Squat
bar
3x135
3x185
3x225
3x260 - felt like there was one more in me, too. Nice.
2x1x245
Pull-ups, pronated grip now
4x+25
These are, harder.
Breakdancing
1990s
Spent an hour or so doing these head tucked, they sucked. Then I go back to doing them looking at my hand, and go figure I start hitting full spins even while fatigued.
Experimented with keeping my legs straight at all times.
Helps if I go from really tense on my left arm to really tense on my right arm as I shift on to my right arm to spin on it.
Flares
Focused on bringing my right leg along the right path, sweeping as fast as possible, going up towards my face, and staying straight. Came close to a solid landing for only focusing on one cue.
Squatting 290 is iffy. There’s no way that 5x175 bench will let me push 205. OHP is more than a little sketchy about hitting 165. I don’t want to hit 3x+80 dips, I want 1/2 my bodyweight on that belt, bringing it down and pushing it up.
So, I have three choices: Go in and get stapled and risk hurting myself, go in knowing that I won’t hit my goal, or push it back a month so I can train.
It’s not that I’m not making progress. My squat went from 5x250 to 5x255 in the past two weeks. I feel like I’m only starting to recover from hitting failure with bench last month; Ferruggia wrote in the “Training to Failure” articles that it could take up to a month to recover from hitting failure with heavy weights.
So I’m going to give myself August to get stronger. The month of August will be my last chance to show that I can handle myself in a weight room without fucking up.
One more note: Dips are going to replace DB BP, because setting up for DB BP is a damn hassle - benches in a YMCA weight room just get full too fast. And I haven’t made progress on DB BP since about April.
Flares
I perform better on hard floor or concrete instead of grass, which I did today. But my left wrist was tense and I ended up psyching myself out a lot.
1990s
Pretty simple. Practiced until I was getting consistent 1-1/8 spins, stopped when I started getting tired.
Crickets, easy
Windmills and windmills>headstand, video below, first time in months and don’t give a fuck
Getting meningitis vaccine Wednesday and my parents are making me “rest”. So squats tomorrow, OHP Thursday, and so on from there.
Squat
bar
3x135
3x185
3x225
4x260 - none left, but that doesn’t offend me since I should’ve had today to recover from squats.
2x1x245
Pull-ups pronated
3x+30
Breakdancing
Flares
Focused on keeping tension on my arms and actually getting my weight on TOP of them. It took me way too long to figure this out. How the hell am I going to do flares if I don’t keep my weight on TOP of my shoulders.
DB OHP
3x70s - There’s my goal! Felt pretty easy too.
Dips
3x+75 - if there was a crocodile under the roman chair I would have had another one.
Breakdancing
Flares
Getting closer to what I want by focusing on getting my weight on to my shoulders.
1990s
Few spins that were just under 1-1/4. Helps to think about getting stable on the spinning arm in all directions, tensing up the front, top, and rear of my shoulder.
Since I got the 3x70s goal, here’s what I still have left to do:
OHP: 1xBW (165)
Squat: 1.75xBW (290)
Bench: 1.25xBW (205)
Dips: .5xBW in extra weight (1x+82.5)
Flares: 1 full rotation, from belly up position back to belly up position, doesn’t matter if legs graze the floor for now
1990s: 1.5 spin
Land a frontflip on grass, feet only
I’m thinking flares tomorrow, fresh for them, follow up with 90s, then frontflips on Saturday. Frontflips are tricky as to when I do them during the week because a tough landing can mess up my ankle for squats.
Flares
I find myself taking so much mental effort just to get out of my head and do the move that it becomes hard to focus on each individual cue as hard as I want to. But while I was fresh, I still performed, pretty consistently getting half-rotations without my left foot hitting the ground.
1990s
best: >1-1/4 (PR)
Get on top of that spinning shoulder and lock it down from every direction. Another tip that I came across accidentally, I haven’t been able to replicate, is to spin by slowly squeezing my glutes and pressing my legs together… sounds weird but I got a good spin with it. Another, slightly less gay tip that I accidentally found was to arch my back but keep my center of gravity directly over my shoulder, leaving my legs to dangle over the back of my head.
Going to stop taking measurements, by the way, except for weight. All that matters to me is my power/weight ratio for my lifting goals. It’s foolish to get all uppity about whether my bicep is 13-1/4" or 13-1/8" every week.
Haven’t left anything in the tank all week so I took it “easy” today, lighter back-off singles and kept pull-ups easy.
Squat
bar
3x135
3x185
3x225
3x260 - if #4 was in there it would have been a tough one.
2x1x235
Pull-ups
1x+35 - had at least one more left
I’m going to go light on squats this Wednesday and see what I can do next Saturday; it looks like I’ve plateaued again.
Frontflips
One where I landed in a full squat like that last video I put up, but with more forwards momentum. all the rest were in a kind of crab walk position like I could have started up some footwork right there.
Flares
Had to cut these short, planting down on my left arm and rotating around on top of it puts a lot of stress on the bone on my forearm. It gets to the point where I have to rest five minutes between every attempt and I psyche myself out of attempts at an embarrassing rate. After an attempt it hurts just to flex my forearm. So I’ll come back to these on Thursday.
1990s
best: <1-3/8 (PR)
Lock that spinning arm down, get on top of it. Glad to finally start to see some progress here.
