An Off Day

I've actually had a few off days since my last entry, but prior to that I trained but not in the gym. Behind it actually, in an alley. From a fire escape I rig or hang my circus prop, that being the aerial straps, which I believe I've referred to at least once. See the picture above. That's what's going on there. I started doing this a couple of years ago for one main reason, cost. I don't have to pay the gym anything extra and I don't have to rent a truss or space with a cieling point. I get to work on the basics, and I can't actually do much more than that because of the space restrictions so I adapt to the venue and get my work in.
Up until a shoulder injury occured over a year ago I had aspirations to develope an act that I could shop around and make some money performing. I did, in fact, develope and perform an act but only once as it worked out-then got too busy with other things. Now it's sort of been downgraded to hobby status, but it's a good workout nonetheless. Some of my upper body gym excercises came about specifically to support this activity and they're okay but there's nothing like the real thing. I've been training on straps off and on for about 6 years now.
Depending on my schedule and the weather I often do two-a-days, that being gym earlier in the day and straps later (on these days I crave a lot of protein). Some days I work a series a strength conditioning type of "academic" excercises and other days are a little more "artisitic".

My last day out there I worked 2 completely seperate muscle groups. I alternated 5 minutes or so pressing handstands on the straps and doing inverted crosses and front plange handstands with an excercise for that other muscle group I referred to. The handstands are good overall upper body type things that rely heavily on the front and side deltoids. The inverted cross really brings the upper pecs into play. It's very similar to a gymnast doing rings, only easier. That's good and bad. It's easier to achieve these positions on the straps when you're supporting your body weight at your wrists, forearms, or elbows compared to your hands with rings in them at the end of an outstretched arm. It's bad because since you can cheat and spot your balance upside down with your feet on the straps themselves, bad habits and bad technique can creep in. That being said you can be strict with yourself and hold a correct handstand. No sag in the back....
The other outdoor activity that I alternated in that day was walking, tight wire like, on a length of PV piping that I found out there. I had been doing this in the gym on their barbells unbeknownst to the management. This is an excellent excercise for all those little stablizing muscles in the feet and ankles. Specifically, I think this helps stave off injury to those areas that jumping (and landing) could cause. I occasionally have to jump to try and get a job, or even tumble.
A second benefit to this "pipe walking" is that it's a cheap alternative to keeping a skill that would otherwise require a practice wire to walk on. They're not cheap. There does exist such a thing as practice wire. It's a cable about 2' to 3' off the ground that you learn high wire on. One should realize that in order for a cable to support one's weight it needs a couple thousand pounds of tension on it to do so. The PV pipe is so very light, however, and it rolls under your feet so that walking it is a lot harder than what I remember the last time I was on a wire and it's also harder than the barbells that my gym managers never saw me walking on. After spending some time on this I'm curious as to how I'd do an a wire again.


Next Blog I'll start tweaking Day 1

Day 2 part 2

Right, I said we're doing lats next but let me clarify that this is the second part of Day 2's routine. Do it after the chest routine or before, but the same trip to the gym.

The lats are a big muscle also and if you build them too big it's going to cost you some flexibility, so I just use, you guessed it, my own body weight.

Lats;
First up are "L" shaped pull ups. Find a chin-up bar and grab it overhanded and maybe a little wider than your soulders. Hang, then lift you legs straight in front of you at a 90 deg. angle from your torso, parallel to the floor. Do a set, don't skimp on the range of motion, try to lower yourself to practically straight arms. Do six sets in total, you might get 10 or 12 reps in on your first set and that'll probably tapir down to about 5 by the last set. There are a variety of hand grips you can use; parallel grip, underhand grip(not as wide as the overhead grip), or one that I can do on the pull up station in the gym I go to, I grip the actual frame on one side of the pull up station, not the bar( a Hammer Strength free standing sort of deal). It's sort of "V" shaped but your hands slide down some at different times of the year, on colder days they slip more for some reason. You might not want to try the "L" the first time and since it's quite wide there's less range of motion. Next time I get to Lat day in my blog I'll put a little mustard on this one.

