Convict Conditioning Day 8

Today I performed the following reps for the listed exercises, super setted as usual

Incline Pushups 3x40 on a kitchen counter top

Knee Tucks 3x40 on the edge of a sofa


The pushups are getting easier, but still not quite as easy as a GTG set (half my max reps). My left elbow began to ache slightly, but felt better after repositioning my feet so that my hands were more directly under my shoulders in the low position. The tucks are improving as well.

I chose not to warm up at all prior to doing this workout to be more in line with the goals of my Ever Ready Training. The exercises are gentle enough I can perform the first few reps without any real strain and my muscles warm up during the exercise. My hope is that as the exercises progress and increase in difficulty, my body will gradually adapt to handling a higher level of exertion without warming up first.

Vision Training

When I came home today, there was a fly in my living room. Normally this would be a nuisance and an annoyance, but today it presented itself as an opportunity to train my vision. Following the fly's quick, erratic movements proved to be an excellent way to train my tracking. I initially would lose the fly when it flew quickly towards me, from a light background to a darker one, or across a background with lots of differently shaped, or differently colored items. After a bit I had a much easier time tracking it as it flew towards and away from me, as well as from a light background to a darker one. Following it across varied objects is still a challenge, but it did improve some today also.

My screen door turned out to be another great way to train my near/far vision. I stood as close to it as possible, while still being able to focus and clearly see the mesh. I alternated as quickly as possible between focusing on the screen and then looking through the screen focusing on the address of the house across the street. The only improvement I'm noticing so far from the near/far training is that my vision seems to be getting clearer in lower light situations. I do notice though, after the mild eye strain from the training wears off, I feel calmer and more alert.

Healthy Firehouse meals

The middle shift of last tour was my turn to cook yet again. Drawing from several sources I had planned to cook the following meal

Moroccan Chicken

http://chefmd.com/recipe_display.php?id=90


Lentil and Couscous salad with arugula

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2519


and Roasted Winter Vegetables

http://chefmd.com/recipe_display.php?id=56


Well, so much for the best laid plans. We had the Large Area Search drill that morning and were fairly busy throughout the day. The meal ended up being scaled down to the Moroccan Chicken, green beans sauteed with garlic, cherry tomatoes and fresh basil, whole wheat couscous and french bread. All in all it took about an hour and a half to prepare this meal for 10 people. The chicken is incredibly easy to prepare, and once it's been pounded flat, cooks very quickly. The couscous takes about 5-10 minutes as do the green beans.

Filled a whole, made a turd, and I get to mark my name off the cooking list for another month.

CC and Viking Warrior May 28, 2010

This morning as I was getting off shift I did the following for Viking Warrior

rolled 3 dice totaling up to 10 work sets

36:36 protocol

12 kg bell

20 reps each work set


Overall, it felt much easier and smoother than it had been in the past. I was well within the time limit for all of the sets. My forearms began to burn about half way through, but other than that not other discomfort or pain, including my elbows which felt great the whole time. I do have to remember one of these days to not wear sweatpants while doing Viking Warrior snatches. The looser fit forces me to change the arc of the bell as it descends, making it slightly bigger and thus slower than I would like.


Once home I followed the New Blood Day 2 program and completed the following sets and reps

Horizontal Pulls 17, 15, 15

Half Squats 2x50

I performed the horizontal pulls in bare feet instead stockinged feet this time, for more traction. Still, I didn't have quite as high a jump in reps as I would've expected. My forearms, biceps and grip were burning nicely by the end of each set. To find my foot position for the half squats, I used a trick learned in RKC II. I performed a quick squat jump and noted the angle of my feet upon landing. This aligned my feet so that my knees would track directly over my toes. My leg strength is far outstripping the rest of my body, which is a little surprising, but then again, this is the only exercise that I could already perform at step 10, before starting the program. As my talus continues to mobilize, I'm looking forward to building up the strength in my left leg to match that of my right, which this program seems to be doing well. My inside quad muscles are starting to show up on both legs, which is a nice little bonus.

So far my progress is as follows

Pushups - step 2 progression standard

Leg Raise - step 1 intermediate standard

Pullups - step 2 beginner standard

Squats - step 4 progression standard


At times I get a little impatient with my progress, especially in the leg raise and pullup series, and become tempted to add more volume to increase my reps. At the same time though, my numbers are slowly increasing week to week, I excitedly await each workout day, and my joints have felt great throughout. I'd like to progress to the Good Behavior program which incorporates 6 total exercise done over 3 days per week. In order to get there though, I have to reach level 6 in all of the above mentioned exercises. This will most likely take several months.

