Press to HS summer battle part #2

[raptron]

9 hours ago, @mu said:

I'm starting to long for the beginning of circus classes! So curious as to what the content will be. I'm familiar enough with aerial stuff but the other cross-disciplinary class is teasing me. And having a teacher and classmates ha ha! I have been training on my own for so long.

Having that social connection is SO UNDERRATED! Just having people to vent to/celebrate with, even! I'm excited for you.  

 

9 hours ago, @mu said:

So I got my "official temporary number" for social security but they are still sending me annoying mails like "we can't find your medical certificate - if you don't give it to us we will close your work accident file and ask you to reimburse social cover etc...". Duh I gave it to you and I paid everything myself you dumb as*** My work place of course has a copy of that medical certificate, and I do as well. It's just them... So anyway, more photocopies and dropping mail in their letter box. Fortunately their building is 2 mn away from our place, the waste of time is fairly minimal.

EYEROLL.

 

[@mu]

15 hours ago, raptron said:

Having that social connection is SO UNDERRATED! Just having people to vent to/celebrate with, even! I'm excited for you.  

Yesss!   I suspect I might start feeling my age a little. Not that I am bothered by it, it's the same at work. I'm getting into the adult++ range but I haven't quite adjusted to that yet

 

Yesterday I was good with coffee and finished my Shahnameh book in Persian. Not sure what I will pick up next, maybe Saadi or Molana (aka Rumi), or if I will go for something a little bit more modern (my Saadi and Molana books are again not the original texts but a version aimed at young readers with some original verses here and there).

I went too bed early but I'm still feeling a bit tired.

This morning P2, a bit of press and HS consistency (18/25). Not bad, not great, da GRIND!

 

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1
Coffee   2 1 1 1
Bed      0 1 0 1
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1

 

[KB Girl]

When do the circus classes start?  I can really imagine looking forward to not training solo. 

Looks like you've got a better handle on getting the backbending session in tho! 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Oh man government stuff! Might be a good idea to keep really good track of all this paperwork mess so that you have lots of proof in the future in case they (almost inevitably) screw something up.

 

Can't wait to hear about your classes!

[@mu]

22 hours ago, KB Girl said:

When do the circus classes start?  I can really imagine looking forward to not training solo. 

Looks like you've got a better handle on getting the backbending session in tho! 

 

 

Somewhere in September, I'll have to check again.

Yep backbending is coming back but I still need to find some new exercises or variations, I don't know why I'm a little bit bored AND because it's so hard / makes me want to vomit a little at times really (e.g. camel) PLUS progress is so slow, it's hard to get motivated

 

14 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Oh man government stuff! Might be a good idea to keep really good track of all this paperwork mess so that you have lots of proof in the future in case they (almost inevitably) screw something up.

 

Can't wait to hear about your classes!

 

Yes I'm pretty sure it won't work in my favour, especially when it comes to count pension points for retirement... To be fair, since I mostly worked abroad, I'm pretty screwed any way. I will have to rely on some kind of private strategy. One of our neighbours here is 70 something and still working because her daughter is disabled...And still, France is not the worse place at all when it comes to welfare...

 

~~

 

Got a new coffee pot and had a fairly big mug @ 100% coffee this morning, which was nice but got me a bit shaky on handstands! I suspect my coffee at home is actually a bit stronger than the one at work.

 

Press was nice though. I started with Cirque Physio and Kirsty's prep + some pull. And I changed a little my books setup so that I could start in a wider straddle, and that helped a lot (=> more compression). So I managed 4 presses from 8 cm and at pbars-ish level I could start floating a bit.

Endurance was not amazing because of the coffee shakes, made it to 34s and stopped there.

Then I work on leg waves with straight legs and it is very hard. And while I feel my leg going down down really DOWN, I'm actually barely moving It was just weird to watch that micro side to side on the video.

 

Here is that little video log from today.

 

 

No Persian yesterday, I got myself a new book from Damasio (whose last book I read last month) and got a bit engrossed into it. But on Friday I did start reading stories from Saadi.

