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Bodyweight training

I've been wondering how to get past the sticking point in my OACU progressions. I'm stuck at assisted, one arm bent arm hangs; you know, where I pinch the door frame with my free hand for support while I do a one-arm, bent-arm hang off the doorway pull-up bar. It doesn't seem to be helping me get to the one-arm hold, and the one armed negative, which I believe are important milestones to the OACU.

Anyway, I caught a video on youtube of an athlete doing amazing bodyweight exercises (one armed handstands and lots of pull-up variations) and it gave me renewed hope, and perhaps a different tack to approach the OACU. Instead of doing my usual reps of pull-ups or advanced tuck lever rows followed by the assisted one-armed bent-arm hangs, I thought I'd pull-up, and do grip transitions in the bent arm position for time. Simple right? Damn! The guy in the video made it look easy. He moved smoothly from one bar, to another placed about a foot higher and set-back.

For me, with a single doorway pull-up bar, it'll be a little different. Pull-up with a pronated grip, switch to commando grip, switch to supinated grip, continue switching grips. On this first outing I was good for about 12 grip transitions. I did 4 sets of those and finished with 20 advanced tuck, front lever rows.

So there you have my new (for me) exercise. I don't know whether this movement has a name. I'm calling it bent arm grip transitions.

3-1-12
-4x12 bent-arm grip transitions
-20 advanced tuck, front lever rows
-3 HSPU+ 1 min bent-arm hand stand hold, 3 HSPU +42 sec bent-arm hand stand hold

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

Changing gears

So it seems that my pull-up/HSPU routine is wreaking havoc with my joints (left shoulder and elbow). Is there any way other than wreaking to bring about havoc? I'm going to switch gears, maybe focus on mobility and conditioning a little bit. I left out the HSPU's and am definitely not going to do anymore db cleans after today.

1-29-12
-29 front tuck lever body rows
-3 mile run

1-31-12
-30 front tuck lever body rows
-Tabata row on the C2

2-1-12
-advanced tuck lever body row (2x20)
-assisted OACU and isos (pinching door frame)
-db cleans, power cleans, shrugs
-elbow lever (3x20 secs)
-Bulgarian bag circles (40 lbs, 10 min)

Swinging a 40 lbs Bulgarian bag in circles is a lot harder than I remember it to be. 100 circles in 10 minutes! That's got to be a record in wimpy, but I'll take it and hopefully improve on it.

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

Exercise to beat stress

If you're reading this, you probably already know that exercise helps you deal with stress. I've been trying to convince my wife and older daughter of this with limited success until today. Usually, I get the"I'm too busy for exercise," brush-off. The stars aligned for me today and I got my wife and daughter to skip rope: 1000's turns for me and the kid; 500 turns for the Mrs. It's a start.

1-22-12
-26 front tuck lever body rows
-rope skipping
-straight arm isometrics on the Akro Wheels

My younger daughter didn't take part in the rope skipping, but I give her props for working on pull-up progressions. Boo-yah!

west and wewaxation at wast

I caught a bug mid December. It started in my sinus, I developed a cough, and I got tired, so tired that I lost motivation to work out. At first I worried that I'd lose whatever progress I'd been making in the search for the OACU and Maltese progressions, but as the bug persisted I surrendered to it. I went to bed early, and woke up much later when I could.

Yesterday
-8x10 DB HPC

Today
-40 sec bent arm hang
-8 weighted pull-ups (24kgs)
-assisted OACU (1 finger) 2x4x(1+5 sec holds)
-inverted pike push-ups 2x(15+15 sec bent arm hold)
-5x10 db front squats

The db front squats were crying out for 100 reps (10x10), but my back was crying out louder for me to stop. I stopped.