To put things in perspective I just have to remember that this is my 40th birthday present to my self. The goal is to reach the elite standard for all 6 exercises

100 one-arm pushups each side

2 sets of 50 one-leg squats each side

2 sets of 6 one-arm pullups each side

2 sets of 30 hanging straight leg raises

2 sets of 30 stand to stand bridges

5 one-arm handstand pushups each side

Like I said, this is the goal for my 40th birthday, not next year for my 35th. Therefore, since there's 6 years left to complete the program, a few months is right on schedule, if not ahead of the game. This timeline represents a bit of a change in thinking for me. Normally, my athletic goals are set a few weeks, or at most a few months away. Still though, the ultimate goal of this program, more than the numbers is correct form leading to strong tendons and ligaments, as well as muscles. I just realized that this will also coincide with the half way point of my career, 15 years with the San Jose Fire Department. I can't think of a better way to celebrate and promote longevity.

Viking Warrior May 26, 2010

Yesterday morning as I was getting off shift, a 3 dice roll totaled up to 14 minutes. I performed 28 rounds of 15:15 of Viking Push Press with the 12 kg, 8 reps per work set.

Overall it felt really good, not too challenging. My left shoulder was popping a bit in the first half while my right should felt very smooth. I realized that on the left side I was not bringing the bell down smoothly into as good of a rack position as my on my right side. Once I corrected this, the reps smoothed out and felt much better. I probably easily go back up to the 16 kg like I was using for the RKC II, but I'm going to stay with this weight for a bit to make sure my coordination stays nice and smooth, and my joints stay happy with me.

Large Area Search with RIC

When I was on probation on of my captain's gave me the advice to keep a journal after every call of all the lessons learned on the call. Since this blog is pretty much a record of learning for me, this seemed like as good a place as any to write some of these lessons. Hopefully others will be able to benefit from the shared info, and feel free to post their lessons learned as well.

Last shift, first thing in the morning my crew participated in a large area/rapid intervention company (RIC) drill. This drill simulated a fire in a large commercial public storage warehouse building. My company's job was to rescue a downed firefighter. The crew putting on the drill did a great job having set up a smoke machine so that we couldn't readily see into the building, as well as playing recordings of sirens, chainsaws, and radio traffic to add to the disorienting environment.

When performing large area searches we tie one end of a rope bag outside of the building and then take the bag into the building with us as we search. This allows other crews to follow us in and quickly find their way to the victim once we find them, and also for us to quickly find our way out of the building if need be. One engineer was first in line and carried the rope bag. Behind him was the captain with the thermal imaging camera (TIC) that allowed him to see through the smoke. The other firefighter and I brought up the rear. The second engineer stayed outside at the door and acted as a timekeeper to make sure we had enough air left to make it out of the building safely.

As we entered the building we were told to simulate high heat conditions and crawl our way through the building. There were two PASS alarms going off inside the buildings. This, plus the sounds bouncing off the walls of the open warehouse, made it extremely difficult to determine which direction the sound was coming from. I was dragging the RIC bag containing an extra SCBA bottle and some other equipment in case the downed firefighter was out of air. The bag weighed approximately 45 lbs. There was no real easy way to drag this thing. My left hand stayed on the search rope the entire time to maintain my orientation. This left only my right hand to drag and slide the bag in front of me as I crawled.

Lessons learned from the drill

As we entered the building half my crew thought they heard the sound coming from one direction, and the other half from another. Next time we'll send the two firefighters laterally off from the rope on their own tag lines to determine if the sound gets louder or fainter for them.

Communication through our masks and in the noisy environment was very difficult. The only time I could really hear what was being said was to put my ear right next to my captain's mask. Otherwise, as the last person in line, I missed a great deal of the communication between the first two firefighters.

The RIC bag was pretty awkward to drag through the building. Next time we'll take the bottle out of the bag, shove the strobe lights in our pockets, and leave any items non-essential to the rescue outside.

Normally, since my lungs are smaller than the guys, I use less air, and my air bottle lasts longer. This time, since I was dragging the bag, I burned through my air quicker than they did. Therefore, it's important that when figuring out how much time to stay in the building that that time is calculated from the firefighter's air bottle who's carrying the RIC bag.

All in all a good drill and good learning experience.

Ever Ready

For a while I've been thinking about the best way to achieve a constant state of readiness. As firefighters, we can be required to go from zero to maximal effort in a matter of minutes. This is often done wearing gear weighing 70 lbs or more, in awkward positions, in superheated environments, with no chance to warm up before hand. The workouts that require the athlete to cycle on and off to reach peak performance, don't really do us a whole lot of good. We never know when the next fire will be so therefore cannot time the peaks to match it.

