Gym90 Day 16 – Updates

VanDammeSo I have been doing most of what I set out to do, as far as the actual gymnastics skills training I have been doing splits, front lever front planche and handstand practice or rather progressions. I have come to learn that splits hurts as much as the kids say it does and front lever is actually WAY harder than it looks. I am already seeing some improvement on my leg and hip flexibility but when you start out with hamstrings of steel it’s not hard to see some improvements.

My strength is up, I was able to bench with the straight bar on the incline bench last week without any issue which means that the chiropractor has actually helped my shoulder issue via my neck which is completely counter-intuitive to me but it really seems to be working. It is a little disconcerting to have such flexibility and mobility in my neck after being bound up for so long, I am sore some days from doing very normal tasks and my neck is making a lot more cracking noises than it used to as the bones move around like (I assume) they are supposed to. I have to admit I haven’t actually kicked up into handstand yet, I am working towards that slowly doing all the progressions first to make sure my body knows what it is supposed to do the right way. It’s easy to think of doing things right, it’s another thing to execute a foreign movement correctly without any practice. I have not been sleeping that well, this is not a surprise since my sleep is often my least carefully attended to part of my health. In fact, I have been so tired the last week or so I am going to take a vacation day to try and get some extra sleep and rest taken care of.

So, numbers. I am benching 5 a side on the chest machine which is deceptively easy. 8 a side on the leg press (it won’t take any more). I can comfortably do 3 a side on the military press machine but the barbell press itself I am only up to almost 2 a side which for me is a little low. Pullups are not increasing, I think I may tiring myself out doing pullups last but I am struggling to 7 most days. Then again I am still doing 8-10 sets each time. I have been doing a lot of very heavy laying pullovers for chest, something that overstretched my triceps last time and I am still sore from however I think that the pullovers plus the dip machine have enabled me to put some much needed size on my chest.  I have modified a bench and bar to do assisted front lever / falling tower type work. It hurts a lot but did open my eyes to the fact front lever is far more abs than I would have imagined. I thought the back strength would have been the weak point. I think I was wrong…

In other news I am binging on Dr Who, to the exclusion of everything except the new season of The Vampire Diaries which is barely surviving the loss of Nina Dobrev in my opinion. We have Bubble Guppies Live tonight with our darling daughter who has also started skating and is currently the fastest in her class. The fact it is still just walking on ice isn’t the point. 🙂 She is the fastest ice walker out there! Gymnastics is going very well I was surprised by some of my girls the past week or so getting success on some very challenging skills. They grow up so fast, and now they are starting to have things click which is amazing to see.

So the next few days should see me finally getting inverted, attempting to work on my balance with parellettes and hopefully getting some rest. Wish me luck.

Gym90 Day 6 – The Slow Start And I’m Finally Overweight.

P90X_Yoga_X_crane
Imagine doing that at 275lbs and after 35 minutes of yoga…

My first introduction to the crane was with Tony and P90X way back here. Back then it was pretty foreign to me and being around 275+ lbs at the time I think maybe a bit ambitious. Fast forward to last week when I tried again at the gym…

This is harder than I imagined. I was very sore after splits and the pain in my wrists from trying handstands was immense. I don’t recall doing crane in P90X and having this much pain but then again I am not used to doing such flexion work any more since my bench is suicide grip.  I have so far been able to do some crane stands, I am hoping the next step will be to attempt some parallette tuck planche holds to work on my balance. So far no cartwheels or roundoffs since I am much further off the mark than I thought I was. As far as measuring goes, I can middle split between the lines at gym but only just. I am going to assume it’s a 4ft strip, that would seem logical. My crane hold was only about 5-10 seconds but it was good to see that I could actually still do it. During back day, which is today I am trying to work my pullups along with front lever which is proving to be extremely hard. I haven’t attempted back lever at all so far, I remember being a child and doing skin the cat on bars but along with rope climbing it wasn’t something I was able to do. I am certain my shoulders aren’t going to like it but as far as flexibility goes it’s a good way to increase your shoulder mobility. Thinking about it, I can do a rings inversion easily so maybe from here seeing if I can come down into rear level might be possible. Easier said than done I am sure.