And only had decaff.

 

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1 1 0
Coffee   2 1 1 1 2 0 1
Bed      0 1 0 1 _ _
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1 _ 1

 

[@mu]

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1 1 0 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 1 1 1 2 0 1 | 8/10
Bed      0 1 0 1 _ _ 0 | 3/5
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1 _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  
Coffee   
Bed      
Practice 1

End of week 2 => bed time went down a little and I feel it. Coffee/Persian/practice are ok a far as I am concerned.

This morning was hips + legs.

 

I have to go and troll social security this morning again, but it shouldn't take too much time.

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Ahh you're getting so close now!

 

Can't help you with vomit feels, but maybe I can try to remember some other backend variations. What are you doing now? And where do you think your limitations are?

[raptron]

I love the side sway/straight leg waves, hahah. They don't look that minor to me!

[@mu]

12 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Ahh you're getting so close now!

 

Can't help you with vomit feels, but maybe I can try to remember some other backend variations. What are you doing now? And where do you think your limitations are?

 

Thanks, that'd be great! The programming might be a bit off as well because I started from a GMB mobility programme, added elbow stands, then back drops, then Cirque Physio but removed some GMB stuff it's a bit of a mess now. There is some splits training in it as well...

 

In black GMB stuff, in red Cirque Physio, in green ball stuff

 

Starting from a standing pike with hands on the floor to the side: down to an ATG sideways squat and back up 10L 10R
Seated pike: sideways forward slide (like a pike stretch but at a side angle) 10L 10R finishing on a front pike stretch

Mobilisation - Thoracic Spine (lower / mid / upper back) 15 reps

Mobilization - Ribs and Rhomboids 10-15 reps LR

Active Release - Upper Traps 10-15 reps LR

Active Release - Lats and Rotator Cuff 10-15 reps LR

Shoulder stretches against a support 30s x2

Thoracic rotation stretch 30s each side LR

Thoracic Rotation Lift-offs 10LR

Rocking deep squats to low plank to cobra 5

Quads stretch lying down

Shoulder bridge holding my ankles with my hands => butt down and up x10

Camel (low intensity / medium / higher) – sometimes instead I do more cobra variations, or backbends lying on my side bringing one foot up towards my head

Cobra leg lifts straight and bent legs LR 10x2

Lying flexed foot leg extension x2

Splits LR 30s x3

“Standing splits” 6 LR hold 5s (NB: between quotes because I'm nowhere a standing split I'm just holding a leg in the back let's say)

Bridge closing towards heels / sometimes down to elbows / variations against the wall x3

Scorpion in elbow stand x3 (haven't done those in a while because of my elbow)

Back drop and back up – 1 to 3 reps

 

This currently takes 40-45mn and I don't really want to do more than that.

My limitations: not sure, a wee bit of laziness ? I feel I lost some gains I had made over time. I also find myself using more lower back quicker.

I can take a few video clips next time.

 

2 hours ago, raptron said:

I love the side sway/straight leg waves, hahah. They don't look that minor to me!

 

Really?

I'm a bit confused by those shifts. I tried not to pike, maybe if I were piking slightly I could possibly bring my leg further down but that might be a different type of move...

What I feel mostly is all my weight going on one arm! Maybe because of the wider shoulder stand, when I move sideways, I quickly lose support from the other shoulder. Kirsty told me it was a normal width on parallettes, and it's also a width I'm comfortable with. So I don't know. I guess I will have to play with it. And watch a bit more careful what people do. In some vids, I see people's head going near a shoulder, and in others, the whole head+shoulders stay totally still and square.

 

 

[raptron]

57 minutes ago, @mu said:

Really?

I'm a bit confused by those shifts. I tried not to pike, maybe if I were piking slightly I could possibly bring my leg further down but that might be a different type of move...

