Athlete In The City

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.

The “hollow body hold” is a really easy exercise for anyone to do. Easy as in simplicity, but it will work your abs like crazy. I would start with 30 second sets.  Please beware to *NOT* arch your back, keep it flat against the floor at all times.

What also makes this a great exercise is it doesn’t take up much space, you can do it while watching tv, in a hotel room, or pretty much anywhere…

I’ve had people ask me about target heart rate before. In one case a person said, my trainer suggests I use 128bpm as my target heart rate. In another case someone said, I heard my target heart rate should be 135bpm.

As with everything the truth is always a bit less black and white. The American Council on Exercise says “research shows that optimum exercise intensity for fitness improvement is in the range of about 50 to 85% of maximum oxygen consumption. This corresponds to about 60-90% of maximum heart rate. The ranges are broad because of the effects of the level of fitness, as well as genetic factors. The higher a client’s level of fitness, the higher the appropriate exercise intensity.”

There are a few different methods to calculate all of this, with fancy scientific names, but for simplicities sake we’ll call it percentage of heart-rate reserve method:

rhr - resting heart rate (hr first thing in the morning)

mhr - maximum heart rate (220 - age)

(mhr - rhr) x intensity + rhr

For me, my resting heart rate is 50bpm because I run alot. My mhr is 180.

(180-50) x 0.75 + 50 = 130 x 0.75 + 50 = 98 + 50 = 148.

So if I want to shoot for 75% I’d go with 148bpm. Given the above 60-90%, that means 128bpm at the low end, and 167bpm at the high end.

As anecdotal evidence, I can tell you the best average I’ve hit for one hour of running, really going all out is 147bpm, maxing out at 155bpm. If I do an all-out sprint, a barely push above 160, and how long can a person sprint for?

There is also something called the talk test, which says if you’re at the intensity which is low to moderate, especially for beginners, if you can still carry on a conversation, and breathe comfortably. People with higher fitness levels, and pushing for higher functional capacity may find this method conservative.

In the end a lot of these measures depend on variables such as any smoking history, current weight and percent body fat, and so on. There really is no magic number. Keep in mind that the higher heart rate you exercise at, the greater benefit you will see overall, but to a point. In the beginning especially, don’t over do it. And as always, increase gradually.

What about monitoring your heart rate, what’s the best method?  I recommend a heart rate monitor from the likes of Polar or Garmin.  Polar has some as inexpensive as $60 and at the higher end, Garmin has some $299 models which have GPS, and can give you a lot of data that sync up to your computer.  But primarily what you want is to know what your min, max, and average were for your workout.  You can always write that information down.

As always consult with your physician if you are beginning an exercise program for the first time, especially if you have a pre-existing condition, injury, are a smoker, are overweight, or are an older individual.

There are a lot of milestones that I’m shooting for. One in particular is the one-arm pullup. This is not where one arm pulls on the wrist while the other arm pulls up. This is a real one-arm-only pullup where the other arm is not contributing at all. I ran into a rock climbing friend of mine who said that only 1 in 100,000 people can do this feat. I figure that makes it a good goal to strive for!

When you’re doing strength training, you want to be able to do comparisons so you can measure your improvement, and also see how far you have still to go. One great way to do this is by comparing reps to maximum total strength or power. Here’s the breakdown:

# of reps % 1 rep max

1 100

2 95

3 93

4 90

5 87

6 85

7 83

8 80

9 77

10 75

11 70

12 67

15 65

Ok, now how do we put this to work on the one-arm pullup? Here’s what I did.

Throw a rope over the bar and attach weight to it. The non-working arm pulls on the rope, and the other arm pulls on the bar. Keep adding more weight, until you can do your one-arm pullup. I weigh 150 pounds, and can do the pullup with 10 pounds attached to the rope, so my 1 rep max for one arm is 140 pounds. For working this skill, let’s put 15 pounds on the rope. Calculating that out, you’ll find that 135 pounds is 90% of 150 pounds. Looking up in our table above that means that with the 15 pound weight, I want to be able to do FOUR REPS.

This type of comparison of reps to total power can be used all the time in your strength training. If you know the total 1 rep max that is your goal, you can design reps at smaller weights to get there over time.

This technique provides you with another tool to apply during your training, allowing you to breakdown your goal into manageable and measurable steps.

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.

Previously I posted about the 21 pushup challenge.

I’m currently extending that to twenty-one days, but with a twist.  I’ve drawn a table with four columns and ten rows.  The rows list these different types of pushups (and one with pullups):

1. handstand pushups
2. wide pullups
3. hop switch pushups
4. fully extended pushups
5. peck flys
6. ball planche pushups
7. crow R to crow L
8. deep pushups
9. planche pushups
10. one-arm pushups

Each of those rows and columns represents one 21 pushup challenge.  That’s right, sets of one, then two, then three, then four, then five… then twenty then twenty one.  Once you reach the top, go back down twenty one, twenty … two, one, DONE!

Each set represents 460 pushups of various types.  So if you give yourself one day of rest in twenty one days, you’ll do two 21 pushup challenges per day.  For a total of 920 pushups per day.

Hey, look at it this way, Bruce Lee used to do 1000 pushups a day to warmup, sets of 100!

I plan to post some quick vids of the different types of pushups, so stay tuned.

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!

We have all encountered a few times where we are traveling, and somehow we get out of the habit and routine of our workout. It’s not so much that a little break couldn’t hurt, and who wants to workout on a business trip, but sometimes we don’t get back to our rhythm when we return.

Also doing a small 20-30 minute routine helps give us the energy we need everyday when we’re off to conferences, and on our feet all day. So what to do? Well if you’re in a hotel with a gym, head to the gym. That’ll give you the space and motivation to keep to your usual workout. But what about if your hotel doesn’t have a gym, and maybe it’s too cold outside to go for a job?

I recommend doing exercises which require very little movement. That way you can do them in small and confined spaces. Basic yoga stretching would be ideal. Here’s the opportunity to really put your heart into those stretches you’ve been meaning to improve. Do some hamstring stretches, shoulder stretches with a towel, or clasped hands, do foot-to knee stretch which is great for the hips, and some spinal twists.

As far as muscle training goes, you can certainly do pushups and situps if you desire. One exercise which I think is really ideal for small cramped locations is the elbow stand. You don’t move at all. Just hold the position. Think it looks easy? Try 30 second hold for starters. If that is too easy, move on to 60 seconds.

Posture is really crucial with this exercise. Don’t arch your back which is very very common and typical. Why? This takes the abdominals out of the exercise, and puts pressure on your lower back instead. We want to avoid that.

Another common mistake is to keep the hipstoo low. As you get tired, this is the usual progression. So try to start out by doing only 15 seconds, but do it perfect!!

Here’s the right way. Notice my back is very flat. That means my abdominals are doing *ALL* the work. That’s what you want.

Again I like this exercise because it’s easy for almost everyone to do, is fairly injury free because there isn’t any movement, works your shoulders, deltoids, triceps, hipflexors, and gluts. It has a lot of the same benefits of pushups.