Sleep: 4hrs overnight + 3hr nap
Diet: great
Stress: good
Awesome afternoon nap. So awesome. Just so awesome.
2hr Gk practice. Warm-up and the usual, including practicing some rudimentary tumbling. Practiced OAHS for about 20-30 minutes. Nailed a good number of them on my left hand, even managed to start breathing while holding them. On the right side, I got a few short holds, but they were in a fairly well contorted position, and used entirely strength, not balance. (The holds were short because I lack the strength!)
Worked rings press handstands to back levers, and also some ring supports and minimal-pike skin the cats. Followed that with some manna work. Now I've got a V-seat about 10 degrees past vertical for a 2-3s hold.
Ended with about fifteen minutes of conditioning, focusing again on coordination drills and rudimentary tumbling. Tuck/hollow jumps, back walkover stretching, hollow/arch rolls, cartwheels, no-hands forward rolls, back extension rolls, etc. Done in no particular order or amounts, just until I broke a good sweat.
At home, worked a bunch of light biceps curls, rice bucket, active straddle holds for a lil' bit.
29 February 2012
Tue 2.28.12: Hbal, Rings, Cond., & Misc.
Mon 2.27.12: Chairs, Hbal, Rings, MXP
Sleep: 6hrs
Diet: great
Stress: fine
2hr Gk practice. Worked Chairs for about the first hour; mostly Illusions, and started working towards the Double Illusion with Derrick. Also, worked handbalancing stuff and rings strength (handstand presses and dips to back lever). There was about fifteen minutes of MXP at the end.
Sun 2.26.12: Rest day
Sleep: 6hrs
Diet: fine
Stress: fine
A confession for Jim: I had two slices of lemon cake at dinner with my family. They each had a light layer of icing on the top. Just keeping honest.
No workout today, but did have the gym reset after Thursday's set-up. So, I moved a couple of mats around. nbd
25 February 2012
Tue 2.21.12 - Sat 2.25.12: Quick Update (w/ Shows)
The executive summary:
Sleep: Pretty shoddy overall. 4-7hrs per night, decent quality. Had a couple of short naps in there, including a few 7min powernaps, which I don't like needing to use.
Diet: Great, except for Wednesday and Friday requiring that I abstain from meat, which kind of throws a wrench in my gears. Doubled up on the eggs, cheese, and whey protein. Need to remember to buy some tuna at Costco.
Stress: Fine, I guess?
Gymkana practices Tuesday and Wednesday. It's been so long now that I can't exactly remember what I worked on. There was no MXP this week. There was a lot of Chairs. There was a lot of ladders as well, and stretching, on Wednesday.
No Gk practice on Thursday - just equipment set-up for a meet that'll be held tomorrow. Took that as a rest day.
Friday had two short shows: Chairs and Women's Pair at one, then Ladders at the other. Easy peasy. Did a late night strength workout when I got home. Went pretty well, but I was damn tired.
Saturday is today, which'll be another late night workout - later tonight... Update: Did a fairly short strength workout, with the usual stuff. Also, some conditioning.
21 February 2012
Mon 2.20.12: Chairs, Hbal, Strength
Sleep: 7hrs good
Diet: great
Stress: good
2hr Gk practice.
* warm-up
* 45 minutes of group Chairs practice, mostly working on pressing in crowded positions
* 15 minutes OAHS and overarch practice
* ring supports 3x5, ring PPPU 3x5
* some very basic tumbling stuff
Went home.
* manna progressions
* rice bucket
20 February 2012
Sun 2.19.12: Rest
Sleep: 7hrs, crappy
Diet: not good
Stress: good
Sleep was inexplicably poor.
Ate far too much "healthy junk food" today.
Sat 2.18.12: S&C
Sleep: 4hrs
Diet: great
Stress: hm
Sleep a bit f'd after yesterday's late night.
Evening Workout - 1.5hrs:
Warm-up:
- bands and stuff
Strength:
- Ring Supports, 5x(max)
- Rings PPPU, 3x5
- Assisted OAC's, 4x(2/2)
- Manna Progressions, 5x(max)
Conditioning:
- push-ups, curls, rows, and abs until I broke a good sweat
Fri 2.17.12 #2: Late night strength workout.