As I've gotten older, it seems like it has taken me longer and longer to warm up. This made me begin to wonder - what's the difference now vs grade school? Remember when you were a little kid sitting like a coiled spring in your school desk, watching the minute hand inch closer and closer to that recess bell. The instant the bell would ring you'd hurl yourself out onto the playground right into an all out game of tag, swinging across the monkey bars, or some other such activity, then back to your desk. You'd do this multiple times a day without soreness, stiffness or pain.

Two differences came to mind between now and then, attitude and compensation and hydration. When we were little, we would experience a sense of sheer exhilaration as we moved, learned to move, and tested our limits. Somewhere along the line we began to see movement as work, as a chore. I think the key here is never stop learning new movements. Take up new sports and activities, and move every joint through it's full range of motion whenever possible. When you have to stand in line or wait for something, take the opportunity to do some ankle circles, finger waves or train your vision with some near far eye jumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAPE3hJ2GBE&feature=related

Yes, I get a few funny looks now and then, but that is far outweighed by all the other benefits.

As far as compensation, one thing my background in emergency medicine has taught me is that young kids compensate very well when it comes to hypovolemia (lack of fluids). They will appear relatively fine for a long time and then suddenly crash into shock. Adults gradually become worse as they descend into shock. This is why even a little bit of dehydration can keep us from performing optimally. When I have proper nutrition, sleep and hydration, I feel as though I'm self propelled, easily moving throughout my day. When more than one or more of these things is off for a prolonged time period, I feel as though I'm moving around under a wet wool blanket, dragging an anvil behind me.

I also began to think of the natural world. Have you ever seen an antelope pause to stretch before it ran from a lion? We were once a part of this world too, relying on quickly accessing our strength, stamina and speed for our survival. One main difference between us and animals, is that animals generally don't hold on to their stress like we as humans do. Once the antelope escapes from the lion, it relaxes and goes back to calmly grazing. When either my nutrition or sleep are off, at times I'll enter into periods of "loop thinking." This is occurs when there's an event that doesn't go quite how I would've have liked, and the event continues to replay over and over again in my mind. When I have adequate nutrition and rest, I can usually identify how I would change things or do things differently, file that away for next time if the situation ever occurs again, and then move on. The vision and balance drills have also helped greatly with increasing my overall sense of calmness and relaxation. Take the time once a day to do something that relaxes you - take a hot bath, get a back rub, have a cup of warm tea with milk and honey, or whatever it is that helps to ease away the days tension for you.

The last part I believe is training my body to be ready with little to no warm up. I will still do my neural warm up and Super Joints in the morning, but will gradually decrease my warm ups when performing very light work sets that gradually increase their intensity. GTG style two handed swings throughout the day should work well for this, as well as increase my anaerobic capacity. I'll have to give this a try tomorrow at work.

CC and Viking Warrior

This morning as my shift at work was finishing up, I did the following workout

Z-Health neural warm up combined with Super Joints, balance and vision work.

CC
Incline Push ups 3x40
Knee Tucks 2x25, 1x40

Viking warrior
7 sets, 12 kg bell, 36:36 protocol, 20 reps per set

As usual, the CC exercises were super setted with each other. For the pushups I used a thumbless grip on a smith machine bar set at waist level (one of the few times you'll see me using a smith machine). The reps are starting to feel easier, but still not easy enough yet where I'll progress to the next stage. Supplementing this program with GTG* sets is very tempting. Still though, to be fair to this program I'll stick with it as prescribed for a while longer to really test it out.

The first set of tucks was performed on a weight bench and more challenging than expected. I felt a mild amount of crepitus in my low to mid back, but no pain. I hopped on a foam roller and rolled out my back and IT bands. The crepitus went away, but it was still a little stiff. Prior to the last set I hugged my knees to my chest, curled into a ball, rolled back and forth 5 times along my spine, and then held a back bridge for roughly 30 seconds. The stiffness went away completely. I also switched to a more stable bench and was able to perform 40 reps.

This was my first time back with Viking Warrior in a few weeks, since I had that mild back strain. Overall it felt really good. After reaching a plateau of around 14 sets with this protocol, I borrowed a page from "Enter the Kettlebell" and started rolling dice to determine the number of sets. Today I rolled three dice and came up with a seven. It was the perfect amount for a nice welcome back workout. I'll gradually add in more dice until, there's a total of six. A roll of six sixes will equal 36, the ultimate goal for this protocol.