What I feel mostly is all my weight going on one arm! Maybe because of the wider shoulder stand, when I move sideways, I quickly lose support from the other shoulder. Kirsty told me it was a normal width on parallettes, and it's also a width I'm comfortable with. So I don't know. I guess I will have to play with it. And watch a bit more careful what people do. In some vids, I see people's head going near a shoulder, and in others, the whole head+shoulders stay totally still and square.

Oh! I guess I never really see anyone do these just for like "waves." I figured it was one-armed handstand prep, actually. My bad.

 

[@mu]

10 hours ago, raptron said:

Oh! I guess I never really see anyone do these just for like "waves." I figured it was one-armed handstand prep, actually. My bad.

 

 

I wish but no, I must have gotten something really wrong I will have to check those leg waves again, maybe there is a pike somewhere.  I could also try in head stand first or something.

 

Press to HS was very hard today. I could barely float on books. I went back to stool level and even there it was a struggle bus. And moving onto chair, it was still hard. Not sure what's up. Quads are a bit grumpy maybe. I moved on to conditioning and HS consistency. And the first set was just too hard. I couldn't jump, couldn't push. Just feeling a bit weak and sloppy all over. I called it a day on that set. Felt like no point really. I still trained about 1h. I'm not feeling particularly tired, legs are a bit off (Monday legs + back on my bike after the week-end). But I was out of it somehow. ha.

 

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1 1 0 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 1 1 1 2 0 1 | 8/10
Bed      0 1 0 1 _ _ 0 | 3/5
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1 _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1
Coffee   2
Bed      1
Practice 1 1

 

[GoodDoug]

10 hours ago, @mu said:

Press to HS was very hard today. I could barely float on books

Funny because today I was really thrown off by how terrible my handstands felt. I think that some days you just regress a bit. I'm going to pretend it is because I am about to have a major breakthrough

 

Seriously though, your video is inspirational. I would love to be able to do that even in a very shaky fashion. Though I must admit I spent a bit of time being fascinated by how your hair _just_ touched the ground.

[@mu]

13 hours ago, GoodDoug said:

Funny because today I was really thrown off by how terrible my handstands felt. I think that some days you just regress a bit. I'm going to pretend it is because I am about to have a major breakthrough

 

Seriously though, your video is inspirational. I would love to be able to do that even in a very shaky fashion. Though I must admit I spent a bit of time being fascinated by how your hair _just_ touched the ground.

 

Ha ha same here I am getting a bit less frustrated by those not-happening-today sessions. They do always happen at some point. They are  challenges towards great improvements  I agree

And long hair is my secret third-point of support to HS balance

 

So today back-bends. Here are 2 pics in camel and bridge and a drop back video. I guess hip extension is a bit lacking. I'm wondering if biking had a bit of a counter effect at first. I mean I still think it will improve my leg strength for the greater good at some point but they do feel a bit tight.

Still no elbow stand, I'm just a wimp when it comes to that elbow.

 

 

 

 

 

[raptron]

9 hours ago, @mu said:

And long hair is my secret third-point of support to HS balance

Hehehe. 

 

9 hours ago, @mu said:

I'm wondering if biking had a bit of a counter effect at first. I mean I still think it will improve my leg strength for the greater good at some point but they do feel a bit tight

My friend is a big mountain biker and has been talking about how much tighter her hips have gotten this summer. I think it probably calls for extra attention, but gosh there is only so much time in the day~

[@mu]

On 8/14/2019 at 5:17 PM, raptron said:

My friend is a big mountain biker and has been talking about how much tighter her hips have gotten this summer. I think it probably calls for extra attention, but gosh there is only so much time in the day~

 

I'm no where near mountain biking but yep I think there is something to it. Generally speaking any leg cardio stuff increases tightness for me (biking, running...). Side thought: I never understood why people say that strength (in particular lifting big weights) makes you stiff because I have always had my best stretching sessions after heavy strength. Cardio on the other hand...

I do stretch my hips & qauds but I do them on Mondays maybe I should swap back-bends and hips. To have a good quads & hip flexors stretch in the middle of the week rather than after 2 days off my bike...

