Crazy month, 9 HSPU, The 5150

Feb01
by Duf on February 1, 2012 at 9:43 am
Posted In: Exercises, Physical challenges

This has probably been the roughest month of all to judge the Bar-barian forum competition.  It was rough for a couple reasons.

The challenges were all 5 set max rep exercises.  In some attempts there were as many as 200 reps in an attempt.  That adds up to a whole lot of form to watch.   With that many reps there are bound to be some reps that are better than others.  Trying to decide if there are enough poor ones to disqualify an attempt totally gets pretty tedious.

The other factor was when Zef generously offered up Bar-barian shirts to the winners of the three contests.  All of a sudden the desire to top the scoreboard was cranked up tremendously.

This desire to win had the side effect of some guys focusing too much on just the number of reps and not the quality of them.  We had to disqualify a number of entries because of sloppy form.  I feel bad every time I have to disqualify an attempt because I know regardless of form quality the guys are really pushing themselves each time they do an attempt.

The bottom line is the Bar-barians represent excellence in body weight exercise so I would be doing a disservice by allowing shoddy form attempts to count as good.

Last night I did the only mode of the January challenge I hadn’t tried, Bar-baric mode, which was hand stand push ups against the wall.  I had avoided this challenge for a reason, I’m not very good at them. My very long arms mean I have a real long distance to push my body weight through.  The only reason I did an attempt is because Tyson, a kid on the forum I have a friendly rivalry with wanted me to try to beat his number.

Well as expected I struggled quite a bit, only getting 5 reps on my first set and four singles on the subsequent 4 sets.  Oh well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YqYCd_Be_o

I also shot a quick intro video for the February challenge which I named the 5150.  The 5150 is just another name for a warm up routine the Bar-barians do.  The goal is to complete 50 pull ups and 100 push ups within 5 minutes, breaking the sets apart however you want to.

I tried this once using 10 small sets of pull ups and push ups and it took me 7 minutes.  Using a bunch of small sets is definitely NOT the way to go.

It should make for a pretty interesting month.  The contest will scale to all skill levels.  The elite guys that can complete all 150 reps will be competing for time, lowest time wins.  The guys that can’t complete all 150 reps with be scored on a point basis of how many reps they do complete in the 5 minute time frame.

Here is the video explaining it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFf1Teuc8yk

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20 by ZERO, 37 miles

Jan30
by Duf on January 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Posted In: Endurance activities, Exercises, Physical challenges

I had some ideas of trying Lee’s 20 by 12 circuit this weekend when Randall was here.  Unfortunately after doing 20 miles on my road bike followed by 17 miles on my mountain bike I had no energy left to make an attempt. The only body weight work I did this weekend were a few muscle ups.

After watching Lee and Lou do their attempts I don’t know if I could even do it in any semblance of a respectable time.  By the time both of them were done with their 4 rounds of 5 sets of exercises they were both majorly spent.  Both Lee and Lou are at a very elite fitness level already, seeing them so taxed by the routine makes me think it would totally wreck me. The routine is as follows:

4 sets of 12 reps of:

pull ups
front tricep extensions on a low bar/bench
chair dips
box jump with full squat at top and bottom of jump
stiff legged foot to bar raises

Of the 5 exercises in this months 20 by 12 the stiff legged bar touches concern me the most (very tough movement for me), followed by the box jumps with deep squats both at the top and bottom of the movement.  Saying I am hesitant to try the challenge of course makes me feel like I should do it even more.  Overcoming what you think you can not do is what body weight work is all about anyway.

My GUTS performance today was lackluster.  I scored very low on my dips because I had to do them on the assisted dip machine (with no assist of course).  The handles on the machine are not at a great width and the entire contraption bounces around as you do reps which just makes it tougher to rep out.

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+ 13, 91

Jan27
by Duf on January 27, 2012 at 9:21 am
Posted In: Exercises, Physical challenges

I made my second attempt at normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge, a day after posting a clean form but poorly timed hard mode effort.  I was worried doing them on consecutive days could present a problem.  It turns out it wasn’t a big deal, I upped my first attempt by a total of 13 reps, very cool.

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

I assume my GUTS routine is helping me considerably when it comes to this type of movement.

Yesterday at lunch I threw in a couple successful slow muscle ups on two different locations in the gym.  When I do MU’s at the gym I always get strange, “WTF?” looks from people mindlessly pushing on machines.

Yesterday one of my FB bar buddies posted this pic of an old guy in kick ass shape.  My jaw dropped when the post said he was 91 years old!  Wow, if that is true, it gives me hope.  When I go, I hope it is mid-muscle up.

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Attempt 2, better GUTS

Jan26
by Duf on January 26, 2012 at 9:31 am
Posted In: BBR's, Physical challenges

I made my second attempt at hard mode of this month’s Bar-barian forums challenge.  I made an attempt a couple weeks prior and disqualified myself because I wasn’t happy with the top extension of my dips.

This time  around I tried to keep my body position more upright and less pitched forward.  The change seemed to make a big difference, my form was much better this time around.  Unfortunately I somehow managed to mess up the 45 second breaks.  Three of my four breaks went a few seconds long so I once again had to disqualify myself from the official attempt scoreboard, oh well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC4ngROmgok

Yesterday at the gym I made another GUTS attempt, giving myself a day break from my disappointing Monday effort.  The day off seemed to do me some good as I totaled 102 reps, my best  to date.

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One hand at a time, pole climbing

Jan25
by Duf on January 25, 2012 at 10:23 am
Posted In: Exercises

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS46lycNzjE

One skill I have worked off and on ever since there was a Bar-barian challenge involving it is the one handed static hold with a chin up grip.  You basically do a chin up and then release one hand and hold yourself up there for as long as you can.  It is also a progression towards being able to do a true one handed pull/chin up which takes TREMENDOUS strength.

Well I never had much luck holding myself up there.  Whenever I would try the move I would drop immediately, not able to slow gravity’s pull for even a moment.  A month or so ago I tried the move again and was encouraged I could at least delay my descent for a split second before dropping.

Well last night I grabbed on to the Iron Gym and released my left hand after pulling up over the bar.  I was shocked that I remained in the air for a few seconds.  I had to pull out the Flip cam to document the feat since if it isn’t on video, it didn’t happen.  Again I could suspend my self via one arm for a few ticks of the clock.

I tried to duplicate the move with my left hand but was unable to do so.  I guess my left side is lagging behind a bit in strength levels.  Regardless I was quite excited to pull off yet another first.

When I went outside with the dogs I tried a move I saw Lee do during their very well done Part Two of his and Jay’s London bar parks tour.

Lee sat on the ground at the base of a high bar and pulled himself up to the cross bar using upper body strength only.  I looked at my 13 foot high bar and realized it would be perfect for this type of exercise.  I was able to also pull myself up the pipe to the cross bar using arms only, albeit in a much less graceful manner than Lee did.  I wasn’t very pleased when the first thing my hand encountered on the cross bar was fresh pile of bird shit.

The pipe climb is a great training movement working your back, arms and grip very hard.  I want to include it in my arsenal of regular movements.

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