All Activity

Ran 10 miles this morning with some members of the club

That about sums it up.

What I'm hoping for too. What I know for sure is if I do nothing, no problem ever goes away. And pausing in the top position of chinups (and trying to pull the bar closer to the throat at the same time) is excellent isometric work (and perfect for people like me who are weakest in that position).

LRP in the mornings. Mindful breaths through the day. Beautiful sunset over the lake tonight. A relatively short session to write about today (longer to do). I did 8 rounds of 30s on 10s off sessions of skipping on Saturday and Sunday. I did 8x45s on 10s off skipping today. Roughly 2 jumps/second. I'm noticing an old ankle sprain a bit with the skipping (from the beginning), so I'm hopeful that continued practice in the right amount rehabs it eventually. 10x1 pullups +10kg. These are feeling a little easier which is nice. I'm generally pausing for a few seconds up at the top. 2-3 minutes of rest between them. Tuck front lever position -> controlled floor dismounts. I don't really know what to call these. But when I first tried doing the tucked front levers I had to get into them awkwardly from above, and didn't really have a smooth dismount out of them. Now I'm trying to build the strength to be able to get into and out of them smoothly. Getting into them is still not possible without momentum or else a toe hook on what I'm grabbing onto to pull myself into it, getting out of them is now smooth and quiet though. Bent leg L-sits - focusing on figuring out lat engagement and the press off the floor more than the core aspect of it. Single leg dose pose - No ladder bars, exploration of tight lines. I should have taken a long break between sides. There was some burn in the trapezius by the end. Tailor pose - Heading South for a bit and will likely bring some more weights back with me to see if the weighted bounce technique will work with more weight than I have with me. Right now, I'm using the spend ~10-20 minutes sitting in the end position between sets of contractions with little bits of rocking the pelvic forward and backwards. I think I've reached a plateau with this one at the moment, so I'll keep practicing it. I ran through the hand/finger sequence while I was waiting. I ended the session with the Rod of Correction on my calves. The skipping made that more intense than usual.

Recovery run today,ran easy and sped up on the way in

I did a lap of the Palace,some leg swings and 4 strides as a warmup.Met my uncle and did some kilometers with him.Finished with another lap of the palace and 5 hill sprints

Thanks Kit, I will give that a try. Edited to add: That makes quite a difference to the feel of the movement generally and no cramping which is nice. I made it to 16s with a full floor one with that cue, so that's definitely a piece that I was missing.

Cue yourself to flex the lats hard first (so pull them down to the hips before pressing yourself off the floor); this can make them do more work (and you could feel a bit less in the triceps).

I designed the cue (to bring the arm up in front of the body and then overhead) explicitly to reduce the effect on the shoulders, because so many people are so tight there (we feel that movement in the shoulders, but it's because the lats are too tight). And people who have frozen shoulders and other problems of that sort have been able to do the side bend if they bring the arm across the front of their body instead of the usual out and up. As long as you reach as far off the fingertips as you can in the end position, the stretch should be the same.

I believe it is a true plus to hang daily. I try to do this every day myself. Initially, if there's not enough range of movement in the shoulders, you will feel it there – but as your lats loosen and the arms and spine come into alignment (and this might take a bit of active hanging to achieve), then one day you'll find that you can actually relax completely apart from your hands working. This is a major change and in my experience 100% beneficial.

