Gainning Lossed

Short One

One thing I look forward to more then any thing else is what I lose from training....What?  No, No that's all wrong Francesco it's what you gain from training, you got it backwards mate.  Seriously though.  I am not being sadistic I don't enjoy losing skills, strength, endurance, flexibility.  What I am getting to is the fact that when you focus on any one thing you are going to lose others, but it does not need be so detrimental that you feel like you have lost to much.

I just finished a long trek into straight arm strength and highly neglected my bent arm strength, and before that I had finished a journey in body building.  I gained so much from both of these treks, but I have found that there are some things you need to keep if you want to maintain a bit of sanity.

It wasn't until I had a small strain in my right side just below my Deltoid and above my Lat that I began to wonder how my pulling strength had improved since I began working my front levers.  I went to work some Parkour Climb Ups and found that they were total crap...disappointing indeed.  I went to do a muscle up on a bar...still could do them, but they were not as quick.  After a couple of days of fooling around with pull ups and dips I came to the realization that it wasn't my bent arm strength that I had lost.  It was a quality of movement.  I had forgotten what it was like to  pull with power and urgency.  All that lifting, and then all that isometric strength had helped me get stronger in a specific position, but I had lost the feeling of pulling in a powerful and urgent manner.

It didn't take long to get it back, I just had to Pony up a little and get aggressive.  Ah yes Aggressive.  That's a word I have been using quite a lot with my students.  Aggressive does not mean to get angry or out of control.  It means to go after your goal with complete focus and take control.

There are so many capacities that we need to tap into, try not to lose to much on your road to gains.  Every loss gives me one more piece of the puzzle.  No matter how much you learn please make sure keep your fundamental mobility a number one priority.  Full Squat and its variations, Dead Lifting twice your body weight, Bridges, Chest to Bar Pull Ups, Full Range Dips, Skin the Cats, Straight Body Handstands, Running....and so much more...oh yes and Stay Aggressive.

Francesco Caban 

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Damned Double Leg

There have been very few movements that have pissed me off as much as the Double Leg...

I had to have it.

This was one of my goals when I dived into tricking last summer.  I didn't start working on it until I was well along my way and closer to the end of the year in September of 2014.

But I didn't just want to do a Double Leg, I wanted a double leg that could kick someones face off.  A true kicking double leg...Old School.

None of that new hybrid garbage.  No offense, they look cool and I still do them, but It's not what I wanted.

I actually played around back and forth between the Hybrid and Pop 3 take off.

The hybrid is more of a side flip with a Quarter Torque turn early. It has the same look as the Jumping Double Leg but is more of a flip then a Kick.  I had progress in Both Areas,  But I can throw the Pop 3 version on pretty much any type of ground and the other I can only do on spring floor.

Eventually I realized that I was looking for a Double Leg that emulated the Capoeira Style but that took off like a Pop 3.

How I developed this trick?:

1. I made sure my Pop 360 Outside Crescent had a nice solid set up from the side
2. I worked on small tid bits of the move such as keeping the leg together
3. I reviewed and reflected on every training session to see what made each session a success or a failure and thus my failures became successful.
4. I Worked on my Feilong Kick and got that solid
5. Watched and reviewed frame by frame The Double Leg performed by Trickster that I believe had superb technique, and copied them (Jujimufu, Cory DeMyers).
6. Started landing my Feilong on two legs
7. I looked at what i wanted to kick and cut it in half with my Calcified Ankles!!
8. I didn't get this move down until I began throwing it randomly at trick sessions well after my main Tricking Season.   

That all being said.  I am extremely happy with my progress and I cant wait to incorporate it into combos in my summer session.  

Enjoy the Video Montage of my progress.  See if you can tell the difference between the two types of Double Legs.  I still need to fix my left leg, it likes to bend a little.

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Francesco Caban

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What I Learned from 6 months of Acrobolix Training. Part 1

A little background for what brought me to changing it up for 6 Months. Back in May of 2014 I suffered an ankle sprain while throwing a cast away, missing a mat, and rolling my right ankle.  It wasn't that bad, but I knew it would be a good six weeks before I could do high impact stuff.  That was fine to me, I had plenty of experience rehabbing injuries and dealing with the change of pace.  So I started to condition and do more strength work.  If you look at my Journey workouts you can see what I did to keep myself occupied.