Sleep, diet, and stress were the same as before.
Got home at 1-something AM following the Gk performance, began a workout around 2am. Warm-up, 5x max ring supports, 5x5 rings PPPU, 5x1 assisted cross holds, some front lever progressions, some manna progressions, curls, SMR, stretching, and finger extension exercises. Took about 2hrs, got showered, ate breakfast (?), and was in bed by 5am.
17 February 2012
Fri 2.17.12: Hagerstown Comm. College
Sleep: 9hrs, poor quality
Diet: great
Stress: hm
Sleep was whack. Very floaty.
Had a Gymkana show that night, at Hagerstown Community College. It didn't go terribly well. We couldn't perform Rings since the rigging cables had gone missing, and we couldn't do one of the Ladder sets because of an injury that happened during Vault. So, I performed in Chairs, where I fucked up one pose, causing another guy to fall and get scraped up, and in MXP, where things actually went well.
This'll probably go down as the worst show of the season, but it was still a good time. Always is.
Thu 2.16.12: Hbal, Rings, MXP
Sleep: 7hrs
Diet: great
Stress: meh
2hr Gymkana practice. Main components were handbalancing on p-bars, some light work on rings (supports, shoulder dislocates, and press HS), and mixed pair balancing.
Will do a dedicated strength workout tomorrow after the show. It's difficult to train that stuff at practice, but it has to be done if I'm to make any progress.
Wed 2.15.12: Klutzing it up.
Sleep: 6.5hrs
Diet: good, but sparse
Stress: meh
2hr Gymkana practice (first hour was spent entirely on a team meeting). Notable events include falling off a five-high stack of chairs (onto a mat, fortunately) and getting kicked in the face.
15 February 2012
Tue 2.14.12 - Tumbling, Strength, Chairs
Sleep: 8hrs
Diet: great
Stress: good enough
Two hour Gymkana practice. Started with stretches for the warm-up. Moved on to practicing forward and backward shoulder rolls for the remainder of the first hour. Started doing them on the floor from standing, then from a handstand pirouette, and then began doing the same from blocks. Eventually worked up to a ~5ft block before I got too tired and my form fell to pieces. This was practice for Chairs.
Did a bit of stuff on rings and some planche attempts, but nothing significant.
Worked a 5x5 on rings PPPU (as before). These felt much stronger than before, even though I hadn't done them in over a week. Good stability through the first four reps, then a lot of a control through the final eccentric rep. The only thing that concerns me then, is that if these are getting easier, why are my routines still difficult? Every time I practice them, they leave me beat and practicing them more doesn't make them any easier - it just leaves me feeling even more beat. I'm thinking that my routines might be too close to my limit strength to actually be a useful way to improve strength... It's like trying to do a 1RM deadlift at every workout... Huh.
Then we ran the Chairs routine.
When I got home, I did a couple of manna progressions. Also feeling stronger. No more pain in the right elbow when coming out of the hold either.
13 February 2012
Mon 2.13.12: Gk and SRope
Sleep: 8hrs solid
Diet: back on point
Stress: pissed
Standard 2hr Gk practice. Some MXP, a great deal of handstands, some light strength work.
Followed practice with about 45 minutes of slackrope. That's more like it.
07 February 2012
Tue 2.7.12 - Sun 2.12.12: Quick Update (Incl. Show)
Dammit, need to keep this updated better.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were Gymkana practice as usual. Lots of Chairs practice. Hit four handstands in the 90s range on p-bars at Thursday's practice. Sleep on each of these nights was good quality, but lacking in quantity. Diet good. Stress was eh.
Friday was a rest day. Well, we put on a show at St. Agnes Elementary, but that's pretty much a rest day as far as I'm concerned. Performed in Rings, Chairs, MXP, and Ladders (twice). Nailed the MXP routine, including the americana at the end. Rings and Chairs could have been better. Went back home to spent some time with my family following the show.
Saturday and Sunday were rest days a well. Spent some much needed time with the family. Stretched for 20 minutes both days. Also worked some rings supports and handstands on Sunday - feeling stronger. Sleep was great, diet was mediocre, stress was cathartic.