Volleyball Tournament Part 2

Once we had a break, I took the opportunity to train my own vision. While the team was reffing a game, I followed the ball through the entire rally. This is a less than optimal way to play volleyball, it was a good way to train eye tracking. Initially I found it very hard to track the ball the whole time. As the ball crested it's, arc my eyes wanted automatically drop down to the court to see what the players were getting ready to do. I had to force my eyes to stay on the ball the whole time. For the last game of the day, I switched back to to watching the ball in the beginning and then scanning the court, to make sure my volleyball instincts still stayed sharp.

This brought up two volleyball memories for me. The first was when I played volleyball in college. For me the game took place in slow motion. I was able to scan the court and take in the subtlest details of body on the other side of the court while listening to verbal input from my teammates, in a matter of seconds. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described this in his book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience." In it he wrote of how helicopter pilots in Vietnam described their perception of time slowing down during battles to the point where they could see individual rotor blades passing by overhead. Similarly he also recounts baseball players that described being at bat and able to see which direction the seams on the baseball were spinning as it came towards them. Now, it's been a while since I read the book, but from what I remember Csikszentmihalyi theorizes that this "flow state" arrises after thousands of hours of focused, skill specific practice.

The second memory was from a time when I trained my eyes to track better without even realizing it. When I switched from indoor volleyball to beach and grass my eyes had to adjust to tracking the ball differently. Until then, I had never realized before how much I relied on seeing the ball against the backdrop of the gym ceiling and walls, to gauge the ball's trajectory and speed. With only the blue sky as a background, my eyes had to retrain their depth perception using just the ball. Once I had stopped spending as much time playing volleyball outside, my vision slowly began to get blurrier over time.

Z-health has me wondering now, how much the flow state can be attributed to focused practice, and how much can be attributed to a finely tuned nervous system. When I was in the "flow state" I felt completely aware of and integrated into the game. I felt fluent in the sport, movement and action being my language. Sensory input translated directly into action without having to first pass through the filter of interpretation. The slow motion sequences in the matrix come pretty close to simulating what this felt like. What was the role of skill specificity vs vision and balance? What would it take to be able to access the flow state while performing a previously unpracticed skill? I don't know the answer to these question yet, but I'm hoping through continued training I'll come closer to figuring out the answer.

Volleyball Tournament Part I

Yesterday my volleyball team played in an all day tournament. The kids arrived an hour before play was scheduled to start, which gave us time to work on a few vision drills. First up we worked on convergence/divergence with pencil push ups and tracking corrections. We found a previously unknown lazy eye and quite a few kids who's eyes weren't tracking completely together towards the close range of their vision. This could help to explain why they tend to have an easier time digging balls than with serve receive. During serve receive they have to track the ball from the endline on the other side of the court all the way to their arms. On the other hand, when they dig, the ball is usually hit harder and from a shorter distance away from them. Because of this, digging relies more on anticipation and reaction speed rather than truly tracking the ball in.


We also tested and trained saccadic eye movements (how well the eyes focus while moving side to side), hand-eye and hand foot coordination and near/far focusing. For the near/far focusing we used the following drill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAPE3hJ2GBE


One interesting finding from the assessments showed that on average, their hand eye coordination was a third or more faster than their hand foot coordination. This could help yo explain why tend to reach out for the ball instead "seeing" the ball with their feet and moving their body to it. Next practice we'll incorporate drills where they have to move a certain direction or perform a skill based on a visual cue.

When we played our first game of the day, the team was very relaxed on the court, and played more cohesively than usual. They were almost too relaxed. Next time we'll have to make sure to follow up the z-health drills with more fast paced, high intensity drills to get them game ready.

Another thing that's been quite interesting for me is my whole coaching paradigm has undergone a huge shift. Previously, I would analyze how some moves currently and then coach their biomechanics to get them to perform a desired skill. Now I first ask the why someone moves the way they currently do and how that can be optimized to help them achieve their desired skill.

Convict Conditioning Day 5

Today's workout was as follows

Horizontal Pull ups 3x15

Supported squats 3x30


I did the horizontal pull ups in the same manner as last time, hanging off of my dining room table in socks, on a hard wood floor. My reps increased by two for each of the three steps, I still I think that this is a great exercise, but according to the program design, the level of difficulty is too big of a jump from the vertical pulls. Next time I'll throw a pair of shoes like how it's pictured in the book. This should allow me to get more traction on the floor, making the exercise easier, thus increasing my reps and further greasing the pull up groove. I'll revisit the sock pulls another time.

All Around Athlete

There are a lot of different athletic events that I want to do, each with their own intensive training programs. I plan to first and foremost be in shape to do my job as a firefighter, then also compete in rugby sevens, stair climbs in full gear, sprint triathlons, rock climbing, adventure races and pretty much anything else that tickles my fancy. What is the best way for me combine all of these plans into one cohesive program that will allow me to perform at my desired level?

