05/02 10:30
Random experimentation with various mobility movements
KB1HS 12x10 40
SQT 3x5 220#
KB press 6x1 36
Pullups 6x1 25#
So first, the mobility experiments. I've hit a point with my running where I'm happy with mileage at 4 runs a week, so I can go back to a couple of long mobility sessions a week instead. I've spent a lot of time trying to cook up a plan for something reasonable - I want to pick a few movements that I can do every day (even before my runs) without taking up too much time, and I don't want the long sessions to go crazy long either.
I've been generally viewing the mobility work as preventative - trying to be as injury-proof as possible. I thanks that's reasonable, but at the same time, that mindset is what spurs the constant growth of the number of things I'm trying to do - every movement I see, I think, "oh, I should do that so I never get injured as a result of not doing that!" And I could easily spend 4 hours or more a day in the gym doing various movements if I continue with that mindset. So, instead, it's probably time to define some more concrete objectives - or at least, figure out how more concrete how I'm trying to injury-proof myself, and look for the biggest bang-for-the-buck. And I spent a bunch of time in the gym today experimenting and contemplating.
So, the things I want out of mobility work:
- I don't want my back to hurt. Not that it hurts right now, but I mean, ever. A lot of what I see about back pain seems to be geared toward having a strong core in all planes of motion - foreward, backward, sideways, twisting.
- I don't want my shoulders to hurt. My overhead ROM in general is terrible, but in this case, I have some more concrete examples. Every so often, I take a bad swing in volleyball, and it makes my shoulder sore for about a day. And sometimes, when I'm a little fatigued, my shoulders ache when I take of a T shirt. That just sucks. Here again, I think the answer is to be strong in all planes of motion. Problem is, the shoulders have pretty much infinite planes of motion!
- I want to improve my balance and body control for striking in karate.
When I wrote that out, I had some immediate thoughts on #2 and #3. If you want better balance and body control for striking, why would you not just practice more striking, instead of looking for surrogates? And, if you don't want your shoulder to hurt after hitting a volleyball, practice hitting a volleyball more. So, right off the bat, I'm thinking "long mobility" sessions will actually turn in to "mobility and skill practice" sessions.
Then, after thinking about trying to get strong in multiple planes of motion, I immediately went to the TGU and bent press. Would be nice to get my beast TGU back, and would be nice to give the bent press some love. Boom, there's the other addition for long days. I spent some time today experimenting with combining the TGU with the bent press. It was certainly interesting, but the TUT is so long that the weight has to stay light. So maybe I'll mix those in sometimes, but I want to sometimes also work on getting heavy with the individual lefts.
All that said, here's what I'm thinking going forward:
- Every day
- Trifecta (bridging, hanging leg raise variants, twist stretch)
- Shoulder sequence: overhead extension pulsing, shoulder dislocates, dips, rows, back-the-back stretches
- GTG pushup work will cover the horizontal plane push
- Added on long days
- TGU and/or bent press work
- Heavy bag work (light strikes, work on control & balance, height of kicks, etc.)
- Hit a volleyball
That's the plan, anyway.
With all that thought and experimenting, this session ended up going 2 hours. I had chores to do, so I skipped grip work. And after a long day of chores, I completely fell asleep on the couch at 21:00, missed my stretching.
HRP 3x10
LTK 3x4
SL calf raise 3x6
RAGS 54