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Toledo workouts
Jul. 21st, 2011 11:40 pmThe last 3 (tomorrow, it's 3) weeks of doing Toledo's exercises have been... interesting. Six days a week I roll out of bed and go straight to the gym for an hour or so, and I haven't missed a single morning workout.
Factoid 1: I am able to do 30 minutes of two chinups, two dips, two chinups, two dips. The first time I tried this, I did 21 sets like that in the 30 minutes, and I thought that was pretty good, and that I would not be able to keep breaking that record the way Toledo wanted me to. But my workout log tells the truth -- the five times I've done this fun little drill I've done 21, 24, 26, 28, 30! The thirty was just this morning, and I admit that I'm impressed. I did sixty chin-ups from a dead hang and sixty dips, all in half an hour, before work -- I mean, Jesus, who does that? Me, apparently. I do that. :-)
Factoid 2: Controlled skin-the-cats with straight arms are still a dream, but there's tangible progress almost every time I do the workout that calls for them. I have to do ten, and since 5 sets of 2 is still beyond me I've been doing 10 sets of 1. Usually with lots of resting, cursing and moaning in between (it's not all that fun to do a weird-looking thing that's really hard and you really can't do, ten times). However, time on task is starting to do the trick. I can get my feet past the bar and over most times now without touching the bar on the way, my negative's getting much more controlled and I did play with stringing two together into a set of two, yesterday. One day I'll be able to do them properly.
I don't feel like my tuck planche is improving -- I still use the same rubber band that I've been using all along -- but since I do them before the skin-the-cats, I don't mind not blowing all my energy on them either. My straight-arm scapula hangs, which I do alternating with the planches, have improved. So have most of the wrist warmups that masquerade as pushups, in the evening routine. My neck muscle that was hurt is totally healed, as far as I can tell. My fingers are getting calloused. I'm still bad at jumping rope on one foot, but it doesn't make me as pukey now as it did the first time.
In short, it's good to feel things evolving. I hope I'm turning into a huge-shouldered ape-girl of some kind, preferably the kind that will one day be capable of a press handstand. I know the workouts are strange because I see people looking at me as I alternate autistically between pullups and dips, pullups and dips. And people say "How long did it take you to learn that?", "It's amazing that you can do that [one-legged squat]", "She's killing those, perfect form", "What sport are you practicing for... I thought like, maybe diving?" The nicer ones also say "If that jump rope is twisting up on you, there are some better-behaved ones down in the studio" -- thank you, thank you, trainer whose name I have forgotten!
It's a little lonely, and it's a VERY full day if I work out in the morning, do a day at Zillian, and work out in the evening. But the heavy solo work is also a nice break from thinking too hard about partner acrobatics and how I'm plateaued without a steady partner, and how I really can't afford to keep doing three acroyoga retreats a year. I was a solo gym rat before I was anything else, and so this has a very familiar feel to it.
Factoid 1: I am able to do 30 minutes of two chinups, two dips, two chinups, two dips. The first time I tried this, I did 21 sets like that in the 30 minutes, and I thought that was pretty good, and that I would not be able to keep breaking that record the way Toledo wanted me to. But my workout log tells the truth -- the five times I've done this fun little drill I've done 21, 24, 26, 28, 30! The thirty was just this morning, and I admit that I'm impressed. I did sixty chin-ups from a dead hang and sixty dips, all in half an hour, before work -- I mean, Jesus, who does that? Me, apparently. I do that. :-)
Factoid 2: Controlled skin-the-cats with straight arms are still a dream, but there's tangible progress almost every time I do the workout that calls for them. I have to do ten, and since 5 sets of 2 is still beyond me I've been doing 10 sets of 1. Usually with lots of resting, cursing and moaning in between (it's not all that fun to do a weird-looking thing that's really hard and you really can't do, ten times). However, time on task is starting to do the trick. I can get my feet past the bar and over most times now without touching the bar on the way, my negative's getting much more controlled and I did play with stringing two together into a set of two, yesterday. One day I'll be able to do them properly.
I don't feel like my tuck planche is improving -- I still use the same rubber band that I've been using all along -- but since I do them before the skin-the-cats, I don't mind not blowing all my energy on them either. My straight-arm scapula hangs, which I do alternating with the planches, have improved. So have most of the wrist warmups that masquerade as pushups, in the evening routine. My neck muscle that was hurt is totally healed, as far as I can tell. My fingers are getting calloused. I'm still bad at jumping rope on one foot, but it doesn't make me as pukey now as it did the first time.
In short, it's good to feel things evolving. I hope I'm turning into a huge-shouldered ape-girl of some kind, preferably the kind that will one day be capable of a press handstand. I know the workouts are strange because I see people looking at me as I alternate autistically between pullups and dips, pullups and dips. And people say "How long did it take you to learn that?", "It's amazing that you can do that [one-legged squat]", "She's killing those, perfect form", "What sport are you practicing for... I thought like, maybe diving?" The nicer ones also say "If that jump rope is twisting up on you, there are some better-behaved ones down in the studio" -- thank you, thank you, trainer whose name I have forgotten!
It's a little lonely, and it's a VERY full day if I work out in the morning, do a day at Zillian, and work out in the evening. But the heavy solo work is also a nice break from thinking too hard about partner acrobatics and how I'm plateaued without a steady partner, and how I really can't afford to keep doing three acroyoga retreats a year. I was a solo gym rat before I was anything else, and so this has a very familiar feel to it.
