Adarq.org

I find baseball "that weird American sport", but that was kinda cool.

baseball and not (american) football? baseball is pretty weird, i admit, but it's super popular in northern latin america and japan and korea. american football is literally only popular here and (a little) in canada and (a little) in mexico. but anyway it's hard to overstate how incredible that throw was. for reference, in case you can't tell from the video and are unfamiliar with baseball, that throw went more than the length of a soccer field. entire seasons go by without anything like it.

WEIGHT: ???
SORENESS: quads, hams a little
ACHES/INJURIES: right wrist a little, right foot (midway down the lateral side) after jogging warm-up*
MENTAL STATE: okay

- warm up

- explosive lateral step-up x 5,5,5
foot on low step (~6"), heel in front of knee, explode up focusing on full triple extension.

- depth jump @ ~12" x 3,3; @ ~18" x 3

- shoulder stability circuit x 3
-- paused push up x 10
-- three-way band rotation x 10

- reverse hyper +10 x 10,10
on bench, DB between ankles. more lower back than glutes, need conscious focus to get full glute involvement.

- layups/dribbling x 20 minutes
i am laughably bad at handling the ball, so in between sets of layups i did a bastardized and horrible version of taylorhorton's old dribbling circuit. also some free throws.

will stretch after eating, very hungry now.

approach is terrible, very much how mine used to be. lots of choppy little steps, no rhythm or acceleration.

try the t0ddday approach: start with an SVJ, then move to a one-step jump (at 0:20 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lukRYJaoFDA) and only add additional steps as they actually increase your vert. that's helped me immensely in getting to a consistent and smooth approach. i basically never do more than four steps now, starting just outside the three point line, because the fifth step doesn't help 99% of the time. if i'm feeling really fired up and awesome i'll sometimes step back to a fifth step but mostly four is all i can manage.

god bless you t0ddday. reading what you wrote and looking back at that vid from june 2, is another way of saying it that i'm not getting enough hip extension? basically, that i'm cheating the movement by bringing my back leg forward too soon? your trail leg is REALLY trailing while mine tracks the forward foot. or something else? at any rate here's to starting from scratch and learning to do the movement a little bit properly.

at PT this afternoon:

- air squat x 50 + a bunch more in small sets

- BB squat 60 x ??? a lot, pretty fast

- SL glute bridge x 50
PT also noted that right hip flexor is tighter than left. probably that's why it's bothering me now, too much stubbornness/desire to have equal ROM.

tonight:

WEIGHT: ???
SORENESS: none
ACHES/INJURIES: low back a little tight, right hip flexor, right wrist
MENTAL STATE: meh, a bit sluggish

- warm up

- bounds x 5,5,5,5
fuck that noise, time for the t0ddday progression. will try to get more (and better quality) vid. would help to have a training partner, as usual...

- sprint 110m x 3
14.6, 14.7, 14.8 -- right hip flexor bothering me a bit, canned it. felt very slow, no burst even by my standards.

gonna do some shoulder stuff and stretch/SMR now.

PT visit part 2: much more satisfying. the guy did an actual evaluation of my hips, legs and lower back. then he had me do some bw squats and some with about 60-70 lbs on the bar. those aren't a good evaluation, i don't think, but back is feeling the weighted squats now.

summary:

causes
- i'm hypermobile in my lower back, knees and hips (and elbows, for that matter). not dramatically but enough that i can get into compromising positions, such as too much posterior tilt at the bottom of a squat. the fact that i'm long-torsoed and slim-waisted just adds to the instability.
- i'm getting older and the low-back/SI pain is probably just a result of accumulated stress from years of sub-optimal form. it boiled over and that's that. my tissues just aren't as limber as they were two years ago.
- as i fatigue, i bias toward my right leg. whole COM shifts right. i guess i knew this but it was interesting to have a trained observer point it out.
- doing fast squats my hips are also kind of all over the place, although this was partly from having just regular sneakers on and not being warmed up. in normal work out conditions i don't think this would be as pronounced, although if i'm honest it's probably true to some extent even then.

solutions
- no full squatting for a while, limited ROM on things like DLs and RDLs is okay.
- lots of SL stuff and low-back strength work like glute bridges, hypers, etc.
- smith squats are okay because they bias vertical torso position
- improve calf flexibility/dorsiflexion
- start adding squats back in with limited ROM and very light weight. no fatigue permitted. take a looooong time to add depth.

three things:

- the point about attribution is a fair one but i think you're using it as an excuse to avoid trying something new because it makes you nervous. you're a whole-hog kind of guy. so maybe go whole-hog on sprinting and jumping for a while. (more on this below.)
- the treadmill is not going to make you "more athletic," certainly not in 10 minute bursts. the only way that'd be the case is if you were grotesquely obese and out of shape, in which case any physical activity would make you more athletic. set the bar low enough...
- no idea what aussie winters are like -- as an american i always just imagine them being beautiful and sunny and everyone says "mate" a lot and drinks fosters on the beach with hot women in white bikinis everywhere, but that can't possibly be accurate -- but where i live it is a crappy time to be doing stuff like sprints that require you to be outside or in some kind of proper facility. so not wanting to do bounds and sprints and whatnot now is fair enough. winter is a good time for GPP. but when it gets nice out again, consider a real-live speed block. raptor is right, you're slow as fuck. getting faster can only benefit you.

behold, the power of waking up your CNS with some good old-fashioned competition before you work out. nice job, man.