29 isn’t 30

May14
by Duf on May 14, 2013 at 1:38 pm
Posted In: Bar-barian Forum Monthly Challenges

I made my first official attempt at normal mode of this month’s BB challenge.  I had a goal rep number of 30 reps going into it.  I was rather disappointed in myself when I dropped off the two pieces of wood after rep 29.  I barely locked out rep 29.

Laying boards across my parallel bars worked pretty well although during the early reps where I am pushing more explosively I found the wood shifting around a bit.  I should use a couple bungee cords to lock them down better.  Doing dips with flat hands definitely changes they way the reps feel a bit.

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Everything hurts

May10
by Duf on May 10, 2013 at 8:13 pm
Posted In: Exercises, Injuries

So I went to the gym today with good intentions, wanting to wind up my week with a productive session.  There was one problem, almost everything I tried to do hurt.  The list of painful areas included, ass, hamstrings, back, forearms, elbows, pecs, shoulders and one wrist.

I bailed on my intended 20+ rep pull up set around rep 10, because of the sore elbow tendons.  The idea I had about doing a 12 rep dragon flag set died on the vine after rep 1, my lower back was killing me.  I didn’t bother with push ups either I already knew they would hurt as well.

So I believe the main culprit are the heavy (for me) dead lifts I did on Wednesday.  At the the end of my one way ladder I was pulling 295 for a couple reps.  Heavy dead lifts tax most parts of your body to some degree.  For me they appeared to smack my body with a bat.  As I have gotten older the second day after a strenuous activity is always worse than the first.  Today was pretty bad.

I have Fi and IronLoo to thank for this.  Fi is the one that convinced me to resume dead lifting after at least a 3 year hiatus.  Lou is the one that motivates me to keep at it.  Watching his ferocious dead lifting sessions pump me up to pull as heavy as I can.315

Don’t get me wrong, I think dead lifting is one of the best total body exercises you can do.  Unfortunately, at 45 years of age, pulling heavy things off the floor can be a painful (and risky) proposition.

I am hoping by Sunday I am feeling less geriatric.

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Flat is where it is at

May07
by Duf on May 7, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Posted In: Bar-barian Forum Monthly Challenges

Last night I did some practice runs for two of the three modes of this month’s BB challenge.

Normal mode are dips but they have to be on a flat surface instead of grabbing bars.  This difference in hand position makes the movement a little different.  One difference is it requires you to keep a more correct vertical position when dipping since you cant grip bars while being pitched forward.

A lot of the guys so far have been doing their attempts in the corner of kitchen counters.  I had a different idea, thinking putting some left over pieces of 2 x 6 lumber across my parallel bars would work better.  I made sure the lumber was long enough to give me plenty of extra length to extend beyond the bars, just in case they moved.

I did a quick 15 reps just to gauge how it felt.  The boards felt stable and comfortable to push on.  I’ll do a real attempt soon.

I then moved on to trying out some Russian dips, a movement I have only toyed with in the past.  There evidently are two ways to do the movement, one has you dropping onto your forearms at the bottom of the movement and then flipping back to dip position, the other has you dropping even further, all the way on to your inner biceps and back up. (shoulder buster).  For the challenge we are using the forearm variation.

I did three reps that didn’t feel very smooth but surprisingly looked half decent when viewed back on video.  It will be interesting how many reps I will be able to pull off.  My long arms make the drop to my forearms a high impact event.

The video at the end includes some footage of my continued muscle up struggles.

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“Tiring”, short but sweet

Apr29
by Duf on April 29, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Posted In: BBR's, Exercises

528345_10152215390087841_918719391_n[1]A couple weeks ago I stumbled across the good fortune of someone giving away two very large tires.  One of them is around 200 pounds and the other is a shade under 300 pounds.  I nicknamed the one tire “Leonidas” and the other one “Mendoza”. (you figure it out)

Anyway, on Sunday I did my first tire flipping session, covering about 250 feet with the bigger tire.  Flipping a tire requires you to get your hands very low, lower than they would be for a conventional dead lift.  Once you get the tire up a couple feet you sort of catch it and use different muscles to push it upright and back over.

The first few reps were tough but manageable.  However it only took a few more flips till I appreciated how tough the movement gets.  By the end of my out and back flipping session I was sucking major wind.  I did find that if you walk up to the tire, reach down and immediately start coming up it is more efficient than crouching down in the bottom position for a few moments before lifting.

My goal is to eventually flip the tire from the bar park to the rear fence and back. From there, the goal it is to do it faster.  I also had stupid ideas of dragging the tires to the fence and back.  That could be a major ass breaking exercise.

My gym work outs lately have included supersetting the basics into most days.  I will try to work sets of push ups, dips or pull ups into whatever else I am doing.  Today I only had 30 minutes at the gym but in that time I included a century work out and a total of 150 push ups wedged in between other work.

I try to make the basic reps fast and explosive yet full ROM as they need to be for the BBR’s.  Do I think I have an outside shot at doing the BBR’s? I doubt it but I sure would like to be able to at least complete the original reqs before the year is out.

 

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Sweet 16

Apr17
by Duf on April 17, 2013 at 2:14 pm
Posted In: Endurance activities, Injuries

559436_10151602781878875_2126693932_n[1]On Saturday I did a completely unplanned and ill advised 16 mile training run with my buddy’s girlfriend.  She is training for a full marathon.  I offered to keep her company since she was concerned about being dropped back in her training group because of a slow pace. (we actually left the group behind the last 5 miles)

The farthest I have ever run is the 13.1 mile half marathon distance and I have only run that once in the last year.  Normally I will run 6 or 7 miles one time a week.  Jumping up to 16 goes against all conventional running wisdom.

The run was very, very long.  The training group we were running with took a lot more breaks and did more walking than I would if I was going at it by myself.  Still, by the end of it I was BEAT.  16 miles is 16 miles.  I expected to have a laundry list of aches and pains after the run.  Instead my major issue were two sore hips and now, 4 days later that has pretty much completely healed up as well.  I could hardly believe my perennially problematic right knee didn’t blow up at all after all of that pounding.

I feel good enough that I plan to do my scheduled squat/deadlift session at the gym today.  If you asked me last Friday if I could run 16 miles and be squatting 4 days later I would have laughed in your face.  I guess the joke is on me, in a good way.

On Monday my gym session included my working in sets of push ups in between other movements.  I would alternate between a set of 30 conventional chest to floor push ups and 20 diamond push ups.  In total I did 150 reps, 90 regular and 60 diamonds.

I woke up yesterday with sharp pain in BOTH wrists depending on the angle they were held.  I can only assume it was from the diamonds, they have caused me wrist issues in the past.

 

 

 

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