PROGRESS!! Things I can do now which I couldn’t do last year

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The secret handshake, and the most accurate metric we use to gauge and shit-test each other- Do you look and move better now from the last time I saw you?

It’s easy. If I am PRing daily, fixing problems, crushing goals, and moving better you will know it within 10 seconds of seeing me. If I do not look better/move better, you know I am fucking up.

For some this is extreme, but this is only way we can roll. If you are not getting better you are getting worse. Choose now.

If you are getting worse, it will only be a matter of time before you infect the people around you and make them worse. I will not spend any amount of time with someone who is getting worse. So make progress or go rot some other place, away from me.

As I continue to get better, I am able to do more and more. More variety, more depth, more adaptability, more volume, more density, ect, ect, ect. More is basically the overall theme.

Of all of those–adaptability is the most valuable improvement.

New Options

New options are now on the table. Some of them are unlikely picks based upon my history, and some of them are things I have always wanted to do. What matters now is that I can do them. Here is a small sampling of what I am up to.

Barefoot running

First I want to tell you my story with the movie “The Hangover.”

I remember the weekend it was released. 10 of my co-workers watched it that weekend. For the next 3 weeks I was told every damn day”It’s so funny, you HAVE TO SEE IT!” and of course, hourly updates on “He was a Ra-tard” and “One man wolf packs.”

I quickly decided there is no way this movie can live up to this amount of hype. Too heavy of an expectation, the bar was set too high with all the hype.

When the DVD was released I watched it my buddy Mike’s house. Yeah, it was pretty damn funny. I can’t hate on a movie featuring Mike Tyson punching out fat guys, tiger theft, a dentist who pulls out his own tooth and crystal meth tweaker songs…

So back to barefoot running. Vibrams come out, every trainer I know losses their minds over them. Everyone in my RKC class is wearing them. Ugly fucking shoes. Naturally no one could explain exactly what it was about them that made them so dope- but damn there was a lot of hype.

Two months later I am wearing vibrams. What a whore I am. I watched everyone enjoying them so much I decided I will try them out. I find out I love them. The shift from12 hour days spent wearing combat boots daily to barefoot shoes has done massive things for my movement. My gait changed and my back felt better when I was out of the boots.

The next piece of the Vibrams freak out was the book “Born to Run” which Josh reviewed HERE.

Everyone is raving about barefoot running. Oh my races in the desert, little fiber beans which gave Randy explosive dookie, and of course the implication how the magic of barefoot running will cure all ailments.

Well, I hate running. My hatred for running goes back to High School and wrestling season were we spent far too much time running and not nearly enough time wrestling. My hatred of running was fortified in military service, more running. Most military commanders think running is the only thing you need. Run, Run, Run.

Fuck running. I am not a deer.

So when people told me how much I had to try this barefoot running, I was not feeling that at all.

My ankle mobility was terrible. Since 2001 I have been wearing Marauder jump boots, which lace up high and restrict ankle movement. Jump boots are good for jumping, maybe not so much for garrison watch and guard shifts.

To be technical I wore those because when polished they are squared away and sharp. So I gave up movement for looks- see ladies I kinda understand your high heels and the pain that comes with it…

When I would run I would heel-strike every step.  Within 2-3 miles my left hip and spine would be killing me. I always finished any run, but it was always forced effort. I was fast enough to not let it bug me much, but the idea of running when not required by order or obligation was off the table.

So the idea of Barefoot running felt like a chore, and it would not make my grip better so I passed on it.

NOW: Not wearing combat boots in 8 weeks has improved my ankle movement and barefoot running tests well daily. I only run once or twice a week. I still prefer throwing KBs around for cardio.

My stride is smooth and quiet now. No clopping along, no tension while in gait. Dare I say running is a pleasure now? No, not yet. No immediate plans for marathons or anything…but I will leave that open. Maybe when I am out in Portland in August with Sean Geddess I will get on that sport too.

BARBELL SNATCHES & JERKS

First thing I want to say about these two lifts- I would like to share a hearty “thanks for nothing” to all the people who  coached me in my younger years who never taught me this shit. Thanks for telling me how “challenging” it is to learn the O lifts, and never telling me to get my ass under that bar. I reflect on junior and senior year have weights class and never being taught this-damn man.

So I think the Snatch and Jerk are bad ass lifts. Old news to a lot of you…new news for me. Pulling a weight off the floor is so ho-hum compared to throwing it overhead from the floor. Call it personal preference.

Problems of the past- I was unable to dorsiflex  while going into hip flexion while being thoracically extended (overhead catch position for the snatch) and was way too tight to get a clean catch when I did try an ugly muscle snatch movement. Even a minor quarter-squat with my arms overhead felt like I would run out of room in 2 inches. FMS didn’t fix it, stretching didn’t fix it, hip circles didn’t fix it.

