Newbies at Thursdays

Okay, well, the pictures came in from the weekend, so that first.


Goofing off and climbing the wall.


The radio spot.

And the workshop:







Okay, so, my car got hit today.. Which made me late for tonight's session.. but EVERYONE else was late, too. Three new guys and two oldbies, a few no-shows, but this group is growing! So I'm quite happy with that. We warmed up with QM, duck-walking, broad hops, reverse QM, a joint rotation, and then went into a VERY brief conditioning segment with squats, PUs, jackknives, planks, and plyo-PUs. Katie, a new girl, impressed me with her ability to plyo-PU. I have faith in her. I think she'll go a long way with this.

The training took on the form, because of the influx of newer people, with some basic drilling and jumping technique. It went over really well. I ended the note on climb-ups, which everyone was able to do to some degree. I'll be happy to watch everyone climb-up with ease eventually. This is a good group.

The Colorado Weekend

I'm actually going to type up stuff for Thursday through Sunday of LAST week since I haven't done it yet...

In Colorado, the altitude change was something I was totally not used to, and i was winded by walking up and down stairs and then doing about 50 meters with my stuff (about 30lbs). Kinda sad. But I managed to borrow a bike for the weekend and Thursday consisted of me biking around town. This was probably a total of four miles, but it was SUPER tiring as my body had not adjusted to the altitude at all. Along with this, I did some training at a local church. It was mostly QM work on rails, and pseudo-rock climbing on their bricks, but it was fun.

Friday, I took another bike ride. Four miles again, with some intermittent jogging as I checked out various spots. I also trained extensively on an amphitheatre stage that had several railings. This was about two hours worth of training before biking back.

On Saturday, I rested, for the most part, and enjoyed the festivities. In the evening, however, I ran my Parkour workshop for the local kids and adults. I introduced them to QMing, duck-walking, and jump-tucking through the warm-up. The fitter adults were amazed at how intense the warm-up was considering that it wasn't much at all. I did short demonstrations, and taught. Was a lot of fun, but ended up more sore from this than I did before (likely because I had done so much that weekend and my body wasn't processing as much oxygen as it normally does). All well in good, I had a good time.

Will post later tonight on tonight's training session back on normal altitude and being out of shape.

Lifting and Some Reflections

Warm-up:
8 mi bike to gym
Joint rotation

Work-out:
5x5 squats (145lbs)
3x3 Deadlifts (145lbs)
5x5 overhead press (135lbs)
5x8 pull-ups

Cool-down:
8 mi bike ride home
Stretch
---

Similar to last week, no weight change since I'm still getting accustomed to it. The overhead press was too easy last time, though, so I went up. At the gym, I saw a young lady being instructed in how to clean and jerk, which made me smile. You really don't see that enough these days. I assume that she's training for Oly-lifting comps.

Overall thoughts, since it's about time.. It seems that I'm the same weight I was three years ago when I started Parkour (180lbs), but there's a huge difference between who I was then and who I am now. Physically, I'm MUCH leaner, I can endure more than a few minutes of exercise, I can climb, jump, run, quad.. I can do things I never dreamed myself capable of. Even in the last few months, I've noticed a vast improvement in my physical abilities.. Is it because I'm training more? Or is it because I'm training smarter? My frequency of training has actually decreased, so it must simply be that I'm utilising my time more properly. The intensity's been amped and I'm paying more attention to my body and what's good for me. And although I'm at 180lbs again, I am a fit person.

My bodyfat is currently at 15.8% this morning. I want to aim for 12% by the end of November. That might be a bit much, but it's my current goal.

Themed Training - Hips

After themed training, focusing on the hips. Some new people tonight. Trey, who I met in Charlottesville at the VA State Jam, and his friend Frank. Both of them were very out of shape and could hardly last the warm-up. All the same, I pushed them and we began some exercises focusing on either increasing hip flexion flexibility or hip extension power. Most of these were hops, duck-walks, the beginning phase of the kong vault and the like. Also, I tried to teach the ending phase of a climb-up where hips need to pop up to get your feet on the ledge.. Trey could do it sloppily, but not well enough to get his foot up (just his knee). Frank couldn't do it at all. No worries. Afterward, we played around some, talked, explored some movements and I gave them an introduction to the movements. Along the way, a girl got interested, I gave her all the info, and it seems she'll be with us in two weeks. Score.

Biking and lifts

Warm-up:
8 miles on bike to gym
Joint rotation at gym

Work-out:
5x5 squats (145lbs)
5x5 DB snatches (2x40lbs)
3x3 Deadlifts (145lbs)
5x5 overhead press (110lbs)

Cooldown:
Various yoga asanas
8 miles bike back home
10:00 stretch at home

Themed Training - Muscular Endurance

Today was supposed to be a muscular endurance class, but I only had one person show up who was a fourteen year old girl, so I went a bit easy on her. She was also an hour late, so I was doing a cardio circuit beforehand by myself. As such, I had to go REALLY easy on her during the warm-up.. But it consisted of a few QM laps, forwards and backwards, duck-walking laps, jogging, jump-tucks, and then some light conditioning. She did five push-ups (I did a plyometric push-up set, 5 pus into different stances, three sets), 20 squats, a minute of front plank, and repeated for a bit.

She had some issues with hip flexibility and jumping, so we mostly worked on progressing her into moving with her hips more and getting some more power on her jump. But I also did a lot for her in the regard of conditioning techniques, hanging, crouched pull-ups, slow climbs, etc. I think it went over very well, and I didn't even get her into the whole "this vault, that jump" mentality. A very eager and willing student. She'll go far.

What I was doing was a lot of side conditioning with climb-ups, jump-tucks, squats, push-ups in the midst of a few runs. I also managed to get one hell of a cat leap that I at first didn't think I would be able to get. MUCH easier than it looked. So I incorporated it into a few runs. Overall, a good training day, and at least I got to train the endurance aspect, as I kept my muscles in a state of fatigue for a good deal of the two hours.

Quick workout

10/5/08
(forgot to post yesterday)

Warm-up:
4 rounds of QM up/down stairs:

Forward
Backward
Crab
(Each set of three consists of one round)

Joint rotation

Work-out:
Four rounds of:

25 weighted sit-ups (legs elevated), 25lbs
25 reverse crunches, 25lbs on legs
1:00 front plank
20 pseudoplanche push-ups
50 squats
1:00 front plank

Cool-down:
2:00 jumping jacks
1:00 front plank
Stretching
---

For the record, I was still very sore from Saturday when I did this, but I trudged through it okay. Honestly, the backwards QM up the stairs took more out of me than the workout itself.

VA State Jam - UVA

So today was the Virginia State-wide Jam (first annual!) in Charlottesville, which involved a long drive and an overnight stay. We woke up early, got some breakfast in, and got to the meeting point. After a nice warm-up (that was pretty grueling for some of the kiddies), and then began a few simple jumps and rolls. A little child started imitating us! It was adorable. And the kid was fearless, to boot. Jumping all over the place!

There was miles upon miles of walking around, as the University of Virginia is a very widespread campus. The spots were all pretty amazing, though, offering uniqueness in movement. QMs, balances, vaults, density and sparsity, walls of varying sizes.. Pretty much anything you could hope for. We had a ton of great guys (and one gal!) out and jammed, socialised, and had a blast. Was about really.. just being a community. And sharing a love for movement.

I'm proud of Virginia. I really am.