Program Minimum

Well, I have made it through 5 weeks of Program Minimum. I spent 5 weeks on it as I missed one week of quality training and took a step back. I was able to really improve my swing technique. I follow several good trainer's blogs and found a great piece of advice on mc's about locking up the glutes. Her take on it, simplified for me, is to think of your turning your hips out. You are consciously thinking of rotating them outward. I found that this helped me quite a bit in effectively locking the glutes down. It allowed me to also brace my abdomen much tighter. After 12 minutes of swings, that technique allowed me to finish as strongly as I started.

I really feel that the swing has reset my form and fixed the sloppiness that I had developed over the last year. The focus that I was able to place on the swing also increased my explosive power. There was a very noticeable increase in my relaxed power applications in a recent martial arts class. The relaxed tension that the swing teaches you has increased punching power tremendously . I know that the people I have been training with have noticed it as well. That does not even start on the "Kung Fu Grip" you develop from that much swinging.

I really enjoyed my Get Up portion. Being a dofus I often had to remember to slow down my movements. The Kalos Thenos version is by far one of the best exercises that you can do. By moving slowly and not rushing through the series, it is possible to build proper patterning for real world movement. It took the entire 5 weeks to even make a dent in proper form and technique. I realized that I was wobbly and out of sorts pretty quickly. This was compounded by attempting to make a set number of reps in my 5 minutes. By slowing down to a rep a minute I ws able to lock down the benchmarks that were needed. The high hip bridge being a large one. I figured out that I need to focus through the straight leg heel. Before figuring that point out, I was compensating and the straight leg was coming off the ground. I began to roll to my elbow instead of punching straight up. It allowed a cleaner get up with better mobility. I also learned that I was not tightening my glutes and began to pinch a quarter at the top of the hip bridge. Once I started that, my arm and shoulder locked in correctly. As I wrote, this was only a small dent in a great exercise and I will be going back to it in a month or so.

I have also been playing with my Captains of Crush Grippers a lot. I am not making them a main focus, but Greasing the Groove with ladders. I am in my car a lot these days with wasted training time. I start my travels out by warming up with a Sports COC before I leave the driveway. I then hit reps as I am stopped by red lights. I utilize a ladder to train. I start with 1 rep at the first light, 2 at the next until I am at 5 reps. I hit the next rung after that. I have noticed a difference in grip strength. To prevent imbalances, I use a broccoli band to work the extensors after every rung. I use broccoli bands as I am buying the broccoli anyway. That and I am to cheap to order the "proper" bands. Steve Maxwell taught me that at my first RKC! He had a bunch in his pocket. I am all about saving money!

I am going to put some info on my blog about opening for training. I will also be offering some online training. email me if you are interested.