Athlete In The City

A lot of people see the mushroom sitting in my living room and ask me, what the hell is that thing?  Heh, finally you can see a demo.

For the gymnasts out there, this is basic stuff.  In fact the mushroom is like training wheels for the pommel horse, and other strength gymnastics training.  For me, it took a few years just to get this down.  Now I’m starting work on the flair… eventually!!

If you’re looking to do more balancing exercises, this one works the deltoids, abs, and hip-flexors a lot.

Walking on your hands involves a lot of deltoid strength, but surprisingly it also requires quite a bit of abdominal strength as well.  Add a touch of hip-flexors, and you have the makings of a tough exercise that works the whole body.   In our video we do the skill in a circular movement, to add intensity.

I’ve been working on the arm-bar and planche exercises for a long time.  I talk about them on this blog quite a bit.  My strength at the planche has been slowly improving, so I’m confident enough with it now to post a video.  Basically I go into an elbow planche, and then slide forward and off the elbows, holding fulling extended with straight legs for about five seconds.

I finally aced this yoga pigeon position.  Of course there are plenty of ways to go deeper into this.  I’ve seen dancers grab the ankle above the head.  That would be a good 8 to 12 inches deeper into this.  But I’m happy, as I was able to switch hands!! 

I never really tried these until a couple of weeks ago.  I ran into a video on YouTube, and started working this against the wall.In yoga there’s something called a forearm stand, which is like a handstand where the entire arm from elbow to hand is used as your base.  I’ve seen breakers jump up to handstand from this, but they usually do some sort of abdominal kick to get there.  I worked it for a few weeks, and get a set of ten (five each arm) on video:    

When you get bored of that video, take a look at this guy doing those without the wall!! 

I’m going to call this the crow elbow press. It’s inspired a bit by the yoga “Crow” position, but also by the Capoeira Queda de Rins. Queda de Rins is pronounced kada ja hines, and means elbow to the kidney. This trick uses the triceps, abs, forearm, and lats to keep balance. It’s harder than it looks, believe me.

One day I will kick into handstand and come down on the elbow of the other side, that would be the expert or extreme version of this trick!

I learned these pushups a few months back from a crazy russian guy. He says if you work these enough, it’ll help with the muscle-up on rings or a pullup bar. Who knows… They definitely work the triceps and shoulders like crazy.

I know how everybody likes to avoid, or just slack on their stretching.  I do it too.  But you know, stretching is important!  Flexibility promotes circulation, and nutrients at the joint, and discourages injury.  My personal feeling is it helps muscle to recover and grow quicker too, though I’m not sure if this is scientifically proven.  Anyway, on to the good stuff.

First stretch is to work each shoulder in opposite directions.  This picture is the basic version.  Even you big guys out there who lift a lot (or should I say especially you guys) should be doing this.

Once you work your fingers together doing this, you’ll eventually be able to touch your fingers together like this:

An advanced version takes it further, so you grab the whole hand as far as possible:

I’ve seen it done where people actually can grab the opposite wrist.  I’m not there yet, but hey, it’s worth trying!

Next is your basic backbend.  When you do this push the weight up into the shoulders as much as possible to reduce strain on the lower back:

We’re not done yet.  There are still two more ways that I know of to stretch the shoulders.  This next one is a great opposing stretch if you work the pecks a lot.  This really stretches straight across the front of your chest.  It also stretches the elbow joint.  I should know the name.  It will feel like the hamstring of your arm if you will, which really doesn’t get stretched very often:

Obviously you can use as long a piece of rope as you need to.  I’ve seen younger people touch the hands together.  So there is really no limit to how flexible you *COULD* be here.

Last but not least, let’s work the shoulders for the illusive manna move.  This stretch will feel uncomfortable at first, because you may have never stretched your shoulders this way before.

And that’s it.  Over and out, and Happy New Year.  Good luck with all your training in 2008!

I’ve been working on the planche, a difficult gymnastics trick considered to be one of the most challenging to achieve.  Dragon Door has a very excellent article on conditioning for the planche pushup called Building an Olympic Bodythrough Bodyweight Conditioning by Christopher Sommer.

My progression has me starting to do the “advanced tuck planche” for about 15 seconds, while I can do a more basic ball planche for 60 seconds.  I *do* work the planche pushups with my feet on the floor, but it is dramatically harder to lift your feet off the floor because in order to get that leverage your hands really have to be down at or below your hips.  That makes the strength involved by your anterior (front) deltoid, and pectoral muscles, as well as some triceps strength to be on the extreme end.

Here’s a great YouTube video of a guy doing a few planche pushups properly.

If anyone has access to resources explaining how to calculate the strength of gymnastics and other bodyweight conditioning exercises, when changing the angle or leverage, I would be very interested in this. Please contact me!