LRP in the mornings. I'm planning to try metta during lunch break to see if moving it earlier helps with consistency. Skipping again yesterday, same 8 rounds of 30s on 10s off. I'm feeling it less in my calves today than I have previously, but still sticking with the the same volume for a couple more sessions before I change it. I'm quite aware of an old ankle sprain when I'm doing it, so I'm hoping it helps rehab that some more. 8x1 pullups + 10kg yesterday. Shorter rest between sets. --- 4x30s alternating one arm hangs (no rest) - for anyone wondering about the significant time jump compared to recent posts, I wrapped an old wide and thin resistance band around the bar so I wasn't slipping off from lack of friction. The problem with that method is the likelihood of blisters from too much friction, so chalk or handle bar tape still seem like they are probably better solutions in the long term. Pulling myself up high enough to get my other hand up onto the bar to switch was harder than I thought it would be, more practice needed. 3x12/side sandbag (20kg) split squats 15 minutes in a resting squat - I mostly spent the time exploring hands and wrist mobility. It's been a while since I sat in the bottom of a squat for a while, but still basically effortless. I went through this one today. Hip circles - tight left adductors with this one today for some reason and somewhat tight right hamstring. Side bend - not really significant, but I find I always bring the arm up and and over rather than across and up to bring on more stretch and assume that's a side effect of that movement being patterned from dead hangs and pullups. I liked the Sumo squat rotations a lot. I'm going to incorporate them more often. Good stretch in the groin. Added in some calf stretches before the squat <-> standing forward bend sequence to alleviate some of the tension in the back of the leg. Limbered into straight legs at the end. The triangle pose variant and contractions are quite intense today. My left side is quite a bit looser than the right. Hip swing -> lunge was interesting. My pauses before putting the foot down were very brief, so I'll work on those. Seated piriformis stretch. Very deep with this one today and not a whole lot of stretch on the right side, more stretch on the left side. The rotation that followed was novel. I'm not sure what I make of it, it didn't feel intense so much as unusual. There was a spot that stretched wonderfully just above my right hip that went away when I did it properly with the slump. There are some areas in the middle back that clearly haven't moved in that way in a long time too, but they weren't stretched so much as stiff. The diamond pose was an interesting comparison with the sensations in the Tailor pose, and I spent some time afterwards working on the same pelvis shifts (I can do that a little bit now, whereas previously there was much less ability for that). I'm finding more nuances in the sensations in the inner thighs and groin, and also with the muscles at the back of the hips that pull the knees down. Back bends - these were much needed today. I finished off with 20s tucked L-sit that for some reason cramped my triceps significantly since I was focused on pushing myself off the floor.

I spent several days of shoveling snow after the big east coast snow storm on the 25th. Without the Daily 5, I’m not sure my back would have survived the constant demand. I focused on my shoulders today. I limbered by hanging as suggested, and stretched out with the band. My focused stretches were my internal and external rotators - against the wall and my own hip respectively - and the cat stretch variation. I better understood “moving my hips out of the way” this attempt, which made more sense to me as pulling my non-stretching-side hip towards the same side shoulder in the horizontal plane. It’s a fun puzzle to work on a pose and explore for the tightest line. Hanging again after stretching, I felt the burn most in my hands and in the caps of my shoulders. And I felt a bit penned in by my arms because my head neither hangs relaxedly in front of our behind them. But mostly it felt good to hang.

This is exactly why boxers skip, and I've probably mentioned this in the past. I am doing similar bounces at the moment myself, but without the rope. I have found increasing numbers in any set works the best for me. Once I got up to sets of 300 x 3, calves were rehabbed. And building the capacity to generate and use stored elastic energy is definitely part of the transition to 100% barefoot. Re. metta being sporadic in the evenings: I have found an inverse relationship between fatigue and metta, so not surprising. Keep going!

LRP in the mornings. Waking up earlier makes that easier. More relaxation through the day and deliberately letting go of tension. Metta is still sporadic in the evenings. Skipping is something I'm still getting used to, right now I'm doing roughly every other day 30s on, 10s off for 8 rounds (went again. I'll stick with that for another week or two and then increase the number of rounds or interval lengths, not sure which at this point. I generally seem to hit just over 2 jumps/second (usually 64-66 jumps in 30s). I mostly feel it in my calves, feet, quads, and glutes none of which is surprising. I can imagine that this might be the answer to building up enough calf strength/endurance to make the transition to barefoot running easier. L7 - Pancake preparation session. I probably should have done this one sooner, but it was good to work through it at this point anyway. Hip flexor lunge - mostly limited by the hamstrings of the front leg at this point. There's stretch in the hip flexors though. Some sideways lean to get the second elbow down after the contractions. Sumo squat - I should work more on these. I don't find them especially fatiguing in my quads at this point--especially with the arms holding me up, but pulling the knees wider with the muscles at the back of the hips is relatively taxing. Squashed frog - This one still is not my favourite stretch. I know from previous experiences that more knee padding is in order so I had a folded blanket handy. I found the most groin stretch in the pelvis tilted forward rather than tail tucked and increased it somewhat when I moved back towards the feet a little bit. Elephant walk - My hamstrings are quite a bit tighter today than my normal. That may relate to the skipping and calf tightness associated with it. A little bit of sensation in the lower back--especially with the two leg version at the end. Under butt - mostly lower hamstring today, very different sensation than when I tried it previously. Straight wide legged forward bend - mostly gracilis and a little bit of hamstring + lower back. Half pancake - quite intense through the inner thigh/gracilis today. It seems to also be going down into the inside side of my calf (quite a ways down). I assume that's some calf tightness from the skipping. Internal rotations - nice way to end.

