BEYOND STRONG

Clash of the Titans - training

I was fortunate to have a great deal of input into the training of the stunt team, including myself and some of the actors, for the upcoming remake of the classic Clash of the Titans movie. Each day we trained between 6am and 7am for between 30-60 minutes depending on our schedules. We also trained at lunchtimes when we had the energy. I was fortunate to be dealing with great athletes (something many trainers won't tell you) who were motivated and ready to work hard. We also had fight training and specific stunt rehearsals to deal with as well.

I will detail the actual workouts over the next few entries to show you what we did with limited time and equipment. Unlike the stunt team who trained for 300 we had to do this in our own time, bringing in our own food to stay on track with diets and time scales. However, at the end of the 6 weeks many of us were in the best shape of our lives.

Watch the video and please comment and ask questions!

Nick

 

Bali life training wise

All is well here in Bali. Since two weeks I have started my new job at one of the international schools here in Bali, and I must say, I enjoy it very much. I am the PE teacher for the whole school, as well as teaching geology, environmental science, history and citizenship. A lot of things on my mind so that's why I have been a bit slow on the updates..

Right now I am again down in bodyweight, around 87kg. I actually feel bigger though, but that's probably because I am carrying a lot less bodyfat around. The weight loss has been mostly due to the fact that in here, an eating regiment is pretty much non existent. People mostly go by on feel. When you are hungry, eat, and if not, don't.So it's very common to sit down and have a big meal, say, around 23.00 at night, or even later..

I used to, as a newcomer, receives all kinds of foods like sate, soups and pancakes (very sweet by the way) because everybody wanted to treat me so nice. That got me heavy in the beginning of my arrival quite fast. Now that things have settled down more, I do not have the obligations any more of swallowing down food that I don't actually want to eat. Although a good set of goat sate is always welcomed though..

Basically what I eat now, is in the morning some light cereal, or sometimes just some fruit. Around the afternoon is mostly some rice, or mie, with 2 fried eggs. Coming back from work, mostly is 20 sticks of sate with some rice, and my evening meal consists of again some sate (chicken mostly although the pork is quite good too) and rice. Tiny portions of rice though, I must say. If every now and then I feel too bloated because of what I ate in the day, I will skip the rice or mie in the evening and only go for some chicken and a fruit juice. You can order fresh fruit blended into a tasty drink, or just have it cutt up and eat it with your fork all for a measely 20 euro cents.. Pineapple, mango, apple, tomato, some other fruits I don't know the name of as well. Tasty!

Training wise, it's going well. I am able to do a full handstand pushup (which puts a lot of meat on the shoulders and traps!), and do a back lever on the rings. Front lever I am almost able to straddle it with a straight back, so that's getting there too. Muscle up, that is still quite hard, and I am trying to grease the groove a lot, because my right shoulder has some flexibility issues.

The one arm chins is going allright, I have cut down on the volume, and work it with quick sessions. Most of the time I start with 4-5 sets of 3-5 reps with 25kg added and then go on to one arm negatives, or do assisted chins with one arm hanging onto a rope, as low as possible.

Leg wise, pistols are going average, can knock off around 10 right, left is still not up to par though. I feel very tired lately in my legs, maybe due to my lack of sprinting on the beach and jumping around. So I will be incorporating that some more once I have some time on my hands again..

That's it for now..

Theo

(I was going to upload some pics of my back lever, but forgot my memory stick, so I'll post them later..)

Progression

 

Life in Bali is good. Last week we made a trip to Java, with the boat. I drove in our Kijang LSX, better known as a Toyota. Traffic in Bali has its dangers, with a lot of crazy bike drivers coming from any corner, speeding too much, and sign and signals that many people do not obey. There are speed limits, which is a necessity with a road no bigger than two lanes, but since everybody neglects the signs things can become very, very dangerous. The bigger transportation busses, trucks, they tend to pass you even in the most dangerous situations and turn. A big curly road, incline or decline, on the mountain, even then they will pass you with dangerous speeds.. I have spent a measly 400km on the road, for a total of more than 24 hours and saw: a big snake on the road soon to be road kill, a truck that just drove into the living room of a small house, a truck that fell down a bridge, another truck that fell down the cliff and where people were busy trying to carry the big bags of rice back in the truck, two trucks that drove into each other, a man falling from his bike whilst going downhill, a few dead dogs.. Driving in Indonesia, not your typical driving environment like in western countries..

