A bit of juggling vocabulary from Dedwarmo : Grind [streaming, 588kb .flv download].
Results matching “Bird”
'Hey hey, we're the Monkeys, and people say we monkey around'
- Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart
A few weeks ago I visited Sofala, an old mining town near Bathurst, NSW. Russell Drysdale depicted the main street in his 1947 painting Sofala, and it hasn't changed much in the 60 years since. It's a dry, desolate, dusty place - and quite beautiful. I love it.
Whilst walking along this same street I noticed something that I haven't seen for a number of years - monkey bars. There they were, in a childrens' playground neatly slotted between a pub and a toilet block (perhaps not the best location, but it was relatively well protected from the sun). It was a very unusual sight.
If you're not quite sure what monkey bars are, picture a smooth-runged steel ladder placed on its side. The whole thing is supported on poles, keeping it 7' or 8' off the ground. A chinning bar on steroids, if you will.
A few decades ago - when I would have first played around on monkey bars - they seemed to be everywhere. In their original, simple form or as part of more elaborate constructions such as rockets and aeroplanes. To a young boy with a big imagination, they were magical.
Fast forward 20 years or so, to the mid '90s. Due to their popularity - they were being used almost 8 times [1] as much as other playground equipment - there were an alarming number of accidents. Many of these were minor (as anyone who's ever fallen awkwardly from a chinning bar will attest), but politicians the world over began to grow worried that something more sinister was possible. Fearful of lawsuits, many of the monkey bars were removed.
The result? A major source of entertaining upper-back work was largely taken away from an entire generation. Sure, there are still any number of ways children can perform chin-ups. But none is so much fun as a climb across the monkey bars.
References
1. Injury and frequency of use of playground equipment in
public schools and parks in Brisbane, Australia
J W Nixon, C H C Acton, B Wallis, M F Ballesteros, D Battistutta
Injury Prevention, 2003
Via The Other Side of Strength : a two-part (part 1, part 2) lecture on Olympic Lifting by Tommy Kono. Superb.
Wim Hof likes to stay cool. In September 2004 he spent 1 hour and 8 minutes in an ice bath, breaking his own world record from January that same year. The January effort, incidentally, wasn't his first.
Hof, aka 'Iceman', is a practitioner of Inner Fire yoga (Tum-mo) - using it to increase his tolerance to extremely cold conditions. In addition to the abovementioned ice baths, he has :
- climbed several snow-covered mountains in bare feet
- run a Finnish half-marathon in bare feet (ground temperature was -37C/-35F)
- and most recently, set a new world record in Finland by swimming beneath the ice within the Arctic Circle.
The next challenge? Climbing Everest, hopefully breaking a few records along the way. The standout one - and certainly in keeping with his theme - seems to be the idea of performing part of the climb wearing shorts, and no shirt. He's a very, very strange man.
This week I learnt two key facts about my training. The first is that I need a little more of a break between heavy deadlift sessions (and lighter ones never seem to work). Both between the pulls and the other exercises in that session, and between the workouts themselves. A week or so seems reasonable; at least more reasonable than the current 2 days.
The second is that my left hand seems to be catching up in crucial areas of grip strength. One of the areas in which this is most easily seen is in the one-armed bar hangs; which have been fairly straightforward with the right arm but nearly impossible with the left. Until this week, that is. Looks as though the one-armed chin-up quest is still on track.
Other than that it was a regular dose of the usual players - bodyweight, kettlebell and grip work. And a healthy dose of '70s rock.
Mike Johnston seems to think so. Read on.
Joe DeFranco briefly mentions a terrific-sounding exercise in his latest 'Ask Joe' column : 'drop set' chain push-ups. A video demonstration clarifies things [streaming, 2.35mb .flv download].
Despite trying on several occasions to quit coffee, the caffeine addiction just keeps powering on. Still, at only 2-3 cups per week, I'm far better off than I used to be.
These, however, look tempting. Chewing gum-like strips of caffeinated goodness. Perfect for a pre-workout hit I suspect. Anyone tried them?
Take a wander over to the training blog of Kettlebell Rob - as the name implies, it's full of kettlebell action. Beautiful.
Photo © Russell Davies
Mike Roussell looks into a very controversial aspect of nutrition : saturated fat. If you've been inspired, head over to eggbaconshipsandbeans. Mmm.