Tuesday 26 May 2009

The quiet week and this week (18-31/05)

So I almost completely rested up last week, hence the fact that I never posted.
I had some coaching and meetings, and the week before my ankle rehabilitation was going really well, so i decided to rest from pretty much all movement and just focus on doing ankle excercises every day.
On top of that, i've been working on my muscle up progression to build strength - Im doing 110 muscle-ups during a session, and I'm increasing the number of reps in each set - first time i did sets of 3(with dead hang between each one) up to 110 and last week i did it in 5's.

Im going to try and do one of these sessions every week until I can do it in sets of 10. muscle ups are a pretty complete upper body and core exercise, as well as a really essential and useful movement. On top of that I can see the difference in my Climbups.
I would recommend anyone to learn them, and then use them for conditioning.
I had some really magical coaching sessions last week and have been working my warm ups so those feelings of being stuck' are now gone which is great.

This week
I went out today with Omercan adn Zeno and had a play session to see how I felt. My jump is almost 100% back and I think I've got lighter, faster and more powerful with all the focused leg conditioning during my ankle recovery.
I broke a few new jumps today, and got some back that used to be on my limit. They now feel a lot easier which is great.
The session today developed into focusing on routes which use these bigger jumps and powerful movements - all that small route and 'touch' training has really paid off and this week I'm going to focus on transferring that into much longer, bigger and more physically demanding routes.
I'm trying to focus on routes which use my techniques to their capacity distance and powerwise, and try to keep moving without hesitation. This should also be a good test of wether my Cardio has improved.

We shall see...........

Monday 11 May 2009

This week - 11/05 to 18/05

Last week's training went relatively close to what i'd planned -
two sessions of training in on most days, a light and a heavy one.
Ed was down visiting from Forres so it was nice to have some company on some of my training sessions which would usually be solo.

This was one of the wettest weeks of training in a long, long time to that affected things a little, but I stuck at it through the torrential rain.

I started the week with some heavy upper body sessions - the wall at charing x, dynos and quadrupedie. i didn't really work on handstands or traversing as I had planned so ill add that in this week.
My focus ended up swaying more towards doing more touch exercises and some little precisions - i almost stuck to my promise of not jumping - i did a few but not too many.
Another good week.

This week
Im starting to get quite stressd about the inflexibility of my injured ankle, so im really going to focus this week on rehabilitation. Im going to go back down to one session a day for most of the week and try to stay off my ankle a lot more as far as doing running, routes, jumps etc. Just have a lighter week overall but really focus on low-impact ankle exercises.

My training is going to consist of balance, quadrupedie and strength and flexibilty excercises. Im going to try and end every session with at least 20 minutes of flexiblity and isometric strength excercises to really really start working the ankle back to where it should be.
It should be better than it is by now, and although I've been strengthening it, I've also been using a lot and that could be detrimental.

On top of that, I'm going to do some more upper work - mainly traversing and handstands as I had intended to last week - it will be good to improve in these areas and also maintain my strength.

I'm also feeling a little bit out of touch with my coaching at the moment - since im not teaching as much just now I feel like I've lost a bit of the natural rhythm and natural feeling of my warm ups - it just doesnt feel easy at the moment and at times im having to thinka bout the next exercise for my class instead of everything shifting smoothly from one to the next.

I'm going to make sure that when I warm up every day I do a solid half hour of what I would do with a class.
I'm going to try and do a different 'style' every day and make sure i push it.I plan to identify the warm-up exercises I've fallen behind on and make sure I get them back to being comfortable and easy.
As a coach I have to feel really comfortable with all my exercises and it's really easy to lose that. I need to make sure i mantain it when i'm not coaching as much as it could effect my work and my students.
It's interesting having this whole other thing to train for and be conscious of other than my own progression.

I'm heading to the uni right now to get started :)

Monday 4 May 2009

Training - last week and this week

So last week's plan went quite well - I managed to get two training sessions in on most days, the lonely sessions mainly consisting of running and touch exercises.
Within a fgew days my touch really improved and has started to become quite natural. it feels good to perform a route and realise that you didnt hear anything during it.
I would liked to have done a little more and there was two days where i felt a bit lazy - it's important for me to be honest with myself about this I think.

Had a great session at some old ruins on Wednesday with Omercan - I think my jump distance has actually increased even though ive not been able to take any big jumps or impacts. I've been running and doing loads of squats and isometric strength exercises for my ankles for weeks - hopefully when my confidence comes back and my injuries heal ill be able to really see the benefit.

My bad ankle got a bit of a twinge on thursday, so I'm sticking mainly to Upper body this week, as I did towards the end of last week after it happened.
I'm trying so hard to let these injuries heal and still find ways to improve, work and play every day. it's nae easy!
We also had the first Glasgow Parkour Coaching Team Training session this week. It's going to be a weekly occurance from now - it's great for us all to train together as a group and for each other - our busy and different lifestyles dont permit much time for us all to hang out.

This week's training - 4/5 to 10/5
My first session today went from a quick play into a pretty heavy upper body session - we found this great place to do some lombar traversing and did a few sets. It was sore.....My shoulders are screaming as I type..!

Im going to try and stick to the same rough format as last week - first session of the week is to play, see how my body feels and do some rough planning for my week once i see how I feel.(which went out the window a little today..)

After feeling how my foot feels today today, I think im going to have to go totally cold turkey on the ankle and foot just to let them settle - I got a bit ahead of myself last week I think as it started to feel better, and then jarred my ankle.

Im going to work on upper body conditioning and movements - traversing(all kinds..), muscle-ups, handstands and anything else I can think of. Hopefully i'll get creative with parts of the uni I've not used for upper conditioning before. I can feel that my traps are a bit of a 'weak link' in my muscle chain so loads of handstands and lombar traversing should clean that up.

I'll keep sticking to finishing my sessions with big sets of squats and calf raises(it's all i can do safely!) to maintain and build leg strength and maybe try some running later in the week. Nothing too hard, just enough to keep my level and slowly build it as I wait for my injuries to heal.


and for this whole week - I MUST NOT JUMP.

we shall see how it all goes.