blogging the bear

[rubthebuddha]

SAFE!




how's the shoulder doing, anyway?

[Oso]

it's still screwed. trying to deal with it till after the mantis symposium in april at the GL Tourney. thanks.

[Oso]

Thursday

45 minutes of forms work.

Chuji Chuen x 5
Bung Bu x 20

Normal class warmup

8 x 2 minute rounds of sparring w/ 1 minute rests.
Granted, just my students but I intentionally played a fast game w/ light contact to get as much of a cardio workout as I could.

Friday

30 minutes forms work -- started recapturing White Ape Steals the Peach. Learned it last spring and lost it due to other, mandatory, sets that needed to be learned.

Sparring Class

Opened with the 30 minute interval/plyo routine outlined upthread and recapped heunh:


JJ's
Hindu's
Bootstrappers
Pushups
Crunches
Leg Lifts
Full Situps
Hopping back and forth across a line
Hopping side to side across a line
Hopping clockwise around a square
Hopping counterclockwise around a square
Zig Zag hopping across a sqare
Hopping horse to crane, alternating legs on the crane
Hopping horse to cross stance, alternating
Hopping horse to circle entering stance, alternating


then drills for an hour

then

3 x 2 minute sparring rounds.

I know not too much but only had one student show up for the sparring class.

Saturday

3 x 20 pushups
1 x 18 pushups (failed)
(1 minute rests)

1 x 6 normal pullup
1 min rest
1 x 6 narrow pullup
1 min rest
1 x 6 normal chin up

as normal for now, i'm lacking like an inch of completing a full ROM on the first one and degrade through the remaining 5.

then I did my PT work for my shoulder

delt raises: a set of 10 each direction off of the shoulder for a total of 50. 3 x 50, 1 min rests

Then the rotator cuff thing where you lie on your side and hinge the shoulder off your side. 3 x 10 each side, alternating, no timed rests

Then a rubber band thing that also works on rotator cuff.
3 x 30 forward and backward, alternating, no timed rests

Legs

my legs were pretty much toast from thursday and friday, I could feel some minor tearing feeling in the hams. so, I did a super light leg warmup more than an actual workout.

10 BW squats
10 Bootstrappers
10 lunges, each leg

I did the above as a set, 3 times w/ 1 min rests between sets.

1 hour of forms work.

Sunday

1 hour forms work.

[Oso]

btw, down to 241.

but maybe really a bit less than that as I just weighed at 9pm EST and just ate 1/2 a cheese pizza and a beer.

[Oso]

Monday

Pretty light today. Needed to go to gym and get on the stairs but realized I had forgotten about feeding MY's cats while she is on vacation and because I had also forgotten Sunday, I had to go feed them twice...so, no cardio.

I'm getting bored with the PT program so I tried a little something different for my shoulders. Simply, I held my arms straight out to my sides, palms down and did small circles forward and backwards and then medium circles forward and backwards. I did a total of two minutes w/o rest. 30 seconds each.

Then I did a set up normal grip pullups

6 x 3
1 min rests.

Pushups
1x20
1x20
1x15
1x15
1 min rests

my shoulders were screaming at me at this point, I guess from the circles I did first.

that was it as I then gave a private lesson to a student before class.

[Chief Fox]

Hi Oso, I see that you have a shoulder problem. I have a shoulder problem too. It started last summer. I went to a doctor who recommended physical therapy. I started to do some stuff on my own and then stumbled across a different type of therapy. It's called Active Release Therapy or ART. In most cases it is performed by a chiropractor who is certified in the technique.

Here's how it works. The doc checks out your shoulder for range of movement and I would describe the level of pain with each movement. He would then apply some resistance that I would have to push against in order to pinpoint the area where the problem is. He would then dig his fingers down in between muscles and tendons and apply pressure to "the spot". Then he would have me move my arm through a range of motion. This was extremely painful but in my opinion very helpful. The idea is to loosen up scar tissue that has developed. I went to about 8 treatments and went from barely being able to raise my left arm to being able to put my bicep to my ear.

