This week I was going to resume The Giant style training with single 20kg kettlebell. However, a couple of months ago, I strained something in the thumb side of my right forearm while carrying stuff to my car with an awkward grip. Holding a pitcher of water without support from the left hand was painful. Months later, holding the pitcher doesn't hurt as much, but when I clean a 20kg kettlebell, something about the action of pulling the KB on the upswing into the rack is still annoying for my right forearm.
So for this training block, I decided to try the Free Planche Mini Course taught by Eduardo Orihuela, a fitness coach who I first saw in GMB Fitness courses as a Lead GMB Trainer. Previously, I had thought of waiting until I can clean-and-press double 32kg kettlebells, which is close to my bodyweight, before taking Eduardo's planche mini course, which is really a course on planche push up training, not just planche. Planche push ups require both strength and skill to execute. I thought I would train primarily with KBs until when I'm able to clean+press double 32kg KBs, then try my luck with planche push ups, because rate of progress in terms of strength and muscle gains have been higher for me with The Giant style training than with pure bodyweight training. However, with my forearm problem eliminating The Giant style training as an option for now, I'm going with the planche mini course until my forearm feels better. It's designed to accommodate a wide variety of fitness levels - from those who are already strong, to those who can't even do one push up on the floor yet, so you don't have to be pressing double 32s before you can try it.
The mini course appears to be built on the GMB Method. Looking at the weekly schedule, I recognize the 5P's of the GMB Method - Prepare, Practice, Play, Push, and Ponder. Every day of the week has Prepare and Ponder. 2 days have Practice A and another 2 days have Practice B. There is one Play day, paired with Practice A. There is a Push day, also paired with Practice A.
I plan to do the Planche Mini Course until I feel that my right elbow can handle cleaning a 20kg KB again. This could be a few weeks or it could be months on end. Elbow tendons don't heal as fast as we would like.
5/11
Activity on this date was logged here.
MM Pike
5/12
Practice B - This is practicing a variation of GMB's Monkey locomotion in which we work on lengthening the legs as they leave the floor, working towards a cartwheel. The mini course has you working towards a handstand on the Practice A track. The cartwheel is how you would bail out of a handstand when you lose your balance. The journey to cartwheel itself develops attributes for better hand balancing. The planche is a hand balancing skill.
MM Bridge
5/13
MM Bridge - The couch stretch is annoying as always but I got my shoulder blade to touch the wall for both sides.
MM Horse Stance - I was unable complete 3 rounds. After 2 rounds I ran out of time. I'm not too worried because out of Master Mobility's 3 targetted positions, Horse Stance has the lowest priority for me.
5/14
Practice A - This time I decided to attempt a headstand on the floor instead of using the FeetUp device. I used two puzzle mat tiles as a cushion for my head. I tried setting the hands at various distances from my head to find a hand placement that would allow me to get into headstand without excessive effort. Once I found a decent hand placement, I worked on holding the headstand for time. My best time was 15 seconds. A few hours later, the back of my neck was sore. I think it's just because I hadn't made those neck muscles work in a while. Next time, I'll work on putting more of my weight on my hands. To progress to Crow Pose, my hands need to be able to support all of my bodywieght, so that I can lift my head.
Push - The mini course instructions is to work on push ups on the rings, if you are not strong enough to do push ups on parallettes, then practice push ups on parallettes. The next progression is to lean forward so that the shoulders are in front of the hands, and do push ups with this forward lean, until the shoulders are so far ahead of the hands, at the bottom of the push up, that the feet are floating. Once the feet are floating at the bottom of the push up, it's time to move on to the next progression, which is Eduardo's tuck planche push up negative to dip positive exercise. So for this day I did 6 sets of 3 push ups (no lean) on the parallettes. I did 3-rep sets because I could do 3 reps without feeling like I was training to failure. I narrowly avoided irritating my suspect left shoulder. Next week, I'm going to switch to ring dips with a 4kg plate, because ring dips feel less risky for my problematic left shoulder than parallette pushups. The purpose of a Push session in the mini course is to improve conditioning (and strength too I have to assume) to help us bridge the gap between planche progressions. I think ring dips will accomplish this goal just as well as parallette pushups. I plan to do unweighted ring dips for 4 weeks, which should be enough to get me back to where my ring dip performance was at the end of my last Easy Muscle training block this past March. Then I'll start using a dip belt with 4kg plate and work with that for up to 8 weeks. Then I may switch back to parallette pushups.
5/12
Practice B - Afterwards, did ring assisted pistol squats, then 3 broad jumps get in some leg work and warm up the hips for MM Horse Stance.
MM Horse Stance - Did 3 rounds this time.
I have a Bells of Steel green/average fabric resistance band that reportedly has 80 lbs. of resistance at full stretch. So, I hung it from my pullup bar, got it around my waist, then attempted to do a tuck planche on the parallettes. The band did not take away enough of my bodyweight to make this attempt easy. My shoulders, arms, etc. still had to work really hard. I don't think I got my hips as high as my shoulders, which would be a proper tuck planche. So for next week's Play session, I will still have to do Frogger on the floor, working towards being able to lean forward enough and hold the lean long enough to stall with my feet in the air. One recent trend in calisthenics is use of resistance bands to speed up progression towards a full planche, hence Eduardo's suggestion to try using a band after you have progressed beyond the Frogger play.
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