honk honk…where’s alexus?? hows team chin up kiwi style going???
i’ve been learning a lot from my gym…
skipping. been doing a little. perfect rehab for me 
need to do some work to gently(!) activate the muscles in my forefoot (calf raises real slow and controlled) then only just leaving the ground and being as light on my feet as i possibly can be.
centergy / balance. the teachers are yoga instructors, really. both very different and i love them both. one is so quick and powerful in her movements. that is what inspired me to do the handstand thing… the other is very slow and controlled and focused on alignment. the perfect compliment for each other.
fascial lines. the whole thing is about lengthening the lines. think of sun salutations… they stretch / mobilize the front and back lines… each track in the bodybalance / centegy class focuses on one line or one line and its compliment.
i’ve learned i don’t know what neutral spine is. i’ve confused my normal state of anterior pelvic tilt for neutral. i guess the idea is to anterior pelvic tilt while lifting weights the thought being the weight will pull you into neutral but that is okay because it is flexion (the converse of anterior tilt) that is thought to be dangerous. and then the mcgill stuff… and somehow i got it into my head to avoid flexion of the spine.
but i need to do my darndest to posterior pelvic tilt / flex my spine and if i work hard hard as i can with that i might be lucky to correct the anterior tilt to neutral.
you know what we probably should be able to do as human beings? roll on our backs. on a hard surface even. roll on our spine like a baby. we should be able to land on our upper back for a breakfall and smoothly roll along our spine and squat up to standing. gentle rolling on my back gives me a spinal adjustment. i can feel the vertabrae move into better alignment. wow.
slow and controlled gets you crunch (at the top) and reverse crunch (at the bottom). faster builds in momentum. should be able to stand then smoothly roll back to handstand / headstand then back again. maybe hard to explain / visualise. i’ll take vids at some point. maybe it will make some sense.
rolling. someone told me that current theory is that rolling is psychological. i was like ‘yeah, sure, when we can’t find a mechanism things get to be psychological’.
but it really really does seem to be. clench a fist. focus on the tight muscles. take a deep breath in and clench them and feel the tension. now exhale and mentally tell / allow the muscles to relax. now get your foam roller… put in in your lumbar region (where you are tight from deadlifting) and just feel the tightness (you don’t need to tell it to clench or make it clench with pressure from the roller) just use the roller to feel where the muscle is… then exhale and… relax. just let the muscle relax. wow!! plastic ball / pipe is too hard. it inflames things. you don’t want to upset things more. you want things to let go.
hip flexors don’t need to be stretched that inflames them. they need to relax. if they relax then the posterior chain can activate freely. wow.
anyway…
i’ve got a lot of work to do on relaxing my upper and lower back and my hip flexors… activating my forefeet (use the muscles spare the joints)… we hold trauma (physical and psychological) in our bodies… hrm…
course starts on the 27th. looking forward to it. i’ll miss my self explore time, though…
oh yeah…
chins going well. next time 7x3, 3x2.
i did 5x10 back squat @20kg (around 30%)
then 3 days later 5x12 at the same weight.
will do 5x15 then 5x20. just because i’ve been worried i’m not mentally tough enough for high reps.
hopefully our new squat rack will have arrived by then and i’ll be able to test my max then start 5/3/1.
looking forward to it
hey good to “see,” you!
I stretch my hip flexors (I am working towards a split) but how do you go about relaxing them?
Welcome back, btw.
[quote]alexus wrote:
i’ve learned i don’t know what neutral spine is. i’ve confused my normal state of anterior pelvic tilt for neutral. i guess the idea is to anterior pelvic tilt while lifting weights the thought being the weight will pull you into neutral but that is okay because it is flexion (the converse of anterior tilt) that is thought to be dangerous. and then the mcgill stuff… and somehow i got it into my head to avoid flexion of the spine.
but i need to do my darndest to posterior pelvic tilt / flex my spine and if i work hard hard as i can with that i might be lucky to correct the anterior tilt to neutral.
hip flexors don’t need to be stretched that inflames them. they need to relax. if they relax then the posterior chain can activate freely. wow.
anyway…
looking forward to it :-)[/quote]
Lexy is back to posting!
Ah I’m finding the same thing with trying to align my spine/posture properly. For a long time I thought really arching the shoulders over the back was to help with good posture, but I found that the rib cage actually has to be inline with the pelvis. And for me keeping my darn scalps flatten against my back, have slight hypermobility there.
I also have the same tilt in the pelvis I need to work. Think I have been paying too much attention to stretching the rectus femoris and not relaxing/stretching the psoas or illiacus. Fixing that is next on the list for me.
Don’t forget us!
Glad you are learning loads and getting in-tuned with different things.
I <3 the thoughtfulness and depth of your post. Welcome back.
[quote]arachne12 wrote:
I <3 the thoughtfulness and depth of your post. Welcome back.
[/quote]
x2
Really interesting read. I love rolling around in BJJ, backwards rolls make me feel a lot better. Cool that there’s actually thought behind that.
Oh I read that whole post and I’m so impressed! Makes me feel like a big humbling oaf with no awareness of my own body LOL.
you ok?
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Yeah, sexy lexy, where are you?
