Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Tuesday Training....and a recap of Naked Warrior Seminar

Yoana, Ken Black and I had the privelage of assisting at the Naked Warrior seminar in LA over the weekend. The seminar absolutely rocked! Pavel and Steve Maxwell pulled things out their bags of tricks that I had never seen. And the push variations that Steve showed were jaw-dropping. Here are a few of the main points I took home from the workshop:

1) Your body alone is the ultimate gym. There are an infinite amount of ways to make your bodyweight more challenging and thus improve conditioning with only your body weight.

2) Proper biomechanics are very important. You will find a transference of movement principles across all sports. In other words, God created your body to move and funtion in specific ways. Adopt and apply those principles and your performance will improve.

3) Linkage versus Leakage: Connect the shoulders to the body and you will be stronger. Pushing and pulling come from the LATS, period!!!!! When you perform push ups, push from the lats. When you row or perform pull ups/chin ups, use the lats. Initiate pushing and pulling by "packing the Shoulders." Similar to what most people have learned at the RKC, suck the shoulder into the socket.

4) Use the CORKSCREW technique when doing push ups. This keeps the shoulders packed, takes stress off the elbow and place it into the lats. When done properly, your shoulders should lower, never raise, when pushing or pulling.

5) On pistols you must find the power leak and attack it. Maybe it's your ankles that are unstable, maybe your knee, or possibly you lack mobility and strength in your hip. Perform all the troubleshooting assistance exercise and re-test the pistol. The patella must track straight.

6) On Pull Ups and Chin ups you must TRIANGULATE the shoulders, basically, suck the arms into the body from the hang position. Initiate the pull up by tucking the pelvis (engaging the abs) and bringing the legs in front of the body (note: this is not kipping). A wider grip takes stress off of the elbow due to decreased elbow flexion. Most guys might be stronger with a more narrow grip. The key to injury free pull ups is to vary the grips, the width and type of implement you grab (towel, bar, thick bar, rings, ropes).

All in all it was great to learn from the masters and it was fun assisting with Ken Black. Fun times and I look forward to seeing this seminar again!

Tuesday Training

A-1 Snatches
28kg 5 x 5/5

A-2 Chin Ups
20kg 5 x 3

A-3 Double KB Back Lunge
2 x 16kg 5 x 5/5

The training session took my just under 20 minutes. My lungs were BURNING, wow! Felt great!

4 comments:

Franz Snideman said...

Rif,

slowly at the moment. I need to start implementing them in more frequently. Thanks for asking!

Ken Black said...

It was great seing you and Yoanan again Franz! You guys rock! Great write up of the seminar! Catch up soon.

Tim Dymmel said...

Franz,

Glad to see you back into the bells.

Sometimes these workouts are the beauty of simplicity.

Dymmel

Mark Reifkind said...

franz, beleive me when I say they are much more important than the heavy snatches or other strength exercises for the health of your back. I beleive one should always do what is necessary first, then what one wants to do. I will continue to harass you buddy :))