Athlete In The City » Advanced

straddle planche hold

admin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:00:44 +0000

After many years of building basic strength, I’m finally starting to get somewhere with this planche training. Take a look at my first straddle planche holds…

V-sit on the parallettes

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:13:41 +0000

The V-sit is the next step towards working the manna skill in gymnastics. It requires a LOT of triceps, hip flexors, and abdominals. You can also work this on the floor if you want to.

deep press handstand pushups

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:10:57 +0000

I’m at it again this week with another exercise on the parallettes. This time I do handstand pushups, using the parallettes to get a deeper range-of-motion. This is heavy on the triceps and deltoids…

english straddle L on parallette

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:06:51 +0000

This week I have a video working the parallettes. I use one parallette to do what’s called a “straddle L” in gymnastics. There is a lot of stabilizer muscle work in this skill, plus triceps, abdominals and hip flexors.

peck flys on scooters

admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:28:55 +0000

Scooters you probably remember from your high school or middle school gym days. For bodyweight training, you can use them for all sorts of things. Here I’m doing peck flys, which you might normally do on a bench with barbels. The scooters work quite well. Adjust the weight by starting on your knees, or on your toes, but with legs apart. Try to keep your arms straight. My left arm bends a lot, not sure what to do about that yet…

ab wheel demo

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:45:00 +0000

The ab wheel is a great addition to anyone’s training toolbox. Good for beginners, good for experts. Can do amazing things for your abdominal muscles…

circles on the mushroom

admin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:00:01 +0000

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!!

one-arm balance

admin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:04:18 +0000

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

circular hand walk

admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:00:37 +0000

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.

planche freeze – 5 seconds

admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:42:52 +0000

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.

aced: yoga pigeon pose

admin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:00:55 +0000

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!!

elbow step-up handstand pushups

admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:00:35 +0000

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!!

Crow Elbow Press

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:00:08 +0000

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!

Deep Press Triceps Pushups

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:00:36 +0000

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.

Happy Shoulder Stretching New Year!

admin — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:00:22 +0000

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!