Oh the shades of winter. The night is darkest just before the dawn. Yesterday's morning practice was hell, and then just like that, you come in for the afternoon practice and have one of the best practices of your life. The gods will occasionally reward you for your blood spilled on the battlefield. I've enjoyed the past week of lowered volume...but just like the seasons changing, it's time to move on again. Volume is slowly going up with a little more focus on general strength for the immediate time being. Lots of press work as always, and one workout specifically for nothing but conditioning. Core, core, gimme some more. Afternoon practice was so-so today; nothing bad, nothing particularly good. After hitting yesterday's 5-minute max hold with some change to spare, decided to just hit the minimums this morning and focus more so on technique, save going for the jugular during the evening's practice. Until the necessary strength is built up, you need technique because you're weak. Once a good foundation of strength is built, you don't have to rely on technique so much because you're strong enough to fight yourself out of a less than advantageous position should the problem arise. Always refining technique obviously but always pushing the strength envelope as well. They both play a fairly equal part into the equation. Either way, take your licks. Showing up and putting forth an honorable effort in your practice is really 90% of it. All the rest is sheer aggression, genetics, and a healthy dose of luck.

Workout A

Max Hold Handstand
Standing Press Handstand 3xAMRAP
Press Negatives 3x1
Seated Press 3xAMRAP
OAHS 5/4/5/4*

Workout B

Max Hold Handstand
Standing Press Handstand 3xAMRAP
Press Negatives 3x1
Seated Press 3xAMRAP
OAHS 5/4/5/4*
Mexican Handstand/Lower to croc

Workout C

Wall-Supported Planche Presses 2-3xAMRAP
Decline Leg Raises 2x15-25
Seated Press 3xAMRAP
Hyperextensions 2x15-25
Handstand Walking 1 lap
Dishrocks 2x1:00

*One-arms can get some extra lovin' so long as time permits.

Monday - A,B,C
Tuesday - A,B
Wednesday - A,B,C
Thursday - A,B,C
Friday - A,B,C
Saturday - A,B
Sunday - A,B

There's no such thing as the end of practice. You get in there and you work. Don't even THINK about looking forward to the end, because there is none. It's time to work. MOVE, BOY! You say you want more, then prove it. Stop wishing it were easier. While you're taking the easy way out, your competition is taking the hard road...the road less traveled. The harder worker always wins. Two options: Light a fire under your ass or burn out. How can you work harder?! Pick up your sad excuse for a human existence, stop feeling like the lamb, and become the lion. Taste blood on your tongue once again. Foam at the mouth. Get hungry...get hungrier! This is life. And yeh I know you wanna cry. CRY, BOY!...but then you get your ass up and get right back on it. You're tired of being a piece of shit. You're tired of being weak. You're tired of falling, PICK YOURSELF UP! Pick yourself up or get the fuck out of here. Make more room for the soldier that IS willing to fight. Repetition is the mother of skill. Move, boy.

This is one of those dark days where I can't even fake it; I am FUCKING MISERABLE. It'll pass as it always does. But right now it's just all anger, frustration, and wanting to punch another hole through a wall. I think my cat Crixus secretly likes these days because he knows he's gonna get a lot more petting from me. That's an ego defense mechanism for all my psychology scholars out there. It's called Displacement. This misery is another part of the blessing though...the blessing of chasing a dream. Realize you're gonna have these bad days...the further you go in your sport or art, if you're really going for it, the more bad days you're gonna have. The magic will happen less and less often, farther and farther apart. Stay optimistic though, 'cause that magic WILL HAPPEN AGAIN...that same magic that initially started your journey; that childlike awe. But until then...MOVE, BOY.

Back on the grind. I've been training handstand 5-6 hour days for the past two months and the body is finally recovering pretty decently in between sessions right now. It was pretty bad for a while there but that goes with the territory. Press strength is at an all time high, but motivation is definitely at an all time low. I'm find most trainings I'm just fighting through, hitting the numbers, counting the minutes. The beastmode is pretty much gone. I'm not complaining as I'm getting stronger, but behind-the-scenes I kinda definitely know it's time to slightly deload for a week and then start ramping back up. We're now dropping to 4 hour days, and then each week adding back a 5 hour day over the coming weeks until we're back at 7 days a week at 5 hours a day. At this point, the 5 hour days won't really mess with recovery at all assuming sleep is there and there isn't a consistent substantial caloric deficit. Small deloads like this are good every once and a while, especially if the athlete has really kept himself in the dark matter for a while. He'll end up coming back stronger, a lot more motivated, and it's also good that he gets out occasionally to experience the rest of the world; call his mom, take his woman for a nice walk, go see a game...things that most people call living(that's a joke there).

Right now the day's trainings look something like this, this is seven days a week:

Twice a day

0:00-0:30 Prehab, warmups, stretching, max holds, dynamic work.
0:30-1:00 AMRAP press work for sets from standing and from the sit, handstand pushups.
1:00-1:30 OAHS variations and transitioning

Once a day

0:00-1:00 General conditioning and other elements: Mexican, crocodile, planche work, pirouettes, handstand walking, and a shit-ton of core work(hollowbody rocking, decline leg raises, hyperextensions).

We'll call this day one of a new beginning. You have milestones as you progress and grow in your practice. The past month has been a big one for me. A little older, a little wiser, but still a lot to prove. I'm hoping to make this training blog fairly consistent at once a week, but well...we'll see how that goes. Much love out to you and yours. Keep doin' your work, whatever it is. It's your life...fall into it. All else is the void.