1990s
best: >1-1/4
Felt like I got the most 1-1/4 spins that I’ve ever done before. Consistency.
Mill>headstand
This is seriously some zen buddha shit. The only way to pull it off is detach myself from the outcome and focus on the individual steps. To think about how the move will end and try to achieve that, instead of focusing on the necessary cues, is to lose focus.
Squat
bar
3x135
3x185
3x225
4x260 - 5th rep would have been barely possible if at all.
2x1x245
Pull-ups pronated
2x+35 - +1 rep over last week. 3rd rep would have been a grind.
Frontflips
Helps to lean forwards while sprinting and launching into it. Came closer to getting a good landing. I’m more confident too; I am able to let out a breath and just go into it, I don’t psyche myself out of them anymore even now that I’m practicing them on grass.
Overhead press
bar
3x95
3x135
3x150 - Damn. Got 4 last week.
2x1x145
DB OHP
3x70s - none left
Dips
1x+80 - none left
Flares
Whether it was because of having taken a couple days off from this move or just being sick of taking long rest periods between attempts, I just went in and pounded these out until my left forearm started hurting again. Got some good ones, got tired, stopped.
Headspins
Worked on re-practicing these to be able to chain them well.
Will go light on squats Saturday. I think today was doomed to be a meh day because Sunday and yesterday went solid.
Flares
Sucked. Hands kept slipping on the floor and my left forearm was hurting again.
1990s
Sucked. Developing a rhomboid spasm in my right shoulder from spinning on it so much.
I’m convinced that taking Wednesday off last week was actually a good decision. I’m going to give it a shot next week, with the following schedule:
Sunday: Bench
Monday: Bboying
Tuesday: Squat
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: OHP
…and so on
I’m also going to go light tomorrow. It’s been weeks since I’ve had a session that I’ve gone into feeling fresh to the point that I have nervous jitters… those are the only sessions where I can get a PR. Lately I’ve been hitting every set to the limit, avoiding failure but nonetheless leaving nothing left in the tank. I need to back off.
Edit: ^No. Keep everything as is until we see how going light today (Saturday) affected things.
Frontflips
Improved landings. Landing more often in a close stance ATG squat with softer hand-ground contact, instead of my wrists banging the ground I only need my fingertips to keep myself from falling back after landing. I tried to get a landing while consciously keeping my hands off the ground but my feet ended up skidding on the ground and I fell on my ass. So I’ll just have to progress a bit at a time.
Flares
Learned something about how to rotate around as I sweep, hard to explain but if it helped while I was training this move at the end of the session then I’ll remember it.
Bench press
bar
3x95
3x135
3x155
4x180 - +1 rep over last week. Was tough, but was by no means a grind.
2x1x170
Pull-up
3x+25
+5 lbs over last week. Not sure if I had another rep in me, would have been tough.
Dips
3x+75
+5 lbs over last week.
Frontflips
Sprinting, launching, and landing crushes my ankles to pregnant-woman proportions. Performance was clearly less than yesterday’s, still got a good landing by my standards but it was only one.
Flares
Learned about rotating, going from all my weight on my right arm to all my weight on my left arm, and putting my left arm down verry close to my right arm so I can rotate over it more easily. Looking forward to tomorrow, minus the intense hatred that my left wrist expresses towards me for practicing these too much.
Flares
Keep head up and looking forward until the moment that I come off the ground. Practiced forcing legs wide once I got off the ground, but it didn’t help that much. What was helpful was thinking about going from being directly over my right arm to being directly over my left arm.
Mill>headstand
Learned more about exactly how to roll high properly.
Rhomboid spasm in my right side from overpracticing 1990s. Not going to touch them until I’m recovered. I had the same thing before on my left arm and I ignored it and I ended up doing nothing but HSPs and pistols for a month. So it can wait. There’s a walk-in chiro nearby so we’ll see if its for real or its just sketchy.
Squat
bar
3x135
3x185
3x225
5x260 - PR. Going light on Saturday worked. Might have been one rep left in the tank.
2x1x245
Pull-up pronated
3x+35 - PR, none left in the tank
Hollowbacks
Here’s what I came up with. I can hold it for ~3 seconds before it gets shaky.
Couldn’t practice 1990s because of the spasm in my right shoulder, couldn’t do flares because my left forearm dies every time it hits the ground, and was going to do flips after these but then I’d have nothing to practice after tomorrow’s lifting, not to mention I have to be fresh for tomorrow.
OHP
bar
3x95
3x135
4x150 - but this time, done without a rest day beforehand.
2x1x145
DB OHP
4x70s - PR. None left in the tank.
Dips
2x+80 - felt like both reps looked the same. So one more in the tank.
Frontflips
Came closer to the landings I wanted. Had one where I rotated fast enough I ended up on my knees. I very rarely psyche myself out anymore mid attempt (only once today towards the end of today’s sesh).
Hollowbacks
Practiced rollback>headstand>hollowback. Very possible. Next step is skip the headstand in the middle.
My panties are getting all scrunched up now that my OHP and bench are finally back to where they are after hitting failure a month ago, time to start making progress again.
1990s
New cue: While getting on top of the spinning arm and winding up, tuck the right leg in as it comes around, then punch it straight up to get the spin. Was getting consistent 1-1/4 spins while fatigued as I found out about this tip in the middle of my session.
“Now you’re just somebody that I used to know”… I get lonely practicing by myself
