Dufisthenics

This weekend my buddy Randall was over.  We did a challenging 30 mile bike ride on Sunday followed by some slackline training.

Today I saw someone post one of those MarBarz style routines on FB which I decided to give a go.  It looked hard but hey I consider myself to be in above average shape for someone my age, I should be able to hang. Well I was wrong.

Let me outline the movements and reps.

First up were super wide, super slow pull ups.  They advised rep time was 9 seconds per rep and a total of 9 reps per set.  Well that is ridiculous, 5 reps of these were all my grip and back could hack and I’m not sure if I was taking the full 9 seconds per.

30 dips, yea I can do a one rep max of dips in the low 30’s but to do 5 sets at this number wasn’t happening so I trimmed those reps back to 20.

Explosive horizontal rows with a 5 second negative.  Pulling up hard and then descending slow is aggravating, and hard.  This is one of the two movements I was actually able to do for the full amount of reps.

Close grip bar dips, ouch.  I have done a number of regular width bar dips as part of muscle up training however I don’t think I have ever done the movement with a close grip.  My body weight and monkey arms made the movement feel crazy hard.  I could only do 5 reps per set and I barely got those.

Close grip horizontal rows with a 3 second hold at the top.  Again these got progressively more miserable but I was able to do the prescribed amount of reps at least.

Sidelaying tricep raises.  This is a movement I never tried before.  In fact I never saw anyone do them either.  I am pretty sure I was doing a gimped version of them.  My pivot point was my hip.  The image I saw makes it look like the guy is pivoting off the side of his knee which I could not get even close to doing.  I awkwardly did 8 reps on each side.  Even my version felt very difficult, especially when teamed with the other movements.

So not only did I fall far short of the recommended amount of reps per set, I only had time to get through three rotations, adding to the pile of fail.

The workout was a good eye opener and something unlike anything I tried before , that’s what I should be doing more of.

Today’s Workout

5 minutes cardio/stretching

3 rounds of the following:

5 reps of wide grip, 9 second pull ups

20 dips

8 explosive horizontal rows with 5 second negatives

5 close grip bar dips

8 close grip horizontal rows with 3 second hold at top

8 side laying tricep raises (each side)

My shoulders and fingers got worked quite hard today as I alternated between mostly inverted shoulder movements and Eagle Loop pull ups.

I did handstand push ups, poorly, for the first time in quite awhile.  Damn those are hard if you try to keep your hands closer together.  I also did what I though was an interesting variation on one hand wall handstand holds.

In the past I would hold one side for around 30 secs and then flop back down on the ground.  This time I held one side for a shorter period of time, maybe 15 seconds, went back to two hands and then went solo up onto the other hand for another 15 secs.  Then I would switch back to two hands and hold it for another 30 seconds before coming down off the wall.  It was tough for me but felt like a real good way to work on inverted strength.

Today’s Workout

5 minutes cardio/stretching

20 pull ups

60 second wall handstand

8 Eagle Loop pull ups

3 wall handstand push ups

6 Eagle Loop pull ups

2 wall handstand push ups

5 Eagle Loop pull ups

2 wall handstand push ups

Inverted shrugs 10 reps

One handed wall handstand circuit RH 15 second LH 15 seconds both hands 30 seconds

Inverted shrugs 10 reps

One handed wall handstand circuit RH 15 second LH 15 seconds both hands 30 seconds