Started to train again as well. My training, that is now focussed towards bodyweight exercises mostly coming from gymnastics, as not really structured yet. Most days are a lot of pull-ups on my thickbar, pushups, ab exercises etc.

I have now found it necessary, if I want to see any progress to make some sort of program. However, dividing a bodyweight routine is a bit of a problem, because many exercises are based around compound exercises, which makes it hard to split up things.

So, best is to see what kind of skills I want to get, and work with that. Here I will outline some of the skills and exercises I am currently working on:

Handstand (wall)/ handstand pushups: I am kicking into the wall handstand with a straight leg, and hold for time. Straight arms. Mostly I get around 60 seconds with this exercises. When I want to work shoulders, I just try to lower myself inch by inch. I am not yet at full depth, but once there, the exercise will be made harder by doing it on paralettes. Eventually the goal is to do a free standing handstand pushup.

Parallet work: This goes from every L sit progression you can think of, and push up work. A tuck sit, with my knees as close to my body as possible, until a straight leg L sit. Holds for time, in sets of 3-5 for 10 seconds or longer. Goal for all the sits are 60 seconds. Works the core very, very hard. Push ups on paralettes will give you a bigger ROM and therefore I like them. I try to get into a planche position as much as possible by leaning as far as possible and then push up.

Rings: This has been too much on and off. There are many skills that I want to be able to do. I am using a lot of the articles on gymnasticbodies that contain a lot of good information. Highly recommended.. Muscle up, and the front and back levers. I suck at the back lever, and I suck at muscle ups. The transition of the muscle up is very hard for me, but I am working at it. I try to do dips and get lower a little bit every time, until I finally will be ending up at the final position of the pull up. Likewise I do this with pull ups, trying to power up higher and higher. Hopefully I can get the muscle up in the near future.

Front and back levers are great skills and look neat too. Progressions with these exercises are really easy, going from a tuck (knees in) to slightly more stretched, then straddled etc. The back lever, I can only work on the rings, too bad because...

Thickbar work (grip): I can work the front lever very well on the thickbar that I set up in the garage. It’s a 2” scaffold pipe. Front levers can be done here very easy, starting from a chin ups, and then pushing shoulders backwards and trying to push down with hands, staying tight throughout your whole body.. one thing that will work very well in learning the correct body position in the front lever is the hollow position. To learn this position you should lay down on the floor, and touch the ground with your lower back. Try to really press it down, simultaneously pressing your hand (that you hold by your side) down into the ground. You can put your chin up to your chest if you like. Try holding this position until you get tired.. (the hollow position, is also THE position you should get yourself in when you are doing your abdominal movements like crunchs, leg raises, etc. )

Next to the lever work, I do a lot of pull ups and chins. I try to vary with every single hand position possible, pronated, supinated, mixed grip, implement towels and what not. Just pull ups? Yes, because you can make it as hard as you want. Right now I like using frenchies, holding a static position in the top, at 90 degrees, and at 120 degrees for more than 5 seconds.. That is one rep...

Right now one of my main goals is getting a one arm pull up. OAP... And that is hard, especially on a thickbar.. I will do this in a thumbless curl grip, because I don’t really have big hands. At the moment I do a lot of mixed grip pull ups, with one hand as far from my body as possible, and the other (the one with the curl grip) as close to my body as possible.. From what I have read, 12 reps in this style is good and close to getting a OAP.. You can make this exercise harder by looping a rope over the bar, and grabbing it with your (non) working hand/arm.. Grabbing lower will make it harder.. Negatives are also something I use, lowering as slowly as possible with one arm, assisting with just a finger of the other hand.. An OAP is not an OAP when you not start from a dead hang, and right now that is not something I can do yet. The thickness of the bar has something to do with that, and the fact that it is hard not to pull your shoulder out of its socket or get instant elbow tendonitis.. Care must be taken in the quest to an OAP!