 

Log recap

 

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1 1 0 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 1 1 1 2 0 1 | 8/10
Bed      0 1 0 1 _ _ 0 | 3/5
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1 _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 0 0 1
Coffee   2 2 1 0 2
Bed      1 1 _ 1 _ _
Practice 1 1 1 _ _ 1

 

Thursday was a bank holiday. So no bed time requirement the day before. I rested. I just realised I haven't really been deloading for the past 2 cycles or so. Might be one reason I'm feeling a bit off. This morning press to HS and a little break-through! Got 1 press from 2-3cm Then I just worked on moving my legs in HS (straddle ↔ straight, tuck ↔ straight, holding a 7).

 

Here is a video log of my first ugly but still pressing rep, and then failed attempts. I got excited and tried to lift my legs instead of pushing (that never works ).

 

 

[@mu]

Sunday early morning we took our bikes and went near the river to feed the ducks with left over bread. I did P2 and some HS there, but a pretty light session. Despite the early hour, it was hot and humid,with a few mosquitoes, not the nicest to train.

Persian is a bit off this week because I'm totally taken by my new SF book in French (The Horde of the Counterwind).

Coffee and bed are ok. I have been napping a lot this week-end too.

 

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1 1 0 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 1 1 1 2 0 1 | 8/10
Bed      0 1 0 1 _ _ 0 | 3/5
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1 _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 0 0 1 0 1 | 4/7
Coffee   2 2 1 0 2 1 0 | 8/10
Bed      1 1 _ 1 _ _ 1 | 4/4
Practice 1 1 1 _ _ 1 1 | 5/5

Persian  
Coffee   
Bed      
Practice 1

 

This morning I swapped hips & legs for back-bends. It was a bit tough to start with those (I was feeling a bit lazy too) but at least they are DONE!

 

[@mu]

Very good Monday: coffee /check (having one at work and otherwise decaf or chicory) Persian /check bed time /check.

This morning press to HS mostly (+ Cirque Physio and some pull as usual).

I managed to press from books at ~8cm, and also at 2-3cm but with a little cheat on that one. Well, let's call it a progression?   I move one leg to the side and up first. That helps a lot. I should probably practice it on both sides because I can definitely feel an asymmetric push on the shoulders.

Here is a vid to illustrate, you will see my left leg moving first:

 

 

/* Challenge log */

Persian  1 1 1 1 0 1 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 2 2 2 2 0 0 | 10/10
Bed      1 1 1 1 _ _ 0 | 4/5
Practice 1 1 1 1 _ _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 1 1 1 0 1 | 6/7
Coffee   2 1 1 1 2 0 1 | 8/10
Bed      0 1 0 1 _ _ 0 | 3/5
Practice 1 1 1 _ 1 _ 1 | 5/5

Persian  1 1 0 0 1 0 1 | 4/7
Coffee   2 2 1 0 2 1 0 | 8/10
Bed      1 1 _ 1 _ _ 1 | 4/4
Practice 1 1 1 _ _ 1 1 | 5/5

Persian  1
Coffee   1
Bed      1
Practice 1 1

 

[@mu]

And I forgot HS consistency: 17/25, 1 fall over which I haven't had in a while + weak kicks mostly

[raptron]

 

One leg first is a classic cheat! It helps so much, haha. I still think it's a useful (unofficial) progression.

 

Are you going to plan on a real deload soon?

[Mad Hatter]

So backbends! Before I say anything else keep in mind that I didn't try the routine in full and also I don't know how to program any of this. My impression is that it's a good routine, but if you feel like you're stuck there are definitely things to switch up and play around with. To me it also looks hip extension is perhaps the most limiting, but it's by no means bad! Based on the difference between the camel and the bridge I'd also look at active shoulder/upper back flexibility OR sequencing things a little differently so that your shoulders are more warmed up by the time it comes to camel. Here are some ideas in no particular order:

