Parallet L-sit to Straddle Planche

I had only worked on L-sits to Tuck Planches or 1-leg planches, but never L-sis to Straddle Planches. They went really well. They'll totally be in the rotation now.

Awesome Improvements on the Parallet Straddle Planche

You have to love the principles of CANI (Constant And Never-ending Improvements)!! The Parallet Tuck Planche to Straddle Planche just keeps on getting better. That Straddle Planche is so close I can smell it. I'm really not sure what a Straddle Planche smells like, but anyway, lol.

A really Fun Bar Exercise

This one is just a blast.

Start out with a muscle up and then go into a forward bar flip, and keep on repeating. Great for strength, power, body control, conditioning, and a whole lot of fun too.

How does it feel to turn 39?

How does turning 39 feel?

 

 

 

It Feels Pretty Damn Awesome!!!

Great Improvements on the Rings Handstand Push Ups

Hitting some strong handstand push ups on the rings. Jumped from sets of 3 to sets of 6!

Loving the Iron Cross Pumps!!

Nailed some really strong sets of Iron Cross Pumps. Love these!

Rings Routine is improving

Nailed a number of strong sets of the rings routine. Great improvements!

Handstand Push Up Birthday Celebration

In Honor of turning 39 today I though I'd hit a set of 39 handstand push ups. Started out on a jagged rock, so I had to move the hands at around the 20th rep. Other than that, they went pretty darn well.

Why V-sits?

Why Practice V-sits?

Because they'll not only give you abs of Iron, but an entire body of Cold-Rolled Steel!!

Straddle L-sit to handstand on the parallets

Close to the end of the morning parallet practice I thought I should hit some basics. So, I nailed 3 pretty strong sets of Straddle L-sits to Handstands. Not my best Straddle L-sit in this video. But the overall movement was nice.

Hit Richards Inspired Bar Work

Finished off this morning's practice with some Hit Richards inspired bar work. Felt pretty awesome. Nailed 2 rounds of it. Great way to finish off an hour and a half of rings practice, human flag work, and bar playing.

Human Flag, the video

Had a few people request a video, rather than pictures, of the human flag. So, here goes. Threw these in close to the end of this morning's practice. Hit a pretty strong 3 sets per side. Had a great kid cheering me on the whole time too. It was pretty awesome.

Handstand Push-ups on the Rings

Close to the end of this morning's practice, I decided to try some sets of Handstand Push-ups on the Rings. They felt really nice for the first time doing them. Couldn't hold the balance beyond the 3rd rep on any of the sets. But, nailed a number of sets of 3. Great stuff.

Working my Rocky 4 Mojo

Channeling my inner Rocky 4 mojo with some strong sets of Dragon Flags during this morning's practice.

Felt Awesome!!

Continuing the improvements on the parallet combo

A really strong parallet practice this morning. No high bar work, because of the rain, but I more than made up for it with the parallet training. Felt strong and awesome. Here's the final set of my parallet combination, love that it continues to improve.

115.5 pounds for rear dett raises

It's an amazing feeling to see constant and consistent improvement. Nailed a new PR with 3 sets of 6 reps per side on the Rear Delt Raises with 115.5 pounds. Had an 88 pound k-bell with a 20 pound k-bell, 5 pound weight plate and 2.5 pound weight plate tied to it. Feeling stronger every day :)

Feeling strong on the upright rows

Started off last night's training with some awesome sets of upright rows. Nailed 4 sets of 6 reps with 165 pounds. Felt strong and good. Not bad for only weighting 185, lol!

Why?......

Why?........

Because Screw Gravity!!!

That's Why!!!!

Bent-arm Lever to L-sit on the rings

These were feeling much better this morning. The Bent-arm Lever had a much better position and the transition to the L-sit felt natural. Nailed a nice 4 sets of these.

Great improvements in the rings combo

Upped the ante on the rings combo this morning. Changed the Single Leg Front Lever into a harder version, a Straddle Front Lever. Really seeing great improvements from top to bottom on the whole routine. Nailed a nice 4 rounds of it.