Floor work: Push ups, abdominal work.. You know the drill. One skill for long term is the planche, but I wonder if I will be able to ever do that.. Will take a lot of hard work. At the moment I am still working on progression 1, and that is the frog stand. I am at 40 seconds right now..

With floor work, also comes leg work and calf work. Just regular calf raises for tons of reps, and walking on toes with weights.. At the moment I weigh around 89kg, and this loss is mostly coming (and I want to say fat loss) from my puny legs ATM... To counter this, I work my legs with pistols, one legged squats. I can finally get into a full squat, and am working on reps.. Later weights can be added, by holding a KB for example.. Lunges, and a few other exercises are also in my arsenal.

For conditioning I use the beach a lot, sprinting, jumping up on stones, throw around rocks like a caveman and swim some..

 

To make a long story short, you can get strong and beyond using just bodyweight. The trick is in the knowledge of how to make your body work just as hard or even harder like when you would go to the gym..

 

Theo

 

Quick update

Everything going very well here in Bali, and I am slowly but surely adapting to this whole new lifestyle, which has me eating at weird hours, sleeping in the day, and lots and lots of chicken and goat sate...

Still training, with rings, parallettes, pullup bar and on the beach.

Right now I am working on several skills, namely the Front lever and the back lever on rings, the muscle up, and a lot of variations of the L-sit on parallettes. Good for the tummy!

Progress however, on levers, is not really fast, because I am still around 91 kg, and getting into a lever is pretty tough. I will get there though..

I also started with doing handstands, and trying to work up to a full handstand press on parallettes.

Every other morning, I go to the beach, for some cardio, running up and down the beach and combining a few laps with jumps up on the pier and off the pier. There are big rocks that are easy to jump off too. After that, there is a tire laying around, not really big, and I flip that for 20 reps, and then it is back to running a few laps.. To finish off training, I go for a swim.. All in all, doesn't sound too much of a punishment to be here, in Bali, doensn't it?

Tomorrow we will be going on a small vacation to visit some relatives in Java, the main island of Indonesia. We will be going with our car, im the designated driver for more than 7 hours so Joy!

Since I am living in Indonesia, I have all of a sudden become a great fan of making things the DIY-way, or Do It Yourself. Living on a somewhat tight wallet, well, actually that’s not really true but one must keep an anticipating eye on the future, I like to search the web and fabricate stuff myself. And I am surprised what stuff you can make by yourself, saving a lot of money on the way. One nice item I had never even thought of before, is parallettes.

Yes, I am in a somewhat gymnastic mood as of late, but these babies do work! I looked up a schedule how to make them, bought some PVC and for less than 10 dollars you can make your own set. Your abs will get a good workout when trying going for time on the L-sit, you can use a bigger ROM for push ups, you can try planche work (if it’s not useful to you, it sure looks impressive), and working your way up to a handstand push up. The latter is something I really want to get, but here I don’t really have a suitable wall and I seem to always get kind of dizzy. But with the parallettes, it’s easy because the closer you bring your feet to your hand and the straighter you keep your upper body, your shoulders will get most of the work. Not convinced, Go make some!

Well, the rings I have already written about. Nice things, and I actually bought a pair of Xtreme rings. They were on pre-sale, and although shipping is a bitch to Indonesia, the price was still allright.. Everyday I am sore, (static tension really fatigues the muscles) and that’s about all I have to say about that.

Barbells, easy to make with some cement and a scaffold pole. Will not be pretty, but does work. Here at home I have a few small ones laying around and although too light, it does work. Don’t worry if they are offset, your body will compensate for that and did you ever in real life handle an opponent or object that was perfectly weighed down just for you to lift comfortably.. ?

Sandbags, didn’t do that yet but will do someday. We do not have a lot of space around the house, but I am set on making some. There is enough sand laying around Bali anyway.

Atlas stones ofcourse, but I never made some. I know Nick has made a few back in the day for the Wheyconsortium, so who knows he can give you some insights..

Pull ups bars, well actually that is a no brainer, ain’t it?

