My Cool Trick

One of the benefits of having a set of gymnastics rings in my garage is that I don’t have to wait in line to use them (at least when all the kids are not around!). I have several young children which means I have seen several of the “Cool Tricks” that people share on the Yo Gabba Gabba! show.

In the spirit of Yo Gabba Gabba, this is my cool trick. 🙂

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2011 ASU Maroon and Gold Competition

I’ve been working on a new routine this year and this week I got a chance to compete with the Arizona State Men’s gymnastics team in their annual pre-season inner squad meet in Chandler at Aspire. Next month is the annual Rocky Mountain Open at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs so I wanted to give myself a chance to perform before then.

The recording is done by my 9 year old son so there are a few parts I go off camera but in general I think he did a good job filming. At the time I was focused on what I was doing but now that I watch the video it’s encouraging to hear everyone cheering for me. 🙂

Now I have a few weeks to get stronger so I can hold my strength moves and keep form in my handstands. I didn’t get a chance to ask the judges what they came up with for a start value but I believe it should be 15.2. I scored a 10.5 which is ok for the first time doing the routine. I’m shooting for above 13 at RMO next month so I have some work to do.

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The Couch Planche

During the summer in Phoenix when it was too hot to use my rings in the garage I had to be creative with my workout equipment. Now that summer is over I can do a planche on the back of a couch. 🙂

I want to be able to do a maltese, so I figured a planche uses similar muscles and is easier to train so I started with that. With the next Rocky Mountain Open (hosted by the Air Force Academy on Jan 14th) coming up in under two months I will be focusing on putting my routine together until then. I want to score above 13 this time (I scored 11.0 last time) so I need to clean up my form quite a bit.

About a month ago I started going to an adult session at AZ Sunrays (they are 30 miles closer to my house than Aspire, though less equipped) once a week but their rings are strapped to the rafters with no springs so I haven’t tried swinging on them yet. The equipment guy there ordered springs and had them in a box this week but needs a couple more connections to get them installed. He promised they would be up next week, but even if they are not I’ll start working on the first half of my routine which is mostly strength moves and forward/backward rolls. In the meantime I’ve been playing on the P-Bars, Pommels, and High Bar – building up my hands and overall conditioning.

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This Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks

The video above is from my second gymnastics competition in 10 years. I added 2 new tricks to my rings routine for this meet that I had never done before – a cross pull out and a back uprise-cross. This was a local competition for me at Aspire between Arizona State University and the University of Michigan. It was hosted by ASU and Scott let me compete along with a few other individuals from my old gym in Mesa (AZ Flairs).

I was happy to add a couple new tricks in my routine but due to my wife being in school full time I was driving the kids around most of the time between RMO and this meet so I only made it to the gym twice. My lack of practice time showed in my execution and scores. I improved my start value (based on the skills in the routine) from 14.7 at RMO to 15.1, but I actually expected 15.2. I believe I wasn’t given a ‘C’ value credit for the back uprise straddle planche because I didn’t go straight into it.

After coming up with a good idea for a bunch of different exercises I could try to do for one minute to increase my stamina, I got pretty busy with work and didn’t sleep or eat as well as I’d like the last few weeks. But I was a bit surprised at losing 5 full points (I scored 10.1 with a 15.1 start value) for execution – I guess judges have more room for deductions now since they don’t start from a 10.0 max score anymore. 🙂

I also was busy putting out fires at work in the morning and forgot my gym bag at home with my grips. Fortunately one of the ASU team members who wasn’t competing that day let me borrow a pair of grips (I think I broke them in – they were flat like they just came out of a leather cutting machine) but I wasn’t able to find any spare wristbands. I ended up wrapping my wrists with a few layers of coach tape which did the job, but I’m nursing a couple bloody rips now – I still prefer a good pair of wristbands.

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My One Minute Workout

Recently someone asked me a question over at allexperts.com about endurance for their floor routine. I told them it was a different type of endurance that was needed than long distance running, and to try doing some conditioning for the amount of time her floor routine lasts. Since then I’ve thought more about it and decided I would take my own advice to help with my rings routine. I timed the routine in my video from the Rocky Mountain Open and it was a little over a minute long. Then I tried doing all sorts of different exercises to see how long I could do them before really slowing down. Here are my initial results from this morning (in the order I did them, with a couple minutes between each one to figure out what to do next):

  1. Handstand Pushups against a wall – ~45seconds
  2. Handstand on the rings with straight arms but feet wrapped around the straps for support – ~35 seconds
  3. Planche hold with my feet propped on a chair – ~30 seconds
  4. L hold (hanging from a pull up bar) – ~30 seconds
  5. Front Lever to pull up position and back on pull up bar (several times) – ~25 seconds

Now I really understand why it’s difficult to do anything with good form in the second half of my rings routine – I’m pooped by then! So in the next week and a half before my next competition I’ll do my best to improve those numbers. 🙂

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