Requirements

          Yesterday’s class had me thinking about our requirements and how I’ve had to adapt over the years to meet them while being sustainable.  It was also a great reminder that it’s good to push ourselves every once in a while.

         For the past few years to meet my push-up and sit-up requirements, I’ve been utilizing different movements.  There are a few reasons for this:

 1. I don’t care how fit you are, repetitive movements in that volume are not great for your joints.  I noticed my shoulders and elbows begin to give me grief, even after reevaluating my technique and body mechanics several times.

 2. As an athlete (and we are all high level athletes), I want to introduce different movements patterns to help with my strength, mobility, and mind-body connection.

3. These movements are in the same spirit of the requirements, and also help me perform those movements better, by training those muscles in different ways (isolated vs. compound movements).

4. It gives me variety to shake things up and continue training.

5. It creates sustainable training that not only meets my requirements, but furthers my health overall.

         For push-ups, I add in movements like bench press (incline, decline), dumbbell chest presses (neutral, incline, decline), cable crossovers/flies, chest and tricep dips, shoulder presses and tricep extensions. All “push” motions. I still do a bunch of regular push-ups (regular, incline, and decline). I’ll do these is a ladder starting with decline, and going up to incline.  I tried the other way around, but you’re pretty fatigued by the end and doing decline at the end runs the risk of faceplanting.

         For sit-ups, I add in movements like Russian twists, leg raises/hanging leg raises, kettlebell halos, wall ball throws against wall, cable core rotations, crunches, bicycle kicks, planks, ab wheel rollouts, candlesticks, cable crunches, and declined sit-ups with dumbbell press at the top.  I still do regular sit-ups as well.

         The challenge I face now for my physical requirements are my form reps. Sparring is alright, since fighting stance seems to be tolerable. However, having to do Da Mu Hsing is challenging when I can’t get into a proper stance, and creating my double axe weapon form should be interesting.  I know with DMH I can focus on the upper body movements, and training to feel my core throughout those movements.  With my axes again, I can focus on the upper half and doing so with getting out of my shoulders.  I may call on some of you to be my proxies so I can figure out lower body movements to go with the form.

          I guess what I’ve been trying to say with all of this, is there are ways to do the spirit of the requirements even with physical limitations. The important thing is to keep training and staying engaged.