Guest blogger and buddy, Ed Merrick shares his thoughts on training and his recent pull up adventures...............................
"Last Sunday, I was telling Frank about how I turned my neighborhood playground into "PlayFit". As I described the different exercises, he suggested I guest write for his weekly blog. I had actually already started an email to him about my workout and really should have hit send days ago. Unfortunately, I’m a procrastinator by nature and couldn't’t get this out until this Saturday evening. In retrospect, the timing worked out well since he introduced me to the book “Convict Conditioning” from his post last week. I was intrigued enough about the book that I bought it; –it arrived on Thursday and it was finished by 1 am this Saturday morning. Ironically, much of my workout last Saturday on the playground parallelled.a few of the concepts introduced by this book.
As background, Frank introduced me to Crossfit about 9 months ago. Prior to joining, I was in relatively decent shape and most of my workouts were centered around the martial arts. For the better part of my life (since I was 9), I’ve been active in the martial arts. I currently teach a very traditional form of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido (not one of those belt factories you might run into). This has always served as a base for every other activity I’ve pursued – basketball, surfing, and just about anything else given the time constraints associated with being a father, a husband and having a job located in another state. Crossfit has turned into a great compliment to not only my martial arts activities, but also my overall life and I seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into the Crossfit-style of life (if there is one – on the paleo diet, pumping protein, constantly looking for any place I can do a pull-up or dip, etc.). I blame this all on Frank.
An common thread between Crossfit, “Convict Conditioning”, and my martial arts experience is that a good workout can be done anywhere, any place, and with little or no equipment. One should not ever be limited by what they don’t have – they should make use of the resources they do have. My original instructor, Grandmaster Shin used to say that a martial artist could stay in shape on a desert island without any of the fancy gym equipment or heavy weights. I’ve always believed that to be true, but it took me about 30 years to really know it to be so.
A trip down to the park in my neighborhood last week proved the case. Last Saturday, I turned the local monkey bars into a pull-ups/situps extravaganza. The bars are too close to kip so only a slow and steady pull-up is achievable. A quick transition to the top led to hanging situps. This was the first time I’d ever tried them, in repetition format. It actually got a little scary as I started getting tired and wondered how I would get down…. Nevertheless, it felt great hanging upside down from pull-ups imitating Rocky Balboa getting ready for his Russian fight.
Next, I ran down to where the spider web was located and knocked out a set of what I’ll call transition pull-ups. I’d start on the two bars leading to the center anchor and do a few pull-ups. Then I’d pull and leap up to the anchor bolt above the bars.
The anchor bolt, shown here, was a tough transition while hanging. It took 3 tries before I could pull on the support bars and leap up to the anchor bolt and then run through a set of pull-ups. What really made this interesting was the unique position of my hands. I actually had to wrap my hands around the bolt in order to hang on. It was definitely a different pull-up than I’ve ever done before (at least intentionally).
Once done with the spider web, I moved onto the swing set. I never knew how challenging the swing set could actually be. I started at one end of the swing set, knocked out a few pull-ups at the archway, then without falling I transitioned to the central bar and “walked” hand over hand to the other end and then knocked out a few more pull-ups. Moving through the swings proved a challenge as well as doing pull-ups on the larger bar in which I was pulling from.
Finally, I moved to the central part of the playground and did what I’ll call “up/downs”. Notice the fenced-area at the top of the main structure. Well, I jumped up to those bars and pulled myself to the top. After reaching the top, I ‘walked down’ to the bottom. Doing a few sets of these (climb up and then down, then back up) really took its toll.
All in all, I was able to turn my local playground into a real workout area. Aside from scaring the parents (thinking that I might kidnap their kid - no thanks….), it was truly a rewarding revelation. The playground has now become my choice of workout areas. Every time I drive into my neighborhood and pass the playground, I have this urge to jump out of my car and pump out a few pull-ups on the monkey bars or knock a few “up/downs”. The truly unfortunate thing in all this is I’ve turned into a pull-up whore. If there’s a place to do a pull-up, whatever type, I’m headed that way. My martial arts class has a chain hanging down to support our heavy bag (which is never up). As I have my students run laps at the beginning of class for their warm-up, you can find me hanging from the chain – knocking out a few pull-ups.
Yes – I’m addicted to pull-ups – and the playground (really any playground) is becoming my gym of choice"
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