Goal: Bboy better.
(Updated 3/23/15)
First = the worst
7/2/14 - Wednesday
Second = the best?
Squat
warmup
3x135
3x185
3x225
4x275
2, 1 x 295
2, 1 x 275
2x3x225
No records here but surprisingly good despite considerable hamstring soreness from Sunday’s GMs. As usual everything less than 275 I pause at the bottom.
Practice
Tried to do power. Literally was like, coindrop, land on my back, and be physically unable to roll over. To warmup for headflips I normally do a kip up out of a headstand. Really easy move; today I was crashing on my back instead of landing on my feet. Then I kicked up into a handstand, thinking I could practice handhops maybe - my left arm buckled like cardboard under my weight.
Instead, did toprock/footwork. Came up with a new footwork set so that’s cute.
Deadlifts
6x3x185 - took a step back after every rep to re setup. So more like 6x(3x1)x185 if that makes sense. Just going as fast as possible, dragging it up the shins.
Wanted to do more hamstring work. Went over to the leg curl machine, set it on the lowest weight to start with (25 lbs). I swear I could not do one.
Looking at today makes me want to consider eating more. I would have more fuel to train longer/harder, and/or I would get bigger. But then we’d be talking like 600g carbs per day. I don’t know. I want to go sleep.
7/3/14 - Thursday
Practice.
Barrel mills - Hit a triple from coindrop.
Tried several other power moves but I could not even touch them. Was dead after doing mills. Out of curiosity I tried to do some pushups before leaving and maxed out at two.
7/4/14 - Friday
Gym was closed today, went to the park. I set up to do some left arm handstand work, thinking for once in the past few weeks I’d be able to hit something good if I start off with it. I was wrong. Couldn’t do shit. I thought I could still get a good session by going for a pump, so I did 6x10 dips on the parallel bars. Starting my 7th set, I was hopelessly stuck at the bottom and it wasn’t exactly because I was getting a skin splitting, shoulder mobility inhibiting chest/arm pump.
Now, my left trap is the biggest it’s ever been (now even bigger than my right, basically reversing the precedent set by a year or two of 1990s done on my right arm). Also, I’ve been on top of my eating game. ON TOP. Was really excited to train today because I knocked off 600g carbs last night (along with 300g protein and 135g fat) and when I saw myself in the mirror I was looking full and healthy, not flat and thin. But nonetheless when I went to train I couldn’t do shit.
I’ve been noticing this trend of sporadically being weaker than normal starting to crop up. For the past two weeks all I needed was an off day. But now I’m having bad days every other day. Even yesterday, which I would’ve called good, was really only good for the first 30 minutes that I was doing barrels. Immediately after, I felt dead.
Incidentally, it’s been a little under three weeks, and if I wasn’t spinning/flipping on my head every so often I’d probably be looking at the typical length of a typical strength training cycle.
Anyways I’m going to take the next three days off. Will eat less carbs, more fat, and try to find something constructive to do with the 2+ hours/day of free time.
7/5/14 - zzzzzzzzzzzzz
7/6/14 - Sunday
Back. Woke up at a sharp 9:30, not freakin 1:00 like yesterday.
Oh, and here’s one of the double headspins I got a couple days ago:
If it’s clipping short just search “Headspin 7.6.14” on YT.
Lately I’ve really wanted to just focus on deadlift and back training. Conventional thinking would point to arms and shoulders as the most important muscles, but do they really support the whole body? What about the legs trying to dangle all around, do they prevent that too? Doubt it. I remember the first time I engaged my back learning a handstand, it felt so stable it was like I was doing it against a wall. And same with learning freestanding HSPs. And with 90s/reverse 90s, what really was forced to grow was my traps, not my shoulders. And I remember my double headspins only came when I engaged my glutes to keep my legs up. Any time I’m trying to do a one-arm handstand, what buckles and twists out of place before I fall is my upper back. And headflips? I need strong hams and glutes to kip back up onto my feet from my head, and my upper back better be tense to keep my head from slipping around. Barrel mills? Well I can’t say for sure but it sure as hell doesn’t look like an arm/chest dominant contraction. Finally, I remember the first time I did GMs. I couldn’t even do a forearm headstand, shoulders and arms be damned my back and legs were noodles and that’s all that mattered.
I will do it like this:
Sunday
Deadlift (heavy)
Lower body assistance (GMs, leg curls/extensions)
Monday
Bboy
Upper body assistance (pull-ups, rows, dips)
Tuesday
Bboy
Deadlift (speed) - doesn’t necessarily have to be deadlift
Wednesday
Bboy
Upper body assistance
Thursday
Bboy
Deadlift (speed)
Friday
Bboy
Conditioning
Saturday
Bboy
Conditioning
To keep myself from getting burned out like what’s been happening, no session goes longer than 90 minutes. My experience has been showing me that it creates a vicious cycle when you have long sessions because you get burned out, which leads to you taking more time to psyche up for stuff, which leads to more time spent in the gym, which burns you out even more because the next day you’re like FAAAWKKK I WAS IN THERE FOUR HOURS YESTERDAY. Despite what I want to think I can either go all out for short time or marathon it.