I've also been doing three stretches for my shoulders.
1. With your hands down at your sides, put your hands behind your back and lace your finger together. While standing straight up slowly riase your arms up behind you. The idea is to get your arms parallel with the ground while you're still standing straight up.
2. With a broom stick. Hold the broom stick in front of you with your hands at either end. While keeping your arms straight. Raise your arms up and over your head and then down behind you. Once you're comfortable with this, move your hands closer together and repeat.
3. Again with the broom stick. Hold broom stick in front of you. One of your palms should be facing down and the other should be facing up while the broomstick is parallel to the ground. Cross your arms. The palm facing up will go over the top and eventually be facing down. The palm facing down will go underneath and eventually will be facing up.

Another that I've recently started in addition to normal rotator cuff exercises is clubbell training. I made my own clubbells out of plastic bats and sand. I've been doing the exercises for a few weeks and have noticed and increase in stability.

I also swim for shoulder strength.

I'm not sure any of this helps. But this is what I've been doing and it has helped me. Just thought I would share.

[Oso]

CF, thanks for the tip. I'd looked into ART and there are people here in town that offer it.

I have a bone spur and 3 small tears. The Dr didn't want to do surgery and wanted me to do PT. I finished the PT but haven't gone back to the doctor because if it is going to indeed be surgery I need to wait till after the end of April.

I have full ROM and basic strength is good (the doctor literally hung off my arm when he was checking strength).

thanks

[Chief Fox]

Sounds like we've got two completely different issues. Sorry about my long post. I'm sure we both know that shoulder problems suck. Hang in there man.

[Oso]

CF, no worries.

Sorry about the late response...not too much time to post at the moment.

I haven't been totally slacking off. I'll post details later.

Lost another pound or so, down to 240.

Actually went on a walk the other day, fast paced, probably not quite 4 miles but the breath and heartbeat were somewhat elevated. not counting it as a workout...just better than average expenditure of calories...saw a bunch of mountain bikers so I'm a little jacked about getting mine tuned up for the spring/summer.

[Oso]

ok, so I've pretty much reverted to all cardio as I try to lose weight.
Still working pull ups but not really going hard at it, just trying to keep the gains I've made. Hoping that with 20 pounds of weight loss, I'll actaully get my one.

can't get to the gym as that is becoming just another stop in the day that I can't make.

going in to the school early enough get the interval workout I outlined above in before classes.

been trying to count and log what I've been acheiving in the 1 minute work periods.

JJ's are single count
Squats, I'm trying to float between 1/4 down and 3/4 down
Pushups are on the fists. First # is on toes, second is on knees

On each day I'm also doing a pull up routine w/ a total of 18 to 27 pull ups.
I'm actually a bit closer to full ROM but still lacking that last little bit.


activity......2-18-05......2-23-05......2-25-05......2-28-05
JJ's..............125..............129...........1 30.........Did Not Count
Squats.........64.................72............73 ...........DNC
Bstrappers...52.................43............54.. .........DNC
Pushups.......26/3.............28/3.........30/3........33/5
Crunch..........67................63............68 ..........DNC
LegLift..........47................40............3 8...........DNC
FullSitUp.......25................26............27 ...........DNC
BackForth....DNC..............108.........104..... .....DNC
SideSide......DNC..............78...........84.... ........DNC
CWSquare....32...............36............33..... .......DNC
CCWSqare...34................34............33..... .....DNC
DiagSqure....32................34............35... ......DNC
Horse/Crane...DNC....................................... .......
Horse/Cross....DNC...................................... ........
Horse/JadeRing....DNC................................... ......

**edit**
I'm going to do wed and fri of this week with 1/1 work/rest intervals and then next monday I'm going to go ahead and jump to 2/1.
**/edit**

Also got 2x2 minute rounds of sparring on 2-25
not really anything to speak of but I let my two students who were there for sparring class wale on each other mostly and just did a round against each of them once they were tired

on 2-19 I did about 90 minutes of forms work.
on 2-27 I did 8 minutes of stance training and an hour of forms work.