As for the muscle ups I haven’t attempted yet but I have been doing chest to bar on back day in preparation and also some transition strength work on the chest machine which is awkward but I am able to get the transition move done under load. I think I may have to resort to band assisted muscle ups to start which I suppose is just a fact of life. Maybe at gym tonight I will give them a try. I had also forgotten that abs day should also include bridge training, and instead I did some handstand hold with my feet on the stairs at home to try and get some sense of balance and shoulder extension and to get my breathing sorted out. That didn’t last long and so I am nowhere with my bridge at this point. I have to say I used to be able to do a brief bridge back in 2011 when I first got to 230lbs and as a youth playing rugby we used to do neck bridges which is basically the same as  a bridge but you are on your head not your hands. Yes, I know, the 80’s..

Last week I was surprised to step on the scale and see my weight drop to 218lbs. I had been trying to hit maintenance calories for a while and I was expecting some fluctuations upwards not the other way. That said, however, I have finally hit my last weight goal which was 100kg or 220lbs. This is significant in a couple of ways. It’s a neat number to be  under 100kg, that means if I was 218 I was actually 99kg, DOUBLE FIGURES!! Second, the BMI which is not particularly relevant for someone of my muscle density has the OBESE category starting at 220lbs. Being below that mark means that for the first time since University I am OVERWEIGHT!! Yay me! I posted a while back about my goal of being overweight and even to me, someone so used to setting and mostly hitting marks it seemed unlikely. That rings true when you see that my post was back in 2011 when I was still pushing 250lbs and it’s taken me 4 years to finally get the goal done.

Which brings me back to my development of Gym90. Since my weight is no longer a viable goal I am going to have to change my thinking a bit. So this weekend I submitted to the process of changing my thinking, threw out a lot of my fat clothes and bought some new size 36 jeans. Size 36…. I can’t remember the last time I bought anything that was size 36. I am usually cursing not being able to find 48’s. So forgive me if this gets a bit repetitive, I am going to take some time to get used to it. I must say at this point that my waist actually measures 36.5 with a real tape measure since pants are rarely a great guide to actual size.

Gym90 Day1 – Splits. Kind of.

invincibleknightOK so starting out I thought I would take it easy. I did some splits or rather some “splits” work on leg day which was Wednesday and then yesterday I was supposed to do handstands work but my shoulder workout said otherwise. When I say splits, unfortunately my middle splits are so poor at the moment that I had to use an exercise ball to lean on rather than reaching the floor. I have  A LOT of work to do.

Coincidentally there was a guy doing muscle ups at the gym while I was there further motivating me. So today which is arms day and I am supposed to be doing handstand pushups which means still having to work on handstands so maybe missing yesterday wasn’t such a disaster. It’s 2 days since splits and I have a lot of discomfort in my groin. I was unable to stress my hip flexors to any degree since my hamstrings seem to want to steal the workload. Middle splits though, I thought I was going to snap something. I have estimated that I could probably almost reach from the wall to the first velcro line at gym. I will let you know when I improve enough to prove that.
I have a feeling that this gym90 is going to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. I realize that I can’t hold a handstand at all and my cartwheel looks more like an accident than a gymnastics skill. Still, good thing I am not vaulting…

That said, I am at a strength to weight ratio that is for once in my favour for inversion skill so I am hoping that my handstand work, when I actually get around to doing it, will rapidly improve. My humourless co-coach Marija seems to find this all very amusing. I am determined to show her I am capable of almost average things… 🙂

A New 90? Gym 90?

6cc5f4c54f2bf0bc8bb4b85967b590f3This site started way back when I had a tangible goal, to lose weight and get in shape. Since then I have been both in and back out of shape and had a back surgery. So now, I am in a place were I am both in shape and lost all the weight I wanted so I need another challenge. As I sit here and write something has occurred to me as a great challenge idea. It’s going to be entertaining for most people probably not for me but will give me something to really work towards. I am going to call it Gym90 and it’s going to include the following things that I currently cannot do:

Handstand hold
Front planche / lever
Back blanche / lever
Handstand pushup
Splits front and middle (never done this)
Cartwheel (I can actually do this but it needs fixing)
Roundoff (same)
Muscle up on bars or rings (did this once)
Kip on low bar (this may be a step too far)

I also would like to attempt to get back my front and back tuck but that might get vetoed by my wife.