And I’m sick of being a braindead vegetable after a training session. Both mentally and physically. I’ve got things to do with my life.
Starting today. Did you really think I would take three off days in a row? And eat <200g carbs per day too huh. Well it’s only 10:30 and I’m sure as hell not going to lurk the GAL forum all day.
7/6/14 - Sunday
Training.
Deadlift
warmup
3x135
3x225
3x315
3, 3x2, 1 x 355
2x3x315
GMs
4x10-12x115-135
Leg curls
3x8-15x40-70
Had a dropset in there to finish. aka fatality.
No time for leg extensions but that’s cool. My hams are taking long enough to recover as is.
7/7/14 - Monday
Practice:
Barrel mills, headflips, handhops, reverse 90s, headspins.
Nothing new - tend to lose progress if I take a 48 hour break from practicing for whatever reason.
Upper body assistance:
DB rows
10x85
10x110
8, 4 x 130
10x110
Didn’t get that pump feeling but I could barely do three pull-ups afterwards so something is up.
Snatch grip high pull
6x115
6x135
3x6x155
Dips
2x6x+25
6x+35
6x+45
Then out, before I do a million other things.
7/8/14 - Tuesday
Practice - reverse 90s, handhops, rollback stalls, also did some one-arm stalls against the wall to really practice getting tense
Deficit deadlifts - 30 minutes of singles, as fast as possible. I know I at least averaged one single per minute. Tugged 275 until I felt it slowing down, then 225 until I felt it slowing down. So that was some solid practice with 50-65%.
7/9/14 - Wednesday
Absolute shit. Too tired to do power followed by literally being too fatigued to do a single pull-up or dip.
It looks like I can only train 3 days in a row before my performance crashes. I’ll take tomorrow off and do 5 days/week instead.
Hey man, been following.
I don’t think you asked for input, so sorry for giving unsolicited advice, but I had a few ideas I thought might be worth thinking about.
What if you replaced about half of your power move sessions with speed sessions. I noticed from some of your vids in your first log that you do your power moves pretty slow…they look great and your tempo emphasizes the strength, so slow isn’t necessarily bad.
You could do some sessions where you just work on speed. The reason is that the faster you are spinning, no matter what kind of move you are doing, the less stress you are putting on your body. Use your legs to very quickly generate some whip-snapping speed on the very first revolution of any move you are working on. And then cut the move short quickly…so maybe just do one or two revolutions of whatever you are working on.
This will allow you to work on the moves without making it into a strength workout. Keep everything brief during these sessions…you can work on a bunch of shit and keep the session long, but just keep light on your hands and feel like rotation is lifting you off the ground on everything you do.
Do this for a while until you start feeling better and better, and then shift back maybe to more frequent work at your performance tempo, which may stay where it is or become a little faster maybe if you like how it feels.
Also - on the diet, I can relate to how you feel better when nice and full after a good day of eating. Same here. Maybe you’ve been experimenting long enough to know what works for you already. If not, I would keep those fats low - it’s the carbs that’s fueling you, and when you’re getting enough, you probably only need the fats for the nutrients and nutrient absorption that rides along with them - I would actually keep them below 90 or so (for starters) and make up the difference with an even consistently higher carb intake. This will help with recovery.
Anyway, I hope some of that might be helpful. That reverse 90 video a few pages from the end of your last log was sick, by the way. I wish I could do that. Shit…if you really want to see an elbow buckle…
Thank you so much.Those are both great ideas. I honestly can’t afford to have days where I don’t somehow practice a power move. Working on speed instead of going for raw performance all the time would let me train a move in a way that isn’t so physically or psychologically demanding. I’m heading out right now to give it a shot.
As for carb intake, what used to be 160g fat comes from the past semester at college - EVERYTHING is loaded with fat in the dining hall. But when I took fat from 160 to 135 I noticed I was actually a little leaner. So you make sense there too. To balance the calories from going down to 90g fat though, I’ll have to eat 600g carbs. I’ll do it. But I can’t promise it will all be from dry brown rice.
[quote]marrot wrote:
Thank you so much.Those are both great ideas. I honestly can’t afford to have days where I don’t somehow practice a power move. Working on speed instead of going for raw performance all the time would let me train a move in a way that isn’t so physically or psychologically demanding. I’m heading out right now to give it a shot.
As for carb intake, what used to be 160g fat comes from the past semester at college - EVERYTHING is loaded with fat in the dining hall. But when I took fat from 160 to 135 I noticed I was actually a little leaner. So you make sense there too. To balance the calories from going down to 90g fat though, I’ll have to eat 600g carbs. I’ll do it. But I can’t promise it will all be from dry brown rice.[/quote]
You might not need to make that drastic a shift from fats to carbs. 600 is quite a bit.
But then again, that’s what cinnamon toast crunch was made for…bboy lifters who need to get their carbs.
7/10/14 - Thursday
Barrel mills - Practiced just sweeping my legs around as hard as possible. Did not get to practice this much because of some crappy gym logistics, was out of my control.
Swipes - Practiced fast sets of 2-3. Few sets where I could even shoot my foot up right when it planted. My right wrist started flaring up again, I will have to see a chiro.
Handhops - Practiced single hops as hard and high as I could get them.
Sprints - Ran around downtown jumping over, off, and around things.
Did not get to do many spinning based moves because of some issues with gym closings/crowding. But I tried to apply that speed idea to swipes and handhops.
About diet, I’m already at 480/300/135. It is indeed quite a drastic shift now that I have actually taken a look at exactly what I would be eating to make that happen. I’ll have to think more.
Edit: I’ll keep diet the same but make the training addition you suggested just so I’m only changing one variable at a time. Thanks so much for reading and following.
7/11/14 - Friday
Deadlift
warmup
3x135
3x225
3x315
4x365
1x375
2, 1 x 365
2, 1 x 355
2x3x315
Squat
6x135
6x225
3x6x235
6x225
4x225
GMs
10x95
10x115
10x135
10x145
7x155
10x135
7x135
15x95
Leg curls
3x15x50-70
Dropset, 70, 50, 30, 20
The first day I started lifting with this general structure (basically, heavy deads + bboying) I had a max of 415 and I had the following work sets:
3, 2, 2, 1 x 355 = 2840
Today’s heavy work sets add up to:
4x365 + 1x375 + 2, 1 x 365 + 2, 1 x 355 = 3995
I also noticed that I’m not getting sore from GMs anymore, as you can see in this post my GM weights are back up from last week. All this time I was thinking GMs took too long to recover from; all I needed was to tough it out a little longer. It looks like bad days where I’m sore as balls but still come in and at least try to get something moving are a necessary part of getting stronger.
7/12/14 - Saturday
Practice. Was in a wrestling room with my friends so the soft floor was great for forearm stalls without bruising.
Barrel mills - few doubles. Left leg comes up first when going into it - this keeps my legs wide. I did a bunch of sets where I would only focus on one tip, like whipping my upper body or swinging my legs.
Single forearm rollback stalls - better than ever here. Can do them from standing, but not that fast. When I could, I would do a hop after each stall. If that hop gets high enough I can end this move on my hand instead of my forearm.
Forearm hops - I really made sure to do a lot of these because the floor was so forgiving. Hit three on my left forearm.
Spent way too much time breaking, must have been two, two and a half hours. When I went to the gym I tried starting out with some pull-ups - that shit wasn’t happening.
Tomorrow I probably won’t have a place to bboy, so I’ll do speed deadlifts and the upper body assistance that I didn’t get to do today.
7/13/14 - Sunday
Deficit tugs - 275 until it started slowing, then 225 until it started slowing. Singles as fast as possible, taking 30-60 second breaks. 30 minutes of practice total.
Snatch grip high pulls
6x135
2x6x155
3x155 - oh come on
Tried to do pull-ups and dips - another day where I couldn’t even do one of either.
Will reduce fat and increase carbs as recommended. It’s not like I’m burnt out here. I WANT to train, I’m just running out of gas.
7/14/14 - Monday
Couldn’t practice. Opened with handbalancing, found myself significantly shakier on one-arm handstands. Oh right, I haven’t pressed in over a week because I’ve been focusing on deadlift.
Did some heavy overhead BB and DB pressing, followed by heavy dips. Finished with pushups, shoulder raises, and tri extensions. Nothing special.
It looks like the more I try to account for when setting up a week of training the more it ends up exploding in my face. A day planned as off becomes a productive bboy session, or what I plan to be a bboy session ends up with me under a heavy bar. So every so often I make some post about “Here’s what I’m going to do,” and it’s like trying to fit a line to one data point.
All I’m going to set in stone is that I come in every day and I have a full lower body workout every Friday. Otherwise, I come in, bboy, do heavy upper body, maybe some combination, maybe not.
7/15/14 - Tuesday
OHP
warmup
5x95
5x135
1x155
3, 4, 3, 3, 1 x 135
Dips
6xBW
6x+25
6, 2 x +50
4x+25
6xBW
So another shitty day - thinking tomorrow I will skip the gym and eat less. Food is most likely not the issue, I have been eating well.