Monday, May 21, 2007

Pulling Power and Diet Update

Well the one-armed chinups are coming along. I have done a few on my right (weaker) arm but they're not consistent yet and I need to be 100% fresh to do them. With a bit more work I should be able to get it up to the level of the left arm with which I can do a repetition and a slow negative with relative ease.

When I first started training these I was also working towards a one-armed pullup, which I abandoned since I didn't want to overload myself. I was therefore surprised to find that I could do a one-armed pullup with my left arm with no additional training. It seems the muscles built to achieve the one-armed chinups were enough to allow me to do the same with a pronated grip. I'm really happy with this since I was thinking this would be another while down the line and require specialised training.

So as it stands I can pullup and chinup with my left arm consistently and chinup with my right arm when I'm fresh... the obvious next step is to work towards being able to chinup and pullup on both arms individually, whenever I please.

Once I have achieved this benchmark in pulling power them I'm going to cease progressing with it for a while and just maintain that level, whilst switching my focus to pushing power in the form of handstand practice, elephant lifts, weighted pushups for endurance, gymnastics planche and ultimately in this period, 10 one-armed pushups per arm with perfect form (feet together, body straight).

My leg progression is going well too, I've implemented a few new training techniques in to my leg training such as isometric holds similar to martial arts stances, jump repetitions, weighted pistols and generally focusing on jumping ability in my technical sessions.

One thing that I've been really happy with recently is my diet. It has always been 'ok' in that 5 or 6 days per week I was completely strict with what I ate and then at the weekend I tended to splurge a little and indulge myself. But recently, in the last two or three weeks I've been completely aware and careful with what I put in my mouth and I've noticed a big difference in my ability as a result.

My diet over the past three weeks has consisted of fruit (ridiculous amounts), vegetables, chicken, turkey, soup, wholemeal bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, fish, weetabix, oats, yogurt, nuts and that's pretty much all I can think of. I've been drinking water, milk and fruit smoothies/juice exclusively. That is all that I've consumed and I feel a lot better for it, I think I've lowered my body fat percentage further than ever before and I never feel bloated or hungry anymore... all of the processed chemicals seemed to be gone from my body and it feels good to be in control of the situation (I still supplement with whey protein, cod liver oil, glucosamine sulphate and a multivitamin).

I've never counted calories or weighed my meals and I don't plan to start now - I prefer to just listen to my body. The occasional cravings for something sweet or chocolaty still happen at the weekend but so far I've resisted and gradually my palette is changing. I'm going to try for two months without anything 'bad' in my diet then hopefully I'll be fully converted to healthy eating and lose the cravings for sweet foods!

Hope you're all training hard and seeing lots of progression, I'm off to eat an apple or four. ;-)

-Blane

14 comments:

Phily D said...

awesome stuff man, skills on the one arm pullup on left (gota train it to one arm muscle on both sides lol), diet sounds realy good man, mines about the same as yours sounded before the past few weeks. I hope technical and other training is going well and that i possibly see you soon.

Phil

Soilwork said...

I've been learning that maybe as important as training is the nutrition, few months ago i started reorganizing the way i eat, and try to low the fat percentage, just changing how many times i eat during a day, eating more times but less food, i lost 4kg, and feeling much stronger, now i'm 77kg, and i decided to really learn how to eat, and make a fine on my diet, i bought an sports nutrition book which is helping really more :D

really nice topic, you have lots of good stuff here, keep posting.

Callum said...

Cool man! I need to improve my diet.

See you Wednesday :D

Anonymous said...

honey, you were never fat to begin with, now you're dieting? please dont get manorexia or develop an eating disorder.

i'm visiting next week, so be prepared to get tied to a chair and fed cake and pie and soda all day long.

come find me...

Chris 'Blane' Rowat said...

Phil, at your age you probably burn off everything you eat straight away! As long as you stay active then you could afford to eat almost whatever you like and hardly notice a physical difference. But saying that, eating healthily will definitely fuel you more efficiently to train longer and harder. =)

Soilwork, losing 4kg is mental! Great job, well done. Which book did you buy? I might check it out.

Callum AKA Mr Yum Yum, see you Wednesday. :P

'anonymous', It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change. Diets are temporary and in my opinion a waste of time since when you finish the diet, you simply return to the way you were before it with time. What is needed is a permanent overhaul in nutrition and a gradual elimination of unnecessary foods. I'll make a note to avoid chairs next week but I guess I'll be seeing you at some point? :O

-Blane

Phily D said...

yeah haha, i know quite a few people my age who are probably a little underweight but eat junk after junk after junk and say they dont need to think about there diet until there older. It's cool how that works but i think if i get used to a certain diet now it will be easier to stick to it for life.

Phil

Julian said...

Always good to see a new post, and serious congrats for the one arm pull, thats some very good going right there since i think that technique is much harder, so nice job man,
Also the diet sounds really good. Im trying to stay on top of mine as well, its going good, just its exam period so i do tend to eat a lot of fruit and muesli or whatever when im at my desk outof boredom and just cravings lol,
anyway man, see you soon, hopefully,

Soilwork said...

I boght this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Clarks-Sports-Nutrition-Guidebook/dp/073604602X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9440490-5538510?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179835749&sr=8-1

it's good the book doesn't gives you a diet, or tell you what to do, its explain how to eat good when you don't have time, and you are working, how to find something good on fast foods, and of course explains everything a good nutrition schedule needs to an active person feels more energy.

see ya :)

Chris 'Blane' Rowat said...

Thanks soilwork!

Leicester Parkour Association said...

Sounds good B man.

See you tomorrow night!

Yosef

joe said...

Well done on everything man, you're progressing at a speedy rate :)
with regards to the help you asked? iam not entirely sure what to say at the moment but if i could send a small e-mail with a few usefull things to train? other than that the only other thing is just practise lol
up to you anyway.
hope i see you soon anyway :)
joe

Pawl said...

Amazing that you actually feel a change in your body after eating right. I'm going to stop drinking soda and coffee for a few weeks and see if I feel an actual change in endurance and weight and so forth. I know that drinking coffee and soda make me overall, dehydrated much faster.

Natán said...

Well this blog is quite incredible!
Nice work! Well i have a little "problem" going around in my head... im 15 years old... and i weight around 50-49Kg... honestly i have no problem making my way through daily trainning... But its still kind of scary... I simply feel kind of to light... or week maybe... no not week, i mean i have no trouble doing planch and i used to train once a week pure strenght but last month hasnt been so easy... I just feel more vulnerable in case a slip ocurrs (accident)... well i just wanted to ask for some advice... Ive heard of protein powder, but im not shure what could help me... I think that it worths mentioning bad sleep and 8 trainings a week, only 4-3 PK. and 2 Swimming, 2 basquet plus games and daily exercise in my room XP.
well im sorry if my english is not so good... im from mexico DF. My mail is idrumpk@gmail.com
Thanks for opening this space for people to share knowledge... Bye bye!

Anonymous said...

Great work! I have been wanting to work on a oac how exactly did you build the strength to do them? What progressions/exercises did you use, how often did you train, how many set/reps etc...