Fixing my muscle ups

Apr18
by Duf on April 18, 2012 at 8:51 am
Posted In: Muscle Ups, Physical challenges

Last night I tried to do a tricep intensive challenge, the hard mode version of this month’s BB challenge.  I bailed out abruptly when I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere close to where I should be. It was ill advised anyway since I worked triceps hard at the gym during lunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3qOG6r0_xc

I wanted to even out my poor dip effort by doing some muscle ups, some clean muscle ups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VStB1-8sRZk

Ever since I pulled off my first successful muscle ups in September of 2011 I have had some issues being consistent with my form, specifically the transition portion of the movement. Most of the time when I have been doing reps it winds up being a one over where my body sort of collapses to my left as I reach bar height.  I then am briefly “laying” on the bar while I get my hands/arms repositioned to do the pushing part of the movement.

It’s bad form, plain and simple.

I have been wondering why this happens, perhaps pointing the finger at my uneven strength levels that are put on display when I work one handed static chin up holds.  I can hold that position dramatically longer on my right side versus my left. (which is weird because I am sort of left handed)

Anyway I wanted to really work on making my reps smoother and more efficient.  Well I did just that for the first two reps of my 5 rep set and the correction was stupidly simple.  All I did was focus on pulling hard evenly with both arms.  I was able to sail right past the transition point without my chest even touching the bar, exactly what I was looking for.

Unfortunately I was only to get that type of pull for the first two reps.  The remaining three got progressively uglier.

So at least there is no excuse going forward.  I don’t have some sort of weird bio-mechanical thing that is preventing me from doing smooth reps.  I just think I was getting lazy with the pull, relying too much on the swing and the kip.

I always love “a-hah!” moments.

 

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BB Requirements changing once again

Apr17
by Duf on April 17, 2012 at 7:43 pm
Posted In: BBR's, Soapbox

If you follow my blog you may know that one of my fitness goals for 2012 was to be able to do the Bar-barian Requirements.  They are as follows:

5 muscle ups
45 dips
25 pull ups
55 push ups
5 muscle ups

All of these exercises have to be in unbroken sets (you can’t drop off the bars and resume) and everything needs to be completed within a scarce 6 total minutes of time.

It is a daunting physical task that only a select few have completed, earning themselves the title of being an official Bar-barian.

This is actually the second variation of the requirements.  When they first were introduced several years ago you “only” had to do 40 dips, 20 pull ups, 50 push ups and 5 muscle ups and you had TEN MINUTES!

Well now I heard that once again they are making the requirements even tougher in a couple months.  They are giving you one less minute to complete all 135 reps.  You now will only have FIVE minutes.

I have some opinions on this.

First let me clarify, I am speaking as someone that is still relatively low on the bodyweight/bar progression scene. I am a guy that has found bar work as an excellent way to build functional strength well into the age that many people have already given up and started down the slippery slide to poor health/fitness.  Take my opinion for what it is worth based on that.

I guess my big question is, why is this necessary?

The requirements as is, are an extremely difficult physical feat that only a select few can complete, especially if an individual tries to use proper form while doing the movements.

Now if people were completing the requirements on a routine basis then I could see where it might make sense to raise the bar, no pun intended.  However as far as I know, I can count the number of new Bar-barians in the last year on two hands, maybe actually only one.  That is an incredibly small number based on the explosion in popularity of bar-based exercise in recent years.

To me, making the time limit for the requirements even shorter has a couple potential effects.

It makes them all but unreachable except for a a tiny fraction of people, beyond the tiny fraction that have completed the current requirements.  I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I predicted the majority of the guys that have completed the current and original requirements could not complete what is to be rolled out next.  Knocking off close to 20% of the allowed time is a HUGE obstacle for most.

I think the other problem is the time limit is so short it is going to make using borderline form almost necessary.  You need to bounce through your reps at breakneck pace if you hope to be done that quickly. Generally speaking, high speed reps almost always wind up with sloppy form.