A Superset:
Somtimes I go from one to the other without rest, sometimes I get dizzy....
Hand Stand Push Ups: Find a wall where the floor is relatively level, in NY sometimes buildings sag you know. Kick up to a handstand, feet (and or backside) to the wall. Keep the body straight and crank out some push ups. In the middle of a set of these it's easy to catch yourself sagging in the middle, so don't! It's not healthy and it looks bad. As a consolation I'll tell you to not knock yourself out with range of motion on this one at first. If you're new to them just get 'em moving however you can, then later you can get brave and try to get your head all the way to the floor. A wider stance with the hands will work your delts more, a closer narrower stance gets your triceps and they can die a slow death on the way to muscle failure. Back Straight!
Part 2 of the Superset:
Parallel Pull Ups: A gymnastic "front plange" position is the objective here. With a slightly-narrower-than-your-shoulders overhand grip, or parallel where available, do a pull up stopping for a second at the top. Now, straighten your arms, pitch your shoulders back and bring a straight body parallel to the floor (think hips front and up) and hold for a second if you can. When you can't hold it any more catch the negative with your straight body and straight arms feet going down until the body is verticle again. Do about 5 or 6 in a set.
Alternate these two excercises 6 times each.

There, now you've worked not only your lats but your "core", and your delts side and back. After trying this the first time the next morning you will notice that your rear delts woke up and started barking before you did.

That's the basic workout, as I write more I'll expound on these excercises and to quote that over-rated hack Emeril,"bump it up a notch".

Chest, lats, delts

The pectoralis is a pretty muscle. I'm not making it up, society at large has always appreciated broad manly chest. Mind you I am of the opinion that most "big guys' big chests" probably have a good amount of scar tissue and aren't as strong as they would have you believe. If your gonna build muscle try not to excede what your frame would naturally wear and it would be the kind of muscle you would use in your everyday life, say if you had to throw a car or a piano.

Most of my chest excercises are done with my own body weight, as are my pull-ups, and what I do for delts. That's this workout;

Chest;
I'll start with one that defies my last statement, I use dumbells. I guess I'll call it a Ball Press. Get one of those big fitness balls in your favorite color and from a seated position pick up 2 dumbells that would add up to about 1/3 of your body weight. When they are secured in your lap scoot your feet down until your body is parallel to the floor, knees at a 90 deg. angle. Do a bench press set of about 8-10 reps. Now don't start pumpin' away until your knees and feet are together. Stay on the ball-which should have rolled up your spine and stopped no higher than your shoulder blades, that's what's supporting your body parallel to the floor if you haven't sorted that out yet. Do at least 4 sets and the next time you do them use an underhand grip. I think 12 is a good number for total sets per body part and I do 2 more excercises for this one.

Parallel Bench Dip Negatives; Grip the dip bars like your going to do a regular dip set. Hoist up on straight arms, then pitch you shoulders forward without piking the hips so that you try to get your body (straight legs optional, but tougher) parallel to the ground, control the negative down, right yourself at the bottom push up like it's a dip. Squeak out about 5 or six per set. Do 4 sets, at least. This position when held is the bread and butter of flying strap act. Going in a big circle he hits this position, parallel. Holding it requires chest and front deltoid strength with a touch of erector muscles in the lower back.
Now how about a push up?

Downward Angle Push Ups;
I do these on the dumbell rack itself. It's about mid-thigh to the knee high on me. With 2 of the littlest dumbells i.e.5lbs measured evenly to the point your foot is going, place them on the floor gripping them underhanded. Yes, palms forward. Get a toe in that dumbell rack and pick your body up straight. It should be at about a 45 deg. angle. Keeping your body straight crank out 20 if you can. Don't be afraid to get your face near the floor. Don't sag in the middle. Imagine your spine as if you were laying on your back and the whole spine was touching the floor, meaning, small of the back. It's what the Eastern European gymnasts call getting "hollow". Your body is one piece. Do at least 4 sets and if you're feeling brave mix in one foot on the rack one in the air behind the other.... not touching... and do them both...if you do them.