• I think lunges are missing and would be helpful to warm up the hips more. Splits are great but they come a little late in the workout, better to have the hips warm before any intense back bending. There's loads of varieties here, and you can use them both as warm ups or go really intense. For example:
  • Plain old lunges for stretching the hip flexors. You can do them actively or passively, or you can bring up your foot to your butt for a quad stretch. I also like a version where the back leg is lifted and I make circles with one arm while holding a yoga block for a nice multi tasking warm up. 
  • Add a backbend, you can do this with a wall or without, keeping your hands on the floor and try to bring your head close to your foot or you can bring the hands overhead walking down a wall, or you could grab your foot and either again bring your head close to your foot (I think you can already do that, in that case bring it closer down to your forehead/nose), or another variation is to again grab the foot but instead try to get it as close to the floor as possible.
  • Personally I like to warm up with lunge variation, so I'd put them either before or after cobras, but definitely before camels. Also personally I don't even understand how you're able to go as deep into camel as you do with not much in terms of warm up.  I definitely need a lot more intensity before trying!* Impressive.
• Perhaps you want to try to peanut your quads and hip flexors before lunges and see if that feels good. For time constraining purposes I'd keep the amount of mobilisations as low as possible though, so I'd only keep the ones that really make a difference. If they feel amazing and useful then keep them but there are a few things in there that I wonder if they're not more fluff than anything? Like the pikes and the squat to cobra thingy? Of course everybody's different so feel free to shut me down here.  
•  I don't know what cobra variations you're doing but there's lots of stuff you can do there. Grabbing feet, king cobra, bow pose, rotations, no handed cobra. An intense one is to grab a pole or whatever overhead and use it to pull yourself in for a deeper backbend. Followed up by something active, like you're already doing.
• For camel a good exercise to try out could be to grab a yoga block between your hands and with straight arms bring it overhead and down the floor as close to the feet as possible and then back up again for reps. Both for warming up and strengthening. 
• I don't know if your doing the s-bend/snake bridge variation (where you drop your butt), but it's great for the upper back. 

*And by that I'm speaking from my past experience, I'm pretty sure I can't even get into the position at all now...  

 

Oh yeah let me know if stuff doesn't make sense, I'm just throwing a bunch of stuff at you to experiment with if anything catches your eye.

 

I love your press progress, it's oddly really exciting!

[Mad Hatter]

Btw I saw this video which proved me very wrong that handstand canes don't rotate very easily. It seems to really depend on the canes, these ones are very unstable indeed! His spinning so fast on them!

 

 

[@mu]

14 hours ago, raptron said:

 

One leg first is a classic cheat! It helps so much, haha. I still think it's a useful (unofficial) progression.

 

Are you going to plan on a real deload soon?

 

it's amazing how much it helps!

Deload sort of happened last week, because I stopped my first HS consistency on set 1 (too tired) and I skipped the second one + endurance. P2 on Sunday was also fairly light.

 

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

So backbends! Before I say anything else keep in mind that I didn't try the routine in full and also I don't know how to program any of this. My impression is that it's a good routine, but if you feel like you're stuck there are definitely things to switch up and play around with.

 

Thank you so much for this! So many good ideas!

 

For hips, yes I do a fair amount of hip flexors on hips+legs day and I'm too lazy to do them again before back-bends which is a bit silly because I definitely need those... I need to reprogram things a little bit. I could improve the split hips vs backbends.  Or... maybe do 2 full sessions, but with fewer elements but more focus on each one. eg back drop in one, elbow stand in the other. I also have to see how the load will feel with Circus classes, what we do in there in terms of mobility/flexibility. I expect some global re-programming coming in September or so.

 

The squat to cobras just get my heart rate up a little. I could replace it with something else, I don't think it matters much indeed and I could also remove the pikes, they don't feel super useful either.

 

I find camel fairly unpleasant so I mostly use it as a warmup move and I only push it a bit harder in the third iteration (the pic I put up). Maybe I could go deeper if I tried it again towards the end...  The thought has occurred to me that I might find it unpleasant BECAUSE I'm not warmed up enough for it

 

It's funny because when it comes to parallettes, by now, I know roughly what I need to do: for warmup, skill-prep, actual skill and finally conditioning. It does not mean that it is fixed, it varies depending on the skill of the day and how I feel / progress, but I have a sense of how my workout should unfold roughly. When it comes to flexibility/mobility sessions, it is still very much fuzzy.