No other real good personal training between 2-18 and 2-28. I'm working on a couple of forms so I try to run them 3-5 times each day before I teach but slowish as I'm still committing them to memory.

[Oso]

ok, 2 minute runs of the plyo's sucked...killed my knees for a week. OD'd on Glucosamine and back at it.

so reconfigured the program a bit and did this last night.

1 minute - Jumping Jacks
2 Pistols each leg, assisted
10 BW Squats
10 Bootstrappers
5 Lunges each leg
3 Pullups
10 Pushups
20 crunches
10 Leg lifts
10 Full sit ups
1 minute Rest

Did 9 cycles of that in 45 minutes.
Varied the minute of cardio between the various light plyo stuff listed up thread.
With 9 minutes of plyo and 9 minutes of rest it was taking about 3 minutes to run through the other stuff.

so, 4 minutes of work and 1 minute rest.
did everything as fast as possible while quickly moving between exercises

*edit* oh, I felt like I was going to puke at cycle 4 and 5 but got over it by 6.

so far today my knees feel good and I have an all over sense of fatigue.

will do this again wednesday and friday though friday's will be just 30 minutes as the warm up for sparring class.

still holding at 240

btw, I think I finally hit a full ROM pull up but no witnesses or video.

[Vash]

btw, I think I finally hit a full ROM pull up but no witnesses or video.

Didn't happen, then.

[Oso]

yea, I know. Had Ming watch me last night but didn't get it buy the whiskers on my chin. I still think I have a form issue but can't figure out how to change it.

I'll make another attempt next monday after two days of rest over the weekend.

Monday was good, 9 sets of 3 pullups but with like 4 minute gaps. The long 'rests' between the sets let me get all 3 above 90% ROM. This felt better to me than with shorter breaks when I drop like 50% on the last rep.

[Oso]

3-18-05 Friday

6 Cycles of the above listed set.

it was about 28-29 minutes total but I'm feeling pretty good overall.

3-19-05 Saturday

1 hour of forms work.

3-20-05

2 hours flatwater paddling. I paddled very consistantly, no floating. Kept a sweatshirt on so I had a mild sweat going the whole time.

[Oso]

ok, didn't really get it. still close but I get fuggin locked, still feel like i got more strength but somethings not there.

I have a clip of my set of 4 that i started the night off with. I'll see if Ming has time to post it to my website...otherwise I could send it to anyone who wants it...it's a bit over 7 megs...

my camera person didn't quite get the camera started in time so it starts just as I'm reaching the top of the first pullup. you'll have to trust that I started from a full hang.

also, next monday, I'm going to get the shot from behind instead of the side.

work is busy this week so I'm barely going to get the time for training before class.

was only able to hit the cycle 4 times, but I shaved some time off so i got 4 cycles in 19 minutes...that's about 15 seconds shorter a cycle.

to recap:

1 minute - cardio/light plyometric exercises

2 Pistols each leg, assisted
10 BW Squats
10 Bootstrappers
5 Lunges each leg
3 Pullups
10 Pushups
20 crunches
10 Leg lifts
10 Full sit ups

1 minute Rest

REPEAT

It's basically been taking about 3 minutes to run through the circuit but I aim to trim the time down.

my thought is to set my interval timer at 1 minute for the cardio/plyo set and then 4 minutes for the other work and rest...the faster I get the work done...the longer i get to rest before starting it all over again...I'm thinking I'll start with 4 minutes and then shave 5 seconds off every week...hopefully being able to get to a point where I'm not resting at all.

also, on days I can get more than 4-6 cycles I'm going to switch up the abs some on later cycles.

I know this doesn't really seem like much but, again, the goal is something working the whole body lightly for cardio effect (affect?)

done as fast as i can run through all the exercises, I'm sweating my ass off...well, hopefully my gut...