Muscle Up Inspiration

"You'd be surprised at the things you can achieve when you believe.  The reality surpasses your dreams, and when that happens, there's no reason to sleep." Bar-Barian's Zef.

I had no idea that you could make such an exciting and inspirational video about fricken pull ups.  Zef does some insane moves, but some of it is good fodder for training ideas.  I am going to try out the horizontal pull ups, albeit at more of an angle than the beast on the video.  Holding pull ups at the top help build that strength I'll need.  Also, bringing my head in front of the bar is probably a good way to build up my back.

I was also glad to see that he sometimes used gloves.  This guy's tough (obviously) and if he wears gloves to keep his hands from being shredded, then I'm not a wimp just because I do as well.  I just bought a pair yesterday.  I promise not to use them all the time, but my hands are getting beat up and abused from the bar.  I like calluses, but pinched nerves are hindering my reps.

Check out their site at pull-ups.blogspot.com

Three Months - Three Goals

Goals motivate me.  Without them, I'd probably be lazy, eat junk, and feel like crap.  Goals are what motivated me to complete the Insanity Workout, two parkour bootcamps, and the Honolulu Marathon.  I do compare myself to others, but mainly I compete with myself.  I enjoy proving to that doubtful, pessimistic, negative voice in my head, that yes, I can achieve whatever I set my sights on.

I have set my sights on three goals that will by no means be easy.  I'm not 100% sure that I will reach them all in three months, but I will do my best.

Goal #1 (easyish) - Flagpole

Jason Stantham showing good form in the wind.

I call this one easyish because I can do one with poor form and hold it for a second.  I want to be able to hold solid flagpoles at varying angles for a decent amount of time (10-30 seconds maybe?) on both my left and right sides.  Why?  Because it looks cool and works your core, lats, and obliques like crazy.  Just look at Jason Stantham there.

Goal #2 (difficult) - Handstand

Daniel Illabaca relaxing and enjoying the view.

I can do a headstand with my forearms on the ground as long as there is a wall there to support me.  I suck at these and my yogini wife loves to taunt my form.  Something about being upside down scares me.  I really don't want to break my neck.  By the end of three months I hope to be able to comfortably stand on my hands without any support for a decent amount of time (again 10-30 seconds).  As a bonus, I think it would be cool to be able to walk on my hands, but we'll see.

Goal #3 (damn near impossible) - Muscle Ups

A patriotic demonstration of the muscle up progression.

These will be extremely difficult to perform, even poorly.  I have at times been able to do a respectable wall up, but then I have the huge advantage of being able to kick my feet off the wall and get more flat handed leverage.  Unlike the picture above, my goal is to do these on standard pull up bars, which seems more difficult than the rings, but I've never used those so I don't really know.  I'm imagining that good muscle ups will take skill, strength, and coordination that I do not currently have. 

I will keep you posted on how I actually plan getting there. 

Mmm...Turkey Leg

Ready to go!

My first Warrior Dash was a success.  Got there with my awesome wife and son who provided much appreciated moral support and photography skills.  I know this event is more for the fun of it than anything else, but I can't help it, if you provide times and rankings, I will compete.

There were only a few people ahead of me...for the first half mile.

I started out strong - probably too strong at about a six minute mile.  There weren't any obstacles early on.  With two miles and about ten obstacles ahead of me, I had to slow down.  I didn't like people passing me, but oh well.

The obstacles were fun.  My parkour training definitely came to play when I had to crawl under obstacles such as netting and barbed wire by using quadrapedal movement.  There was a section of vaults that I conquered with the essential safety vault my instructors at HIPK drilled into me.  Also, just being comfortable in precarious footing at some heights made getting over the bigger obstacles less intimidating.

On Fire!

The muddy swim, mud crawl, and fire jumps were the perfect way to end the dash.  Overall, I nearly met my goal by finishing in 31 minutes and 7 seconds.  Had I known I just needed to shave off a couple minutes to beat my goal, I definitely could have pushed harder.  In fact, my lack of soreness afterwards made me regret not going all out.  Oh well, there's always next time.  I finished in the top 8% overall which I am absolutely pleased with. (lower in my gender/age group, but I'm sticking with the better number)

After cleaning up, I ate this smokey bacon smelling turkey leg like a caveman.  So freaking good!

This is my future warrior in training.  He's got the grimace down at least.

First Post!

This is hopefully the first of many posts to PRIMAL MOVES. And it just so happens to be the day before the first Hawaii Warrior Dash.  My plan for this blog is to share original and linked content on parkour, training, conditioning, natural movement, body weight exercise, running, and whatever else that is good for your physical and mental health.

So, I've been training a bit for the Warrior Dash in the following ways: running up Diamond Head lookout trail at least a couple times a week and hitting up the stairway to hell 2-3 times a session.  The stairs are the "fun" part when repeatedly ascending them one or two steps at a time or doing box jumps at 3-4 steps a time.  I did it 4 times up and down once, and nearly blew out my knee (marathon tendon injury).  Flagpoles, pullups, flagpoles, monkey crawls, and beach sprints rounded out my training. 

It's been fun and culminated two days ago with running 2 miles (okay, okay, to be honest 1.8 or 1.9 miles) in 12 minutes.  Yesterday I tried to run a five minute mile...and failed.

At first I was going to just have fun at the Warrior Dash, not worry about time, and enjoy a turkey leg and beer afterwards.  But I recently started reading Iron War, about elite triathletes, who happen to be absolute beasts, and have been getting competitive.  Mostly due to this book, and partially due to my ego, I am going to push hard at the dash.  I plan on wedging my way to the front of the pack before the start.  Fueled by Red Bull, Gatorade, coffee, and carbs, I plan on pushing myself to the limit.  My goal?  Run 3 miles with 10 military style obstacles in less than 30 minutes.  Twenty minutes would be great, but I won't be disappointed if I don't get that.  Don't get me wrong, I still plan on having fun and enjoying a  beer and turkey leg afterward - I'll probably just be a whole heck of a lot more sore.

I will definitely post my results and thoughts in a couple of days.