Progress is continuing. Still hitting and missing with regularity of training but i believe I’m making improvements. This Tuesday, I will have a check in with Master Tyler where we will run the same tests that we ran when I started this. However, I’m pretty sure there’s been improvement, just not as much as I’d like. But that is TOTALLY on me. Still, couldn’t do this 8 weeks ago….
Whilst I’m sure there are those out there that will criticize my technique, when I started this, I was lucky to be able to bang out two of these.
Still have a long way to go. But I finally have a program and routine I’m happy with so its just a case of smashing it now!
Will check in again after the test!
Tip!
If you are looking at trying to get a few extra reps out of anything (chinups, pull ups, bicep curls or anything) try really concentrating on squeezing the bar with your grip, clenching the abs and squeezing the glutes. For some reason this gives you a bit of an extra push. Heard this from listening to a podcast with this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Tsatsouline
Apparently he used to train Soviet Russian special forces and was credited with introducing the kettlebell to the west.
The test results are in. We originally completed two exercises to measure Paul’s upper body and lower body strength.
For the arms we did ‘holding the ball’ with a 15kg Taichi ball at chest height. Paul’s original time was 55 seconds, in the recent test he managed a 1min 32sec, a 50+% increase!
And for the legs we did a full horse stance with a 3m heavy cudgel across the thighs. Paul’s original time, 20 seconds, his new result 45 secs, a whopping 100+% increase.
But we won’t stop here, whilst Paul’s testing results are excellent, they will start to taper off over time if we don’t change things up. Variety in training is essential to maintain steady improvement, it will stimulate different parts of the body to activate and prevent stagnation. This is the entire reason for so many different forms in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts. A few years ago one of the four lineage holders of Chen Style Taijiquan asked a me a question – “Why are there so many forms?” I thought hard and came up with the wrong answer. His response – “Its so you don’t get bored” simple huh? Sounds like a pretty basic answer but what he is saying is this – We could just train the same fundamental movements many times in the same sequence every day, but we are not machines, we are human beings and this is where the ‘feeling’ comes in. Different routines enable us to express different aspects of the art and different aspects of ourselves. It promotes goal setting, a sense of achievement and maintains interest, mentally and physically.
To that end we have set Paul a new task for upper body (and core/dantian) strength. This one comes from Ba Gua Zhang and it is called Zhuan Pan ‘Spinning Discs’. A weight is held in the hand and rotated around like a plate, being careful not to “spill the food”. There are short and long variants with one plate or two and many different combinations of equal and opposing rotations. I like to use a 2 kg discus but barbel weights will suffice. Paul will be starting with 10 short and 10 long single rotations in each direction for each hand and then build from there. A clip to follow shortly…