Week Two: Arm Strengthening: 30 Day Parkour Challenge: March 2016

Week two is over and my goal to strengthen my arms has been accomplished for now.

This week for my 30 day challenge consisted of arm strengthening and conditioning. I feel tons better than last Friday (Mar 4th) When I went out and tried to do some arm workouts. 

I did not push myself to hard when it came to the workouts. My goal in the week was to build my base. When I started I could barely do a full set of dips, push-ups and pull-ups for some reason. My problem was probably mostly mental. Its been such a long time since I've done workouts with such simplicity. 

I tracked as well as I could how much of the exercising I was doing. (See the days at the end of this post.) Some days I kept an exact list of how many items I did. Other days I was really vague in the numbers. It was more important to me that I was doing the workout than the amount specifically that I would be doing. 

I concentrated on the muscles used most in a muscle up motion. Pull up and dips. I also worked on push-ups from a downward dog position into a Seal and back. This is one thing I need to continue to work on. When I roll back from the seal, I get stuck at the lowest point. Like the lowest point of a push up. I struggle at pushing my body away from my hands down toward my feet. This will come as I develop my triceps with dips. 

Taking Pictures of yourself in the mirror is one of the most tackiest things you can do. 

So here I am dong the same. Sorry no topless photo's here. I can really tell the difference with only a week of working out. I'm not the largest guy but I've been told that when I move I'm pretty "ripped". 

I told my wife I'm working out my arms so that I can hold my soon to be newborn longer. We've got a few more days till she popes out of the oven. 

I started getting in to Ryan Fords book Parkour Strength Training. This book goes into the basic techniques and ways to strengthen yourself for basic and advanced parkour. It deals with the fundamentals. I'm not far but I am gaining some good information from the book. I hope to finish the book this month. 

The Reason I like doing these 30 day challenges is it gives me a chance to learn about what i may want to improve on in general when it comes to myself. If I want to keep up doing parkour, and progress in the discipline I need to keep up my strength training. This is one thing I learned this week. Ive been quite lazy this last winter. Running can keep my endurance up but does not benefit my actual strength. 

What I want to work on this week is putting more movements into my parkour that will allow me to naturally build muscle and strengthen my body. Take movements like these that I shared in my first post for the month. Watch Jehan Martinez video which I shared in that first post. He moves in a way that engages and use his upper body more. 

This will be my goal for my third week of training. Add upper body movement into my lines. I will still be working on other big movement using strides and plyos. I hope to have a video for my week three training, so look forward to it. 

Here is a video that came out this week that I am getting inspiration from.

Safe Training from Eric Higgins.

These are my notes form my training during the week. Im thinking I may want to start an actual training journal. not sure yet how I'll do it or if I even will.

TRAINING DAYS March 2016

Mar 7
Ran to Gardener Village 8 miles
Push ups
Dips front and back
Pull ups

March 8
-QM 40m forward. Back. Side to side.
-20 push-ups
-Bar pullups to the ear. 5 each side.
-One are variation of above. 5 each side
-5 Spread out arms for a full climb up. Assisted with legs
-10 Dips
-10 Beached whale dips
-10 downward dog pushups
-5 downward dog to push-up position

Precision training

Plyo prrcisuon

March 9 Wed
More of a play day at corner canyon
I did do some abb stuff. Not a lot but I felt a strain on my core when doing swings and flyaways.

Slow down explosion push-ups at an incline.
Dips and beached whales.
Climbups

March 10

I wanted to find lines that utilized my arms. Where I would get a more engaged workout.

Did some turn vaults to cat hangs. 

Aldo did lots of Pushups in Class because student kept putting their knees down. 

March 11

Went To SoJo Library. 

climbed. cat jumps. inclined pushups. ect. stretched. drank lots of water. Shake and Egg ham sandwhich. 

March 12

Went to West Jordan Veterans memorial park and worked out with Brett and Troy.