I have an uncalculated number of push ups,

but we're doing lats next.

Day 1 continued

Okay, so back to day one. After the legs sets I move on to lower back, the simple starting back version.

Back Raises;
I stole this excercise from yoga, then altered it. Lay face down on the floor or a mat with a 5 lb plate resting on your heels and lower calf. Hands are palms down on the mat for anchoring, arms are straight by your hips or thighs. Raise your straight legs off the ground while keeping your chest down, if you can't get the 5lbs to budge go lighter or with no weight at all, but feet together. Do at least 10 reps to the fullest range of motion your flexibility will allow, try to arch by just by raising your straight legs off the ground.
Alternate that set with a "set" of one rep, same motion with a static hold at the top of the movement trying to hold "static" for at least 10 seconds.

Repeat both 5 times with a yoga plow stretch or a seated pike stretch peppered in as you feel necessary.

This is similar to a yoga form in which the hands are together beneath the pelvis, you can actually get more range of motion this way.

Next comes a set of middle back shrugs that target the rhomboids (aka back cleavage).
Middle Back Shrugs:
Seated in a rowing machine with a chest pad try with close to your body weight. Grip the handles and with straight arms pull straight back, when you've moved the wieght to where you're slightly pinching between the shoulder blades slowly peel your chest away from the chest pad. Do the negative returning contact with the chest pad first then extending the arms. The actual joint that is moving (along with a few of your vertebrae of course) is the head of the collar bone. It's a joint, it moves. Do 6 sets of 10 or so reps alternating underhand and overhand grips if the handles on that particular machine permit.
This hits the rhomboids and when you peel away the chest your upper erectors are engaged. As a bonus you're also engaging your rear deltoids as you stablize. This seated row machine is designed for the lats to do most of the work but we'll hit those a little more thouroughly on another day, so keep your arms straight.
A yoga plow stretch is good to work in after this one.

Abdominals:
4 sets repeated 3 times moving to the 4 different stations.
Crunches;
Sit in the crunch machine pads to your chest with a modest weight, I use 35lbs. Crunch down and at the top of the motion before the plates touch count out each rep-to a tempo that's not going to kill you. 1, next rep hold 1,2 so that each successive rep holds one count longer at the top of the movement. I believe this will increase the difficulty logorythmically with each successive rep, like the Richter Scale increases logorythmically as it gets higher..... try for 20 reps.

Legs Raised Crunches;
With the curvy crunch bar on the floor, most gyms have something like 'em, no weight on the bar legs straight and 3 or 4 inches off the ground, I hold a 4 or 6 lb small medicine ball between my feet for my aductor part of my "core" or no weight is an easier option. 20 reps if you can.

Extended Push Up;
Lie face down of the floor or a mat again hands in front of (above if you were upright) your head, push up. If you've never done this just go elbows to knees and the waist is the first thing that leaves the floor. I go hands to toes with a 25lb plate on the small of my back. You have the option of either doing 10 to 15 reps as "push ups" or just hold the position off the floor (except your hands and feet of course) for 20 seconds or so.

Oblique Raises:
With a 25lb plate again held at your side in one hand with a stragiht arm( you could go lighter or heavier) bend to the side as far as your flexibility will comfortably allow, then straighten up. 20 reps each side. If you go heavy on this you might be building up the muscles that will take on the appearance of love handles if they get too big, thus I go light and do lots of reps.

If you want, doing a back bend or bridge is a good stretch to work into this part of the routine.

Next; Chest and Lats

day 1; legs, back, abs

So I'll start by walking you through my approach to gym work if I had hypothetically not been able to train for some time. These are the basic, my basics, and as I progress I'll add on variations that up the degree of difficulty for these excercises. So if your goal is to be a fitness model or just look like one follow along.