The stamina and muscular endurance requirement for a high level rugby sevens game is high enough where if I'm in shape for that, I should be in shape for pretty much any of the other events. So far I've been using the USA Rugby Sevens training program as the basic template, with a few tweaks. It already has swimming, running and biking in it, so that works well with the tri training.

http://www.usarugby.org/media/EDocs/AA_Preseason_07.pdf

Here's how I've tweaked it so far

Monday
AM – convict conditioning
PM – Anaerobic running if I'm at home, Viking Warrior Conditioning (VWC) Viking Push Press 15:15 protocol if I'm at work

Tuesday
AM – Speed at home or VWC Snatch 36:36 protocol at work
PM – Club training or stair climb at work

Wednesday
AM – off or recovery swim/stretch

Thursday
AM – biking session using 30secs on and off intervals
PM – Club training or stair climb at work

Friday
AM – light run and stretch or rest
PM – Convict Conditioning

Saturday
Tournament, club training, weighted stair climb

Sunday – Active recovery or rest

Saturday and Sunday are interchangeable depending on volleyball tournaments or other events.

Convict Conditioning is doing a great job of working my grip and lats, which should transfer well over to rock climbing. Still, there's no real good substitute for actual climbing. One of the things that's been great about CC is my joints feel great throughout the movements. Once I reach the progression standard for the jackknife pull up I'll add climbing into the routine.

Swimming presents another interesting challenge. My goal is to be a proficient swimmer for open water sprint triathlons. Since I'm still learning the basics and getting comfortable in the water, this will mean spending a lot of time in the water. This could have a detrimental effect on some of my other activities. The instructors in the Z-Health workshop brought up the point that spending a lot of time in the water could adversely effect my balance for land based sports. I'll have to follow up every swim session with some of the balance drills.

Bike Ride and Z-Health effects on Rugby

Yesterday's workout

1 hour road bike ride over hilly terrain
Rugby practice

Yesterday I went for an hour bike ride, 10 miles round trip in the Oakland hills. The ride finished up about an hour before rugby practice. I was initially wanted to do this ride earlier in the day to have more time to recover before practice, but practice still went pretty well. A lot of good things came out of this practice, as did a lot of things for me to work on.

At the beginning of practice, I took the time to go through the full joint mobility and z-health neural warm-ups. My conditioning and stamina have definitely decreased over the past two weeks while I was taking it easy to make sure my back was completely healed up. My back felt great throughout the whole practice, which was awesome. During the conditioning portion of practice I focused on finding my stride and making the runs feel easy and natural. Usually when during sprints, I put my head down and run as hard as possible. This time, for the first time I can remember, I started looking up and around at the field and the rest of the team. My eyes were had a much easier time focusing and scanning the field.

Later we played a game of touch rugby with a pass after the touch. Regular touch rugby is played very similar to flag football. In this version though, after someone was tagged, they could immediately pass the ball to another teammate behind them. As we worked into it, I began scanning side to side of the player I was about to touch tackle, seeing to whom they were most likely to pass the ball. Soon I was quickly bouncing from one "tackle" to the next, three or four in a row. Additionally as the sun set, my night vision showed a marked improvement from the last practice.

This morning upon waking I was a little sore and stiff. Next time I'll go through the joint mobility and z-health drills both before and after practice. This should help to put my nervous system at ease after the bumps, bruises and maximal efforts.

Health Foods?

When I went to the gym this morning, I wanted to get in a fairly healthy snack to ease the sleep deprivation a bit. There were quite a few protein bars that were trying to pass themselves off as healthy, that not only had a mile long list of unpronounceable ingredients, but also had high fructose corn syrup listed as the first ingredient! Perhaps you've seen the recent commercials claiming high fructose corn syrup is "natural." Keep in mind that there are plenty of things out there that are natural, such as arsenic, hemlock, lead and mercury, that aren't exactly the greatest things for your health. The following video is long, but filled with tons of good info from beginning to end.

Swim Day May 19, 2010

For this morning's workout I did some light swimming.

1x25 yds Total Immersion (TI) glides

1x25 yds with a flutter kick

8x25 yds freestyle with a 10-15 second rest in between sets

We got up a couple of times, a little after midnight (for one of the oddest car wreck's i've ever seen, more on that later) and then again around 3 am, and then got off work at 8 am. I loaded up on the vitamins knowing I'd be even more tired after the hour long drive home. Still though, I drove straight to the gym, knowing the later in the day I waited to get my workout in, the harder it would be.

