I’ve had a bit of a set-back on the blogging front this weekend. One I’m sure that many of you can relate to.
I sat down on Friday evening, made a cup of coffee, cracked my knuckles and settled down to a couple of hours uninterrupted writing. Only to find that my computer refused to boot up.
Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring!
Obviously, the first thing I did was to panic
I had two posts planned for my hip mobility series and a great one (if I say so myself) about training outdoors in the (delightful) British winter. Well, they weren’t going to happen now. All my photos that I had ready to slot in are in limbo on my irritating machine.
So I’ve put together a few emergency posts on a borrowed computer that I hope you will enjoy instead. Normal service, as they say, will be resumed next week.
A round-up of my introducing posts
Since my blog recently turned 50 posts old, I thought it might be appropriate to do a round-up of the “introducing posts” that I’ve done over the last couple of months. Without further ado, here they are:
The Lumberjack Squat
Introducing the lumberjack squat - this is my all time favourite squatting movement. It’s unique in two main respects. Firstly, it has no spinal loading so there isn’t the same stress on the lumbar area that happens (particularly) with the back squat. Secondly, it has a good core and upper body involvement in addition to the basic leg action.
You need to work quite hard to keep the upper body from bending forwards and the fixed but pushing action of the arms feels kind of like the opposite of the fixed but pulling action of the arms in a deadlift.
The Glute-Ham Raise
Introducing the assisted glute-ham raise - I’ve blogged recently about how I’ve plateaued on the glute-ham raise and that I’ve temporarily switched to weighted glute-bridges. However, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a great exercise and if you’ve got a couple of pull-up bars, a resistance band a pad to kneel on, these are a great way of hitting the posterior chain.
Farmers’ Walks
Introducing farmers’ walks - I had some great fun in the summer building strongman equipment on a shoestring. The farmers’ bars were one of the successes I had while the weather was still kind. Using a couple of dumbbells, some weights plates, a few climbing slings and two old pieces of wood, I built the bars for virtually nothing. I had fun making some sandbags too but that’s another story.
Pull-ups and Chins
Introducing pull ups and chins - most of my regular readers will have worked out by now that the pull up is probably my all-time favourite exercise. Having said that, I rarely do unweighted pull-ups now. This picture below is rare footage of me doing a pull-up without a harness on. Which is probably why I went quite so far above the bar and banged my head on the ceiling…
The Pistol
Introducing the pistol - this exercise is just so much fun and it never ceases to amaze me that untrained people just can’t do it. And yet with a bit of practice, it’s quite an easy skill to acquire. Again, I rarely do pistols without weight anymore. And because of that, I rarely do them on the ground, choosing instead to use a 12″ box.
The advantage of using a small box is that the lower back is put under less stress. And I confess, I stole this idea from Mike Boyle and I think it works really well. The outstretched leg can descend lower than it would normally be able to and this means that there is less lumbar flexion. You can see that there is still some lumbar flexion in the image bel0w, you’d have to be a mutant to avoid it, but it’s a lot less than it would be if I were doing them on the ground.
And I apologise for the horrible gym outfit. This photo was taken in the height of summer and it was about 100 degrees in my garage.
If you didn’t see these articles the first time around, I hope you find them interesting. If you did, well, I hope it wasn’t too boring seeing them again!
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[...] Yesterday, I explained how I had a major set-back at the weekend. How I sat down on Friday evening, made a cup of coffee, cracked my knuckles and settled down to a couple of hours uninterrupted writing. Only to find that my computer refused to boot up. [...]
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