I've streamlined my workouts into 2 days, I used to do 3 and could still do so if I choose to or see the need, but not at the moment. Day 1 starts with legs continues on to back, and by back I don't mean lats I mean erectors and rhomboids, then I finish with abdominals. A lot of the new age fitness talk refers to one's "core" and I don't neglect my core. I would like to add that the lower back, lower erectors, are the forgotten part of the core and I have a little something for them too.

DAY 1 Part 1

Legs;
After a little bit of stretching I do a squat/lunge combo set.
Squat Set; Hold a smallish dumbell with both hads verticlly at the upper chest below the chin. I start with 10 or 15lbs and with feet together and back straight I squat at a moderate speed all the way until my butt touches my heels. Important to this excercise is to keep your whole weight focused and balanced over the balls of the feet and the toes trying to center each foot over the base knuckle to the 2nd toe. If you get 15 to 20 reps in keeping your balance you're doing well.

If, like me, you've had issues with the I.T. bands stay aware of the inner head of the quadracep, the one positioned above and inside of the knee cap. Activating this takes pressure off the outer thigh. Although there is no silver bullet to only work this part of the muscle a little awareness can go a long way. Keep that in mind when doing the lunge sets.

Lunge Sets.
1st lunge. Again with the same smallish dumbell vertical at the upper chest the and the body straight take one step about 1 foot length straight forward. Lunge all the way down, body still straight to the maximum flex of the back leg's knee. Go as far as what is comfortable and come back up. Alternate legs 1 rep at a time. If you get to 15 or 20 reps again you're doing okay.

2nd lunge. No weight. I put my hands on my head and keep my back straight and step forward far enough that the back foot goes all the way over so that the instep is on the floor and is actually supporting wieght. Gauge the limit of your flexation as to what's comfortable. Because the ankle is not flexed, you might be able to get all the way down seat to heel. Use that back leg on the way up as you should have used it controlling your descent (the negative). Alternate legs 1 rep at a time again and since these are a little harder 10 to 15 reps per set are fine. You're using balance and a little coordination and that should satisfy any of those new age core afficionados.

Repeat these sets one after the other at least twice through. I spent several years not wanting to build up my legs thinking that whatever work they were getting in ballet class was sufficient, and it was okay for quite some time. I don't worry how my legs will look in tights anymore but with my aerial aspirations, lower body mass is a liability, so I keep the weight light and I only go through the series above twice. I based these excercises on the vocabulary of Ukrainian folk dance. Have you ever seen these guys? They're badass. Also, as a side note, supporting wieght on the top of the foot the instep, is similar to moves in Georgian folk dance-not Jimmy Carter's Georgia. I've watched the Moiseyev dance troup a lot. I came up with this leg workout several years ago when I saw there was a revival of Fiddler coming to B'way and had plenty of time to work up to these Ukrainian tricks I had performed in my youth. It worked, I got the tricks back but it didn't work because I got cut at the audition before I could show 'em off.... sigh but I found that I liked having the added lower body strength, as a consolation.

I finish legs with calf raises on the padded calf raise machine. I set the weight close to my body weight at 150lbs and do a set of 20 reps with as much range of motion that I can muster. then, without rest I do 5 to 8 more reps one legged on each foot. The latter part of this set was given to me b a Physio Therapist when I was getting treated for achilles tendon pain. Do the set 3 times with about a minute rest between.

Next; Back

Welcome to the Unauthorized Training with Matt Baker blog. In it I will endeavor to describe not only the excercises in my gym routine but how and why I developed each one. I use the word "unauthorized" not only because I've never been certified as a personal trainer by any in the alphabet soup that trainers decorate themselves with but also because often I use a piece of gym equipment in a manner that is not in keeping with it's design. My credentials, if any, are derived from 17 years of regular gym attendance, and over 25 years professional experience as a ballet dancer, musical theater performer, acrobat/tumbler, bike messenger and circus artist. Very much of what I've devloped in the gym over the years has been specific to any number of show biz aspirations, which sometimes include an aerial apparatus. Since I'm completely unqualified I can't condone you to try any of these things, especially if an injury ocurs becuase I didn't descibe something thouroughly enough, god forbid. That being said, keep up if you can.