Head over heels, or How I learned to stop worrying and do a (freestanding) handstand push-up

Disclaimer: doing handstands and handstand push-ups is difficult and potentially dangerous. The author is not responsible for your safety: you are. Please be careful.

On my very first visit to the CrossFit website, the "Workout of the Day" called for handstand push-ups. Now, I'd done some of these against a wall, and assumed that's what they meant. At least, until I saw this on their exercises page (which, incidentally, contains many other great exercises demo videos). Ever since then I've wanted to be able to do a freestanding handstand push-up.

The first step in learning to do a freestanding handstand push-up is, of course, to be able to do a handstand. This proved more difficult than I had anticipated. Usually, I don't do well with long-term projects; I lose interest or get frustrated when things don't come to me quickly. So I was quite proud when I stuck with this project even though it took me several months to get a solid handstand hold. I couldn't have done it without the tutorials at the fantastic Beast Skills website. To the tutorials there, I'd like to add a couple of things that helped me:

Use your shoulders. You can adjust your bodyweight forward and backwards using shoulder movements. This is very important for helping to keep your balance. I also find I use my arms to move up and down to adjust my balance if I'm losing the handstand, but most of the time you want your arms locked so you're not tiring yourself out too much.

Try kicking up from standing. I used the Beast Skills method of kicking up from a "sprint start" at first, but several people suggested kicking up from standing. At first I was very bad at this, and found it terrifying, but it quickly became more natural and controlled than the sprint start. Now I use something somewhere in between, which brings me to my next point.

Don't take the "kick up" too literally. One thing that helped me a lot was stopping trying to literally kick up, using a lot of momentum, but rather try to bring my leg up under control and then the other leg up to meet it.

Don't rely on the wall too much. This was one of my big mistakes: I stayed near a wall for far too long. One day, I realize that I had actually started subconsciously reaching for the wall with my leg when I kicked up. It was a tough habit to break, and if I had moved away from the wall earlier I would never have had the problem to begin with.

Force yourself to believe you will stay up. Now that I've gotten pretty good at holding the handstand once I'm up, my biggest problem is getting up to it. I still usually need to take a couple of tries before I can kick up properly. I no longer have "catastrophic" falls (thankfully!), but I do wish I could kick up more reliably. So, what I've started doing is saying to myself "you are going to get up and stay up no matter what" before each attempt. It works surprisingly well.

Once I got the handstand, the push-up came surprisingly easy. Part of this is because, as I was learning the handstand, I was doing handstand push-ups against the wall to build my strength. Against the wall I can do a set of 15-20 reps relatively easily. Balance is a bit of a concern, but it does come fairly naturally once you've learned to balance at the top of the stand.

Right now my personal best is 5 consecutive freestanding handstand push-ups. My goal is twenty. Then it's on to clapping hand-stand push-ups!

Bouldering in Squamish

Climbing is my primary motivation for being in shape. Sure, I do all sorts of things now which aren't directly related to improving my climbing, but I still consider it the core of all of my physical activities. It is with some embarrassment, then, that I admit that I had never actually been outside of the climbing gym on real rock until last week.

Last week my girlfriend and I were in Vancouver for a wedding, and so we took the opportunity to go up to Squamish to do some bouldering. My girlfriend is an unrepentant non-climber (believe me, I've tried), and so bouldering rather than roped climbing allowed her to hang out with me while I enjoyed myself.

And boy did I enjoy myself! Now, I'm not going to say I'll never go back to the gym, or anything else silly like that, but climbing on real rock was definitely a whole new experience. All I can say is, I definitely need to go back on a dedicated climbing trip, with a group of climbing friends.

Special thanks to Climb On gear shop in Squamish for saving us when that other gear shop messed up our reservations. Also, Squamish Bouldering is the guide to get. Of course, you can get in anywhere in town, but Amazon is cheaper.

Oops. I fell into the trap.

