To my great pleasure, the last week has been heavier than the first. Nothing extravagant but I’m getting back at ease with my regular training.

The last few days I’ve been giving a lot of thought about something that’s been nagging at me for some time: the fact that I can’t seem to focus on a limited number of things for a given time, in order to see faster progress on those. Something always seems to be in the way of that, plus the fact that I got so many different goals. I’m getting closer to selecting no more than 3 families of movement which are going to be my focus for some weeks, before I switch it up. I’m curious where it’ll take me.

May 9th

Olympic Clean

155lbs with 5 sets for 12 reps

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May 10th

Deadlift Behind Back

275 lbs with 1 set for 1 rep

May 11th

Power Clean & Jerk

125 lbs with 10 sets for 51 reps

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 12th

Kettlebell Bottom-up Press

24kg with 1 set for 1 rep (each side)

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 13th

Deadlift

295lbs with 7 sets for 26 reps

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 14th

Kettlebell Bottom-up Press

16kg with 1 set for 22 reps total (both sides)

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 15th

Fatgripz Dumbbell Clean and Press

60lbs with 3 sets for 20 reps

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Let’s see what next week has in the hat.

Challenge #6: Straddle Press to handstand

Planche work still does me no good these days, but I think working presses is where I need to focus to get closer to the goal. As handstand push-ups get easier, it will allow me to start progressions on actual press-to-handstands, which is the biggest part of the full motion.

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

Challenge #10: Iron Cross

Muscle-up progress is still looking good. What felt well recently was to slow my motion on the way down, to strengthen my weakest area of the movement.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Varia

I’ve been upping my Parkour and climbing frequency in the last few weeks, and so far I’m glad I did. I really enjoy it and I feel I’m making tremendous progress considering the time I put in.

If all goes well, I should be taking a Parkour trip to Philadelphia and New York next weekend. Damn nice way to check two big cities off my visit list; I’ve never been to either of those before. Also, it’s a good opportunity to add more PicLetters and get even closer to the goal. Let’s hope it works out!

So far so good for the first 8 days! Except that yesterday I completely forgot about it; at least I saved the day by pulling a half-dozen BIXI bikes from their racks because they were all either locked down, or broken.

So this week’s lifts have been rather light all week; I believe the reasons for this are two-fold. First, I came back from vacation a week ago. Life routine has been different, and it seems my body kinda feels the need to “get back into it” to recover from the break. Secondly, I was practicing plyometric jumps (for parkour) and had a bad landing, which has triggered substantial pain in my hip in the last 5 days. Sometimes it fades a bit, but then it comes back. Will probably visit my osteopath to help me fix myself up.

Here’s the breakdown since May 1st until today:

May 1st

Pull-up behind the head

-75lbs with 3 sets for 38 reps in 4:10

May 2nd (Rest day)

Double Kettlebell 1-hand Deadlift

40kg with 1 set for 1 rep

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

May 3rd

Barbell Snatch

115lbs with 1 set for 1rep

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 4th

Thick DB Clean and press

55lbs for 3 reps (each side)

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 5th

Kettlebell palm clean and press

24kg with 1 set for 1 rep (each side)

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

 May 6th

Hanging v-up

+5lbs for 5 reps

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

May 7th

BIXI lift for reps (Half a dozen)

May 8th

Fatgripz One hand Barbell Deadlift

95 lbs with 1 set for 1 rep (each side)

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I will do 3 more updates like this to cover the rest of the month.

Now I’m back to business with my last semester to go and many other projects this summer. It’s gonna rock, let me assure you.

On with the challenges.

Challenge #6: Straddle press to handstand

Tuck planche holds starting to feel good again. I’ve also been working handstand and pike push-ups regularly in the last few weeks; progress is being made.

Challenge #8: Iron Cross

More muscle-up progress! -50lbs deload band getting easier.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Challenge #10: PicLetters

Letter J! I bet you didn’t see that one at first. Me neither.

Varia

I am planning many cool events in the following weeks, namely Parkour-related trips, a Spartan Race event and possibly Live-action RP (a good friend is pulling me into that). Oh yeah, studying too.

Cheers!

Well I took it, and even dragged hot-and-strong Sophie into it. Turned out to be a great time!

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The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

What’s pretty cool, Sophie is the first woman so far who had the guts (!) to give it a try.

Official results :

Mathieu

Fat handle dumbbell deadlift

[Max weight]
100 lbs

[2 minute max reps test]
70 lbs  x35 reps

Fat handle dumbbell clean

[max weight]
80 lbs

[max weight with press]
65 lbs

Fat handle dumbbell snatch [max weight]
65 lbs

Sophie

Fat handle dumbbell deadlift

[Max weight]
60 lbs

[2 minute max reps test]
45 lbs  x39 reps

Fat handle dumbbell clean

[max weight]
50 lbs Right, 45 lbs Left

[max weight with press]
45 lbs

Fat handle dumbbell snatch [max weight]
40 lbs

One great insight I got from this: Pressing asymmetrically (1 hand) with a dumbbell felt quite great; way better than Kettlebells these days which are usually my go-to tool for 1-hand pressing. It’s also obvious I need to get stronger at pressing; first for the Press Handstand challenge I got on here, but also made apparent by the gap between my max weight on the DB Clean, vs. the Clean&Press.

