Rings One Week 4 Report

This week, I changed up my Below The Rings day routine to look like this:

Pullups 3 sets
Tuck To Inverted Hang 5 sets
Pushups 3 sets

I do the most sets on the movement I'm weakest at in the "below rings' category, which is the Tuck to Inverted Hang.  The pushups don't belong in this category, but I need the extra practice.  Unfortunately, I was unable to duplicate my performance of the Tuck to Inverted Hang from Wednesday of last week, in which I nailed two perfect reps of the movement.  Still too much swinging and lack of coordination between the pulling action of the arms and the raising of the hips via the "knees to armpits" action.

One idea that occurred to me today while walking home was to try 3 sets of 3-5 sec. of what I call a "flex-arm tuck lever".  This is what a legit tuck lever looks like, courtesy of the excellent Beast Skills lesson on the Front Lever:

Of course, I'm following the Rings One program, which has a very different way of working up to a  Front Lever, but what I call the "Flexed Arm Tuck Lever" is a lot like the Tuck Lever, except with the arms flexed.  The Beast Skills lesson mentions that the trick to get into the Tuck Lever, if you're struggling to do it, is to lower yourself into it.  I found one way is to just do a pull-up and tuck your knees as shown above, then lower yourself by straightening your arms with your knees still tucked.   The Flexed Arm Tuck Lever is just the position you would be in if your did not lower yourself - your arms are flexed from doing the pull-up.  The Flexed Arm Tuck Lever may not exactly be the middle position between the pull-up and the inverted hang position of the Jump Tuck to Inverted Hang move, but I suspect working in some holds in the Flexed Arm Tuck Lever will help me gain the strength I need to better control the movement.

Not much progress to report on the Above The Rings days.  For next week, I'm thinking of just doing full-range pushups on those days instead of partial range, with the understanding my reps will be lower on the Above The Rings days due to the triceps being taxed from doing dips.

I managed to do 5 sets of Leg Module Level 1 on Tuesday, and 4 sets on Thursday.

This evening I was struck by intense hunger pangs.  I'd never experienced this much pain before from just being hungry.  I was also bloated with gas and having to burp a lot to try to release some.  I don't believe I ate anything all that unusual.  Breakfast was scrambled eggs w/ cheese, and potatoes.  Lunch was salad - mixed spring greens, chicken slices, boiled egg slices, beets, broccoli, edamame beans, artichokes - and an Italian soup of ravioli, tomato, and sausage.  I'd experienced the feeling of hunger before but not like this.  I'd already made plans to go grocery shopping, so when I arrived at Whole Foods, I gladly purchased a $7 Nepalese dinner plate with chicken, a potato-and-cauliflower dish, rice and two dumplings and wolfed it all down as if I'd been starved for weeks.  I was still hungry afterwards and so bought more Nepalese chicken dumplings.  Was this intense hunger due to my body wanting to build muscle after what thought was a moderate amount of exercise? We'll see.