My Fitness Goals

[shanmonster]

From what I can tell, most people's fitness goals are numerical. For example, they want to lose twenty-five pounds, or they want to have a 27" waist.

My goals aren't like that at all.

I want to always be getting better. Always. There's no end for that, except maybe a few minutes after I die.

And if that's not good enough of a goal, there are two specific feats I want to be able to master.

The first one is the one-legged pistol squat. I can do this starting from the floor to standing. It is not pretty, and believe it or not, I feel it most in the extended leg.

The other is this kind of hamstring curl:

I can't do even one of these. I came close, once, and it felt like both hamstrings tried to spring out of my body screaming, "HOLY SHIT!" Yeah, I pulled 'em both. It was unpleasant. But damn.... If I can get so I can do those like the woman in the video, I will be very proud of myself.

Comments

[miss-colombina.livejournal.com]

One leg squat is my utmost goal!! I hope one day to get there, we'll see. my legs are considerably stronger than my upper body, I really should have 3 chin ups as a goal, instead.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I want to be able to do pistols without looking like I'm on the cusp of shitting my pants.

[valkryor.livejournal.com]

My hamstrings are trying to run into the next room screaming DO NOT WANT after watching that. Holy hell, that's a lot of power.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

It sure is! I'm very impressed.

[harukoraharu.livejournal.com]

I'd be too wary of my knee to try pistols but might give the hamstring curls a try. I also have several bodyweight exercise goals for this year. Pullups (unaided), Headstand to handstand (against the wall) though a push up would make me real happy, Rope climb (if they fit another in the gym) or Dragon Flags. The powerlifting is really just to get my strength up to that level where I can do more of the bodyweight exercises :)

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I had dreadful knees for well over a decade, but now they're excellent because I've worked so hard at strengthening my legs. Your mileage will vary, of course. Standard stationary bikes and stair machines will bother my knees, now, but I can do squats all the way to the floor and up, do distance cycling, and run flights of stairs without any knee complaints. Go figure.

[forestmaster.livejournal.com]

I remember you posting a bellydancing youtube video that featured someone doing a pistol as part of the choreography... we actually did them (or attempted anyway) as part of our crossfit workout yesterday... one called "Mary" that features handstand pushups (5), pistols (10), and pullups (15) repeated for as many rounds/reps as possible in 20 minutes.

You can scale the pistols to what you can do by squatting to a medicine ball (or a box, low stair, whatever). If that's still too low, you can put a few larger weights under the medicine ball. I haven't done too many pistols so I was squatting to a medicine ball with two 35 pound rubber weights underneath. What the guy in the video was doing was rather impressive in comparison. My first few sets of pistols were pretty pathetic, but they got better after a few rounds...

Handstand pushups you can scale too... kneeling or with toes on a box of increasing height with the goal of getting your upper body as close to perpendicular to the floor as you can, then eventually working your feet to be parallel to your body and barely touching the wall for support... then working on increasing range of motion of the pushups with your arms.

I have never seen hamstring curls before... will have to find a contraption to lock down my ankles so I can try it... but don't you get fairly close to that kneeling on the ground and doing a backbend to the floor and back up?

As for fitness goals, numbers may show progression toward specific goals. I want to get better always, too, but at different times I have more specific goals that I'm working toward to achieve that overall "better".

[forestmaster.livejournal.com]

Hamstring curls - moment of duh - the backbends would be the quads holding you up, right? [wry grin] Still... good to work both sets of muscles to be more equal... we've done stuff with a GHD machine (http://www.amazon.com/TDS-C-82626-WP-Glute-String-Machine/dp/B000QJAKV4) but a lot of that levers from the hip area more than knees... will have to see what I can come up with to try it...

[etcet.livejournal.com]

glute-ham raises (the hamstring move in the video) are evil. effective, but evil.

my balance is just utter shite when i do pistols (one legged squats); i need to hold a small dumbbell (15-25#) out in front of me as a counterweight.

dragon flags are another of those "look and be bad-ass" moves.

my 2011 goals are a 2x BW squat, 3x BW deadlift, BW overhead press, and at least five bench press reps at 1.5x BW. these all represent about a 25% increase over my personal bests (which mostly happened last april, before i got hurt repeatedly).

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! Dragon Flags are sexy! I wonder if I can do one? I guess I'll have to try at the gym and find out.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I could watch that second video on loop for, like, the next ten years.

So. Awesome.

[harukoraharu.livejournal.com]

I think reverse crunches are a preliminary to dragon flags (most youtube clips show poor form maybe because they are going straight for it) and they look hard enough when done correctly. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWsEp7hsmZg

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

Gawd, those are amazing...

You, AND the other thingy, i mean.