The next plan for me is to make some poles stuck in the ground or build some sort of platform to attach my rings to. We bought a car a few days ago, and now I can’t ring sling in the garage anymore.

So that is it for now.

 

Theo

Humbled..

 

Every now and then when trying some new exercises, I feel that ‘good’ kind of soreness. That kind that you want every time, after exercising, but don’t always seem to find no matter what nifty technique you try, being that Tabata’s, 21’s, hoisting weights near max, HIT’ing or trying out the Weider principles the good ol’ BB days..) or whatever..

Since a few days, and actually since a few months of almost bodyweight only training, I am being humbled about the lack of flexibility, agility and the ability to do fairly simple exercises using bodyweight alone. And I bet, that most of us that are not accustomed to doing bodyweight stuff, will be humbled as well. We all have been under a heavy bar crushing down on the traps, lifting amounts of weight of the floor that would give normal human  hernia just by looking at it. But how many of you trainees out there, are able to perform a set of 10 pistols (one legged squat BW only)? How many of you can do 15-20 strict reps on the pull up bar, handstand pushups or one arm pushups? I bet that the average gym rat can’t do that.

Is it necessary to be able to do that? NO. That is simple, it’s not needed to develop a nice physique, a strong physique do being able to get in the awkward position of a one-arm one-leg push up position and bang out reps to be and to get strong. Barbell benches will get you there, and so will dumbbell presses. So what’s the point of my rambling? I will tell you..

Being able to handle your own bodyweight in exercises (and there are more) above, will you make you a very complete, alround strength athlete. Fact is you can handle a heavy barbell, but when you can’t handle your own bodyweight in a series of exercises, something seems ‘off’ to me. Now I will be frank, and tell you that I have never looked into bodyweight exercises. Heavy barbells, dumbbells or even machines made more sense to me. But now, being in a sabbatical from the gym, I am using almost just that, bodyweight exercises.

Is there any proof to all of this? Yes, there is. And if you have ever seen gymnastics on tv, you will become a believer. Gymnasts have the best physiques out there (excepts for the leg development, because they always wear those somewhat gayish pants). Delts that look like cannonballs, biceps that make bodybuilders jealous and ripped up chests and abs, not even mentioning the strong and thick back development. And the muscles are all go, and functional as hell!

Here is a quote from an article of C. Sommers, professional gymnastic instructor and host of gymnastic bodies.com. : “I've seen many gymnasts capable of planche push-ups do double bodyweight bench presses on their first attempts. Conversely, I've never seen a weightlifter capable of doing a double bodyweight bench press even come close to a planche push-up initially.”

I have set up a pair of rings in the garage, and even the simplest of exercises were giving me a very hard time. Supporting own weight, I am back to around 91-90kg, is hard. L- seats, L- pull ups, front levers or back levers, every muscle in your body will be shaking and squeezing hard! If you have a set of rings somewhere, do some flys or just your regular push ups/ dips, and you too will be feeling a whole different sensation in your body.

Ring training will have your whole body contracting hard to support your own weight, and adding a few exercises to your regimen of training can make you a stronger athlete. If ring training is not your cup of tea, I would just ask one thing of you. Try it. And if you are a bodybuilder in search of some strong abs, I suggest you TRY IT.. And if you are a powerlifter and want to push some more weight, TRY IT, because getting into some hanging supports or doing some tricep extension when leaning into the rings will make your triceps work very VERY hard..

Right now, in my own training, pistols are still giving me some trouble due to lack of flexness, but I squeeze out one good ass to calf rep, one arm and one leg push ups for 2, and pull ups done for reps up to 15. Not bad. As far as the ring stuff goes, that’s all new to me and right now I am working on two basic skills, the front and back lever. www.beastskills .com has some good articles about this, as well as www.ringtraining.com.

 

So to come into a conclusion, bodyweight training can spice up your regular training and make you a more complete lifter. Have a go at it, and see if you can benefit from it. I bet you will be humbled...