In between these workouts I would focus on just swinging from bars. You can definitely see my ability to use my shoulders and my grip massively improved. At this point I was at 175 lbs,





All this time I had gotten in touch with and had been Gmailing someone I had respected for years...Jujimufu (Jon Call)  if you don't know who he is check out his website it is loaded with tons of great advice for tricking, bodybuilding, and just over all life and clean living.

ACROBOLIX.COMACROBOLIX.COM

After starting read his articles I had decided that I had never really gotten involved into the Tricking Realm and that this was time to do that, also I have never really been involved in weight training outside Dead Lift and Back Squats.  All my other training had been Calisthenic based.  So I decided to order some nice mixtures of Protein powder from www.truenutrition,com 5% off if you use my promo code :p  FOC858 at checkout  .  I got Creatine Monohydrate, and Fish Oil as well.  I began to train as a body builder, eat as a body builder, and train as a Tricker.  I was in all accounts following an Acrobolix training regiment.  I would hit the weights 3 times a week, and trick twice a week on grassy fields.  I would ask Juji for his thoughts on certain movements and we got to know each other by email and had little heart to heart talks.  It was great to talk to someone new that was on my same level mentally and was obsessed with a training lifestyle while still having relationships and understanding more then the common human. 

You can see my transformation from 175 lbs to 185 lbs

The thing is since I like strength based workouts as well as calisthenics I've always had definition and size, but I never did it with only weights.  I've been at 185 before,  then over the years dropped to 162
I was 162 in this picture right before another injury I suffered ...

This was a dance and acro performance I was in.

Any way why did I do this?

Why would I start working on isolation of muscles?

Why would I try to gain unnecessary muscle mass?

The answer is, I just felt like a change in regiment.  I've been doing calisthenic workouts as long as I know, with the occasional dead lift or back squat routine or lifting or rocks and logs I have never done conventional body building.  And I enjoyed every minute of it.

Sure it became harder to move then I did at 162 or 175 but the only real thing I lost was my climbing strength.  Considering I was still tricking throughout this entire ordeal my legs and tricking ability went through the roof while my strength acro and parkour suffered a little bit.

It was fun to get pumped up from bicep curls, dumbbell chest flys, tricep extensions, and shoulder isolations.  Sure I still did compound exercises, but the mass I was really going for which was a wider back, thicker legs, bigger chest, bis, tris, and shoulders all needed attention.  And now I can put those in maintenance mode while I focus on acro strength and parkour again.

My joints actually benefited a lot from the extra nutrients I was getting and the pumps helped with circulation. It was a much needed chemical and anabolic change. 

I increased my ability to withstand greater external loads of weight in my upper body.  I do acrobatic routines with my Girlfriend and I could tell a big difference with our lifts.  I could also tell with just Labour Intensive stuff like when I moved the gym equipment around. what would normally take 2 people I could make up for with just myself.  It felt good. 

My leg strength improved greatly finally accomplishing a wide stance PR of 185 in my dead lift, I turned that into a conventional stance with the same weight without nearly the same struggle.  Jujis Deadlift Routine   (http://acrobolix.com/deadlifting-the-jujimufu-way/)  got me off to a solid start then the last 3 weeks I went back to a conventional 5x5 routine to accomplish one of my goals.

What did I learn from this?

Well for one I developed a new respect to those that develop their body for aesthetic purposes, it takes time and dedication.

I learned that I could change my body into any type of athlete I want.

I learned even more the benefit that focused sleep, eating, and regiment could do for you.

I learned that I like the way I look with a bit more muscle on me.

I learned how to focus my efforts on to single parts of my body where I felt I lacked, Like my Pictoral area.  Experimenting with different exercises to see what gave me the best response was fun and new to me.

I learned more about the human body.

I learned that in order to have gains in any one direction you have to put the time and energy into it, you cannot do everything all the time and see progress in all directions, you need to amass the knowledge through studying for an accumulated large amount of time.  

I will do body building again, but I am focusing on my acro strength and tumbling for a while.

It is important first that you develop your ability to move well, then you need to reinforce that hardware with the software.  Body building is software movement is hardware.  I recommend that you give it a shot sometime.