Now, a little back story. Last year at 33 years old, I literally dove into my efforts to learn how to swim. I've always loved water sports, having both ocean and whitewater kayaked, jet skied, snorkeled and scuba dived, surfed and more, all without knowing how to swim or even tread water. I just somehow never learned. Last year I was determined to change that.

I ordered a bunch of books and videos, was simultaneously taking lessons from two different instructors, and hopping into the pool every chance I got. Still, the progress was very, very slow. The TI books and videos gave me an idea why this was. I have a lean body type usually running between 11-13% body fat, short torso, with long, fairly densely muscled legs. This makes floating a challenge. The drills coach shinji takeuchi gave me, helped to teach me the beginnings of better body position and glide, where I didn't have to kick furiously to keep my legs from sinking.

I spent countless hours over the next month working on this, but it still had difficulties maintaining the body position and feeling comfortable in the water. When I tried the aqua sphere alpha fins, their buoyancy gave me a feel for where my legs be positioned in the water. I initially struggled after taking the fins were off, but once I was able to maintain that same body position on my own, my swimming became much easier and more fluid. I focused on increasing my stroke efficiency which resulted in both decreased effort and increased speed. My stroke count for 25 yds decreased from paddling and kicking furiously the whole time to a stroke count of 14.

This was a big step in my swimming progress. The next challenge was figuring out the breathing rotation. I love to push myself, and swimming is no exception. When working on efficiency I would only breathe once and be out of breath at the end of the swim. I'd swim until I had to take a breath, and then keep going. Problem is breathing is the toughest part of swimming for me. When swimming in this fashion I was practicing efficiency, but I was also practicing being out of breath and a sense of urgency and panic when it was time to breathe.

After some time, I realized the reason the breathing rotation was difficult for me, was because I really didn't like the feeling of water in my nose. Once I started wearing a set of nose clips, the breathing rotation instantly felt easier and more relaxed. With a bunch of focused practiced, swimming overall started to feel better, if still not entirely natural.

Over the following months I've cycled my training in the pool on and off. When I hop back in after a period of time away, I have to do a bit of relearning. Today was one such day. It's been around 2 or 3 months since the last time I was in the pool. Today I focused mainly on relaxing in the water and practicing an easy fluid stroke. This became especially important when my nose clips broke right at the beginning of the session. Ideally I'd like to not have to rely on the nose clips anyways. Swimming is a survival skill, it shouldn't need crutches. That'll come in time though, with a bunch of hard work. Next session I'll throw the alpha fins back on to help relearn my body position and increase my comfort level.

Z-Health and the Firehouse

Today I gave z-health a trial run at my station. One of my crew members was kind enough to let me use him to practice the techniques I learned this weekend at the essentials course. He was also kind enough to let me write about the results of the drills and corrections here.

His main complaint was shoulder tightness and limited range of motion. He wrestled, did track and field throwing events and sprinting, and played football in high school. He's also had surgery to his right shoulder using a screw to repair a complete separation.

After assessing his arm abduction (raising his arm from by his side laterally to overhead), raising in front to overhead, and toe touches, we started in on the basic joint mobilization exercises from feet all the way up to the head. The exercises that seemed to help his shoulder the most were lateral ankle tilts and medial and lateral toe pulls. He mentioned he had a history of multiple ankle sprains. These exercises made his nervous system feel more comfortable with these movements, and thus relax its grip on the body as a whole. This resulted in increased shoulder mobility. Afterwards, thinking of the examples in class where Doctor Cobb mobilized one woman's shoulder through working on her wrist, I asked my co-worker about any injuries down stream to the shoulders; to elbows, wrists, fingers, etc. He mentioned he had jammed and dislocated his fingers multiple times during wrestling and football. We performed a few finger waves and again noticed a significant increase in the range of motion in his shoulders.

As we moved into the balance portion of the drills, he mentioned that he thought his balance might be a bit off, because he noticed recently he had been becoming more nauseated when going on amusement park rides. The nausea made me think more of eye tracking and vision over balance. He then stated he had noticed his vision taking a little bit longer at night to focus between objects at different distances. He is also an avid hunter and spends a lot of time sighting through his right eye. We went through the vision drills and had the most success with pencil push-up drill with a correction to engage his left eye, and the near/far focusing drill.

All in all, he gained about 20-30 degrees of range of motion in his shoulders in both the lateral and frontal raises, and also noticed improvements to his vision. We accomplished this in around an hours worth of work.

