Wednesday, October 28, 2009

More Ventura,Handstands, Bikrams and snatches.



Jordan did a great job capturing the essence of the day in Ventura.TOns and tons of great work on the bodyweight drills themselves as well as the corrective exercises and 'fixes' for each of the movements.With the beach and the great waves in the background just 400 feet or so from the training and a perfect day weather wise you really couldnt ask for more if you wanted to master the principles and concepts of high tension training with bodyweight.
And with about 12 toplevel instructors the teacher student ratio was insane.There is so much information that really needs to be mastered about how important bodyweight training is, and how much of a foundation it is to become truly strong with resistance work that it really can't be overstated. If one can't use their own bodyweight strongly why would they need more resistance?
ANd it was great, as I wrote earlier to be able to bounce back into my handstands, and, more importantly, NOT get tweaked by doing so!I was fine Sunday and Monday and to me it was a clear sign for go ahead for getting back into handstand training. I also checked on my video date that I posted and it was almost a year to date earlier!crazy.
When I first started taking Bikrams just about a year and half ago I decided that one of the reasons was to help me recover my gymnastics body and some of the flexibilities and movements that I used to have.I now feel like this is finally starting to happen. I can get through a Bikrams class walking normally (well for me,lol)the next day and with almost no residual problems. THis has NOT been the case for many moons and getting through the ninety minutes in the heat was not as hard as trying to unravel myself for the next three days.Now it seems I have the progessions pretty well dialed in for my knee and back and shoulder and I can really just focus on the training and getting stronger. this is great.and I can really see how it opens me up much like my gymnastics stretching did, although I still have much more stretching work to do. Like get back my splits.not to mention much more shoulder mobility for my handstands.
and this has inspired me to work on getting back my hs pushup and straight arm,straight leg handstand press. I used to be the Master of the straight arm press and I can possibly be again. Just have to get back on that road.I think I am ready.

Yoga yesterday was great and a perfect first workout back after my undesired layoff.snatching today went well and no problem after yoga
Decided to switch max vo2 days to saturday with Tracy at Girya and make Wednesdays heavy snatch day.its good to be a bit warmed up for 24 kg snatches.

Snatch
16 kg x5/5 x3
20 kg x 8/8x5
24 kgx5/5 x9
x10/10
80 reps with 20 kg/3520
100 reps with 24 kg/5300
total reps = 180
total weight=8820


nice! 80 reps with the 20 and 100 with the 24 with a decent set of 20/20 at the end. had much more just wanted to make sure everything was in the right place. rest between sets about 45 sec or so.

Handstands
5 sets of 15-20 sec
these went very well. against the wall although most were free held. stillhave to open up my right shoulder more. abit twisted. more bretzels.lol.

Clean and press
24 kg xx1/1
x2/2
x3/3
nice and light.
elbow was a bit tweaked after the last press workout. handstands fixed that although I still wanted to be careful.

datsit

4 comments:

Boris T said...

Nice Video!

I hear you on the recovery improvements, great work with the Bikram!

Boris T said...

One more thing, what do you find is the most taxing aspect for you about Bikram? Is it just the heat, the movements, duration or an element of everything?

Mark Reifkind said...

boris,

it depends on the day and the state of my recovery. Many times it is my cardio ability, my strength to hold the pose and maintain my breath. other times it is just the ability to maintain the depth of the pose. Sometimes I come in to practice WAY tight. and thats the biggest challenge. I try to always focus on always working to the edge of my breath/aerobic ability that day.just like one runs to the ability they have, that day, to stay 'aerobic' and maintain the pace.if my knee is feeling good most often the most taxing ability is cardio, if the knee is 'out' of postition than strength is the most challenge.
almost always though it is the mind.

Mark Reifkind said...

ps

the heat becomes a real factor when my mind gets weak. otherwise it is no problem.

155 x 3 x 5, 160 x 3 x 5, 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 40, 35

 Thought about going back to 5x5 for a hot second then my left shoulder  reminded me why I stopped doing them before. It doesn't seem to...