That last thread is a crack-up, even now. Thanks for digging it out!

I don't see a thread specifically about HF ballistics, but there are several big ballistics threads, so Emmet was likely referring to the discussion in one of those (even if not, all worth a read): Head to Toe stretching Ballistic stretching; 90-day challenge, ongoing reports Stretching Chinese Style Was happy to find this gem again: One does not simply...

for anyone in the future reading this...here's what I dug up searching around. I haven't read this all yet. it's on my Feb to-do list to read / implement. - This looks like exactly what I was looking for: https://www.instagram.com/p/BFyn1LQudL8/ - Full instructions are here wrt protocol - this was for hamstring stretching. Emmet was pretty clear that this was only to be done as a finishing step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydaz_E4xZM0&list=WL&index=58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs-iOux0zps&list=WL&index=59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HVsDRjOHqU&list=WL&index=57 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXsjtgsca3g&list=WL&index=61 - Emmet linked this video by Kit showing how to roll fascia with a dowel - and encouraged everyone to use this during the Head to Toe Protocol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1nxYoWA0GI - Emmet posted on here with the same video and there was some experiments by users: https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/875-head-to-toe-stretching/ https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/881-ballistic-stretching-90-day-challenge-ongoing-reports/page/4/&_rid=6962#findComment-10038 - I also found this post and this video...but not the exact ballistic version on reddit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHwyBHS6MQs - it led me to this great thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/flexibility/comments/3fewg8/august_is_hip_flexor_opening_month_look_inside/

sounds good. thank you Kit. my search skills suck perhaps I'll keep digging...in the meantime I have about 15 tabs of interesting threads I came across that I will be reading over the next week - so it wasn't a waste of time.

I do not recall that thread, and we have never deleted anything here. And Emmet is a good friend. I am completely happy with having anything from Emmet posted here, so if someone remembers the content, feel free to re-post it.

please remove if not allowed. sry in advance. I came across a video of Emmet Louis from 11 years ago on Ballistic Stretching. He said in the video he also planned on giving specific instruction on Ballistic Hip Flexor stretches and there was discussion in this forum about it. I searched for a bit but couldn't find it. does anyone happen to remember that thread or have a link offhand? or is it as simple as just doing my normal hip flexor stretches but adding the ballistics at the end? I am wanting to give it a go to try to break through a bit of a plateau I'm having. the ballistics worked rather well for me for hamstrings...it works especially good for me for getting from my cold range to "warmed" range rather fast. thank you!!

It really shows you how much of our stress we create ourselves—and we're not aware we're doing it. Very insightful, yes. I can't remember his name, the ATG guy, but I'm pretty sure the heel coming up a bit is not a problem for that exercise. It was the stretching aspect of that exercise he credits with his excellent HF length. It is a great dynamic stretch, I feel. If you take away the balance component (finger against a wall), and really tuck the tail, square the hips, sink the hips until the back knee touches the floor, and use the back leg's quad to straighten the back leg, and stay there, you can make it an excellent active stretch out of it.

