In keeping up with my sports, 17th July, 2009

I have not been doing a lot of free running stuff, lately. My right hip joint is partly to blame (besides my climbing training), since I have been having problems with it since I over strained it (if there is such a word) last February, while indoor climbing.



So, right now, holding a horse stand can be a challenge, without a proper warm up, though I still practice it everyday:


I also train for the side split, every once in a while:


Yeah, if you're wondering, the silly little video those two frames came from is here:

Clearly, I have not let my hip injury keep me down, too much.

Anyway, these days, while I have not been doing my v-sits, too much, nor have I been persistent at the back bridge (I sure need to get back into those), I have been doing my pull ups every other day. In the 'off-days' I have been doing my push ups. Since I started doing pull ups, some time around May, I have been gaining weight dramatically. Whereas I used to loose about 1 Kg (about 2 lbs) a month, I have gained about 6 Kgs (13 lbs) since last April. At first, I thought I was uncontrollably gaining weight (and I could not pin point the cause) but when my friends told me, a few weeks ago, that I looked fitter than I did last January, I decided that my weight gain was due to muscle gain. Of course, I was not too happy about this, either, since a climber needs to be as light as possible.

Perhaps I should not be too concerned, because even with my current muscle gain (if, indeed, the gain was all in muscle) I could still be down to 118 lbs (54 Kgs), soaking wet (to borrow the words of Marcus Luttrell, author of Lone Survivor), or lighter, if I trim down some. Of course, right now, I am acting out on my concerns: rather than do active v-sits and pull ups, for the past two weeks, I am doing v-sit holds, and I am hanging myself from my fingers. Perhaps the finger hangs will come to some use, in the future.

So, while my free running may be on hold, my climbing abilities should be improving. Just a few days ago, I went with my friend, Francis, to the river side, just near my school (we needed to clear our heads, after a long day). While on the river side, I got comfortable moving around rocks.





We then proceeded to the park area, where we could go hang ourselves. I mixed finger hang holds with finger pull ups. While I was happy that the bars at this place seemed to exercise the muscles on the top of my fore arms, I was not too happy with how little exercise my thumbs were getting. I was also a little frustrated about not being able to practice my crimp hold too much, since the bars were a little high, for me (we went there, yesterday, too, and since I tried the crimp hold later into the session, and found it harder, next time, I will try it just as soon as I am warmed up). Nevertheless, it was a good workout.



It left my fingers unable to hold on, though I did not feel any soreness. My upper body did not feel exhausted, either, but I know that breaking the discipline, and overworking myself will only result in injury, and my temporarily being out of commission.

I even got Francis to try doing some pull ups.



Heh heh heh! Like I say: "You don't choose what happens to you, you just choose your friends. Your friends decide what happens to you. When you have friends, things happen."

Of course, I have not stayed away from free running, entirely. For the last two days I have been trying (and failing, miserably) at hollowback presses -- I cannot seem to arch my back, once my feet get off the ground. My pecs are a little sore from my attempts. Other than that, while I have not been trying any more butterfly kicks, for fear of exacerbating my right hip joint injury, I have been trying butterfly kicks, once in a while. I might actually have improved, a bit: if you look at my video from May



and compare it with a video from a few days ago



you might notice that my legs go up a little higher. Of course, I must point out that this might have been due to my reaching my trailing hand backwards (so, I cannot tell how I will perform, once I put one hand after the other, like I used to), like Damien Walters, in his video here:



I shall hope to be able to continue with climbing and free running training, in parallel. Maybe it is a good idea to train the fingers, one day, and do push ups, v-sits, squats, and bridges, the next. Hey, they do their day job of keeping my frustrations at bay!