On the jerk, I was spending too much time fucking around with the proper rack position trained lifters use for the full clean. My wrist extension is half of yours. That’s not changing too fast, but it is still better than it used to be. I do like BB jerks for reps, I basically use the same foot work like in the KB jerk…works better than not doing it.

So what changed?

First thing I did- I worked within my limits. I did not stretch, did not foam roll, I did not do ten thousand reps of 4 speed hip circles, and did not spend 20 hours being cued and yelled at to get the positions.

I did what I could, and improved the form as I was able to do more.  I started with one arm KB jerks, progressed to two arm jerks. Cleaned up that movement and stripped away excessive movements. After 60 days I am able to easily drop in to position for hang snatches and cleans with a BB. Progress is assured when you get out of your own way and make things easy.

Because it is very different from anything else I do, it is testing exceptionally well. I have lifted something overhead every single workout for years, but the BB position and hip position is very different than the KB lifts.

On the BB jerk, I quit screwing around with the hand/wrist position. I just clean it and jerk it now. I am sure the poundage will suffer without learning the ins and outs…but I find myself unable to give more than a little shit about that. Right now I have been testing best with moderate poundages (150-200) for sets of 8-12 reps. It feels like prep for kettlebell lifting, and leaves me feeling really good.

PAIN FREE BENCH PRESS

I can count the number of times I have bench pressed in the last 3 years on two hands. While I can do push ups, one arm push ups, and all kinds of overhead pressing pain free–the bench press has been painful since something happened to my shoulder back in 2003.

I have done a lot of stuff on my shoulders to try to fix it in the past. Soup cans, rotator cuff rehab programs, FMS shoulder corrections, Ankle tilts/hip circles, stretching protocols, yoga shit, even a really dumb 10 minutes of ART where the guy used a butter knife to “scrape the scar tissue off the connective tissue” which left me with a bruised up shoulder and 3 days of pain. Yup, I know what it feels like to be the one who is wrong…

Icing on the cake was a muscle tear in August 2008 when I was opening a mule shoe at a demonstration. For two weeks I was unable to move past 20% function. I was certain any kind of horizontal loading in end-range of motion would be a no no.

Yup, I have been wrong before too.

Why can I do it now pain free?

I have a guess.

What matters is now I can do something which was painful in the past. We have learned restoring function to tissue is not a complicated game. I am eager to play with this one more often. I am still finding the reverse grip bench press tests far better than the traditional BP. I am not able to arch very well,  and spinal extension may always be a problem with a crushed bone in the center of my back. Getting better all the time…We will see where I am at in 6 months.

I am working primarily with a the reverse grip axle bench press. The flexed spine position with close arm position is meeting me right where I need to be met now. The axle feels good in my hands and it is interesting to work with again. DDN does not have a proper bench in his gym, so it is an amusing game of clean the axle, lay down on the bench, shimmy under it, and press. How dinosaur training of me…

WORKING ON RAFTER PULL UPS

This is where you do a pull up by pinching something overhead. My two hands pinch now exceeds my body weight by over 25lbs. I can hang holding my pinch bar. Doing the pull up is really damn hard because of the change in wrist position, which makes the thumb position very different compared to the pinch deadlift.

HANDSTANDS

Most of my life I have done push ups on my knuckles, and anything which put my hands in to wrist extension would range from uncomfortable to downright painful.

This made my handstand/hand balancing progress very slow. I was having to come out of position early due to wrist issues, and it was associated to pain in other than extension movements. So I dropped it.

So as my extension now improves weekly, hand stands not only are pain free but testing well too. I am working on several hand balancing (simple ones) holds, hand stand walking, and some wall walking stuff. I do not know how much I will work on this- BB lifts trump Handstand work in my order of importance.

SOTS PRESS

This is the stupidest thing in the pressing toolbox-pressing a weight from the bottom of the squat. If you have any movement issues in your ankle, knee, hip, spine, or shoulder this is not happening. This has been the longest one to get at. There was no complicated process-I moved where I could move and kept everything in my limits. In the past I was told how I needed to stretch more, needed to foam roll, needed to “engage my nervous system with a dynamic neural warm up” (WTF) and the best “just forget it, its not that important”

Well of course it’s not important. None of the things I do are important…except to me.

How am I doing it? Simply move where I can, pursue what tests best, and continue to train a variety of movements with a variety of tools.

That is exactly how easy this all is. One foot in front of the other and keep moving. I am amused by how complicated the world views fitness. It’s simple.

So as I always do – I am going after my goals and having fun. I hold myself to a simple standard “If I am not getting better I am getting worse” Leaves me with few options – get better or get worse.

ATG

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