I've continued with my drills, a few of the drills Dr. Cobb showed me, specifically for ankle mobility, and sets of 10 jackknife squats. Today my left ankle dorsiflexion is almost as good as my right ankle. I was able to lower into and stay in the low position of the jackknife squat unsupported, for the first time in probably a good 2 years. The motion through the joint feels much smoother, and my overall coordination has improved. Little things like getting into and out of the rig feel much smoother and easier. I've also noticed an increased sense of calmness at work. This is most likely due in large part to the vision work. When my eyes work together and focus, looking around at my environment is enjoyable, rather than a strain. Speaking of which, I have to go now and do some pencil push-ups to make up for the time spent on the computer tonight.

Z-Health and Volleyball

Yesterday, in place of the normal conditioning I do with the girls before practice, we focused exclusively on z-health drills. The exercises that seemed to help the most were lateral ankle tilts, vision and balance work. They gained flexibility in the toe touch, side twist and both improved their vision.

At the beginning of practice the team does a two minute drill warm-up drill. The drill consists 15 seconds each of running in place with high knees, passing jacks, attack squats, side to side shuffle in ready position, push-ups, tuck crunches, mountain climbers, and squat thrusts. Passing jacks and attack squats are two movements I created to replicate volleyball movements and inserted in the line-up. This time they did their two minute drill with their eyes closed. The idea for this came directly from z-health. The goal was to work their balance and body awareness.

After this, they began a basic serve receive passing drill with the servers at the 10' line. The result was my kids suddenly turned into passing machines. They were much more fluid moving to the ball and the first 5 passes were nails right to target. As the servers moved back and the serves started coming harder, they did start to tense up again and shank more passes. Next practice we'll continue to do the two-minute drill with eyes closed, as well as more serving from the short to medium ranges to increase their comfort level.

There's a serving drill where they partner up and start at the 10' line. Every time they successfully serve the ball right to their partner, they get to take a step back until they're at the endline. Perhaps something similar could work for serve receive; for every successful pass to target, the server takes a step back. For every pass that's up and playable but not to target, the server stays put. And for every unplayable pass the server takes a step up. This way there will be visual positive feedback for every good pass. This should also cause the kids to feel good about pushing the server farther back in the court and look forward to passing the deeper more aggressive serves.

I'd like to do a lot more work individually with the kids in particular on balance and vision. This is where having a great assistant/co-coach comes into play. I have the utmost confidence in the other coach to put together a solid practice plan and effectively run a practice. This should allow me to take the kids aside one by one and work with them. There's a few kids that have had repeated struggles learning some skills. It'll be interesting to see if the z-health exercises can help to give them the breakthroughs they need.

Convict Conditioning Day 4

Yesterday I tried the stage two progression for the push-ups and continued to work the stage one knee tucks, super setted as usual. I performed the incline push-ups on a kitchen counter top and the knee tucks sitting in a chair. My reps are as follows.

Incline push-ups 3x50

Knee tucks 1x35

Even though I reached the progression standard of 3x50 with the incline push-ups, I'm going to stay at this stage until all the reps feel as easy as a GTG set. The knee tucks are getting easier. While I still haven't met the stage one progression standard as I have with the other three exercises, there is steady improvement each week.

I really wasn't expecting to love it this much

I signed up for the Z-Health Essentials workshop without knowing a whole lot about. I had had limited experience with Z-Health at the RKC certs, mainly dealing with joint manipulation to relieve pain and improve mobility. That's just one aspect of the system. I had previously thought the best way to move better was through moving more and moving more precisely. Yes, this is one component of it, but vision has a higher place on the totem pole than movement. I've worn glasses or contacts since I was 8 years old. Every time when I go to the optometrist, my vision always seemed to be getting a little bit worse every time. When HD TVs hit the market, I noticed that I had trouble focusing and tracking on high speed sporting events. I didn't think too much of this at the time, thinking it had more to do with the TV than with my eyes. My vision didn't seem to be a factor affecting my athletic performance, because I was still able to perform at a high level. Several of the vision assessments and drills on the third day of the course showed me how I was "predicting" more than seeing. The reaction time is so quick in volleyball that in order to be truly good at the sport, you have to know what's going to happen before it happens. If I'm at the net blocking when my team is serving, I watch the ball until it is passed. Once it's passed and I know it's going to the other team's setter, I take my eyes off of the ball and find the other team's middle. If the other team is running a crossing pattern where the hitters switch what position they are hitting out of, I have to communicate this to the other players in the front row, listen to them to find out which hitter is coming into the middle, then find that hitter. Next I'd go back to the setter to find out where she was going to set the ball, or tip over the net. All but the very best setters give some type of visual clue, whether it's a little hop, hand placement, weight distribution, or arching their back, that tells where they're most likely to set the ball. I'd take a step in that direction and then see where they actually would set the ball. Once they set the ball, I'd take my eyes off of the ball, pick up my other blocker, move to them and then turn and face the ball and block at the last second. All of this would usually take place in under 2-3 seconds. So, a whole lot of anticipation, and since I usually didn't play back row, not a lot of tracking. When I sat down at the beginning of class yesterday morning, near the back of the room, the letters on the power point were a bit fuzzy. After we performed the drills, when I sat back down, surprisingly the letters were much clearer. Additionally, when I retested my convergence/divergence last night after class, I had gained about 4" of near-sightedness. In line with the the example from day 2 of the class, once my eyes could focus and see better, my body relaxed and let go of tension I didn't even realize I had. I loved that this course not only pointed out limitations to my mental and physical course, but showed me relatively simple ways of improving those limiting factors. After 3 days I now feel much greater sense of control over both my mental and physical performance.