So starting today the schedule will look a bit like this I think:

Chest day and front planche
Back day and Back planche / muscle ups
Legs day and splits
Shoulders day and Handstands / cartwheels / roundoffs
Arms day and handstand pushups
Accessories Abs and bridge work

I will document my start point which will no doubt be very embarrassing and hopefully we will see some results in 90 days.

Here we go then.

A Month After Cutting Ended

rest daySo it’s been a month, I had planned that this month would be pretty static in what I was doing to let my body adjust to what happened and to give myself a bit of a break from the heavy lifting I had been doing. I have stuck with the plan of cycling my workouts on a 6 day schedule and have been trying not to max out on too many lifts, partly because my shoulder wasn’t great but also because this was supposed to be a resting month.

Here is what has happened since I stopped my cutting cycle right before Cuba at the end of August.

Weight 224 to 220.6
Fat 19% to 18.4%
This puts me right on the doorstep of my weight goal of 220lbs. I have been trying to maintain my eating habits within keto (super low carb) but I have occasionally been having the Thai Express soup that I recently found is completely misleading on their website. It claimed that the soup is only 180 calories with 20g of carbs until you realize that they are only measuring the broth. If you add the noodles in after you add another 240 calories and 56g of carbs for a total of 420 calories and 76g of carbs. This isn’t so bad if you have zero carbs the rest of the day but for me it was a big disappointment.

That said, I haven’t done too badly over the last month and I am ready to start increasing the weights again at a significantly improved position than I was a year ago. I am sure I won’t be able to hit the 1000lb club again this year, although I may try, since I am 40+lbs lighter and that is a significant difference when it comes to strength. In any case, I am going to start to aim for a bodyfat % this time around rather than a body weight or a weight total. It’s a bit weird since I have been “on a diet” for a lot of my adult life going into something without my weight as a primary focus is going to need some adjustment.

I think I am sticking with the workout rotation for the time being with approximately 25 total sets per day.

Chest day – Bench if possible, if not bench machine. Incline press. Laying pullovers. Cable flys high and low.
Back day – Low rows on machine. High pulls on machine. Deadlifts occasionally. Pullups. Cable pulldowns.
Legs – Leg press. Extensions. Ham curl machine sitting and laying.
Shoulders and traps – Military press. dumbbell raises. High pulls. Upright rows. Rear delt machine.
Arms – Free dips. Dip machine. tricep pushdowns. Preacher curl. Standing ezcurl. Alternating hammer / pronated curl.
Accessory work – Abs and calves and forarms etc. Plus stretching hips, neck, splits, upper back. Mostly for abs strength (new for me)
Day 7 I rest.

National Coaches Week Reason #1

nicole#1 Coach Nicole.

I met Nicole at work, but I didn’t find out until after months of begging and pleading for her to go out with me that she had a secret life as a gymnastics coach. I remember the first time I went to the gym to meet her after coaching. I was fascinated with the skills the kids were doing, I was amazed at how she handled the complex tasks of directing the kids, correcting mistakes, assigning work and staying engaged with her athletes. Her style was different from the other coaches and I knew that I wanted to be involved. Her influence on me as a coach has been undeniable. She was the one who taught me the basic principles of being a good coach. Never sit down. Never lose your cool. Plan ahead. Be early for class. Most importantly though, be a coach first and a friend second.

Nicole was my guide, my lead coach when I got qualified and became her CIT. She helped me to develop my coaching style and as I gained in skill and confidence we became a great team coaching some amazing kids to incredible heights.

With the arrival of our daughter Nicole had to step away from coaching and although she had been in gymnastics for 16 years as an athlete and a coach I could tell she missed it. I missed coaching with her and so when she came back to the sport last year I was thrilled. To this day I still watch her coach and I am amazed at her ability to entertain and educate the children. For me, there is no other coach like her, she is an awesome role model for anyone who wants to be a great coach. She taught me everything I needed to know just by being an awesome leader and I will be forever grateful to her. I am so fortunate to have been able to share the 3 most incredible things in my life with her. In fact I can’t think of how my life could have been any better, being married to Nicole, having a beautiful daughter together and being able to share my journey as a gymnastics coach with her.

I’m the luckiest guy alive.

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National Coaches Week Reason #2

KaitNik#2 Broken ankles and broken hearts. How my perspective changed in 2015.

