Over at S&P for a first session yesterday, it was going to be a short one, with a few exercises to workout various imbalances in the way I move and train in order to see what needs to be worked on, what doesn't, and how my movement patterns can be adjusted to make me more efficient. (in terms of movement, that is).
The warm up consisted of a lot of specific foam rollering on large and small muscle groups, stretches, holds, and movements, like reverse split squats etc. All good stuff for getting the body ready for action- going straight into a decent training session really isn't going to cut it in a gym like this.
Serious preparation for serious work done by motivated people.
We went through a number of movements, including Bear crawls, squats (unweighted and goblet), press-ups, pull ups, kettlebell swings, plank and a moving plank. Nothing too bad or strenuous, but it showed up a fair few chinks in my armour. Most of which I knew about anyway, but wasn't sure how to correct them.
My squatting isn't anywhere as near as it could be- collapsing on the way down- mainly caused by stiff hip flexors, press-ups cause impingement issues with my shoulder- that has been bugging me for a year. I think that we can sort this out in a couple of weeks, because it seems that my lower traps just aren't engaging- and my rhomboids also seem a bit lazy when put under strain.
The problem I've been having is the bigger muscles- like the deltoid- just take up the strain because my body knows they can, and this is impinging the joint and making the movement pattern sub-optimal for the rest of the body.
My general cross-core is not all that strong- rec abs, transverse abs, and serratus ant. and my glutes don't really fire under strain either. This is all probably down to tigh hip flexors again- as they are over firing, the reciprocal inhibition means that glutes and general abdominal muscles don't fire.
As a final FY, I did 3 lengths on the prowler- a steel sled which can be weighted. It really didn't need to be. After the third time I was so close to passing out from lack of blood to the head it really wasn't funny. Thinking back to how bad I felt at the end of 4 hill reps on Monday. This was worse, and in a fraction of the time. I suspect this may be a bit of a kickstart for attacking races, which will be excellent.
Interestingly, the tight hip flexor thing was what lost me a lot of places on the race yesterday (race report here) and so I think there will be a lot of work done on those in the coming few months.
Sean and Zoran were excellent at looking at my form, listening to what I was saying about what I felt, and then changing things so as to avoid excessive pain (not pain from tiredness, but bad pain- which stops you training). The screening was thorough, and everything they said resonated with what I have been feeling and how I believe I need to train.
I mentioned a little earlier about how I knew there were bits that I need to train to get rid of imbalances and niggles. I have been trying to do that on my own for a fair while, and not having much success. Within 40 mins, we knew what was wrong and how it needed to be worked on.
Sean pointed out that from my goals, none of them included flexibility... the reason for that is because as I train, and ans I become able to attain the goals, flexibility should be a byproduct of everything I do- its not something that I am aiming for specifically, but something that should happen through correct training.
This weekend is Scrambling in Wales, Monday is back to S&P
Can't wait.
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