Vagabonding

Weekly Programming Links: Group Class, Venice Barbell Club, Gymnastics Club

Track Night is cancelled this week and next week while Frank is out of town.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Prehab

Ankle Mobility
Banded Hip Extension
Overhead Banded Distraction

Warmup

Bring Sally Up, Bring Sally Down with Air Squats.  

Notes:  When the song says “Bring Sally Down”, you sit in the bottom of the squat.  When the song says “Bring Sally Up”, you stand up and rest.  This is normally a workout done with weight, but we will be doing it air squats, working on sitting and opening the hips at the bottom of the squat.

Classic Strength

Back Squat 3×5- Rest 90 seconds
Press 3×5- Rest 90 seconds

Notes:  You will perform your back squats first, then your presses second.  This is the same work being performed as the Advanced strength, except without percentages.  This is designed for the newer athlete that does not have a true 1 rep max, but we still want you to keep track of these numbers because you will be repeating them over the coming weeks.    Perform 2 warmup sets and then add weight each set as needed.

Advanced Strength

Wendler Cycle 3, Week 1

Weight Increase!  Percentages will be based on 90% of your 1RM with 5 pounds added to your 1 RM Bench and Press and 10 pounds added to your 1 RM Squat and Deadlift

Back Squat: 65% x 5, 75% x 5, 85% x 5+
Press:  65% x 5, 75% x 5, 85% x 5+

Notes:  Percentages are based off 90% of adjusted 1 RM. When you see 5+, that means you do the max reps you can manage with that weight, with the goal of setting a rep record in each workout.  Perform a few warm up sets before getting into your working sets.  Keep rest intervals around 2 minutes.

Conditioning

“The Chief”
5 rounds:
3 minute AMRAP of:
3 Power cleans (135/95)
6 Push ups
9 Squats
-Rest 1 minute between rounds

Notes:  You will resume the next round where you left off. Score is total rounds and reps.

Cool Down

Couch Stretch
Pigeon Stretch
Doorway Stretch

From the vault: Bryan in Bora Bora.  Worldwide Handstands

Vagabonding – n. (1) The act of leaving behind the orderly world to travel independently for an extended period of time. (2) A privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, awareness, simplicity, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit. (3) A deliberate way of living that makes freedom to travel possible. 

I am currently on a 12 day camping trip with the YMCA. Every time I go on extended trips, I bring and re-read one of my favorite books, Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It’s a super easy read that puts me in the traveling zone – relaxed, open, adventurous, curious – and allows me to reflect, undistracted, on my life. What I appreciate about the book is that the advice is given for traveling, but it also applies to your life at home. A big part of vagabonding is living a minimalist lifestyle and being creative in ways to travel cheaply, because a major barrier to long term travel is that people think it is expensive. I have for five years in a row traveled with the YMCA as a camp counselor, all for free in exchange for chaperoning and driving the kids. All rental cars, gas, camp sites, activities, and food (not paleo, you can’t have everything is life) are paid for. By taking advantage of my local YMCA, I have been able to see Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, go white water rafting in The American River, visit Yellowstone, Jacksonhole, the Columbia River Gorge, Sawtooth Mountain, the potato museum in Idaho, the Humboldt redwood forest, the Grand Tetons, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Lake Havasu. Even though my trips are away from LA, the experiences and new perspectives return with me when I come home. Hopefully I also get some new songs from the kids to put on the gym’s playlist. 

Find creative ways to make room for travel. What vagabonding trips have you done in the past with some creativity, and what trips are you currently planning for the future? 

“Work is not just an activity that generates funds and creates desire; it’s the vagabonding gestation period, wherein you earn your integrity, start making plans, and get your proverbial act together. Work is a time to dream about travel and write notes to yourself, but it’s also the time to tie up your loose ends. Work is when you confront the problems you might otherwise be tempted to run away from. Work is how you settle your financial and emotional debts – so that your travels are not an escape from your real life but a discovery of your real life.” Rolf Potts, Vagabonding. 

“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity…no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip, a trip takes us.” John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley.