering up the forum. I renamed the topic to the appropriate name since I've just been rambling on and on. I think I'm past the treshold to find the easter egg now (5 posts seems reasonable), so now the hunt can begin anew!

I decided not to do my exercises this morning because my knee hurt. A lot. It's not improving at all. Physio tomorrow, so I'll raise the issue.

Have been considering a system for calculating muscle force production, assuming we can accurately measure all the values. The tricky part is tendon-muscle interaction, because the tendon acts as a spring so some force goes into stretching out the tendon, while there is also some force transfer. I don't know the relevant formulas for this, unfortunately. Once you have isometric force production, you can start looking into movement. At this point you're just working with work rather than force because movement is occuring. And from there it's easy to quantify exactly how much ATP is being used to produce movement.

However, with movement, moment arm starts to vary, as does tendon length, so you'd probably end up with a pretty nasty integral.

"Muscles produce about 120% more force during eccentric contractions". What kind of statement is that? I don't think the muscle isn't magically producing more force. Just that the muscle acts as a spring at maximal contraction so descent is somewhat slowed.

Oh well, something to think about.

So physio today. I mentioned that the eccentric exercises weren't helping, so he told me to take rest for a week. Also, I'm not allowed to go up the three flights of stairs at the university any more, so I'll have to take the elevator. >.>

Got reference for sport's doc from physician. Going there on monday morning.

You may want to try some Gua Sha scraping, for my elbows it is absolutely indispensible. I did a single session 2 days ago from shoulder to wrist and my right elbow is less than half as painful as it was, and there's no almost-tearing sensation when I do pull ups. It's a huge difference.

I also highly recommend you use a heat lamp, you can use aluminum foil to make a reflector to keep the IR out of your eyes. Walmart has flexible clamp-on lamps for 15 bucks, and they can handle any bulb you put in them! A total steal!

What is that 120% business from?!

Muscle fibers produce almost twice the force eccentrically that they do concentrically. There are actually two myosin heads per light chain, but only one interacts at a time during concentric actions.

However, since they just slide down the actin without letting go during eccentrics they A) consume less energy and B) are suspected to have both heads interacting with the actin filament, which would explain the double force production.

This is why eccentric action causes muscle damage while concentric does not: Eccentric causes twice the force per fiber,and, as a result,  leads to much much more strain in the fibers that are contracting eccentrically

Rik, where does your scalene channel extend too? Answer that and you will know why you felt it in the bicep, that is a good thing still.

Separate note. What's going on with the knee?

Nic Branson said:

Separate note. What's going on with the knee?

Nic Branson said:

Rik, where does your scalene channel extend too? Answer that and you will know why you felt it in the bicep, that is a good thing still.

Joshua Naterman said:

What is that 120% business from?!

 

Muscle fibers produce almost twice the force eccentrically that they do concentrically. There are actually two myosin heads per light chain, but only one interacts at a time during concentric actions.

 

However, since they just slide down the actin without letting go during eccentrics they A) consume less energy and B) are suspected to have both heads interacting with the actin filament, which would explain the double force production.

 

This is why eccentric action causes muscle damage while concentric does not: Eccentric causes twice the force per fiber,and, as a result,  leads to much much more strain in the fibers that are contracting eccentrically

Joshua Naterman said:

You may want to try some Gua Sha scraping, for my elbows it is absolutely indispensible. I did a single session 2 days ago from shoulder to wrist and my right elbow is less than half as painful as it was, and there's no almost-tearing sensation when I do pull ups. It's a huge difference.

 

I also highly recommend you use a heat lamp, you can use aluminum foil to make a reflector to keep the IR out of your eyes. Walmart has flexible clamp-on lamps for 15 bucks, and they can handle any bulb you put in them! A total steal!

So I asked some of the guys who study physics about the force transfer of the tendon, and, well, there is none. Force between the muscle and the tendon transfers directly.

You can calculate tendon lengthening directly from spring constant, torque and moment arm, which is pretty awesome, because it would also provide a measure of muscle shortening during as a function of force, and best of all this, relationship is linear.

Right wrist is feeling off still. Knee and shoulder are the usual, maybe the knee a bit worse.

I also see my post from last time didn't go through and it ended up just quoting, doing nothing else.

Get that text in there so I know what you wanted to ask me!

Separate note. What's going on with the knee?

Blatant, stupid overuse.

Rik, where does your scalene channel extend too? Answer that and you will know why you felt it in the bicep, that is a good thing still.

Yeah, just trying to go easy on the biceps.

What is that 120% business from?!

 

Muscle fibers produce almost twice the force eccentrically that they do concentrically. There are actually two myosin heads per light chain, but only one interacts at a time during concentric actions.

 

However, since they just slide down the actin without letting go during eccentrics they A) consume less energy and B) are suspected to have both heads interacting with the actin filament, which would explain the double force production.

 

This is why eccentric action causes muscle damage while concentric does not: Eccentric causes twice the force per fiber,and, as a result,  leads to much much more strain in the fibers that are contracting eccentrically

I see. Thanks!

You may want to try some Gua Sha scraping, for my elbows it is absolutely indispensible. I did a single session 2 days ago from shoulder to wrist and my right elbow is less than half as painful as it was, and there's no almost-tearing sensation when I do pull ups. It's a huge difference.

 

I also highly recommend you use a heat lamp, you can use aluminum foil to make a reflector to keep the IR out of your eyes. Walmart has flexible clamp-on lamps for 15 bucks, and they can handle any bulb you put in them! A total steal!

I have an IR lamp already. It's quite old, from the 1970's, I believe. However, there is a problem. The best place to apply the heat is in my room, where it's quite cold. I would imagine this reduces the effectiveness, no?

Rik de Kort said:

Blatant, stupid overuse.

Yeah, just trying to go easy on the biceps.

 

I see. Thanks!

I have an IR lamp already. It's quite old, from the 1970's, I believe. However, there is a problem. The best place to apply the heat is in my room, where it's quite cold. I would imagine this reduces the effectiveness, no?

I... don't know!

You could wrap most of your body in blankets or sheets to stay warm I don't know what else to tell you.

Sports doc today. Hopefully this will be easily fixable. Fingers crossed!

Joshua Naterman said:

I... don't know!

 

You could wrap most of your body in blankets or sheets to stay warm I don't know what else to tell you.

Yeah, I thought of that myself. I was more concerned with the surrounding air taking up heat.

Sport's doc report:

I got there after a log of hassle (fucking buses), but I finally made it. She examined my shoulder and remarked that I apparently was very strong. There's a trigger point somewhere in between my scapula and my whole right trapezius is tight. So far, nothing really new. I'll have to see a manual therapist to help fix that and await consequences. Luckily my current physio is a manual therapist, so that's great.
As far as I my knee is concerned... physio had me on 3 sets of 15 eccentric lunges 2 times a day. However, this didn't do anything good to my knee (only made it worse), so I told him this and now I should do a week of nothing. Only that on friday I ran up a small hill a couple of times because we were sleighriding, so my knee is not really happy. It's better than before, though. I think it was too much volume.

Check out your VMO make sure they are firing evenly and strongly. Try terminal knee extensions's (with a band not the machine). Check ITB on each side. One or all may have a small issue that could be used to speed recovery.