Kit_L
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Posts posted by Kit_L
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Chip time? Meaning?
In any case, congratulations are in order, no? That's definitely a PB.
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8 hours ago, holenother said:
A kind of new year's resolution in miniature, with subsequent failure to live up to expectations as a predictable comedown.
Best to have no expectations with respect to this activity. The is no such thing as a "bad" relaxation or meditation session (or a "good" one, for that matter): there is only the noticing of what happens in the process. There will be distractions; that is what is happening, and not good, not bad. This is meditation, and relaxation practise. Before you begin next time, say to yourself, "suspend all judgements".
I hope this doesn't sound too cryptic, but the root of all suffering is the deep wish that reality be something different to what it is.
Breathe, and relax.
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My suggestion is to be careful with your split times, run as relaxedly as you can, and see what happens. Expectations are a mother&^%er. No expectations means no disappointments. Let's see what happens. —support squad.
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21 hours ago, Ned said:
so I'm hopeful that continued practice in the right amount rehabs it eventually.
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).
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2 hours ago, Ned said:
for some reason cramped my triceps significantly since I was focused on pushing myself off the floor.
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).
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2 hours ago, Ned said:
bring the arm up and and over rather than across and up to bring on more stretch
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.
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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.
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22 hours ago, Ned said:
I can imagine that this might be the answer to building up enough calf strength/endurance to make the transition to barefoot running easier.
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!
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That last thread is a crack-up, even now. Thanks for digging it out!
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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.
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5 hours ago, Ned said:
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.
It really shows you how much of our stress we create ourselves—and we're not aware we're doing it. Very insightful, yes.
5 hours ago, Ned said:if I keep my front heel down
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.
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4 hours ago, holenother said:
Holding a deep squat, I feel a lot of effort in my shins, hips, and back.
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.
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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.
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@Matt Chung: the location looks like the same spot that literally everyone holds tension in: the lower fibres of levator scapulae. Once the soreness settles down, you can test this by carefully taking the head forwards with a neutral thoracic spine, then taking the head to the side (while maintaining the forwardness). You'll soon know if it's LS. Strengthening the shrugging muscles (there are lots of them; don't overthink it) usually works in time. Once a week will be enough.
In my clinical experience, it's unusual to injure the rhomboids. LS is (statistically) much more likely. Rhomboids are strengthened by full protraction/retraction in horizontal pulling movements.
For everyone, some strengthening of horizontal pushing and pulling muscles, along with complementary vertical pushing and pulling is necessary in today's sedentary life.
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The best thing you can do for your shoulders is learn to hang, eventually (apart from our hands) being fully relaxed, for time. We have some videos on our YouTube channel that talk about this. I would definitely do this before doing the warming up exercises for the shoulders – and you can do a set at the end as well and then chart the sensations in the shoulders over time.
When I was making the YouTube video, my then training partner Craig and I learned to hang by one arm for a five full minutes, alternating the arms every 30". This is a bit extreme but nothing will help your shoulders and improve your grip strength more than this. Of course, start with two arms!
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If you can afford a decent remedial massage therapist, they can really get into those calves and they can make a truly significant difference to the speed of recovery. I need some work on my own calves after doing some running the other day – I have small muscle tear in my left calf as a result of this. It's a very long-standing injury in my case.
And I have found that only doing the kind of bouncing that you do when skipping is the right kind of stress to heal this, at least for a while. No amount of strengthening the calves seems to have any effect on this weakness. The injury is likely fascial, so needs work that targets this material. Light bouncing does (and it's one of the reasons all boxers skip).
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7 hours ago, Ned said:
1x10s tuck front-lever holds.
That's some time under tension there.
If you want some variation (and I'm working on these myself at the moment), once you've got the initial position do tuck front lever rows – the arm and back effect, assuming you're doing full range of movement from the bottom (so, protract), is very intense. I normally start the rep with the rows, doing as many as I can (10–15, the last being partials), and only then do I untuck the legs and then hold the hardest position I can statically, for at least 10 to 15 seconds, and I hold it until I'm pulled to the ground by gravity and I'm working negatively the whole time, resisting as hard as I can. I normally only do two of these and that is my whole session on that exercise. I have been working like this for a couple of months, and I have found that I've gotten stronger every workout – the last time I did these, which was two days ago, my thighs were vertical in the untucked position with a straight back.
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Do you have something you can hang from?
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Welcome, @holenother. You've started; that's the big one. You'll get plenty of help here. And read this:
https://stretchtherapy.net/relaxation-wiki/
And if you're sore from an earlier workout, skip today's and go for a walk, or a swim, instead. All this takes time.
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https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/374-the-daily-five/
We added the hip flexor stretch because it was needed with all the sitting everyone's doing these days! So it's really the Daily Six now.
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Perfect!
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Ned, IMO if you are doing the straight-arm plank well, you can drop the elbow one—it's usually the beginner's way in, and is easier than the straight-arm version.
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16 hours ago, Matt Chung said:
"I've never heard of the "five hindrances" nor "three poisons"
Core teachings from Theravada. Together with the Four Noble Truths, probably the most important teachings of Buddhism.
If the prerecorded LRPs do not resonate, or are not experienced as useful, ditch them. Olivia never uses them—she does three rounds of 108 breaths. These numbers depend on how quickly you breathe—108 breaths is enough for one session for me presently.
BTW, when you are really tired, a longer practise can be better than sleep and can be substituted for it. And if you wake up around 03:00 thinking about something, re-start the practise then—and tell yourself, "I'm resting." Very likely you'll go back to sleep, and if you don't, you'll be practising, not worrying about not sleeping, and giving the mind something useful to do.
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6 hours ago, Gareth O Connor said:
"aversion" one of the five hindrances
No, this is not accurate. The five hindrances are sensory desire, ill will, sloth and torpor (my favourite; will comment on this later), restlessness and worry, and skeptical doubt.
Two of the three poisons, in contrast, are attraction (sometimes labelled greed, or craving), and aversion (sometimes cast as hatred or anger). These are driven by the third poison, ignorance or delusion; together these three "unwholesome roots" are the primary causes of all suffering, and why we pay attention to them.
While talking to Olivia this morning, she immediately described boredom as aversion, and on brief reflection, she is right, I feel. Leaving aside the theoretical/explanatory roots of this (we are confining ourselves here to the Buddhist perspective; there are many others), her suggestion is to try breath counting, instead of listening to a pre-recorded LRP, or doing one while trying to hold attention on the breath.
Breath counting may just do what @Matt Chung needs. It is simplicity itself. In addition to feeling all the movements I described above, after you have breathed in, relax and breathe out, and somewhere in between starting to breathe out, count to yourself, "one". And on the next breath our, increment the count to "two", and so on. Multiples of 27 are considered auspicious.
If you lose the count, either go back to "one" (harsh, perhaps, but this will show you your current capacity to hold your awareness on one thing), or go back to the last number you remember clearly. A Zen roshi once told me breath counting was his sole practise for 14 years, so you'll be in good company!
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Ned's log
in Workout Logs
Posted
Not that we have a choice! But embracing this reality changes everything.
And very nice progress on the chins, too.