Finally, if this is going to be the pattern, making the requirements more and more stringent, it doesn’t seem quite right that there is just one Bar-barian title.  There is a huge difference between someone that completed the original requirements in 10 minutes and someone who does the new requirements in 5, yet to the outside world they appear the same.

Anyway that is my two cents on the subject, not that I expect it to influence the decision to change the requirements.  I also realize that this fuss is only about a title.  It just happens to be a title I really hoped to attain at some point.  This latest constriction of time has made that a pipe dream at best.  Maybe I am just spilling sour grapes as a result.

My vote is to don’t fix what isn’t broke.

[polldaddy poll=6147418]

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Surprising pain from push ups

Apr16
by Duf on April 16, 2012 at 10:27 am
Posted In: Exercises

I have had some pretty chronic pain in both of my shoulders for quite a few months.  They basically are sore all the time, especially when I am raising my arms above shoulder height.  To be honest I never gave much thought to the pain since it isn’t debilitating at this point.  It is just one of those things I have worked through and kind of written off as just getting older.

Well last week when I picked up some used furniture from a guy he told me how he had just had shoulder surgery.  I asked him how he hurt his shoulder, bench press was his answer.  Well that of all things is what got me thinking.

In the past I had hurt my shoulder playing volleyball.  The injury made bench pressing basically impossible for 6 months or more until it eventually got better.  Well I started wondering if my current chronic shoulder pain is from chest exercises, specifically all of the push ups I do.

It’s a weird correlation because while doing push ups I don’t feel pain in my shoulders, yet I have a strong suspicion that the movement is what is causing the shoulder pain.  I am pretty sure I have a muscular imbalance between the front and back of my shoulders.  The front portion sees a ton more work than the back portion.

So anyway, to test the theory I am laying off all push ups and chest pushing exercises for a week, maybe two.  I think I will stay off the dip bars too which can work the area as well.

I hope to instead hit my pull ups hard during this time period, perhaps setting a new best in pull up reps which currently sits at 22.  I also need to pay more attention to working my rear delts on a regular basis to hopefully help keep things in my shoulder on a more normal keel.

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Three video night

Apr12
by Duf on April 12, 2012 at 8:01 am
Posted In: Muscle Ups, Physical challenges

Last night I got my first chance to head outside and do some bodyweight training for the first time in a week or so.  First I gave normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian Challenge a try.  The challenge is much harder than I imagined it would be.  You are doing pull ups with 5 second static holds at the top, middle and bottom portion of the movement.

I only managed 5 total reps which believe it or not is a decent number.  The most anyone has managed thus far is 7.

I then taped a simple set of 30 dips.

Finally I taped a rather frustrating session of trying various muscle ups on my parallel bars, most of which were miserable failures.  After watching back the footage I see why I struggle on the p-bars with the movement.  With my long arms and relatively low height of the bars I am unable to do any appreciable kip, instead any motion I do with my legs generates side to side momentum which isn’t very helpful.

I also did the muscle up work after everything else so I was somewhat fatigued going in which probably contributed to the lack of success as well. By the end of it I was very frustrated.  Anyway ,if you like watching muscle up fails, this is the video for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ziRmOxUrHk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emONuk8PCoM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vat-AVASm_k

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April 2K12 Bar-barian Challenge

Apr05
by Duf on April 5, 2012 at 8:23 am
Posted In: Physical challenges

Last night I shot the demo video for this month’s challenge.

http://youtu.be/8OUNby1rtMo

Just from doing the few reps in the demo I can tell you this will be a tough challenge in all three modes if you push your limits.

Normal mode are step pull ups with a 5 second static hold at the top, middle and bottom position.

Hard mode is a squat/dip tree combo where you do multiple sets of dips, increasing your reps by one with each set.  In between each set you hop off the bars and do one quick body weight squat before jumping right back on the bars for more dips.

Bar-baric mode is a brutal circuit where you start with 3 muscle ups then go right into max bar dips, followed by max pull ups and finally max hanging stiff leg raises.  It should be a challenging month on the bars.

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