Strength in Interesting Places

[Bumbaclaat]

Thanks, I am fine- the attack was in Mazar-E-Sharif, which is in the north of the country, and usually considered one of the safest parts. It was on the compound of UNAMA, which is the official mission of the UN in Afghanistan. I work for a small consulting firm, so am not in a visible, symbolic location.

good to hear you

 

[JauntyAngle]

good to hear you

 

[dexbot]

Man, shit really hits the fan there... take care!

 

[JauntyAngle]

Man, shit really hits the fan there... take care!

Doing my best!

 

[JauntyAngle]

Random Day

Yoga

JA's pre-stretching protocol (yes, you're all dying to know what that really is...), about 15 minutes.
Forward stretch, triangle, inverted triangle, wide-legged forward stretch


Conditioning

The April conditioning challenge: max no. of circtuis of 5 pullups, 10 bw squats, 10 burpees and 20 jumping jacks in 20 minutes. Managed 6. That was pretty damn hard. Although I expected it as the sum total of my conditioning for the last 3 months has been some easy LSD sessions and 2-3 sessions doing some fairly easy intervals.


Bonus Stuff

Felt like I couldn't stop after 20 minutes in the gym, even though I was pretty damn tired. So I did

Supersets of barbell bicep curls & press: 25kgx10, x10, x10
Ab purgatory: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 (think I might have done 6 twice)

The idea with the barbell curls was to be awesome; the idea with the pressses was to some speed work and help my work capacity, but my arms were too tired to do them fast.

* * *

Need to to stuff like the conditioning challenge a lot more often. 1-2 times per week plus 1-2 LSD sessions per week would be more than enough, since I am just doing it for fun.

 

[Bumbaclaat]

this guy tells you to not overdo conditiong stuff.
you will burn too much muscle.

edit:
curls are ok of course!!!!

 

[dinpappa]

By the power of christ send that thing back to the abyss!! Omg!

 

[calvus]

Wtf???

 

[Justice 4 All]

That's like a homo, syntholed version of the baddie in No Country For Old Men.

Whatever it is, I can guarantee you I'm going to see nightmares...

 

[scoopj]

Wow. Stay safe over there JA.

 

[JauntyAngle]

Wow. Stay safe over there JA.

As long as Bumbaclaat's gay, demon synthol hitman isn't here, I feel comparatively safe.

But let's take advantage of the top of the page to wipe away that memory:

 

[JauntyAngle]

So, since at least one person (Calvus) was interested in more details, I tried to do the JA stretching protocol and get a friend to take photos. It more or less worked, except that after having just completed a session of squats and deadlifts I was notably less flexible than usual. I also started to cramp in several places while doing these.

One of the advanatges, of course, is because I am doing them really badly, I can critique myself, and anyone interested in doing this can learn what to avoid. :icon_chee

Okay, first...

What am I doing wrong?
- Not straightening the active leg completely
- Letting the inactive leg bend and come off the floor
- Letting my shoulders round and come up
I should have lengthened the belt a bit so I could straighten the leg and pull mu shoulders back

Now, drop the leg down to this

What am I doing wrong? Not too much. This is pretty good.

Now, pick the leg up and take the foot/belt with two hands, and pull it up a bit further:

Once again
- Either straighten the leg, or lengthen the belt a bit
- Shoulders coming apart and up

 

[JauntyAngle]

Okay, now here is the shin hugging. My lower abs start cramping while I am doing this!

Note that this doesn't put that much strain on the knee. You should feel it much more in the tendons of your thigh (edit- more the IT band, actually). My main thing here is that I need to get it a bit more parallel/straight across my body, and closer to my body. It is just a matter of time and practice.

Now comes the half lotus- now my calf is cramping horribly, by the way:

What am I doing wrong?
- If possible, foot further up thigh
- Sole of foot turned up more, should be up towards ceiling (this really takes the pressure off the knee, it's very important)
- Get my knees together more, if possible
If this was real yoga, I would be sat up completely straight, with straight lower back (but it isn't, it's pre-yoga). As I mentioned, if this is difficult you can do it from flat on your back. The more upright, the harder.

And last, comes this:

Note that I am trying to drive my knee down into the floor to one side of my chest. What am I doing wrong? Well, the shin should be more straight up, sole of foot facing the ceiling. But that is not a huge deal.

* * * *

So there you go. The JA stretching series.

Done pretty badly. But what the hell.

I was regular sports shorts over cycling-type shorts. But the whole issue was brilliantly side-stepped by the poor focus and lighting.

 

[JauntyAngle]

And, sorry, guys. I really wanted to use yoga models like this:

 

[JauntyAngle]

Kabul: Week Five, Workout One

Squats

Got this far

Warmup: 20kgx5x5; 40kgx3x3; 60kgx2x2; 82kgx1x1
Work: 108kgx5

Videod the work set, wasn't happy with the depth. So I decided to take the weight back, practice getting right into the hole, and add it back once I was happy with each set. Ended up doing

Tripletastic fun: 80x3x3; 85x3; 87x3; 90x3; 90x3; 90x3; 90x3

Videos every set, which is one of the resons I did quite a few (might have beeen more than that). After a while I started to be able to feel which ones were good or not, and it matched up with the video afterwards. It really helped to remind me how to get into the hole. So I think I will reset from here. But I will probably do 4x5 or 5x5 rather 3x5 for a while. I want to hammer in getting right down with weights heavier than my warmup sets.

Bench

Warmup: 20kgx5x5; 40kgx3x3; 55kgx2x2; 65kgx1x1
Work: 82kgx5,x5,x5
Bonus bench fun: 50kg, paused/speed- x5, x5

These went really nicely. Just hard enough, not near to failure, no problem with shortened ROM. Much better than last time. After I did two backoff sets of 50kg, with a good long pause, trying to get it up as quickly as possible. It doesn't seem to go up that quickly even on a light weight. My speed/explosiveness seems to be another of my crappy athletic attributes.


Deathlift

Warmup: 60kgx3, 90kgx2, 110kgx1
Work: 136kgx5

I was trying to lean back a little and to keep the bar really close t my shins. These felt good. I could tell it was a heavy weight (4kg off my PR, when I was a good bit heavier), but there was no question it was going up without strain. Also, it was not tiring to do the set. Got through it at a nice measured pace.

* * *

Took the pics for the JA stretching protocol after this. Stiff. Cramp.

 

[Justice 4 All]

]

Had to quote this. Sorry.

Btw, why are you moving at 2kg on the fatalitylifts?

 

[calvus]

Thanks for the pics & comments on the JA stretching protocol Jaunty! The comments on what you're doing right/wrong also help provide some nice detail.

 

[squatsquatsquat]

Nice squats and deathlifts. How are you liking the triples on the squat?

Also, this log is amazing. Just amazing. And you are more flexible than I am. Maybe I should arrange a yoga class with some of those yoga models you were talking about... I think that would loosen me up.

 

[The_observer86]

I was about to respond whilst sitting in the library at school, started scrolling...my reflexes may or may not have saved me, as there were some womenz sitting next to me! (Nice, umm, log!)
I have seen some of the stretches you are doing, I need to do them too. I have done the knee-hug stretch with my hands underhooking the lower leg an laying back more-is it the same? Also, is it ok to use a blue belt?

 

[MIDMOBOX]

Since there has been this talk of your personal security recently what is your situation in regards to protective services?

(and damn you been getting some fine looking post in here, and also some chicks it seems)