Every coach knows you can’t stay emotionally separate from your kids. Every season they weasel their way into your heart leaving sweaty little footprints on your soul. You want the best for them, you get their best from them in any way you can and the trust that is built in a dangerous sport like gymnastics is unlike any other. That’s why retiring athletes are celebrated and missed so much, that bond which can be years in the making is a treasure. But there is a darker flipside to this coin.

Nikol and Kaitlyn were friends, friendly competitors and hard working gymnasts. The energy they brought to the gym was fun yet focused, both girls were learning quickly and mastering difficult skills. Nikol was in her last season, soon to retire, eager to get her floor and beam routines one last time when she broke her ankle just before Christmas. The timing was bad, knowing how long the recovery was and the dates of competition I knew in my heart she wouldn’t have time to get back in time to compete. Her season was effectively over, and with it her time as a competitive gymnast was done.

The rest of the group kept on working, Kaitlyn seemed to work even harder, mastering advanced skills that even brought attention from other coaches and athletes. She worked so hard it was an inspiration to me and as her coach I could not have been more proud. The night before the last competition of the year, Kaitlyn broke her ankle.

I was devastated. I’m sure looking back I was more frustrated and hurt than she was. What was worse (as if that seemed possible) it flashed through my mind that this may be the last time Kaitlyn would train as a competitive gymnast. A month or so later, she retired.

I was not prepared for any of this. 3 words I had abandoned as a child crossed my lips. This isn’t fair. But life isn’t fair. We shouldn’t expect it to be. I realized that I had been focused on the wrong thing. I was allowing their disappointing endings to spoil my memories.

Yes it sucked. No, it wasn’t the ending we had hoped for. But I came to realize that my immense emotional reaction to both these events was because I had done my job. I had given everything I had into my girls and seen incredible rewards. I understood the heartbreak was inevitable given the unfortunate circumstances. Yes it still bothers me, it is still fresh in my mind after all. But I think at least in the future, I will be better prepared for disappointment if it comes my way. In the end, although we went through 2 coaches and 7 athletes last season, I also gained an amazing coaching partner, a wonderful group of girls and a heart filled once again with the joy that is coaching the best individual sport in the world.

Don’t hate life for what it took from you. Honour the memory of what it gave you and be grateful for the opportunity of sharing that time with others.

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National Coaches Week Reason #3

evo#3 Sarah Smith and Evolution Gymnastics Aurora

Fall of 2010 I walked into EGA for the first time not knowing if I would ever coach gymnastics again. I was happy to do some strength and conditioning for both adults and the kids and kept hoping that I would one day be able to coach competitive athletes again. I realized during that time that gymnastics as a sport had taken ownership of my heart and that coaching was something I was meant to do. Sarah Smith and Bruce Smith took me in and made me feel part of something truly special, a growing, close knit club of people committed to the athletes and their success. They took a chance on me and I will be forever grateful for that. By February of 2011 I was handed a group of young ladies that changed my life. Dasha, Elissa, Emma, Kelci,Liza and Maddison survived that first season with the kind of commitment and work you expect from champions. Words can’t express how proud I was to coach them, or how happy I was to coach alongside them these last years.

They are my girls, they are my athletes and they are my friends.
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National Coaches Week Reason #4

stefbrigjess#4 My first solo competitive kids.

Back in 2007 I was given 8 kids, no instruction manual and a stopwatch. Little did I know what a life changing experience it would be. Stef, Lia, Anastasia, Sarah, Anita, Jessica, Brigitte and Maddie had mostly trained with me before but this time it was just them and me. We laughed, we cried (well, they did) I changed them and they forever changed me. In so many ways this was my greatest coaching education and to share it with them was truly an amazing experience.
Stefani, Brigitte and Jessica were so often the highlights and greatest challenges of my rookie year and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

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National Coaches Week. Reason #5

This past week was National Coaches Week and to celebrate I wrote about the biggest contributing factors to my coaching career. They were very well received on Instagram and Facebook so I thought I would replicate them here for posterity.

NCWlogo

#5 Karren Lee

My first head coach and the person who really clarified to me the need for specific, deliberate and consistent corrections for the athletes. I was new to gymnastics and I was able to trust Karren to help me define my coaching style and to adjust to coaching an all female squad. I probably never adequately expressed my thanks to her but she really was a major factor in my early development. Thanks Karren!

#nationalcoachesweek
#gymcoach
#gymnastics
#payitforward