And now it's time for Fun With Flags

On Tuesday morning, after I finished up the rest of practice, I decided to try some Human Flags. Being that I'd never done them before, I didn't expect much. But I ended up nailing a bunch of sets of Tucked Flags, 1-leg Flags and Straddle Flags. Felt Awesome. Here's one of the straddle flags:

Then, on Wednesday morning, after finishing up my parallet and high bar practice, I decided to try them again. Second day went even better. Nailed a number of sets of full Flags. Here's one of them:

Love this movement. Might have to make them a regular part of training :)

My morning training partner

                                     

Usually she hides in the foliage when ever I bring out the camera, then comes back out when I put the camera away. But today I was able to take some good pictures. Here's my Wednesday and Friday morning Training Partner.

I had a great post to do, but....

I had a great post to do, but since BlogSpot won't allow me to even pull up the goddamn upload page for either the videos or the pictures I won't be able to post. All I can say is great fucking site you guys. It's awesome when you have a blog site that doesn't allow you to upload your videos or pictures. BlogSpot can seriously go FUCK IT SELF IN THE ASS AND DIE!!!!!! I'm a day away from completely cancelling all of my stuff here, because it's not worth it! BlogSpot you Fucking Suck in the worst possible way.

So, Fuck You BlogSpot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Handstand holds on the Rings

Was finishing off a great morning practice on the rings, but I didn't feel finished yet. So, I thought I'd see how I'd do trying to hold 3 sets of handstand on them for 30 seconds a piece. Awesome finisher.

One of the greatest lessons....

One of the greatest lessons that I've ever learned is quite simple: What many call "unrealistic" others call Monday morning. And one of those mindsets gets much better results than the other.

205 pound concentration curls

Started out Friday night's training with some strong barbell concentration curls. After 2 progressively heavier warm up sets, nailed a strong 3 sets of 8 with 205 pounds. Felt good.

Handstand finishers

After a record breaking upper body work out last night and a killer morning practice of parallet and high bar work; my upper body was feeling a bit thrashed. So, like any sane person, I felt the need to finish it off with seeing how well I could hold a handstand for 3 sets. Nailed 30 seconds on the first two sets and about 25 seconds on this one. Felt awesome still being able to do it while very fatigued!!

Tuck Planche to Straddle Planche

The tuck planche to straddle planche. Hit 5 strong sets of these today. And yes, I will own the straddle planche soon. Yes, I will!

Handstand to straddle planche, they will be mine

Worked the hell out of these this morning. Hit 4 sets going into a straddle planche and 4 sets going into a Figure-4 planche. They will be mine soon, oh yes, they will be mine soon.

Working the weak links: The German Hang

The German Hang is one of my weak links on the rings. So, on the advice of a friend of mine, I decided to start putting it in at the end of every rings session. Felt alright, but I can see many areas to improve upon.

Awesome improvements on the rings combo

From Thursday morning's practice, the rings combination just keeps on improving by leaps and bounds. Hit a really strong 4 sets of them today. Felt amazing! I'm starting to feel like a rings athlete, lol.

Keeping cool with some freestandng handstand push ups

Threw the old freestanding handstand push ups in at the end of practice on Wednesday and they felt pretty nice. Hit a good 4 sets of 5 reps. Can't seem to hold the balance after the 5th one though. Probably because I get too excited about doing the movement that I lose concentration, lol.

Parallet combo keeps on improving

Hitting these inside on Wednesday morning, lol. Still, they went awesome. Nailed 4 sets that all showed great improvement. I love, I'm really feeling like a cool acrobat :)

Killing the push ups death set

Push up death set from Tuesday night. Upped the weight to bodyweight plus 100 pounds. Hit these after my weighted dips, Eagle flexes and chest isometrics. Felt awesome!

Ah, people are funny

Ah, people are funny. This morning, I finished off this set of the floor routine, went to check the video to see what I could improve upon for the next set, and took of my shirt to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Just then a 31 year old guy walks up to me and tells me to really appreciate what I'm doing because, in his words, "Once you turn 30 it'll be IMPOSSIBLE to stay so muscular and fit and to do the things that you've been doing out here the past few weeks." His jaw hit the floor when I thanked him for the advice and then let him know that I'll be turning 39 in a few weeks. Instead of thinking of the hard work, clean living, good eating, smart training, discipline and dedication that I've used in my training he immediately yelled at me about how nice it must be to have my genetics. Then he accused my of abusing steroids because, in his own words again, "It's IMPOSSIBLE to look how I look and do what I do at almost 39!" As he stormed off, I watched the video, took notes on where to improve and hit two more sets of the floor routine, each one better than the last. People are funny :)

Jumping theBarbell Hack Squat to 425 for reps

F*** Yeah! 425 is mine. After a couple of warm up sets, nailed 4 sets of  5 with 425 pounds on the barbell Hack Squat. My Back Squat is currently 5 sets of 5 with 500 pounds, and the Hack Squat is creeping up on it. Awesome!

