Cal: Sorry the snow is keeping you from running. That sucks, but not as much as Flo sticking around for more than a week. Blegh.
[quote]dejavued wrote:
[quote]CBear84 wrote:
Gives me hope that I’ll be able to stay true to my immature self in my chronologically older years.
[/quote]
hahaha i have no doubt the both of you will be able to rock it into ur 80’s at least! [/quote]
It’s so awful but I’m so excited for the age that it will FINALLY be socially excusable to sit on my front porch, or in line at market, and yell rude shit at people.
“oh that’s just old lady bear, don’t mind her, she’s a lil, well… don’t mind her.”
until then, i’ll be content with asshole.
You will - I don’t think personalities change fundamentally as you age unless you’re unlucky enough to have a brain injury or go through a severe trauma of some sort. Look at me - my passions are computer games and rollercoasters. I don’t see why I should stop having fun because I’m getting older (just as I am not about to put down the barbell and take up knitting).
As for getting old, I want to be a badass old bastard, like a female version of Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino.
Are you all ready for a horror movie?
Monday is usually a lifting day, so I trudged through the snow to the gym. I have some noticeable DOMS from gymnastics so I wasn’t going to do any shoulder stuff, so I figured I would do a bit of deadlifting and video the results (I was curious as to how high my hips are after watching Nadia’s vid - answer, very - and also how bad my back round is - answer, bad).
Anyway, first up was some negative pull-ups: 3 x 4
Then Deadlifts:
Bar x 10
60kg x 10
75kg x 8:
I put the camera on a ledge which was a bit too high, so no feet in view. I was lifting in socks, for the record. Anyway, yeah, my t-spine rounds a fair bit. I’m hardly surprised given that I have spent the last 23 years hunched over a computer. If I make an effort to stand up really straight and pull my shoulders right back, then it straightens, but that in itself is an effort when I’m just standing normally without a weight in my hands.
80kg x 3:
Better angle - I balanced the camera on the water fountain. It’s funny watching this. I lower my hips a bit to set up, but the first thing I do is straighten my legs. I am pulling entirely with my back - the hip drive doesn’t come right until the end.
90 x 1:
Enjoy my crazy anglepoise spine.
You know, when I started lifting I always did straight leg deadlifts and didn’t actually try conventional deadlifts until a few years ago. I guess that explains my “style” somewhat.
I didn’t try for 100kg this time. This was more about videoing myself to see what I do.
Anyway, after that I went to the other gym (I say other - my gym is local authority place that was originally just a pool, and now has squash courts, exercise studios, a free weights room and a main gym with machines and dumbells, plus cardio stuff. A lot of cardio stuff.
Close grip pulldowns (V-handle):
40kg x 10
50kg x 10
2 x 60kg x 6
DB Rows:
28kg x 6
Just did one set as, after negative pull-ups, deadlifts and pulldowns, my grip was gone. I decided to try something I haven’t done in a while…
Bench!
Bar x 10
30kg x 10
40kg x 10
2 x 50kg x 6
Not too unhappy with this, all things considered. My shoulders are both pretty sore from gymnastics but I didn’t feel any particular pain in the right one. So that’s a good start.
After that lot I went back to do some headstands and handstand drills and stretching.
Just for fun, here’s my best headstand:
Shitty camera angle (my legs were straight, anyway) but here it is. And OMFG my spine is even worse here than it is on deadlifts. What the hell do I do with it? I mean, I do my thorassic extension on the foam roller but that bastard just wants to curl up like a woodlouse. Grrr.
Right, that’s enough for now.
hmmm,
interesting!
How does your back feel after and the couple days following?
I’m turning Mondays into DL days…cause even with my somewhat good form(I think?!) it still takes a week to recover.
I’ll take vids this morning!
I get some DOMS but otherwise fine. I only get low back pain from squats.
I feel slightly better after reading the article Deja posted about roundbacking…well if it’s good enough for Konstantin Konstantinovs…
I’m still learning about form, yes there’s back rounding and I’m not sure that’s to good.
On the other hand that handstand looked great to me! I can’t do one without the wall holding me up. I know I’ve tried when you started your gymnastics class 
YAY!!! Do you know that seeing your vids just made my morning? Cal, you’re so pretty…sigh.
So now having been to Nadia’s log and read Deja’s article, maybe the back rounding isn’t such a big deal? They looked good and strong to me at any rate.
Also that headstand, look how tight and strong your core is!! I can’t get over it. You’re looking super lean and athletic. Great work!
And if I can just add - how sexy is Konstantin Konstantinovs. I’d let him do terrible, terrible things to me.