Therefore, I foresee more thick DB lifting in the near future.

That’s that! Curious to see what his next challenge will be.

Challenge #6: Straddle Press to Handstand

Moar presses on the handstand push-up!

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

I tested less planche positions in the last moth or two, but recently I tried a “planche-like push-up” that tested well. Actual presses tested much better than planches lately, but I’ll experiment to put my body back in the mood for them.

Challenge #10: Iron Cross

Muscle-ups quality work had some good progress this week. With the -75lbs band I was able to keep quite close to the bar and have more control on the overall movement. Very nice stuff.

Varia

The organization that, er, organized the Parkour seminar last Fall finally finished their montage of the weekend! Here it comes!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Peace out~

Challenge #8: Iron Cross

Intensity PR on the Muscle-Up! I was able to use the -50lbs deloading band for the first time this week. Here’s me doing 2 of them:

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I started exploring my options to improve my keeping close to the bar as I come up. It turns out I have the flexibility, but lacking the strength to pull while closer. As I’m working up the load, I’ll also be working smaller movements with the bigger band (-75lbs) to increase strength in weaker areas of the muscle-up.

Varia

The technical constraint I was talking about in my previous report, was that this website’s server went down. Since I had no control over it and/or contact information, I realized I was really vulnerable to that kind of event. Of course I make regular backups, but it still had been a while.

Now I have transferred the site over a hosting service with which I have full management control, and paying for my own account. Uptime should be pretty decent in the future.

Challenge #8: Iron cross

Recently, I started practicing the full Muscle-up movement using deload bands (and wondered at why I hadn’t thought of it before). I started off at 2 or 3 and I’m already at around 7-8 for a set; it’s getting easier.

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

Filming myself, I think the most important point to work on for more efficiency, is to try to keep closer to the bar, so as to eliminate the superfluous back-and-forth movement away from it. For some reason though, so far it has seemed more natural for me to do the movement like this, despite  attempts at aiming my head to cross the bar at the top. I shall analyze further why that is the case.

Challenge #10: The Picletters

Hey I guess I’m on a spree these days. Last week I went to Chicago for work; those pictures were taken really fast, on the spot as we had very little time to visit downtown. As a side comment, I think the city’s beautiful and definitely plan to come back for a longer period of time.

I realized this looked like the letter J;

and then these, like the letter M.

I seem to have been most inspired with buildings lately. Fine by me!

Varia

I said it was to be quick. Therefore, ciao! More lengthy (maybe) post next Sunday.

Challenge #6 : Straddle Press to Handstand

I told you last week I had successfully touched my head on a handstand (wide) push-up. Here’s a video with some more of them.

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I feel presses and core work are what’s going to work better for a while, so I’ll be concentrating on that.

Challenge #10: Picletters

Inspiration is back! Got 2 new letters yesterday.

Building under construction. By putting the facades in place they made that nice letter S for me.

I was looking for a letter L, confident a building’s shape would give it to me. I was not disappointed.

Varia

So after all I got my new toy! I was under good timing, as Telus was having a sale on smartphones. I got the Samsung Galaxy S II X, and am currently in love.

Also it is much more convenient to take pictures on the spot, as you might imagine. This is good for challenge achievement.

Challenge #6: Straddle Press to Handstand

Shoulders don’t feel that good these days for the actual Tuck Planche practice. But the higher-volume movements are what work well.

MOREOVER, on the hand balancing portion, quite some progress… not fully in control yet but getting there quicker. Can’t wait to reach an proper balance.

AND. For the first time, I was able to do a handstand push-up, with a wide grip, and my head touching the floor. This is a important milestone for me, and definitely a requirement if I am to get any close to a press to handstand.

Challenge #8: Iron Cross

News on the muscle-up! A Youtube comment (!) triggered something (actually constructive) in my mind. Doing one arm ups, I was not practicing the movement, but “the failure of it”, if you will. That is not as good for progress, although partials do have some good. Anyways.

So what if I was able to practice the full movement? Well, here you go.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

-75lb deload, but I have a feeling it’ll go up quite rapidly.

Varia

My eyes are more and more set on a new phone. I was uncertain between the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy S II X, but after some reviews, most definitely inclined towards the S II X. My old, decaying HTC Hero is overdue for a change, so since my tax report brought me positive surprises I’ll treat myself a bit.

For you, that will probably mean more eye candy, since at last I’ll be able to take pictures on the spot (my Hero’s camera has been dead for a year and a half due to water). Woot!