When I first started writing this blog, I really wanted to avoid what happens to so many little blogs with no readership: writing a few enthusiastic posts, and then dropping off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, the knowledge that essentially no one is reading your blog (and may never) isn't exactly the greatest motivator. Nonetheless, I'm back, I have plenty of things to write about, and I'll try not to waste it all in this post.

Here, I'll concentrate on my thoughts and efforts regarding The Zone diet, mentioned in my previous post. The bottom line is, it seems interesting. There isn't enough detail for me to evaluate it from a scientific perspective, and, although I respect and appreciate the bibliography which offers the opportunity for more detailed research, let's face it, I'm not going to spend the time doing that. I'll just say the ideas are interesting, and I'm not willing to dismiss them out of hand. So, that's a definite victory for Dr. Spears.

I have a few of problems with the book. The first I expected, which is that it's directed more towards people who are out of shape. Sure, it mentions athletes, and even mentions in passing the changes that are needed for them, but not in very much detail. I mean, the chapter on exercise recommends a few minutes of walking and a handful of push-ups a day; it clearly isn't for people who are already performing at a high level and want to push that higher.

Related to that, but not exactly the same, is the fact that it really isn't directed towards smaller, lean people. I am short and thin enough that I "bottom out" the body-fat estimator tables in the back of the book. That means that, according to the estimator, I have 3% body fat or less. First of all, I'm thing, but not that thin. But it's an estimate, so I forgive them. The bigger problem is, all of the book is dedicated towards reducing that number. It doesn't really talk about what to if you're already very lean.

Other than that, I think the book was clear, easy to understand, and a quick read. I really still want to try a couple weeks of following the diet very strictly, but I just haven't had a chance yet. In the meantime, I've been trying to apply the ideas as much as I can, without being really strict about it. The only real difference between what I ate before (when I was simply trying to eat "healthy" with no plan) is a lot less grains, but I'm not finding it difficult. I can't say I notice a huge improvement, and it's hard to say whether any progression I've had is due to what I'm eating or just normal changes due to training, but I'm definitely not getting worse.

Coming up next
So, there, I posted again (finally). In the next little while, I will post on some of the things I've been up to recently, which might include posts about:

• Handstand and other tumbling training
• Capoeira
• My new favourite workout equipment (hint: it cost $6 at the hardware store)
• Climbing in Squamish, British Columbia (I'm going in a week)

Thanks for bearing with me, non-existent readership!

Maybe I'll meet Zod

Whenever I'm in town I work out at CrossFit Toronto. There's no CrossFit facility convenient to where I live, so I jump at the chance and have had really great experiences there. At the end of a recent week there, John, the head trainer, mentioned that he had wanted to bring me an article on The Zone diet. I responded with skepticism; I certainly don't need to lose any weight, and I try to eat well and avoid junk. John quickly sold me with an analogy about putting standard gas in a race car - if you want to perform at your best, you need to have the best fuel. He told me to get the book Mastering the Zone, which seems to be the most-recommended starting point. I found many used copies online for $4 US including shipping (try Amazon Marketplace or AbeBooks.com for used copies). He basically challenged me to try following the diet to the letter for two weeks, and see if I didn't notice a difference.

As a scientist the idea of optimization appeals to me, but, when it comes to diet, I really just have been following "common sense" haphazardly. Having a good set of rules to follow also appeals to me. A lot of athletes and trainers I admire seem to swear by The Zone, so I figured why not give it a try? The book arrived today, so after I've had a chance to read it and plan it out, the experiment will begin.

Incidentally, this was the impetus behind starting this blog. I figured there might be other people out there who are in a similar position as I am: trying out a new diet to improve performance, rather than to lose weight or look better or anything like that. Hopefully, this might prove informative to someone out there. If not, well, at least it provides incentive to keep me on track!

Winged Victory

My girlfriend bought me an iPod Nano (amazon) with the Nike+ kit (amazon) as a gift a while ago, and I fell in love with it instantly. Before that I had just run for distance, not really caring how fast I went (and I still generally prefer the idea of seeing how far I can get than how fast I can get there). That all changed after my first run with this gizmo in my shoe. My 10km time dropped by minutes immediately, just from having the real-time feedback, and within a few weeks had dropped by over 10 minutes. I started trying to get a sub-twenty-minute 5km, but, unfortunately, an injury sidelined my running and I had to quit for a while.

I'm back running again, though not as frequently as I used to, and much to my delight and surprise, I finally reached my goal! While looking at my Nike+ page, admiring my new achievement (what can I say, I'm vain that way), I noticed that there's now an option to share runs. And so, here it is.

Unfortunately, I feel compelled to attach a disclaimer: I have to admit, I have been concerned that my calibration might have fallen a bit off. Google Earth confirms that it's in the right ballpark, but it's probably a bit shorter than a full 5k. While that's a bit disappointing, I'm still pleased that I've gotten faster at running the same route, regardless of what the real distance is. Plus, the scientist in me loves having all the statistics to look at. What can I say? I love graphs.

All I need now is a bob and a beaded dress

I brought this souvenir home with me the other night from the climbing gym. A "flapper," as it is so vividly called, is a fairly common climbing injury, although they're usually up by the part of the hand you're pulling with, near and on the fingers, and not way down at the base of the hand, like this one. That's because this particular injury wasn't caused by climbing at all, but rather by some overzealous use of fitness rings. They're essentially gymnastics rings without all the fancy rigging that lets you do swinging moves, and they're my new favourite workout toy. Mine are from Ringtraining.com (shameless plug), which is where everyone seems to get them. The guy who runs it, Tyler Hass, seems like a really nice guy, and the service is fantastic.

I throw them in my gym bag, hang them up from a chin-up bar, the lead-climbing wall, or the bouldering cave, and use them to do a workout after my climb. Hang them high and you can do pull-ups, dips, and static holds; hang them low and you can do all sorts of push-up variations. The additional need to stabilize makes any exercise much more difficult than its non-ring counterpart. They're loads of fun and I always have curious people joining in when I hang them at the gym.

My favourite ring move, though, is the muscle-up. I discovered this through CrossFit, where they worship this movement like a pagan idol. I can't blame say I blame them. It's essentially a pull-up followed by a dip: moving from hanging under something to supporting yourself on top of it, using only your upper body. It's also hard as hell, with a standard substitution being 4 pull-ups and 4 dips for every 1 muscle-up. The substitution fails to capture the real hard part, though, which is the transition between the two.

The key is in how you hold the rings or the bar, the false grip, where you rest your wrist/base of the palm on the ring or bar to help with the transition from pull-up to dip (see Beast Skills and the CrossFit demos for more information). If you're doing it right, you'll probably get red marks on your wrist where it makes contact with the rings. If you're doing it a little too enthusiastically, then you might end up tearing off a quarter-sized piece of skin. Oops!

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams... (an introduction)

Briefly: I was not into sports as a kid. Didn't watch them, was no good at them, and didn't care about them. In college I discovered that physical activity was fun, and got into pretty good shape, mostly through boxing. Graduate school came, I stopped boxing, and I got fat and lazy. When I realized that I changed my diet, exercised a bit, dropped a lot of weight, and got into decent shape again. Then I took up climbing, got pretty good at it, got into really good shape, and realized (again) how much I love physical activity. Now I climb, train, run, do yoga, and any other activities I can cram into my schedule. Much to my surprise, athletic activities, fitness, and performance have become major parts of my life, and this is a blog about that.

That's the gist of it. Keep reading for the excruciatingly long-winded version.