Theo

Getting more serious

I have some new found inspritation, yes si-re! I am scanning the web, and looking for all kinds of bodyweight exercises. I go to the internetcafe, and since we don't have interweb at home, save full pages on my memorydildo and study at home. Too bad I havent' found a lot of full blogs that all of the necessary info on one page.. Maybe anybody has some good ideas? Hell, I might even start up some yoga to get nice and flexible again, because in the morning at the beach I saw a very fit lady doing her routine... Mesmerizing...

Pull ups are going great, and I came up with the idea to get some rings made, so I can start ringtraining as well. The garage we have is suitable for that, and we already brought a long steel pole to the welder and they will be ready tomorrow. Can't wait! Too bad the diameter is quite small, but nothing some good old tape can't fix..

Today:

80 pull ups
80 military presses
80 rows
4x 30 second planks
4x 3 jack knifes

26 minutes.. need to bring reps again and decrease time.

3x5 handstand pushups.. Well not quite upright, but working into that..

Bodybuilding contest..

Well, I lost my virginity at my first ever bodybuilding contest. Not as a participant ofcourse, that may happen when hell freezes over and pigs can fly.. I can be very short about it, NEVER, EVER, in my life have I seen such a boring event as a muscle showdown..

The event was held in Denpasar, and was in a pasar, a market place. Entrance was a whopping 2.000 IDR, or better said around 10 eurocents.. Nick probably paid a hell of a lot more for going to the fight...

I recognized a few guys from the street, one of them was a guy who brings around ice at markets and small food stands. He competed in the 60k class. Had quite a good physique, good abs that really stood out, but all in all, it's just 60k.. hehe..

The event, like always, started at the lowest weight, and my brother in law and me were looking forward to see the somewhat bigger guys, 80 and up.. But, since a BB event is not something you get all pumped up about, we called it a day after just an hour ending up seeing just the 69k class..

I didn't get any pictures just yet, looking on the web for that. My camera was giving me fits..

Yesterday's training:

Sprints on the beach: 8 sprints of 150m, 10 walk/jog backs..

In the evening did a crossfit workout at home, don't remember the ladies' name:

10 pull ups (should have been  20)
30 push ups
40 sit ups
50 squats

did 5 rounds in 19.43 minutes..

That sure gets a sweat going. I still try to refrain myself of going to the gym, not before I finally got my BF down to a better ab showing level. Sprints on the beach, and the bw squats, were giving me an irritated hip. Probably due to the slight incline that the beach has, where I was running across.

Theo

Training

Checked my weight again.. Surprisingly, I am back to around 94-95kg.. I have no friggin'  idea how that came, because I do not eat a lot. Rice, fish, chicken, and the occasional sweet drink. I also not feel too bloated or anything, and my legs have shrunken significantly over the past weeks of no weight training. However, my back is looking thicker, due to all the chins and pull ups.

Tuesday-

Lunges forward, reverse- pullups : 10 min
Squats- clean and press: 5 min
Ab wheel- bb row: 5 min
Planks- db presses: 5 min

This went ok

Wednesday-

Don't really remember.. It's a lot of greasing the groove.. The occasional pull up, and did do a lot of one arm push ups. I am trying to get down a one leg, one arm push.. Also been doing some pistols throughout the day, and they are going better.

Thursday was rest..

Today- sprints over 150meter, and walk back for 5 laps.. on the biatch baby!

Hmm..

Not really a session to be proud, or to even write about. Still following the basis guidelines of the Warrior Diet, wich I think a review, or some kind would be nice in the future.. Who knows.. Bits and pieces I read, and I must saying, going hungry on two rice crackers all morning, and then at lunchtime hit the gym to muster out a hard session isn't for the faint of hearted, and I have come to the conclusion that also applies for me..

Circuit time.. Wanted to do 6-8 sets of Chins/ Squats with bw on the BB/ DB press and dips. Not to hard but already at the first set I was a bit shaky..

Warm up
Chins 12
Squat 10x60kg
Db press: 8x16kg
Dip: 12

Then the work sets
3 rounds of:

Chins: 5 +10kg
Squat: 5x90kg
Db: 8x20kg
Dips: 12

Just 3 rounds and I had enough.. Did some abs, choosing 3 and circuitting (how is that even spelled?) them..

That's all folks!

Theo