First time I’ve been in here & I must say you’re incredibly limber & built like a shit brickhouse. That is 100% meant to be complimentary.
if i were you i’d work on getting your chest prouder, not starting so far over the barbell, curling ur toes up so your weight is on your heels and you can pull more back, etc etc.
your core doesn’t look braced enough to define those pulls as safe for the long term. at least in my opinion.
but you’re definitely hella strong.
i think with your body type it’s actually gonna be more to your benefit to have a lot more leg in your deadlift. your back is obviously strong… but you will add lots of weight to the bar if you can get the legs involved. and save your back some turmoil.
work on your setup. get it tighter. chest proud proud proud.
your basically just falling forward on all of those pulls and imo that’s not going to maximize anything but injury.
finally got the headstand video to play… DAMN SEXAY!!! god u have a tiny waist. hottie!
print - Cheers mate, I took as such.
Deja - also thanks, and noted. This is the first time I’ve videoed the deads (as I’ve had a year’s break from them) so I had no idea what I was doing until I watched the playbacks.
On reflection, I’m not so worried about the rounding in my t-spine, but I should try to avoid lumber extension. I’m sure you’re right that if I fix up a few things and make it more efficient, I could move a helluva lot more weight, which would be nice.
Just a small, tiny, have to say sidenote-
Just because something is good, or acceptable, for KK, doesn’t mean it is for a ~160lb female. His body shape and injuries, drug use, muscle maturity, and core stability, including the sheer exponentially higher weights he’s using… well, ok. he can round his back all he wants.
I’m not a coach or a doctor and you can take my opinion for the free that it is- keep striving for better form. you don’t get paid to lift and if you get hurt, your ability to do your job suffers. (same for me)
I’m not in any way suggesting that you be a form nazi, but i wouldnt breath a sigh of relief and think that lifting like Quasimodo is acceptable.
ok. I’ll go play in traffic naow.
Cal: VIDEOS! score. Thanks for posting. I think your headstand looks great–you held it nicely. Now you just need a controlled descent.
DLs look strong too. The only thing I notice is that the bar travels pretty far away from your shins. Oh, and I think you get to be president of the high ass DL-ing club. See you in rehab. I’m on a high ass dl-ing bender for now, but eventually I’m going to make an effort to try to make my conventional dl form more conventional.
Heh heh, that was a controlled descent! Most times I topple over and hit the mat with a crash! OK I know what you’re getting at. I need to develop a lot more muscle control, which is something I’m working on, although it does not come naturally to me. Being somewhat dyspraxic, any movement that requires me to think about more than one body part ends up confusing the hell out of me. I just have to practise practise practise until it becomes automatic.
Same goes for deadlifting. If I just think about picking the weight off the floor, I’ll straight leg and roundback it up using nothing but brute force. If I stop to think about form I then have to consider 1) lowering hips, 2) toes up, 3) knees out/not caved in, 4) abs tight, 5) chest up, 6) bar close to shins and so on and so forth, together with fighting the posture I’ve developed over 20+ years, and it’s a bit of a nightmare. By the time I’ve corrected one thing, I’ve forgotten about something else. You can see me do it in the third vid - I set up and then I’m all, oops, the bar is too far forward shuffle shuffle. I’ll keep at it, but it’s not going to be easy (you’re talking about a person who can’t ride a bicycle, here).
The other issue I’ve got is there’s something wrong with my hip flexors. I sit a lot, but I do stretch them out. I can almost do front splits so I don’t think it’s a flexibility issue, exactly… the problem is that there seems to be some sort of restriction with me bringing my leg towards my torso. I find it very uncomfortable. It’s like something is jammed up in there. More to the point, the closer I bring my thighs towards my torso, the worse my lumber extension becomes. That’s unsurprising given that the psoas attach to the spine. Also explains why squatting causes me more back pain than deadlifting, since I bend my legs more.
I’m seeing my ART lady tomorrow so I’ll ask her for advice on this.
i vote tennis ball in the ass for your problem.
ok, not IN you ass, but all over it. stretching them doesnt seem to be a prob, evidenced by your splits, so i’m “looking” at what might be a posterior/glute issue.
Cal: from my perspective you’re making good progress with the gymnastics moves you are focusing on. I think you should try the forearm stand. It’s way cooler than a headstand and not much harder.
I like SLDLs too, any other DL were completely foreign to me.
You should have a vid on every page in here, they were awesome to watch.
And like everyone else said, your core looks hella sexy in the headstand vid.
You make me want to try a headstand… then I snap back to reality.
Had ART today and told Nicole (my therapist) about the videos. Basically she said my body has adapted to 20+ years of computer posture and although she recommended keeping up with scap retraction exercises and foam rolling etc, it’s unlikely I can do much about the rounding in the t-spine, although I can stop it getting worse.
The main thing is to fix the lumbar extention. I told her about how my hips feel jammed up and she had a prod around and found my pectineus is ridiculously tight, so she released them and I got some ROM back. She’s going to continue working on these. Even a light touch is very tender. I am definitely going to have to work on stretching these more.
streeeeeetch!!
sounds torturous…