2009 retrospective

Since our college season is over, at least for P'fly, I thought I'd spend a little time processing how my training went this past academic year, and writethink my way through what I'll be up to the rest of the quarter and only slightly beyond.

But first for the shorter bit, trying to figure out what I'll be up to in these next few weeks before the quarter ends. A few weeks ago I had set a summer-type goal on working on my overhead squat (thx Dan John) form, my Cossack stretch hip mobility, and the Vo2max snatch protocol, which all are good tests/training for my specific imbalances (L/R lat tightness, medial thigh weakness vs ITB/glute med tightness, medial calf tightness vs some kind of calf amnesia / non-recruitment, general hip mobility and glute strength-endurance, work capacity limited to 7kCal/wk)...

I guess I haven't really thought through how how to articulate what the higher-level goals for that are, but basically I suppose it comes down to getting mobility back to a top-flight state (it's already better than it's been for years), balancing out my anterior/posterior chain strength-endurance, and I suppose some prehab flexibility (specifically ASLR) would be nice. Aiyah, it's already getting complicated but I suppose program design isn't easy, especially self-programming where you tend to focus only on building your strengths rather than managing your weaknesses as well.

Maybe it'd be easier to process through what I'll be doing these next few weeks. I'm a fan of cross-training for general sustainability, and just like I picked up Kettlebells last summer (and eventually attended the RKC in San Jose a few months ago) I've been starting to train interval parkour on campus, which has been a bunch of fun. So I guess in these 6 weeks or so I'll probably start days with some Z-health mobility to check in with myself, address soft tissue restrictions/asymmetries, and then figure out what subset of pistols (1-legged squats), TGUs, MPs, and pull-ups I want to do, plus reminding myself to do a mild amount of ASLR & bird-dogs + Cook hip lifts. I guess it's just too tempting to do "random acts of variety", and I really shouldn't GTG more than one or two things at once. I really want to balance out my L/R leg asymmetry, so that's why the Pistol progression is in there (time to re-read Pavel's NW), and I've been GTG pull-ups rather than 1-arm push-ups b/c pulling is a bit more fundamental as a Parkour movement than pushing. MPs + pulls are at least push/pull but probably too much for me right now since I'm recovering from those layout Ds (the ugly one or two specifically) from Regionals, and I don't really need to grind a push and grind a pull even if they aren't done at different periodicities.

I really love sprinting too, especially if I can get my HR above 215 (been 223-225 a few times this last year), but Parkour interval sprinting on hard surfaces with year-old Nike Frees can be as tough on my medial chain as high-intensity+speed interval ropework (PVC 9.5' done at greater-than 3Hz with periodic cross-overs, power jumps (double unders), and low/high knees), aiyah. So I'm going to have to make myself not train my power moves until I address hip soft tissue restrictions / do more ASLR corrective practice for repatterning (esp. avoiding lumbar flexion with lower body movements!), so no sprinting at above 180-200bpm :( and no ropework or KB snatch work either :(. Anyway I need to err study for my qualifying exams this quarter ahem :)

I guess I haven't scheduled it all out yet, but something like GTG Pistols / Pull-ups Sun-Fri, running [but not sprinting] to lab and back 2-3x/wk, light TGU skill practice on a variety day / medium TGU on another day (non-running). That still might be a bit much, esp w/ SMR pre- and bird-dog/repatterning/glute hip lift after, but I'll give it a shot?

Okee well that turned out to be a longer sensemaking process than I signed up for, but I still wanted to braindump what went well this year and what didn't. I went to RubyFringe last year and stopped by FailCamp, which is an interesting meme-inspired (or meme-inspiring?) event wherein you tell stories of Fail, where Fail != Failure, but Fail in the Silicon Valley sense where you pick yourself up / dust it off / and go again.

So how did my training go?

Kettlebells

FTW: Kettlebell training, hard-style -- definitely great for body composition, efficient+effective compound multi-joint exercises that include core+appropriate stability work+focus on the hip and power generation, large & amazing community of strength athletes and teachers, portability and the fun of learning something (ostensibly) really new [and yet really old school]

Fail: The way I swung the KB for months before the RKC. I did seek out good teachers, but was a bit stingy when it came to shelling out the bucks to be trained 1:1 pre-RKC (just a couple of sessions and workshops)... a lot of that was spacetime "restrictions", a lot of it was it being the college season both academically and physically and having plenty on that plate

Fail: Working myself too hard, too soon. Can you tell I'm good at that? :) I was working on a razor's edge by playing four tournaments last quarter (three of them in a row, ending with Vegas I think!) and also having the RKC that quarter. Ouch, I know I like to push it, but that hurt. Pavel enjoyed putting the pain on me, or so he said on the DD forum, but maybe I should have learned the lesson that my most recent PT(herapist) told me, "no pain, no pain". Wow, that was new to me :D

Deadlifting

FTW: Learning to DL my bodyweight in a few weeks was a lot of fun, and even though I didn't get to do more than a 5-6 week cycle, I do heart DLifts... plus pulling heavy made me sprint faster than I've ever run (learned from PttP & Barry Ross's book, just getting to 180x5 (as part of a pyramid set) was a fun and useful way to spend a month last summer.

