A piece of Iron

Jul03
by Duf on July 3, 2012 at 9:40 am
Posted In: Fitness Equipment, Physical challenges

Yesterday I received a large box at my front door from New York, it was my Iron Lou parallelettes.

Parallelettes are great for many body weight exercises.  In some ways it is like having a portable set of parallel bars that you can use almost anywhere.

I had considered making myself a set using schedule 40 PVC several times but never got around to it.

Well what prompted Lou to send me these heavy duty beauties were the floor planche progression pics I posted last week.  Lou said doing these moves on parallelettes was easier.  Shortly after that he told me he had a spare set of parallelettes he made that he would send to me.  Wow, awesome.

Lou made these from some spare parts laying around and 4×4’s.  He said they are nice because they are far sturdier than PVC parallelettes.  Once I unboxed them I saw what he meant. Lou no longer needed this set since he went out and bought a high quality set of his own.  He sent me his old ones for FREE, despite my repeated offers to pay him for the expense.

Late last night after I got home from a football game I quickly set the bars up in the office and did an L sit to planche transition.  It wasn’t very good but a starting point.  The bars are the perfect diameter and feel very stable.

I am hoping some of Lou’s extreme intensity rub’s off on me via his bars.  I hope to put them to good use and keep them in my exercise equipment collection until I am no more.

Thanks Lou.

I did a test run at the normal mode challenge yesterday at the gym.  I sort of fuzzed out in my count.  I amassed either 100 or 110 reps in the 5 minute time limit.  Either number wasn’t all that great.  I opted to do an initial set of 40 reps and then just tried to pop out reps of 10 the rest of the way.  Evidently I was eating up too much time with breaks, a common issue for me.

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Killer cardio, Pick Your Poison

Jul02
by Duf on July 2, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Posted In: Endurance activities, Physical challenges

My bodyweight exercise this weekend was exclusively the cardio variety and it was particularly miserable. Yea I know the northeast is enduring a hot streak right now but it is basically like that for 6 months here in southwest Florida.  This weekend felt even more humid than normal.

I started off with an 11 mile run early Saturday morning.  Despite the early time of day I still was immersed in mountains of humidity.  I am not sure if I ever have sweated as much as I did during that run.  It was like somebody had a small faucet turned on over my head the entire time.

I had not run that distance in quite a long time so that added to the challenge.

On Sunday I piled on with a fast 12.25 mile ride followed by swimming 1200 meters in the pool.

I know a lot of people in the calisthenics community almost exclusively do calisthenics.  I find I enjoy a more balanced approach where adding in endurance, weight training and sporting activities to my fitness regimen gives me solid bang for the buck at this advanced age.

I did a test run at normal mode of this month’s BB challenge, named “Pick Your Poison”.  Normal mode consists of simply doing as many push ups as you can in a 5 minute period.   The challenge is based on the 5MD’s the Bar-barians utilize in their training.

I did either 100 or 110 push ups, I lost track somewhere along the line.  I started with a set of 40 and then just popped out sets of 10.  As always is the case with me, my recovery stamina was an issue.  The Bar-baric standard for  5MD push ups is 150 reps.  I’d like to scratch my way to at least 125 before the month is over.

Just in case you hate remembering the WordPress URL to get to this site I made things easier for you.  You can now simply go to https://dufisthenics.com, which will redirect you to the content here.  If you are really odd, I’d be happy to provide you with a dufisthenics.com email address or redirect if you want one.

Yes, dufyousuck@dufisthenics.com (referenced in recent video) is alive and active.  🙂

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1 day break

Jun29
by Duf on June 29, 2012 at 8:44 am
Posted In: Muscle Ups

So I followed my edict about not shooting as many exercise videos by shooting an exercise video. 🙂  It actually was intended to serve somewhat of a purpose.  Ray had mentioned something about how he has issues with a bar false grip muscle up.  I told him I would shoot a video that went into a little more depth regarding how I do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aNH647J-PA

My form in there is far from stellar but I think I at least explain the basics of how I get it done.  There are a couple funny moments in there at the 2:30 mark and again at 4:45. I followed up the video by doing some conventional muscle ups off camera.