I will read again your suggestions and see what I can come up with. Try new variations (like the butt down in bridge) and order things a little bit differently. And see in September how to re-organise my flexibility plan.

 

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Btw I saw this video which proved me very wrong that handstand canes don't rotate very easily. It seems to really depend on the canes, these ones are very unstable indeed! His spinning so fast on them!

 

Nice! I really like some of the shapes he came up with!  And those are pretty lose canes indeed! I haven't bought yet the rotational grips.

 

[Mad Hatter]

2 hours ago, @mu said:

 For hips, yes I do a fair amount of hip flexors on hips+legs day and I'm too lazy to do them again before back-bends which is a bit silly because I definitely need those... I need to reprogram things a little bit. I could improve the split hips vs backbends.  Or... maybe do 2 full sessions, but with fewer elements but more focus on each one. eg back drop in one, elbow stand in the other. I also have to see how the load will feel with Circus classes, what we do in there in terms of mobility/flexibility. I expect some global re-programming coming in September or so.

I don't think you need to do a full hip flexor stretch on backbend days, just enough to get them really warm. That's why I personally like lunges with backbends as you can kinda do two things in one.  Splitting it up is not a bad thing, if you have time for it. It also depends a little on what you want to do, if you want to aim for max backbends it can take quite a long time  to warm up for it. But for say elbow stands you can't really go as deep so those could be on a different day. In the past I've split it up into roughly bridge days and cobra days, I think depending a little on the state of my shoulders. Or you could also focus on one type of pose for a few weeks at a time. Many options!

 

2 hours ago, @mu said:

The squat to cobras just get my heart rate up a little. I could replace it with something else, I don't think it matters much indeed and I could also remove the pikes, they don't feel super useful either.

I don't think they hurt in any way, I only brought it up as it's a way of keeping time constant if you add something else.  

 

3 hours ago, @mu said:

I find camel fairly unpleasant so I mostly use it as a warmup move and I only push it a bit harder in the third iteration (the pic I put up). Maybe I could go deeper if I tried it again towards the end...  The thought has occurred to me that I might find it unpleasant BECAUSE I'm not warmed up enough for it

The easy variations of camel are nice warm ups. The full camel I find requires quite a warm up. For me it's always been unpleasant though haha, if I'm warm I just go deeper.

 

3 hours ago, @mu said:

It's funny because when it comes to parallettes, by now, I know roughly what I need to do: for warmup, skill-prep, actual skill and finally conditioning. It does not mean that it is fixed, it varies depending on the skill of the day and how I feel / progress, but I have a sense of how my workout should unfold roughly. When it comes to flexibility/mobility sessions, it is still very much fuzzy.

Heh no wonder, there's so many things that you could do, and there's really not that much coaching and good information out there, though it has improved a lot in the past years! I think the way I structure workouts is having a rough idea of the moves I'd like to do in the session and then go by what body parts feels most restricted. After a general warm up that is) Sometimes I go into a pose and notice that oh, I can feel it in my low back - is it technique or because my hips are not warm up? Maybe I then stretch my hips a little longer, and perhaps notice that something feels stuck, so I take out the peanut. Or maybe my butt's lazy and I do some activation work. If I feel very bendy I might choose the deeper poses, if I'm feeling stiffer I might go more for active work rather than forcing it. But in general it's a lot about feel and focusing on where I'm compensating and why and try to target that one by one. I do feel like without a coach it's a bit of a dark art though, and I certainly don't know, well, anything, really about what the best way to train is.

 

I have to say all this talk about backbends is kinda making me want to pick it up again.  

[KB Girl]

Wauw, that last press video from books is getting so close to the height of your parrallets! Awesome!

 

[GoodDoug]

I come to your thread to get inspired.

Not disappointed