Adam’s Challenge: PSOTFED (Pull Sh** Off The Floor Every Day) – Week 2
We’re already halfway through the month! Geez it’s going by fast.
To my great pleasure, the last week has been heavier than the first. Nothing extravagant but I’m getting back at ease with my regular training.
The last few days I’ve been giving a lot of thought about something that’s been nagging at me for some time: the fact that I can’t seem to focus on a limited number of things for a given time, in order to see faster progress on those. Something always seems to be in the way of that, plus the fact that I got so many different goals. I’m getting closer to selecting no more than 3 families of movement which are going to be my focus for some weeks, before I switch it up. I’m curious where it’ll take me.
May 9th
Olympic Clean
155lbs with 5 sets for 12 reps
May 10th
Deadlift Behind Back
275 lbs with 1 set for 1 rep
May 11th
Power Clean & Jerk Read more
Adam’s New Challenge: PSOTFED (Pull Sh** Off The Floor Every Day) – Week 1
So Adam reiterated very quickly with a new challenge for the month of May: to pull something off the floor every day of the month. As much as possible, to publish videos.
So far so good for the first 8 days! Except that yesterday I completely forgot about it; at least I saved the day by pulling a half-dozen BIXI bikes from their racks because they were all either locked down, or broken.
So this week’s lifts have been rather light all week; I believe the reasons for this are two-fold. First, I came back from vacation a week ago. Life routine has been different, and it seems my body kinda feels the need to “get back into it” to recover from the break. Secondly, I was practicing plyometric jumps (for parkour) and had a bad landing, which has triggered substantial pain in my hip in the last 5 days. Sometimes it fades a bit, but then it comes back. Will probably visit my osteopath to help me fix myself up.
Here’s the breakdown since May 1st until today:
May 1st
Pull-up behind the head
-75lbs with 3 sets for 38 reps in 4:10
May 2nd (Rest day)
Double Kettlebell 1-hand Deadlift
40kg with 1 set for 1 rep
May 3rd
Barbell Snatch
115lbs with 1 set for 1rep Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-04-16
Hiyaz! Most of my exams are done (1 left!) so I finally have some minutes to write this up.
Challenge #6: Straddle Press to Handstand
Moar presses on the handstand push-up!
I tested less planche positions in the last moth or two, but recently Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-04-02
End of term, quick update, no time, blah blah blah.
Challenge #8: Iron Cross
Intensity PR on the Muscle-Up! I was able to use the -50lbs deloading band for the first time this week. Here’s me doing 2 of them:
I started exploring my options to improve my keeping close to the bar as I come up. It turns out I have the flexibility, but lacking the strength to pull while closer. As I’m working up the load, I’ll also be working smaller movements with the bigger band (-75lbs) to increase strength in weaker areas of the muscle-up.
Varia
The technical constraint I was talking about in my previous report, was that this website’s server went down. Since I had no control over it and/or contact information, I realized I was really vulnerable to that kind of event. Of course I make regular backups, but it still had been a while.
Now I have transferred the site over a hosting service with which I have full management control, and paying for my own account. Uptime should be pretty decent in the future.
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-03-25
This is gonna be a quick report; it was intended for last Sunday, but time and technical constraints made it come out later. But here it finally comes.
Challenge #8: Iron cross
Recently, I started practicing the full Muscle-up movement using deload bands (and wondered at why I hadn’t thought of it before). I started off at 2 or 3 and I’m already at around 7-8 for a set; it’s getting easier.
Filming myself, I think the most important point to work on for more efficiency, is to try to keep closer to the bar, so as to eliminate the superfluous back-and-forth movement away from it. For some reason though, so far it has seemed more natural for me to do the movement like this, despite attempts at aiming my head to cross the bar at the top. I shall analyze further why that is the case.
Challenge #10: The Picletters
Hey I guess I’m on a spree these days. Last week I went to Chicago for work; those pictures were taken really fast, on the spot as we had very little time to visit downtown. As a side comment, Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-02-19
Challenge #6: Straddle Press to Handstand
Here’s the latest hold PR… 17 seconds!
I’ve also found another way to work the press transition, using parallel dip bars. Currently, all I’m able to do is lift my hips up to parallel, while bending my arms. Goal would be to: Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-02-12
I got the chance to try out the Nissan Leaf yesterday. Surprisingly interesting! And that’s coming from a guy who loves manual transmissions. But… there seems to be only one gear on that electric engine 
It just…goes. Accelerations are surprisingly powerful!
Challenge #6 and #8: Straddle Press to Handstand & Iron Cross
Welp, here’s a small medley of movement variations I’ve worked on to progress on the main goals.
When the Tuck Planche doesn’t test well or I don’t feel that strong in the position, I figured I could do reps instead, which allow for Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-02-05
This thing needs to get done during the weekend, otherwise it doesn’t.
Challenge #6: Straddle Press to Handstand
After 2 weeks of things not testing so great and taking more rest than usual, today’s session went back in full force. Indeed, Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-01-09
My Vacation of the Year™ is already over. Back to Work and Stuff™ !
Challenge #6 : Straddle Press to Handstand
Elbow Planche: I got it! 67 seconds max hold, effectively adding 9 seconds to my last record and blasting the goal away. On to the next step of learning hand balanding: trying it out as much as possible!
Tuck Planche: 11 seconds! Steady progress. I’ve been experimenting with movements and variations based on Darryl’s work, but Read more
Weekly Progress Report: 2012-01-03
They’re back! Welcome to 2012!
Challenge #6: Straddle Press to Handstand
10 seconds on the Tuck Planche. I’m working on application of the latest hints Darryl has given me; one that’s proving tricky is attempting to bend more forward. I’ve also Read more
