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. Â 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.