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Hi!

 

I'm 0gravity

 

I'm starting a log here to keep all of my things in one place.

 

A short intro - I'm a 35 year old guy who just trying to stay in shape. Bouldering is my sport, and I spend more time doing that than any other physical activity. I have specific goals and training techniques specifically to improve at bouldering, which you will see below eventually. I also until very recently weight trained regularly, and recently I have switched into trying to develop specific bodyweight only skills such as the handstand, and have left the weights behind for now.

 

I was climbing pretty well in the Fall, then I had elective surgery in November to remove hardwear from my ankle. I was unable to climb for four weeks, and now I have been climbing indoors for four weeks, after four more weeks (February 15) of climbing indoors I will be able to climb outside again.

 

My work hours are a big obstacle to me. Currently I work 3AM to 3 PM, three days a week. In March, I will be switching to the opposite shift, 3PM to 3AM. I think this will be much better for me and involve less caffeine and hateful alarm clocks.

 

My short term goals (by February 15 - taken from the challenge thread)

 

1. Complete a v6 indoors

  updated: Complete a v7 indoors

2. Campus 1-5-9 (metolius spacing) - each side - will explain later   :)

 updated: Campus 1-6-10 both sides

3. Complete sets of 5x5seconds of m4/m4 and 35slope/35slope on beastmaker 1 hangboard - again needs explanation, later

4. advanced tuck front lever x10 seconds

5. one arm lockoff x10 seconds each side

6. freestanding handstand x15 seconds

7. tuck planche x10 seconds

8. wall headstand pushups x5 with full ROM

9. pistols x5 each side

10. Run 5Km in <30 minutes

 

Medium term goals - (by April 1)

1. Finish Pow Pow (v8), at the Sad Boulders, which has been my project off and on for years

 

Long term goals - (by 12/31/15)

1. Planet of the Apes (v6), Joe's Valley

2. Gibbs Cave (v8), Squamish

2. Finish Soul Slinger (v9) at the Buttermilk

 

Epic Goals  (any time, but if I don't get them by ~age 45, most of these will never happen)

 

Stained Glass (v10), Bishop

Xavier's Roof (v11), Bishop

Mandala (v12), Bishop

Spectre (v13), Bishop

Midnight Lightning (v8), Yosemite Valley

The Orb (v8), Rocktown

The Shield (v12), Little Rock City

Karma (v11), Fontainebleau

Rainbow Rocket (v11), Fontainebleau

Duel (v11), Fontainebleau

Shosholoza (v12), Rocklands

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01/10/15

 

Warmup: Row 500m

Pike pushups, pushups, bench dips

 

Handstands ~10 freestanding attempts, again longest one @14s, need to straighten my form out I keep ending up in the "banana" at the top.

Handstandpushups, partial ROM - 5/5/5  pulled a muscle in my neck on the last rep, ow.

Ring pushups 5/5/5

Tuck planche 2-3 seconds each x4 sets

 

Neck is hurting, called it good.

 

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Hmm not going to be able to do much tomorrow, my neck is seriously tweaked. Not sure how that happened in a handstand pushup but there it is. Hopefully I wake up feeling better because right now I can't turn my head more than 15 degrees in either direction, that's going to make tomorrow's climbing session difficult.

 

Strangely I'm not upset about it, I guess by now I've had enough sports injuries that it's just a minor setback, a message to ease back for a little bit before hitting it hard again.

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Hmm not going to be able to do much tomorrow, my neck is seriously tweaked. Not sure how that happened in a handstand pushup but there it is. Hopefully I wake up feeling better because right now I can't turn my head more than 15 degrees in either direction, that's going to make tomorrow's climbing session difficult.

 

Strangely I'm not upset about it, I guess by now I've had enough sports injuries that it's just a minor setback, a message to ease back for a little bit before hitting it hard again.

 

Bummer your neck is hurting, hopefully it feels better tomorrow! I always get super bummed when I get injured cuz I want to be able to continue on with life and whatever I may be doing at the time, you've got a great attitude with it though so that's good. Hopefully just resting up will help a lot, do you have a heating pad? Using that always helps me when I tweak a muscle.

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Hmm not going to be able to do much tomorrow, my neck is seriously tweaked. Not sure how that happened in a handstand pushup but there it is.

 

Part of the HSPU movement is scapular elevation. The upper part of your trapezius, and also your levator scapulae muscles are some of the muscles involved in doing this. (see diag below). They are likely the reason why your 'neck' feels tweaked.

 

posterior_muscles_acting_on_scapula13225

 

Also, what happened to your old battle log? (Although of course you are welcome to start a new log if you just feel like it :))

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So besides the obvious of backing off to an easier variation, any way to train those muscles so I don't strain them again?

 

Those muscles (or parts of the muscle in the case of upper traps) are easy to strain because they are relatively small compared to the other muscles used in the compound movement.

 

I think the biggest thing is just realising that they are easily strained and paying attention to the warning signs. I guess it is somewhat analagous to knowing when to stop deadlifting when you realise your back is rounding and you can't keep your spine tight.

 

So if prior to your HeSPU session, you feel 'tight' in those muscles - perhaps don't push for a rep PR. Or at least warm up the muscles well beforehand. Also during your set, you just get used to the feeling of when you are about to fatigue. If your larger muscles are about to fatigue, and you have to rely on your scapular elevation muscles to compensate - then you are likely heading into sprain territory. It's a fine line of course - don't push too hard so you don't strain your muscle, but push hard enough to create a hypertrophy response.

 

Then there is of course isolation training to strengthen the weak link in the compound movement. You could

(1) Hold a handstand against a wall, then shrug your shoulders up so your deltoids are against your ear. Then hold it. For as long as you can.

(2) Handstand vs wall, then do reps of the shrugs mentioned above, while keeping your elbows straight. (I guess this would be the scapular HSPU analogy to a scapular pull up)

(3) If those are to easy for you, then progress to shoulder taps:

(4) And then you can progress onto holding a one handed handstand vs a wall with your scapular elevated

 

But like you said, you could always drop back to an easier variation (ie HeSPU with less ROM - eg by putting a book under your head).

 

I tend to bugger up my 'neck' a lot if I push too hard on a full ROM wall HSPU on parallettes. So even though I can technically do them, I spend a lot of time just doing easier variations like Headstand Push Ups (partly because I'm too lazy to get my parallettes out sometimes), or work on higher rep ranges on parallettes with a decreased ROM and better form.

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Thanks Yuen! I will try this.

 

Laid off handstands completely for a while now, my neck feels good now though so I will start training them again.

 

1/17/15

 

No workout, setting holds in the gym. 200+ new holds went up plus maybe 100 that I already had, just making the whole array denser and with more choice for route setting.

 

1/18/15

 

More hold setting plus cleaned the gym, then bouldered. Mostly inventing new problems,  sent v2/v3/v4/v5..? then worked on a new v5 ryan set, couldn't finish it, next time

 

1/19/15

 

Felt like lifting.

 

OHP

45x5

45x5

55x5

65x3

85x5

75x7

65x9

 

Incline bench

95x5

85x7

75x9

 

Ran 2 miles, ~20min 

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