I have set a mental goal to get a set of 10 muscle ups.  They won’t be very pretty for sure towards the end.  I need to try to catch up to Luis!

Today I am going to try something different at the gym based on a suggestion of Lou.  I am going to be doing just below max 1RM dips, 1 at a time for a total of 20 sets.  A couple weeks ago I squeezed out a 100 pound dip so I am planning on giving this go with 90 pounds hanging on my waist.  I am giving myself roughly a minute between sets and during that minute I want to drop down and knock out 10-15 push ups which would add up to 200-300 push ups if I manage to complete 20 rounds.

I have no idea how this will go but it will be fun to try.

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Too much (You) Tube time

Jun27
by Duf on June 27, 2012 at 7:42 am
Posted In: General Fitness Talk, Muscle Ups, Soapbox

They later cut me out of the film….

As I have said many times and in many places, I feel so fortunate to be involved in the bar/calisthenics/body weight exercise community.  It is a great source of positive energy and motivation that helps me in other areas of my life.  My biggest regret is I didn’t discover it sooner when I was a younger man.

A lot of the motivation I receive is courtesy of the endless amount of YouTube videos I have seen that document scores of people working hard to achieve impressive feats of strength, power and endurance.  I have been an active participant in that stream of video content myself.  I have over 300 YouTube videos and counting, with the majority of them being work out related.

I also think that it would be fair to say that most people that are posting videos do so not only to motivate others but also because it puts their hard work on display.  Now to the casual outsider, there is no doubt that a lot of this would be branded as narcissism and to a point they are right.  I could not honestly say  it isn’t cool to have others watch your stuff and respond positively.  I think there is an element of that (narcissism)  in most people that have a substantial YouTube collection, myself included.  I’m not flagging it as a good or bad thing, just a thing. I’d rather be known for exercising than for smacking myself in the face with a 2 x 4.

So what is the point of this you ask?

Well last night after work I wanted to go out and do some work in my mini-bar park and I instinctively was reaching for my Flip cam to record it.  I decided to leave it inside.

I have realized that I need to concentrate more on just doing the work and be less concerned with capturing every second of that work on tape.  So that is exactly what I did.  I went outside and worked muscle ups, push ups, pole holds and a few other things with absolutely nobody else watching.

My hope is focusing more on the work instead of video accolades will lead to greater gains.

Of course this does not mean there will be vast void of videos coming out of my household. Hey after all, I like doing them and generally speaking, a good chunk of people like watching them.  But I am hoping the balance will shift more from quantity to quality.

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Planche play, epic equipment

Jun25
by Duf on June 25, 2012 at 9:49 am
Posted In: Exercises, Fitness Equipment

Yesterday after I put in some time in the treadmill I wanted to work on my handstands and planche holds a little bit.  Well the handstand practice quickly went out the window after I repeatedly banged my three bad toes coming down from attempts.

So I decided to try out some planche holds.  I first did an elbow planche, a hold I started messing with a month or so ago.  It is a move that focuses more on balance than strength since your weight is perched on top of your elbows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OF0Dec-9Wk

I then widened my hand position on the ground and tried something new, getting off my elbows and just pinning my arms to my sides.  I was surprised I actually could hold it for several seconds.

I then went even further apart with my base where my arms were barely touching my sides.  I could only hold that momentarily, but it was still a hold.

Lou saw my video and recommended I try the hold on parallelettes, a small version of parallel bars.  Supposedly doing it on the floor as I am is one of the more difficult ways to do the hold.

Later Lou said he had an old set of parallelettes that he made/modified that I could have.  He shipped them off today.  I joked with Lou that maybe some of his hardcore work out intensity will rub off on me hopefully. I can’t wait to get my hands on them.

They instantly will become one of my more prized pieces of work out equipment.

 

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