Business Trip - Exercise Brainstorming

[Brian Lawyer]

Today was my first on the road workout. I decided to do an as many rounds in 20 minutes of 5 HSPU's, 10 pistols (5 each leg), and 10 DHPU's. I do HSPU's with my back against a wall, not freestanding. Surprisingly, the pistols were the easiest for me. Other than losing balance on the way up a couple times Pistols were really easy. HSPU's on the other hand were a beating. I have no strength in the bottom of HSPU's or standing Press for that matter. Most likely due to all the Jerks and Push Presses I do for Olympic lifting I never work that bottom range of motion. Some day I need to just load a barbell and only work the range of motion from my shoulders to my forehead on a standing press. Anyways, see my workout log below:

I did 5 rounds total in 20 minutes. It went like this:
Round 1 - as prescribed with forehead to ground on the HSPU's.
Round 2 - as prescribed except only 4 HSPU's forehead to ground.
Round 3 - I put a folded up towel about the size of an abmat on the ground for HSPU's and went forehead to towel. Completed Prescribed reps.
Round 4 and 5 same as round 3. I think I ended up about 2 pullups short on the last round.

[Brian Lawyer]

Here is a funny side note. The reason I found out I have no bottom range of motion on the HSPU's was because I got this cheap pull up bar at Wal-mart that hooks on a door frame. Hence the reason I am doing 10 DHPU's and not 15 Kippings. Anyways, when you lay it flat on the ground it's like this elevated thing kind of like a parallete. So I was all psyched up about my work out. I was thinking, "yeh I am going to pop off HSPU's on this thing like it was parallettes and get a full ROM going on". Turns out I couldn't even do one dam HSPU up on that thing. Yet, as noted above, when I got rid of hit and decreased the ROM to forehead to ground or to towel I could pop off 5 in a row.

As Olympic lifters do we even give a crap about that bottom range of motion?

[Garrett Smith]

Originally Posted by Brian Lawyer

As Olympic lifters do we even give a crap about that bottom range of motion?

Brian, here's my two cents on that. My jerk is definitely my limiting factor on the C&J. I can jerk 105kg and standing press ~70kg, I weigh about 82kg.

I can't get out of the deep parallette bottom position of a HSPU, as you noted. I would guess that more strength in the bottom position of a jerk/HSPU would only help to increase the initial velocity of the bar in combination with the leg drive. I do plan on more full ROM HSPUs and standing presses to help with my jerks, I expect it to help.

[Adolfo Riveron]

I'm gymless at home during spring break. I have homemade rings to work on gymnastics and today i just knocked out that sprint 8 thing but i scaled it down to 6 rounds as i wanna be fresh for golf tomorrow. I also have the pdf downloaded with eva's list and its very helpful. I hope the week away from the gym doesnt kill the linear progression i was making in the slow lifts along with the oly progress. Oh well, will just have to work harder when i get back to it.

[Brian Stone]

Originally Posted by Brian Lawyer

Today was my first on the road workout. I decided to do an as many rounds in 20 minutes of 5 HSPU's, 10 pistols (5 each leg), and 10 DHPU's. I do HSPU's with my back against a wall, not freestanding. Surprisingly, the pistols were the easiest for me. Other than losing balance on the way up a couple times Pistols were really easy. HSPU's on the other hand were a beating. I have no strength in the bottom of HSPU's or standing Press for that matter. Most likely due to all the Jerks and Push Presses I do for Olympic lifting I never work that bottom range of motion. Some day I need to just load a barbell and only work the range of motion from my shoulders to my forehead on a standing press. Anyways, see my workout log below:

I did 5 rounds total in 20 minutes. It went like this:
Round 1 - as prescribed with forehead to ground on the HSPU's.
Round 2 - as prescribed except only 4 HSPU's forehead to ground.
Round 3 - I put a folded up towel about the size of an abmat on the ground for HSPU's and went forehead to towel. Completed Prescribed reps.
Round 4 and 5 same as round 3. I think I ended up about 2 pullups short on the last round.

I ratify this workout.

Seriously, well done. That's hard stuff and a better gymless workout than most ppl get in a health club. By far.