gotcha, trigger point

As I mentioned, I've been hobbled by an aching back. The pain radiated from the lower thoracic area down to my hip. All the twisting and stretching didn't help. The rolling on the Indo board cylinder and lacrosse ball, helped just a little. Finally, I resorted to something that'd I'd forgotten about, and it worked. I placed the lacrosse ball between a wall and my back. By standing, I was able to accurately place the ball right on the trigger point. Like waving a magic wand, my back felt great.

Yesterday's sambo class was about leg locks. We worked on toe holds and knee bars. While rolling I was able to get an ankle lock on my partner just before he got me. I also tried to get a guillotine, but failed. Steve showed me how I could have turned my half-baked guillotine into a crucifix submission. That was pretty sweet!

Coping with back pain

Finding the cause of back pain can be like Jerry Bruckheimer police procedural. My lower back has been sore for a couple weeks now, and it's pretty darn annoying. You might have noticed a paucity in training posts. Yeah, it's because of my back and I hurt it training.

The chain of events, as I believe them to be, started with a wrist injury, carpal tendon instability. Breaking your fall on concrete, even if it's covered with a wrestling mat, can do this to your wrist. With my wrist compromised, the disparity between strong and weak hand overhead pressing got magnified. At some point, probably when I was push-pressing 80 lbs on the right side and alternating with 65 lbs on the left, I tweaked some superficial spinal muscles. The result, low back pain.

I've been trying to roll out my back with the Indo board cylinder as well as lacrosse ball with a little success. The ache is somewhat diminished. I haven't found the trigger point. . . yet. I will find this sucker and squash it.

7-24-11
-100 kb swings
-weighted pull ups (80 lbs, 17x1)

7-25-11
-50 single kb swings+50 double kb swings
-30, 100 lbs squat cleans

double stuff

I took two back-to-back classes of sambo last night. Both were very good classes. The first one was spent setting up a throw, tani otoshi (again sorry for the Judo terminology) in a self defense situation, and then transitioning to a choke on the ground. Steve, the instructor, pointed out the importance of using gravity and bodyweight to get most of the work done. The next class was an advanced level class which included some sparring at the end. We worked on sasae tsurikomi ashi. Sparring was limited to this throw, which makes it difficult to execute because there is no element of surprise. Once a throw was executed, one minute of mat work. The grappling is easily the most grueling. By the end of class, I was well done.

7-20-11
-100 kb swings
-weighted pull-ups (80 lbs, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1)

Continuing Ed.

How do you continue learning new things when you've all but dropped off the map? Well, there's always YouTube. . .YouTube's not bad, but decidedly inferior to having a face to face with the instructor himself (or herself).

Last Friday I attended a class given by Sam Gilbert, number three in the ShinKyokushin knockdown karate world. That's like getting tennis pointers from Roger Federer.

This is Gilbert Sensei in action in 2006.



Gilbert Sensei spoke to the class about joint mobility. He's a Physiotherapist and PT by day. He also gave us tips on knockout worthy kicks-even demonstrating a super-fast roundhouse to my jaw.

7-19-11
-100 kb swings
-2x500m row
-dips (bw, 30 lbs)

In order to make a dr's appointment I lopped off 1000m from the rowing workout.

Check engine lights

The check engine light is flashing on your dashboard. What do you do? Last night at during Sambo class warm-up, my check engine light went on. We were sort of running in circles on the mat: take two steps, then take a knee, repeat. Usually, warm-ups in general, and this exercise in particular, are no problem. I was having a bit of difficulty with the running and kneeling. I took this as a sign-not enough rest. I promised myself to be extra careful.

We worked on grip changes, then grip changes into throws. The throws were variations of morote seionage (again, sorry I don't know the Russian equivalent): normal grip, two hands on lapel, one on lapel the other guiding the legs over. There's a version of the seionage throws where you shoot one leg deep into your opponent's stance. A karateka might recognize zenkutsu dachi in there. The last throw in the series was tani otoshi, which kinda looks like kiba dachi, gedan barai. You had to be there.

Luckily, we didn't do any sparring or mat work. I was pretty tired.

sticking my neck out

Yesterday's no-gi throwing class was great-even the part where I got guillotined, twice. Hey, you can't really learn unless you make mistakes, so here's a toast to making mistakes. Clink!

The class was larger than I expected and I was on the light side of the spectrum of body-types, a welterweight among cruisers to heavy-weights. It's like riding down the highway in a VW Beetle and being surrounded by tractor trailers. We worked on three throws off the same side. The theory behind this is if you miss one throw, you've got plan B and plan C in place. Plan C is a drop seionage. It looks just like this. The first throw, plan A, looks like the knee-kick block in the video, just block and twist.



It was a great training/learning experience. Unfortunately, in order to get good at throwing, you have to do a lot of falling, and that aspect of throwing is wreaking havoc with my bum wrist. Argh!

7-12-11
-200 kb swings
-2x1 min kb suitcase hold

After the burpee challenge

So I'm feeling very liberated after dropping the 100x100 burpee challenge, like I can do anything I want.


7-10-11
-100 kb swings
-4x500m rows w/ dips in between (10 bw, 10x20 lbs, 5x30 lbs)
1:46'6, 31 spm; 1:47'9, 32 spm; 1:49'9, 31 spm; 1:46'6, 37 spm

7-11-11
-100 kb swings
-db push press (R 77lbs, 4x5; L 65 lbs. 4x5)
-weighted pull-ups (77 lbs, 3x3)
-50 burpees

Sambo class in the evening. I believe no-jacket throwing is on schedule.

10,705/[238]

Back on the scene

So I returned from 2 weeks of vacation in Vienna. Great holiday destination, BTW, lot's of stuff to see all within a few tram, bus or train stops. The beauty of this particular destination was not marred by thoughts of exercise.

7-5-11
-29 pull-ups
-50 burpees (3'39")
-db push press (75lbs, 2x3x5)
-5x(10 burpees + 10 roll-outs)

7-6-11
-2x(10 burpees + 5 pull-ups)
-Sambo class

My lower back and hips have been tight since deplaning, so I didn't feel too committed to complete 100 burpees, plus I had Sambo class later on in the day. In Sambo we worked on a throw which looked like a cross between Judo's kouchi gari and a single leg take-down. Basically you block your opponent's foot with your own and then grab his leg and push him over. After that I did two, two minute rounds of grappling. I was going mostly for chokes but couldn't sink any. I did score a reversal though, which I pulled out in the last seconds. The weighted pull-ups and cleans really pay off when you are fighting on your back.

My pet project this summer is to get my kids conditioned. I offered them a choice of burpees or rowing and they chose rowing. I introduced them to the Concept II model C and Mr. Tabata. Both kids benefitted from having seen me row. Their form needed a little tweeking, but they were up and spinning in no time.

10,655/[238]
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