Some exercises I did other then typical isolations were compounds:

Weighted Dips

Weighted Pull Ups

Weighted Push Ups

Weighted Plank Rows

Sprints

Dead Lifts

Lat pull downs

Seated Rows

Bench Press

I followed Jujis advice on Acrobolix.com

I did a Skype session with Victor a Natural Body Builder from Vicsnatural.com

I got advice from body builders at the gym

I took Creatine Monohydrate
Fish Oil Supplements
Zinc and Magnesium before bed
Ate a lot
Took Whey Isolate, Micellar Casein, along with other proteins...NOT SOY!!!
Got my sleep

You can do anything you want if you are willing to put in the time.  Look Forward to part 2 when I explain about my 6 months with Tricking in detail.

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Francesco Caban

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Pull Ups and Dips PR and programming

So as some of you know I set out on a 30 day challenge to see what would happen if I did one set of max strict pull ups and strict dips per day.  As usual I had a hard time staying on task since it was always at the end of the day and I was usually pretty spent I missed several days, but I also saw a pattern going on with my progress.  As such here is the graph of my progress.

Some things you should know about what happened.  I started to notice that as I did less consecutive days of my goal, I did better with my numbers.  The only day that was completely off was the 16th when I did my dips first, making it much harder to do my pull ups, but for some reason it did not go the other way.  I could do pull ups first without it burdening my dips. In the third week I knew I was going to keep breaking PR's if I rested properly and as you can see I destroyed my records on day 23.  At that point I felt pretty sure that my experiment was a success and did not need to go further.  

I would like to see if others get the same results with the same programming.  Try it out and let me know.    

One thing to make sure is to go really hard non stop the first week and a half, then back off for a day, go hard for a couple of days and then rest for 2 days, in the third week go hard on the first and fourth day then rest for 3 days and finally the first day of the last week, destroy it.

Good Luck

Francesco Caban

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Forget the 300, what about the 500?

(important video at end, read to understand why it's here)

So I have been watching a lot of Elliot Hulse recently on Youtube and he knows as much as I do... Okay a lot more then I do... about how the Central Nervous System plays the key role in developing all your skills and the feedback loop that it plays with the Peripheral Nervous System.  In short it takes on average 500 Successful Focused Repetitions of any skill, or series of skills for the combined skill to be considered in your muscle memory or in your movement arsenal and ready to be used at any time.  That being said, if you have bad habits it can take up to 1000 or more repetitions to reprogram and rewire over to a new habit.

So all the more important to take the time to do things right.

But what is right and what is correct.

If you're like me and you have learned a lot through being self taught then one of two things happens.

1)  You have been blessed with a nice supple mobile body that teaches itself easily or makes very few mistakes, you don't have to think to much to learn something at first, you are a fast twitch monster, and has decent flexibility.

or

2) your like me and make a lot of mistakes when you learn a new skill, your jump sucks, and your mobility is that of high heeled, hunched overdeveloped hypertensioned bus driver, and the hips of Minecraft avatar.

That being said, yes I know many people do not consider me to be that, but it is what I sometimes feel like when I think of the right type of body for the skills I would like to acquire.

Now considering that I have overcome great odds and have learned to open up my body and develop my weaknesses so that I can focus on my strengths, and also considering that I practice a wide range of skill sets.  Parkour, Acrobatics, and Dance.


I am quite accustomed to watching the agile warrior fly by me creating marvelous movement oblivious of their own gifts and how they got them.  Not saying that these great movers haven't had to get sore, or work hard, but I definitely can say that they did the right things.

They had good building blocks, and that is what this Post is all about.  The building blocks and the development of complex skills through stacking of basic skills and just making sure to do one before the other.

Sounds simple right?

and it is, that's the beauty of it.

The hardest part is figuring out what are the basics, because without that you have noting to go from.

In this post we are talking about adding twisting to flipping and it's relation and development through the Central Nervous System which I will now call CNS.

Now this is conceptual as I do not have a PHD in Neuro Science, but I have seen enough success with this to feel comfortable writing about it.


CNS first:

Now habits are formed through repetition, usually we don't take notice to them.  For example if I get in the car I step in Right leg fist sit down rather hard and pull my Left leg in fast as I pull the door shut barely missing my foot, I put my seat belt on, right leg goes to the break and presses, right hand puts the key in the ignition while holding the wheel with my left arm. I turn the key hear the car start and then I have a few choices on what happens next depending on which direction I have to go. (YES IT'S AUTOMATIC, THE HELL IF I CARE!!!)