HOw the pullups going kiddo? You’re making such great progress. You’re still getting after 'em right?
started the course. really enjoying it. i’ve so missed being an undergraduate student. learning heaps. enjoying lectures.
i held a plank for over 6 fucking minutes for a practical class since i was in danger of being ‘useless girl’ since i can’t run or jump or throw or catch or do much of anything, really… was the second last person planking in our group (of half the course, about 35 people). i seem to have got some respect for that which is good since i was starting to feel pretty conspicuous as nerdy book girl amongst a bunch of pretty athletic 18 year olds.
started back properly training olympic lifting at the same time with coach. training 5 days a week and squat every training day. basically i just do as i’m told which takes the thinking out of it for me. some of the guys in the course are learning… so i guess i’m kinda helping a little with that… which is weird since i’m so used to training by myself… and i’m really seeing the challenge in trying to keep people motivated to continue with it… and i really do think it would be so very much easier to teach girls with little/no weight training experience than male athletes…
have been a little slack with chin-ups. become a bit picky about the bar and wanting to use the particular bar with the nice soft grip wrapping at the yoga gym… going to keep up the yoga… have to for the olympic lifting…
not sure what to say…
i think that the stuff you learn to be a personal trainer isn’t wrong… so much as lots of it is simply irrelevant for strength / power training. thinking of the nutrition stuff as well as a lot of the stuff focused on VO2max endurance training etc etc etc. maybe not irrelevant as such… but i mean that people say that you learn ‘shit’ and i don’t think it is ‘shit’ so much as that people misapply what they have learned… anyhoo… time will tell… i don’t know.
it is important to me to keep up with the boards here and peoples logs… i’ve learned so much from following peoples logs… inspired by the journey and just learned so fucking much about nutrition and exercise form and little tricks and programming and… i can’t express what i’ve got from this site. anyhoo… sorry i’ve been such a slack ass poster…
chins… monday morning. that is it. i’ll do 'em before class. with the bar that pinches my hands. sigh. suck. it. up.
i’ve taken to kneeling / squatting in class and either that standing or lying down out of class. no sitting (except when cycling). see if i can get my hip flexors fixed up.
Good to have you posting again sexy lexy.
I know it can be hard to keep the log all updated all the time, thats why I have given “The Bird Cage” a bit of a break, although I will start it up again soon.
Sounds like your enjoying the course, which is good. I miss learning aswell. So, you held a planks for 6 minutes?? Is that some tyoe of record? Ive been doing more planking lately, and im lucky to go for 100 seconds.
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I am glad you are finding your course inspiring. And I cannot say that you lack atheticism - anyone who can oly lift is athletic in my books. We are all good at different things, after all.
Glad to hear from you miss alexus! I’ve been missing your analytical little mind around here.
i totally hear you about being picky with the bar for the pull ups. I get so mental with those it’s not right.
Glad to hear you’re finding your niche…and 6 minute plank? RAWR!
glad to see you back at it Alex
bird - it is surely a record for me! i’ve never tried to plank for more than 2 minutes before and haven’t planked for longer than 1 minute (up to 25kg loading) for over a year now. surprised i had it in me.
will be nice to follow your log again. you move cities? how are things?
cal - thanks. sometimes i feel athletic. mostly… i’m feeling like a sack of lard, truth be told. time to stop ‘bulking’ because i think i’m basically just blubbering up. starting to move into winter, too, so really do need to be careful. shouldn’t be too bad. increase the water, decrease the food. my portion sizes were pretty large before (trying to pack lots of meat down me). will try and keep up protein… having a bit of a carb confusion at the moment. should sort itself out eventually (starting to learn about energy metabolism stuffs).
lula - thanks. think i will just have to suck up regressing on chins for a bit. think i’ve gotten fatter, too, which can’t be helping.
hi nimain!!
first week back… suffered DOMS real bad for starting back training oly lifting. figured that sitting down in class for several hours followed by front squats was asking for trouble. so i stopped sitting in class. either kneeling on a rolled up towel (to help make the patella more comfortable) or squatting. squatting not totally comfortable since i can’t get my heels properly on the ground. can hold onto the desk a bit and / or shove the towel under my heels.
that seemed to be working pretty good… but then my quad started getting pissed with having the knee in a flexed position, i think. i probably would have been alright if i’d have been more like a normal person and eased the transition instead of suddenly going overboard… but no, i just gave up sitting all at once and basically ripped my quad a bit doing squats after a day of having my knee in a flexed position (which cramped it??). bloody ripped it…
so out with injury. goddammit. and i was trying so hard to be good, too 
classes going alright. heaps of stuff to learn… it really has been a while since i’ve had to cram science info… so very weird being a student instead of teaching, too. and the other students… are mostly 18 i think. socially… high school. although i guess i’m saying that because they are mostly extroverts so hang out in groups which i haven’t experienced since high school… used to being copresent with introverts, i realize… group learning doesn’t work for me because people are too noisy for me and i can’t bloody hear myself think. just starting to get that some of their brains are still growing, too. well… either that or some of them are little (actually not so little) sociopaths… could go either way, i guess. lolz.
enjoying it…
needing to find a balance (once again) between me time and other people time. for olympic lifting, too. lots of people learning… lots of people standing around and chatting… it interferes with my training… lots of patting each other on the back for not that amazing weights moved, too (by bodyweight standards) which is of course expected since they can’t really achieve anything since they haven’t really worked for anything… new people sacrificing form for weight moved making my eyes bleed…
rgh.
onward ho…
mission:
glutes. wakey wakey.
need quad to get better for squats
chins on monday. i feel sick already.
Hope you have a great week ahead. Balance between me time and other people time has really been on my mind this past week too. If only I could dominate the ‘happy medium’. Or convince myself to stop feeling guilty about everything!