Z-Health Essentials Day 2

Today we started out with the R- Neural Integration warm up. This is just a big long way of saying joint mobility that opens up he joints and makes the brain think about how it's moving the body. The true importance of this type of work may not seem readily apparent until you imagine a race car. It doesn't matter how much time and money you put into the car if you don't have a good driver for it. Today we spent the majority of the class working on two main ways of training the brain and nervous system, through balance and vision.

I was really quite surprised to see how quickly altering a person's vision changes their movement patterns. At one point in the class the instructor put a pair of goggles on one of the students that blurred the students vision. The student immediately became stiff and apprehensive, drawing his limbs in closer to his body. His movement patterns very closely resembled those of a lot of my volleyball kids. When I tried the goggles on, my sense of balance kicked into overdrive to in an effort to compensate for my vision. I grew up playing outside and continue to spend a deal of time "playing.". This has helped to develop my sense of balance. A lot of my volleyball kids don't have near as much of a background in this area. This simple exercise with the goggles helped me to understand why some of them might have difficulties with timing and with learning certain skills. At the beginning of practice on Monday I'll do some vision work with them as well as some balance work from the course. In addition to this, they'll also go through the motions of some of the skills with their eyes closed. Hopefully this will help them to get a better feeling for bow their bodies move in space.

One quick way I incorporated this into my own training was by doing a pistol with my eyes closed. This proved to just as challenging as using a bosu ball, not to mention $135 cheaper and taking up a lot less space.

Z-Health Essentials of Elite Performance Day 1

Today I attend the first day of the Z-Health Essentials class. Within the first few hours of this class, it had already caused a major paradigm shift for me in how I view training and performance. One of these shifts was beginning to see the senses as tools that can be adapted to suit a need, instead of specific, single purpose attributes. Here, a blind man uses a device that allows him to "see" images through his tongue. He's able to see well enough pick out holds and scale a rock wall.

Convict Conditioning Day 3

Yesterday I bumped up to stage 2 for squats and pull-ups. I super setted the horizontal pulls with the jackknife squats. My reps were as follows

Horizontal Pulls 10, 13, 13

Jackknife Squats 3x40

I performed the horizontal pulls hanging off of my dining room table. The flat smooth suface on the table did a great job of working my grip. I also performed these wearing socks on a hard wood floor. This was not a previously thought out decision, but it worked out great. Since my feet weren't really providing any traction, it forced me to engage my core for stabilization. Additionally, after the first set, I sucked my shoulders down into their sockets, and instantly felt stronger and more stable. This allowed me to get a few more reps in the last two sets than in the first. Today my back has a nice bit of soreness all along the spinal erectors.

The jackknife squats proved to be much easier, but had the unexpected side effect of helping to mobilize my talus. The talus is the bone in the ankle that sits over the top of the foot, and allows the foot to move up and down. My talus has had decreased mobility for a good year and a half now following an ankle sprain. Over the past two weeks, it had been feeling increasingly stuck. Last year my PT mobilized my talus to the point where I could begin to mobilize it on my own through various exercises. I had been doing as much of the physical therapy exercises as I could remember - calf raises, body weight squats and lunges, but not gaining any real relief. The close foot position of the jackknife squat forced my talus to mobilize. With each of the reps, it gained a little bit more mobility and decreased pain to the point where it felt 70-80% better than before.

Since I can already perform a pistol, these squat progressions are not super taxing on my muscles. Still, I am seeing quite a few benefits already from starting at the beginning and working my way through the sequences.

Hi!

I'm finally getting this blog up and running. My main goal in life is to live well and to do what I can to help others live well. This blog reflects my efforts to do such, and the lessons I've learned from these efforts. Previous posts can be found here

http://kbforum.dragondoor.com/blogs/asha-wagner/

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy it.