I developed that over a long period of repetitions, at first thinking about what I had to do and then doing it, but now I don't think about it I've done it flawless several times a day since 2009 with that car, and the only time I screw it up is when I do something different to start, like I have to answer a call before starting the car and I'm already in the car.  Now wouldn't it be nice if that was how flips and twisting felt?

As I said earlier if you do each repetition successfully or in such a way for you to know what you have done wrong and you change it immediately then flipping and twisting can be just as simple as anything else you do day to day.

My current bane of my existence is my Cartwheel into a Back 360 Full Twist and a Front Rudy or Front Flip 540.  I had both on lock down and then I got injured a while back and I lost them, I have a few successful landings with these in each session, but not good enough to use in the real world.

Why are these giving me trouble because I don't use my building blocks all the time, I do step 3 before I do step 1.

The order of all tricks unless acted on by another force is:

1. Jump/Set/Arch/Heal Drive
2. Hollow/Flip/Hips over Head Rotation/Toe Drive
3. Spin as much as desired or genetically possible
Bonus Step: Land like a boss (Actually that will happen just fine if you followed step 1 and 2)


So this is where the basics need to come into play.

You need to have an understanding of progressions that lead up to Jumping or Setting, Rotation, and Spinning.  If you don't have that yet then this post will still help but just replace the steps with the beginning middle and end of any complex skill.  A simple jump can be broken down into (Compression, Extension, Flight) (Desired Shape) (Descent, Extension, Compression)[another day sorry this is about twisting and how to attain it if you already have the prerequisites but the concept remains the same for all skills :p ]


First of all to be successful and for the rep to count and your CNS to be like "Bro that was awesome we can deal with that"  you need to be aware of what you're doing and you have to land safely or safe enough to have some kind of feedback of what you did.  In other words every time you land like a ton of bricks or like a bag of sauerkraut (in other words FAILED) and you don't change it then you put your ability to get that skill into muscle memory at risk.  I have fallen so many times I am never quite sure if I am going to land these skills unless a set of steps happens.

The step is I feel I have Jumped or Set to my fullest and the second is that I have flipped as hard and as tight as I can so that I know I am at least going to get to my feet or be able to roll out/macaco.  Not being safe with your landings is just plain stupid (unless your one of those guys that falls hard the very first try and then suddenly the next time you land it perfectly, in which case your CNS was like "hey man that sucked, but I know what you were going for so here you go")[I hate you guys, but I love you too, but mostly I hate you]

To get a positive rep that actually helps you, you have to land on your feet.  The only time this doesn't matter is when you are intentionally landing in another position, in which case that position becomes your positive rep.    Any way land in your positive position.

Now with me because if I over think my spin I spin early and don't flip enough and only complete 3/4 of rotation and I am on my side.   Simple solution, spin late and focus everything on the flip, the flip is more important anyway and the spin will develop with time.

To make this simple.  Your spin can always be sped up especially if you have practiced them independently.

JUMP HIGH, SET HIGH , Flip Hard, flip it as hard as you can, the goal is to get back to your feet.

Finally spin last.

With enough successful repetitions you will probably get the skill down strong long before you reach the 500 repetition mark.  A prime example of this is Casey Wilson of Colorado.  This is an old video but you can see he sets, he flips, and he finally spins.  He gets to his feet first because he is flipping to land.  This kid is friggin awesome, this is his old channel, his new one is here http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWrEc-d6fYS_fVr541DMMw   give him some love.



With that drilled into your head I challenge you to take a skill that involves a complex set up.  A jump, a flip, and a spin.  Take this skill and with the steps in mind start to build your spin over a series of successful attempts, and with time you will find your spinning goals come into existence as well.

It has taken me this long to realize how simple this is and it is how I am approaching my spinning skills from now on.  Now of course I am not going to do 500 in one day, but I am going to make sure every flip matters, no falls only doing what I intend to do, land on my feet and the spin will come with time.

Thanks for reading, be the 500 and let the CNS bring you a strong healthy life of Godly tricks.  And I look forward to having these back again.

Francesco Caban

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New Regimen

If you Haven't seen it yet here's a new one I recently put out

A couple of skills and training goals for the month

Every Day regardless of if I get to the rest of my training I must do the following for a healthy body if I am going to do some focused training. This is not a religion, it is just a plan. However, I have been following the plan pretty well with good results.

3 weeks and 2 days on and 3 days off and then it's back to the schedule, if I am feel I need more rest I will take more.

Eat well, Sleep well, and if I miss a day I go on to the next.