God graced me with......

God Graced me with the gift of a human body....

..........I believe it's my duty to take the finest possible care of it!!

This morning's rings combo was feeling awesome!

Here's the 5th of 5 sets of the rings combo. These felt really strong all morning. This was actually the weakest set. Both levers are getting better, and the German hand is improving. Love it.

Baby muscle ups on the bar

Hit a nice 3 sets of these, felt good!

Radial Pull ups

Hit a strong 5 sets of these. A great one to use to learn how to move around the bar while keeping space between you and it. Fun stuff.

Best parallet combo yet

I think this is my best performance of this combination yet. Apparently all you have to do is take the parallets outside, lol! A great 3 sets of these today, supersetted them with baby swings on the high bar.

Some upright rows and a great compliment

Love that my bride told me that my neck was so huge and thick it reminded her of a bull's while we were hitting our 4 working sets. Great compliment, I love it!!  Nailed all 4 sets with 145 pounds.

Bent arm lever with the rings higher up

Faced my fear of face planting and hit 3 more sets of bent arm levers on the rings with the rings set higher. Feeling pretty darn good.

Yeah! Rings Combo

After hitting 3 sets of the rings combo at the first location, then relocating here and working my Iron Cross Pumps for 3 sets, I thought I'd hit two more sets of the combination. Feeling pretty good. Still can be polished, but good improvements.

Bent arm lever on the rings

Started out with the bar low on these, just too get over the fear of face planting. Felt pretty good.

How do you know when you've over balanced on your shoulder stands?

Love working on new skills on the rings. And, how do you know when you've over balanced on your rings shoulder stands? This happens. It's also why you always start new skills with the rings down low, lol!

2nd day with the floor routine

2nd day of the floor routine went really well. Changed the 1-arm cartwheel to an aerial (no hand) cartwheel, had better overall technique, remembered what came next and got my spacing better. Here's the 5th time through it.

Fooling around with some archer push ups

Waiting for things to run on the computer, and fooling around with some archer push up variations.

A little high bar fun

Here's a great movement that people can use once they've covered some of the basic essentials to really feel athletic on the high bar. A Basic Forward Roll:

A little floor routine work

Finished up practice this morning with some floor routine work. This  was my first time putting this all together and it was a blast. Needs some polishing, but not bad for the first day.

Push up Death Sets

How do you finish up after 4 hard sets of weighted dips,3 tough sets of chest flies on the gymnastics rings and 6 strong sets of chest isometrics? With Push up Death sets. Used bodyweight plus 90 pounds of resistance from the power push up. Felt tough but awesome.

A great "Good Morning" Drink

Here's a great "Good Morning" Drink. It'll energize you, give you some good protein, vitamins and minerals, get you feeling ready for the day. And, it's delicious to boot. Based on some old time bodybuilding recipes, specifically Steve Reeves.

V-sits keep on improving

Finished up last night's training with 3 sets of V-sits. Kind of insane after the rest of what Melissa and I did in our workout, lol! But, great to see that they're improving!

405 pound Hack Squats for reps

Last week, after nailing 4 sets of 5 reps with 385 pounds for my Hack Squats I said I'd go over 400 this week. Last night, I pulled out a strong and fairly easy 4 sets f 5 reps with 405 pounds. Felt awesome! I'll be looking for 425 soon!

Some outdoor fun

Sometimes you find places that just cry out for you to practice Kung Fu, gymnastics and tumbling:

 

Abdominal Death Sets

A great way to hit that midsection. As many hanging leg raises as possible, followed by as many parallel bar leg raises as possible, followed by as many lying leg raises as possible. Repeat for three sets.  Felt awesome. Here's the final set.

I couldn't get the video to upload here, so, here's the link to the youtube video:

https://youtu.be/omrl6WLoPrM


Awesome midsection work!!