In full disclosure of my diet (as I promised Jim I would) offending foods included: bread, mashed potatoes, milk, an ~8oz milkshake, five pieces of chocolate, two pieces of chocolate cake, two large sugar cookies, five large chocolate chip cookies, the crustless remains of an apple pie (equiv. to 1/4th of a pie), and several small squares of various pies. The only thing that really stuck out as phenomenal was the milkshake. That was just as good as I remembered them being, and worth every bit of it. Everything else was good, though had I my usual foods available, I would have stuck with them and not gone for the sweets.
I have a memory for the strangest things, but the one thing I'll never forget from this weekend is that nacreous glow.
Mon 2.6.12: OAHS, Chairs, Yoga
Sleep: 9hrs
Diet: great
Stress: decent
Slept like a rock. Getting back on track there.
Had 2hr Gk practice, as usual. Started off with OAHS work (which was going very well), then spent about 90 minutes working on the Chairs group act.
Followed practice with a 1hr beginner's yoga class. Chill, but too easy. Ropewalking jives with my vibe better.
At home, worked a couple of maximum p-bars handstand holds. Making the move for the 2 minute handstand club.
Lastly, I realized today that my hands rest naturally in a very "closed" position, hinting at an imbalance between finger extensors and flexors. I'm going to start carrying around some rubber bands throughout the day to work my extension and fix that.
05 February 2012
Sun 2.5.12: Still tired. Some strength work.
Sleep: 9hrs overnight + 1hr nap
Diet: decent
Stress: mediocre
Got some things on my mind, messing with my mojo.
Put in a 90 minute post-nap workout. Started with ring supports 5x(max), PPPU 5x5, and weighted chins 5x5x24kg. PPPU felt shaky/weak and the chins were harder than they should have been. Moved on to HSPU which were simply impossible.
Moved on to straddle manna progressions, and I think I pulled my right lat on the first attempt (of two). Worked p-bar handstands for time, 87s for the first one, then another 4 at about 60s a pop. Ended with active straddle holds.
Sat 2.4.12: F'ing tired. MP and Tumbling
Sleep: 4hrs
Diet: good
Stress: good
Sleep got messed up by the show on Friday and the 7hr "nap." Left me feeling dead tired today.
Went to an open gym session in Rockville with some friends. Worked on some men's pair balancing and very, very basic tumbling. I can finally do a cartwheel in a straight line and I'm starting on a roundoff. Finally. I also spent some time dabbling on the aerial silks and doing some stretching.
Not feeling it enough to do anything to serious.
04 February 2012
Fri 2.3.12: Matapeake Elem. / Strength Work
Sleep: 3hrs overnight + 7hrs evening nap
Diet: great
Stress: great
First Gymkana roadshow today! Went by without a hitch. My own performances were in Chairs, Rings, MXP, and Ladders, and I'm pleased with all of them. I'd like to see the Chairs act redone entirely, and both Rings and MXP could use improvements, but they're doing well for the first roadshow.
Started a strength workout at around 2am after a long nap. Rings supports, PPPU, cross work, manna progressions, biceps, wrists/fingers, and conditioning.
Thu 12.2.12: Handbalancing
Sleep: 5.5hrs
Diet: great
Stress: great
Had about an hour of Gk practice tonight. Spent the entire time just working on handstands, nice and easy. Letting myself get ready for the show the next day.
02 February 2012
Wed 2.1.12: SRope, Performance Practice
Sleep: 5.5hrs
Diet: decent
Stress: great
So, I discovered these cashew nut clusters at Costco. Cashews, almonds, and pumpkin seeds, held together with honey and sea salt. These could be problematic...
Got my ass on a rope today for about an hour. So chill. That has to happen more often.
Gk Practice - 3hrs:
Spent most of my free time working on OAHS and some solid progressions towards a straddle planche. Spent the non-free time doing Chairs, Ladders, MXP, Rings, and a bit of p-bars, though I'm not in that act yet. It's all coming together well.
Tue 1.31.12 - I forget, whoops.
Sleep: 6.5hrs
Diet: great
Stress: great
3hr Gymkana practice. I remember being really tired about halfway in and spending a good deal of time stretching, then gettin' mah swole on at p-bars, but that's all I can recall offhand.
