Treating my elbow

So I'm back on track, having sorted out the elbow and shoulder pain. It turns out that spinning the jump rope with excessive wrist motion annoys my forearm extensors. The fix was rather simple: I used less wrist for rope skipping; SMR.

I treated my elbow by applying pressure to the spot on the forearm where the extensors originate. A golf ball or high bounce ball, such as you might find at the dollar store, are usually fine for such a small trigger point. Too bad for me the elbow is not so amenable to massage with these tools. I tried. Applying the Spock Pinch to the elbow while rotating the wrist, much like a royal family member might when waving to the hoi polloi, took care of the pain.

You'll notice HSPU's are back on the scene. I'm anxious to get the shoulder strength up to deal with the demands of the Maltese/planche as well as the Flag (yeah, why not?) I'm thinking of working on 100x100 lbs db squats so as not to completely ignore the legs. The core endurance will also come in handy for the aforementioned goals. On the OACU project, I'm stalled on doing assisted one-armed, bent arm hangs. Previously, assistance was provided by a finger or two on a Rock Ring. Now I'm just pinching the door frame with my free hand as I hang from the pull-up bar.

Today's workout is representative of the types of things I've been doing since my last post.

2-14-12
-advanced tuck front lever rows (2x20)
-pull up to a front lever,10
-assisted OA Bent Arm Hang 2x5x10 secs
-HSPU 3x(10+10 sec bent arm hold)
-db front squat 3x10
-Tabata Row

Shoulder Pain

Yesterday morning I felt a little twinge of pain in my shoulder. It was as if a tendon got hung-up or was tracking incorrectly. There was no pain if I kept my arm still, but if I moved it a certain way it clicked and felt as if my arm would pop out of the shoulder socket. Your shoulder shouldn't hurt when you're just windmilling your arms- no load, just your arm tracing gentle arcs in the air. Argh.

Anyway, I'd thought about how the pull-ups, HSPU and push presses are probably stressing out all those little muscles in the shoulder. I broke out a small rubber ball, placed it between a wall and my deltoids, and rolled. The medial and anterior aspect of the deltoids seemed to be where the hotspots were. After about 5 minutes of rolling, I gave my arms a spin and presto, no clicking, sticking or pain.

1-27-12
-10 mins shoulder mobility with the sledgehammer
-10 mins skipping rope

1-26-12
-28 tuck front lever body rows
-2x3x2 assisted OACU (doubles with 1 finger assist), 2x3x10 sec assisted one arm isos
-HSPU 4x(8+10 sec bent arm hold)
-100 kb swings
-100 goblet squats
-10 min skipping rope

1-25-12
-10 mins rope skipping
-ab kneeling (eccentric) to standing (concentric) roll-outs, 2x10

another kind of ab-rollin

Had to happen. You just don't do 100 L-sit pull-ups and 100 kneeling roll-outs and expect not to experience even a little DOMS. It doesn't even matter if you space out the sets with long rests (OK, maybe a little). The DOMS is still gonna get you. . . so I'm discovering.

There were time when I worked my abs so intensely that a cough or a sneeze would hurt as much as a switchblade stuck into your pancreas. It doesn't hurt that much. One thing that helps mitigate the pain is that I did space out the sets with long rest periods. The other thing is SMR (self-myofascial release). Did you know you can roll-out sore abdominal muscles? Yes you can. Place your trusty lacrosse ball on the floor, lay your sore belly on top and roll. Collect some minutes ungluing your ab business. I also noticed some soreness in the forearm extensors. Direct pressure with the Knobble on this area brought relief.

1-3-11

-10 minutes of db (2x24.7 kg) squat cleans

I was reading on Ross Training about a 100 rep, 1/2 bodyweight Steve Reeves squat challenge. It turns out some beastly folks can easily do this in less than 10 minutes. Yikes. Well, the load I chose was 3/4 bodyweight and I did squat cleans instead of squats. I also didn't get anywhere near 100 reps in 10 minutes (36). I am toast. The no-mas-ometer reads 3.7.