Today was the first time my knees touched the ground (with both shoulders down) in the spinal rotation exercise of the daily five. I don't do it as often as I probably should, but today my body just kind of spontaneous turned into a close enough facsimile of it that I did it. I was pleasantly surprised with where I ended up and found it gave quite a nice working of the muscles along the spine. LRP in the mornings. I'm learning a lot about myself by sticking to it at that time of day. Some mornings I'm more pressed for time than others and observing my response to LRP and just how much less inclined to relax I am because of the imminent deadline to leave right after an LRP on those days is insightful. Despite not really considering myself a morning person, I find myself waking up earlier to build in more time to remove the rush in the mornings so I can relax into my days. Metta in the evenings is still quite sporadic. I've been considering some form of indoor cardio for a while. Reading Kit's comment here and having made multiple attempts over the years to start skipping that didn't stick, I decided to finally just embrace the learning that comes with picking up a new skill. I'm planning on a pretty gradual increase to avoid shin splits and aggravating other old injuries, so did 5 minutes of 20s on 10s off to start. --- Pullups 6x1 +10kg neutral grip (did one regular grip--markedly harder than the others in the upper back) One arm hangs 2x10s/side I tried the tucked ow + front lever tuck variation. I will keep it in mind and come back to it when I'm stronger than I am now or when the weighted pullups feel easier than they do now. That is a brilliant combination though. Wrist warmup - supporting the bad wrist with the good hand through the awkward palm up variations to warm into it. This is one of those things that like physio is quite painful until I eventually get used to it. In this case, it's, I assume fascia running along the ulna and some tendons on the inside of the wrist where I seem to be feeling it. I had the same general problem with pushups early on, and again when trying to do diamond pushups Yesterdayages back. I'm going to keep working at it. Calf stretches + hamstring limbers - preparatory for the L-sits so I'm not limited by any tightness in the back of the leg. Chest stretch - I usually follow it up with some wide grip on a stick (my rod of correction is a 4' length of dowel) overhead and then let my chest relax as my straight arms fall and stretch backwards. L-sit 10s full today. The rest were one leg up one leg down. Still more limited by the pressing myself off the ground for that length of time than by core strength with these. Gracilis is tight on the right side with these today. I had planned to go through the rest of the Monkey gym circuit 1 and I should have started with it instead of the pullups or skipping. Sandbag (really a 20kg sack of wood pellets, but I'll refer to it as a sandbag since that's what it resembles) split squats 2x10/side. I'm not sure how I'll react to these, so I erred on the side of caution with the volume but after I started to feel them. I'm not used to the form with these, but I'm trying to keep the weight forward. 1x10/side ATG split squats (trying to keep my front heel down, hamstring to calf, feel the hip flexor in my back leg to get low enough). I may need to do these on blocks to get full range before my back knee hits the ground if I keep my front heel down. I'll stretch tomorrow or Sunday unless I'm too sore.

That is because your ankles are not loose enough and the muscles at the front of the shin have to work hard to pull the knee as far forward as possible against that resistance. Same with the lower back: if your ankles are not loose enough, the only way to maintain your balance is to bend the trunk forward to bring the central gravity forward. Work on all the ankle stretches we have, both on our side and on YouTube. Once you're loose enough in the ankles, you'll be able to drop your body weight down without any muscular effort whatsoever – and the weight of the body will keep you in the bottom position of the squat. This is how most Asians hang around to smoke a cigarette –and we're talking about 80 and 90 year-old men here. It's definitely doable and it will only take time and a bit of effort.

Worked on my squat today limbering: boxing the compass, butterfly and some sumo squat exercises: relaxed lunge, diamond pose and a little time in full squat with my heels elevated. Diamond pose is something I feel down the entire length of my leg, with sharper sensation behind the knees. Another pose I am interested to stick with and observe over time, not least of which because I saw a video of 100 year old Dick Van Dyke doing the pose with ease. Lunging is strongest in my hips, and I’m trying to avoid over doing it there because I’ve felt like knots multiply in my flexors after too much direct pulling. Trying to strike a balance. Holding a deep squat, I feel a lot of effort in my shins, hips, and back. My right knee is difficult but not terrible. I feel confident here though, very optimistic about room for potential in this pose. I plan to begin my day tomorrow with a relaxation lesson as a kind of Friday treat. I’m looking forward to it!

Look up torticollis; literally Latin for "wry neck". This extremely painful condition can be caused by a draught from a window while sleeping! And torticollis is 100% the domain of levator scapulae. This condition has been talked about for centuries. To future proof yourself against these sorts of things, we need to strengthen these muscles, and also make sure that we're not holding excessive tension in the neck area – what most people don't understand is the tension anywhere in the neck is going to cause the muscles which are the tightest – and in everyone that's levator scapulae – to either go into spasm or start signalling pain. This is how the body works in this universe. And don't worry about overdeveloping the neck muscles or anything like that – most people have never done any specific strengthening work for levator scapuale, and as a result they respond very quickly. But increasing the strength of these muscles will not make your neck look like Mike Tyson's or anything like that. As well, and at the same time (and after the strengthening work as a perfect time to do this), we do need to take the head and neck through that full range of movement I described above. In other words, as far forward as possible, and while holding the head forward, cautiously take it to the side as far as possible. That puts levator scapulae under direct stretch. General contractions can then be done (across and back to the starting position) – and don't forget the contractions themselves are strengthening.