Yesterday I spent a lil time before dinner listening to Senior RKC Mark Reifkind talk as part of the KB secrets series, and I'm definitely glad I got a chance to hear and remember what Mark has tried to teach me in workshops and in training, directly and indirectly.
Mark and I seem to share a love for intensity, and whereas he started out as a gymnast eventually competing against (pre-Olympian) Kurt Angle at the collegiate level. After getting injured he started to run, and with his love of volume eventually started running ultras.
running / parkour
I started running more recently, partly because I wanted to give my L wrist a break (in case I tore my forehand ligament) and partly because I know that running (endurance that is) is a weakness of mine relative to sprinting / max-strength / body control. I also did Wii Fit for a while this quarter whilst injured, which helped my balance a lot, but I guess I wanted to be a better runner for a few reasons. I watched Watchmen with my momma (heh) and kind of wanted to be more like Rorschach... whatever that means, you tell me :p
So given that, I started my parkour (rather than freerunning) practice on campus, and I've been slowly getting better! I had to ease off of the upper body work to give my L wrist a rest (was doing GTG pullups on my door, didn't have access to that fancy lifeline jungle gym though in retrospect that's probably a better investment than the pullup bar I have and don't have installed).
Actually, yesterday was a little bit of a breakthrough in my parkour practice (I don't train parkour, I just practice...)--I was feeling a little tight but I started slowly on Wilbur, felt good running past the Law school, and then did a continuous run from the geo corner of the quad (after navigating through the bushes) over the physics / stats lawns and then through that Sequoia window I spent months looking at wistfully :p then over the Packard cement blocks and through the EE lawn finally to Gates.
on sprinting not
It wasn't just that I was pushing myself, I wasn't, but it was probably the first time I felt like I was pacing myself appropriately and trying to feel my way to a good rhythm and cadence... I guess I was inspired by this article on Why [the author] Sucked in College, where he noted:
1) How much faster I ran in college on most runs than I did when I actually was good and how hard I ran intervals and 2) How much less I ran and less endurance I had in college compared to after.
Being addicted to intensity, I just love intervals, and sprinting rocks... at least until you gas yourself out heh but I kind of realize that strength work and sprinting work over a bent frame (as Cook would say) or one that hasn't learned to sustain itself on aerobic paces is probably not a good idea... kind of how I learned to DL my bodyweight and DL some 1500 lbs in 15 minutes months before I even tried a weighted squat, or how I learned to sprint 100m in sub-14s or so without knowing what my mile / 5k times were. But that's me, trying to take shortcuts and sometimes screwing myself over in the process :p
monthly progress
so yea, i just wanted to look back and remind myself that my lower body stability has gotten a lot better, i have far fewer restrictions, my lower back recovers so much better with improved posture / form / hip mobility, and my balance / walking gait / running form have all improved over the last just 6 months. i still have a ways to go, but i just wanted to remind myself that things have progressed even though I haven't been able to devote myself to intense sprint training, deadlifts, or much Kbell work either.
that said, one thing before the next... it was good to be reminded by Rif that it's not just a question of whether you do corrective exercise first and then get stronger or jump into strength work, but that it's an ongoing process. i'm not actually that informed about the Conjugate Method way of training, although i know a little about periodization / block training / waving etc. I guess what Rif was trying to say was that training is kind of like trying to walk somewhere on shifting sands, where your strengths and weaknesses, your imbalances and injuries keep moving. Hopefully they don't keep moving in the same direction or else you're either going to get injured soon or you've found the exact perfect routine but I'm guessing the former is more likely :)
I actually find that my body has an incredibly fast training response, in a matter of days I notice a difference, and so I have to be really careful about L/R training asymmetry... maybe anterior/posterior is a different story? lateral/medial? not sure.
kbells
Rif talked a lot about stability in his KB secrets call and I've definitely taken this lesson to heart and improved my stability in the primal patterns (deep squat, lunge, etc). It was also good to be reminded that perhaps 1-handed swings might be an easier way to swing for me due to my L/R posterior chain / medial chain asymmetries... cuz I've been taking a break from KB work cuz I know I'll be doing more over the summer.
I'm also looking forward to ETK, err I mean Pavel's RTK, which just came out and has more on KB periodization, double KB work, snatches, KB squats and the like.
I guess the plan is to continue my parkour practice on campus until the quarter ends, then give my parkour running a break as I get settled in SF (maybe just do aerobic runs without much parkour spirit?). While I'm still on campus I think I'd still like to do light (less than half bodyweight) DL practice, don't think I'll be training backsquats since that's pretty technical, or OHS cuz I'm still at the practice phase and empty bar OHS is still a struggle, but I think a mix of light DL practice and plated goblet squats will be a nice way to end out the campus year.
And actually I realized that if I can double swing then dbl snatch then clean / front squat two 12kg bells, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to do the same for a 1.5 pood bag of flour (well not exactly, but the weight I mean :). That said, even though it's tempting to go out and buy 40 lb plates just cuz it's cool to go to the gym and grab a big-bass barbell plate and start doing front squats, I'm not really going to use a 40 lb plate for much except lookin' cool, and I might as well invest in symmetric kbells for dbl bell work. That said, it sounds fun to work my way up to 40 lb bbell plate in each hand front squats haha holdin' em like shields or some such.
I've actually thought about sandbag work and maybe that'll be my fun alternative to buying more kbells (I already have DD 8kg USA black, 12kg & 16kg DD red, 8kg & 12kg cheapo Apollo) or plates (tempting tho! maybe one day :p). Plus it'll be easier to transport sandbags & I wanna learn how to lift a 1.5 pood bag of organic Giusto's flour with good form from the ground to the kitchen :D
So yea, screw the gym this summer (at least in SF, it might be fun to do a variety day in the campus gym for fun once a week or every other week), I think I'd rather invest in sandbags / kbells / my own education (reading Vern Gambetta's book on coaching!) and maybe even do PT with my RKC asst instructor MartyC :)
Okay, back to studyin' for a lil bit longer...
No comments:
Post a Comment