Fail: Training the DL without maintaining (or more specifically just having) a [deep squat] :( I think PttP is great, but after a certain point, you should probably not just do one exercise especially if you're at a certain point in your development (and esp. if you've had issues with your posterior chain or lumbar etc. before like I have). Cook suggests training DL:squat 3:1, and now wonder the RKC hurt--it was the first time I'd done a real weighted rock-bottom squat (yea, that hurt, but I got there).

Fail: Expecting the DL to automagically prevent future back injuries. Didn't know at the time that it's strength-endurance and not max-strength that is shown to be protective for lo-back problems. Speaking of which I need to borrow/buy that copy of McGill's other work, Ultimate Back Fitness or what not.

Jump rope

FTW: agility, aerobic, anaerobic work that can be easier on the legs than running. Don't need to hit the stinky gym full of people with bad form who can barely squat/DL their bodyweight. Okee not that I mind people working to bodyweight squats, but... well never mind.

Fail: it actually takes a long time to build up your soft tissues to handle high-intensity interval rope work esp. when you add power and stepping moves. It's funny though, pretty much all my minor injuries this past year have been from training too hard and training off the field... too much KB posterior-chain swing volume without goblet squats to balance it out, too much ropework without knowing as much about soft tissue work / L/R leg asymmetries, too much barefoot or Parkour interval training.

Fail: when I started tho I barely hit anaerobic, but didn't realize it at the time. oh well, it takes time to learn these not-so-little things. I guess it's also taken me a while to settle on an aerobic/anaerobic balance that makes sense... doing just enough aerobic to maintain, not too much to deplete energy stores (esp on the week of tourneys! maybe I should have been more aggressive about that at practice, but how do you tell your coach that you think you'd be better served just taking a break the week before a tourney at least re: burning 1200+ Cal at a practice? hmm)

Barefoot work

FTW: have written about this elsewhere... but basically last year I had achilles tendinosis (not tendinitis, see Runner's Lore book for details or google) issues, but with barefoot training I've had no ankle problems at any tourney. I think once or twice I did too much ropework without addressing some trigger point / myofascial restriction and that bugged my ankle for a short while but I reduced the rope volume and that went away, yay.

Fail: I still don't know how to periodize barefoot / no-padded shoe (thx Dea) / Nike Free / skate shoe training, especially with rope work & sprinting & recovering from cleated practice / tournaments?! Aiyah. I guess the win here was realizing there's a diff between training for Health and training for Performance (shoes help with the latter, not the former!!!), and yet also knowing when to back off barefoot work and just chill.

Fail: I lost my Italian Diadora cleats :~( so my captain had to pick-up Adidas cleats for me mid-tourney. I guess I still haven't found the perfect cleat for me, and cleats just make me miss barefeet (except for the cutting bit). That said, playing in Frees is awesome as long as you don't need to actually cut ~_~.

SMR / trigger point therapy

FTW: zomg, how do we not know about SMR / foam rolling / trigger point therapy? I guess they're therapy on the cheap yet which require skill / learning / manual sensitivity / time. Proper SMR/self-massage/trigger point work made me recover soo much faster.

Fail: not using the roller to probe for tightness in a consistent / comprehensive way can make you really loose here and really tight there. D'oh. Plus it's hard to do it all with a roller, so manual work and lacrosse balls are useful too...

Fail: i guess doing rolling for too long / going for pain can be somewhat less-than-helpful if you don't keep the "no pain, no pain" mantra in mind.

FMS / mobility / Z-health

FTW: I'm going to lump these all in here b/c this entry is long enough already. FMS-type study has been more directly useful, or rather it's easier to pick up on what Cook teaches through FMS since he has a book and multiple explanatory DVDs plus workshops whereas for Z-health it's more mysterious and the training manuals / community just are way smaller than the FMS world. That said, FMS really aims to assessing other people rather than yourself, whereas Z-health can be used more easily as a pinpointing self-assessment of mobility issues. I don't know enough about Z to say it works for my rehab but it hasn't hurt and has helped me screen for what I work on with SMR / adjusting training / FMS-type corrective practice.

Fail: Doing ASLR with too much lumbar flexion? I think that was a bad thing. Also, these things are soo complicated that I don't have a single mobility reference to go to or re-work through. Pavel's Super Joints seems nice (haven't read it thoroughly but seems more like a collection of techniques than a system like RKC or FMS), FMS is about screening other people, Z-health isn't well documented (relatively). Maybe Magnificent Mobility? I don't really know. At this point my mobility is good but it still needs a lot of real work... joints! I don't know enough about them.

Fail: I guess I was thinking of having a separate posture section but I'll just dump that here. Addressing alignment/posture through Gokhale method + Yoga moves has been useful FTW but I have to type a lot (I'm typing a lot here, I guess I stayed up late last night arr) and I haven't quite figured out how to spend my immobile time besides reijggering position and working on stacksitting etc. Boo.

Okay, well this was a long entry but that's a short bit of what I learned training this past year. It was a lot of fun to just learn the basics of what fitness professionals know, and I'm far from expert at many of these things, but there's still time to learn! I've been throwing around the idea of going to PT school after my doctorate in engineering so that I can do vernacular bioinformatics for my academic research as a professor (rather than med school like my friends / family have done, I just am hesitant to step foot in that medical-industrial complex after I've seen what bad shape almost all my MD friends are in), and this year in Ultimate & training might just be the beginning :p