A personal history

In retrospect, I was more athletic as a child than I thought I was at the time. I wasn't a bad skier, I would go on long cross-country bike rides with my father, I sailed, I climbed at summer camp, and in high school I would occasionally go to the gym. At the time, though, it didn't really cross my mind that those were "sports." I didn't compete in them, my friends didn't do them with me, and we didn't do them at school, so in my young mind, they were completely separate from what happened in gym class or, for some kids, during recess and on little-league teams. I couldn't run fast, or throw far, or catch or hit a ball well. To invoke an over-used phrase, I was picked last in PE. I was chubby up until late junior high, when I promptly transformed into scrawny. I was always the shortest kid in my class (still am). In short, I was not a sporty kid.

I really didn't care. This is not a story about achieving childhood dreams of athletic dominance. As a kid I had all sorts of other things to keep me occupied, and plenty of more-or-less equally unathletic (read: nerdy) friends to do them with. I didn't watch sports and didn't care that I was no good at them because I was happier doing something else, anyways.

That all changed my freshman year of college. For reasons lost to me now I decided to join a couple of friends for a game of squash. I lost badly, of course, but I had a great time. Running around, chasing the ball, learning the techniques, getting sweaty, competing, all felt great. So I kept playing. I got better (although still usually lost), but what I really learned was the joy of sports.

Sophomore year took it one step further. A friend of mine was talking about how much fun he had training with the boxing club. I had some experience with "boxercise" because my dad had really been into it and I had gone to some classes. I decided to try out the club, figuring I would train but never spar. You would have to be crazy, I told anyone who would listen, to essentially invite someone to hit you in the head. The training was gruelling, but a lot of fun. I made new friends, and the number of push-ups I could do got higher and higher. I put on a couple pounds of muscle. For the first time in my life, I was in good shape.

After a few months, when the people who had joined at the same time as me started sparring, I was shocked to find that I wanted to try it. Immediately after the bell rung the first time I stepped into the ring I got clocked in the head. The rest of the round didn't go too well for me either, but I was hooked. I'll never forget showering afterwards, tasting the blood in the back of my throat, too weak to raise my hands up to wash my hair, and thinking it was the greatest feeling I'd ever had.

I kept it up, boxed at a local gym during the summers, and, by senior year, became president of the university club. I was never a great boxer, never competed other than sparring within my club and gym, but I loved it.

Then came that great black home, graduate school. My new school had no boxing club, and told me in no uncertain terms that they didn't want one (boxing being too dangerous, apparently). There was no local boxing gym to go to. I tried to keep it up on my own, hitting a bag, doing some jogging, but that quickly fell by the wayside. I ate nothing but junk food, and did essentially no physical activity. My parents urged me to work out more, because of a history of heart problems in the family. I ignored them (I once told them "It's graduate school! I'm supposed to let myself go!" in an elevator, producing knowing chuckles from the other occupants).

It was two and a half years later that I realized how bad it had become. On a family vacation for the winter holidays, I weighed myself for the first time that I could remember, probably since finishing college. I had gained almost 30 pounds. That's plenty on anybody, but on my small frame it was 20% more body weight. It dawned on me that my waist size had gone up 4 inches in the past several years. It was time for a New Year's resolution.

I completely changed my diet, stopped eating junk food at every meal, cut out snacks, reduced my portion sizes, and went on a strict regimen of push-ups and sit-ups every day after I woke up and before I went to bed. My weight dropped, the number of reps rose, exercises got added to the routine, and I got back into shape.

Then, a friend took me to the local climbing gym. As mentioned briefly above, I had climbed a bit as a kid, but it had been about 12 years since my last time on a wall. I fell in love all over again. The staff and other climbers were helpful and friendly, and before long I was climbing three days a week. When I was out of town, I would find local gyms wherever I was. I started doing other things with the express goal of improving my climbing: pull-ups and other sport-specific training at home, running for enduring, yoga for flexibility. (Incidentally, yoga ended up being great for my balance, but I'm still as inflexible as ever.)

I'm now in the best shape I've ever been in. Working out has become an important part of my life (an addiction, my girlfriend might argue). I find new and ridiculous challenges to obsess over all the time, like the circuit training of CrossFit and the gymnastics-style moves of Beast Skills. This is a blog about whatever I'm up to now.