Goal: Rehab Shoulders, Wrist, and Neck

Foam Roll
Light Stretch
Buchberger Exercises
Capsule Releases
Wrist and Ankle Flexor and Extensor Reps
Dynamic Stretch Legs and Shoulders
Bridge Work (Shoulder Extension and Flexion)


30 day challenge
Every day for 3 days

Goal:
A more consistent Cave Man Squat
5 minutes in an assisted cave man squat
4 sets of 30 second static calf stretch to help with bringing weight to heels
3 sets of 20 second right and left hip flexor peel lunge
3 sets of 20 second splits all directions going light on stretch no heavy



Goal:

Increase Muscular Endurance (experiment)
1 set of Max Dips
1 set of max Pull Ups
1 set of max skin the cats
1 set of max leg lifts
1 set of max Pistols each leg

Weekly Goals (I have been working this for about 2 months now already)

Goal: Upper Body Muscular Output Straight and Bent Arm Strength


Monday

Front Lever
Back Lever
Long Hand Stand in different shapes
L Sit, V sit, Straddle

Wednesday

A rough day because I also work out with my my girlfriend in the evening, I make it work by saving some of the workouts for the evening.

4 10-15 second Human Flag both arms
4 sets of 5 Straight Arm Horizontal Flys
4 sets of 5 Hand Stand Push Ups (as many sets as I can without wall assistance)
(A)2 sets of 5 Climb Ups for Time
(B)3 sets of 5 Weighted Pull Ups

Goal:  Lower body strength and explosive power output

Tuesday

(A)5 sets of 5 Back Squat as heavy as possible as fast and safe as possible
(B)5 sets of 5 Dead Lifts  as heavy as possible as fast and safe as possible
5 Quad Jump Plyos, 6 Quad Ghost Step, 6 Quad Stride, 6 Quad Stride Stride Plyo for distance
5 sets of 5 Highest box jump possible
6 sets of highest wall run

Goal:  Real Time Comfort of specific moves at max speed

Thursday

Morning Training

4 from the list

Double Kongs
Kong Precisions
Running Precisions
Running and Standing Cat Leap
Lache Precisions
Rail Work
Tac Precisions

Evening Training

Flips and Tricks at Adult Open Gym

Friday

Goal:  Connectivity, Aerial Strength,

Long Day With Plenty of Time

Dance and Transitions, Expressive Connections
Meat Hook
Shoulder Buster
Elbow Lever
Air Baby
Arm Bar
Weighted Pistols


Saturday Sunday

Rest, Recover, Play, Aerial

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Francesco Caban

And Back Again

So 4 days since the start of my Facebook Feed Fast and I am doing good.

Monday through Wednesday I was pushing myself pretty hard and my shoulders got pretty taxed.  Between the Monday Isometrics, Tuesdays Back Squats and hardcore jumping with aggressive arm swings, and Two workouts on Wednesday I was super trashed on Thursday.  Not to mention I was dragging around rubber mats that weighed a hundred pounds each that killed my grip.  I was very grumpy before open gym on Thursday night, but I really wanted to get some training in regardless so I worked a few skills, but it didn't really help me because I was not fresh enough to focus on what I was doing and learn from it.  Over all I should have just worked basics instead of working on harder skills because it messed with my progress.  That night I couldn't sleep very well at all.  My shoulders were super tight and my wrists were all wigged out from dragging the mats around.  I was pissed, all I wanted to do was sleep and because I over trained my shoulders were going to be super tight and seek vengeance on my REM Cycles.  So after battling with myself for several hours, I finally got up and found my lacrosse ball.  I dug into my shoulders and back for the next 20 minutes and eventually got my tissues to relax enough and allow me passage into the dream world.

The lesson learned here is that I know my body very well and I should have known that it would react this way.  There's a reason I am so picky about my workouts and why I usually turn people down that want to do a WOD of some type.  I know what my body needs and know where I want to go.  There's a time and place for everything and if I don't feel that it is the time to do something I usually don't do it.  Being intuitive about what your body needs is the best way to keep training everyday.  Sure there are times when you have to say "Screw It" and go nuts with a crazy WOD that will trash you, but that is definitely not the way I like to do things anymore.  I know I can dish out the Hardcore when necessary, I've been through that type of training, but that is not where I am now.

It's about where you are NOW and what you need to do to keep moving forward in the future.

Francesco Caban

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