More Effective Warm-ups, Fitness/Strength training Seminar
Sensei's son, Matt Toth, gave another seminar at the dojo. I use a lot of the exercises he showed us in the last seminar in my warm up with the kids, so we'll see if I can mix in a few of the new ones.

I've had a cold for the last week, so I wasn't sure if I'd make it. Because of that, I paced myself a little better this time.

The warm up started with shoulder rolls. We do these a lot, but his were a bit slower and he really stressed moving along the full range of motion in the rolls. Ours are rather loose. We switched to elbow rolls and he told us that this doesn't really work since the elbows bend instead of roll, so we are moving the shoulder as well as the elbow. Wrist rolls were next. We did two different hip rolls. He said the second one was like doing a hula hoop, but that's the only way I can describe the first one. The second one had less body motion and it was only the hips that moved. Knees and ankles followed.

We reviewed four exercises from the last seminar and their variations. Squats, pushup, situps, and "superman" back extensions. Twenty of each at our level. I still can't do a proper situp and I should get that in there. I should move to jumping squats in my warmups. For the squats he wanted to make sure that we come up all the way and tilt our hips forward at the top, so I need to incorporate that as well. The main things with these is that the larger the range of motion, the better.

The next exercise was sort of mix between a sun saluation and a burpie. Stretch up and go on your toes, put your hands down on the ground, put one leg straght behind you, put the other leg behind you, do a push up, one leg comes up, the other leg comes up, and stand up. The more advanced one is a burpie. Jump up and land in a squat, both hands on the ground, both feet jump back, do a push up, both feet jump up, go into a squat. We had to do as many as possible in ten minutes. Yeah, I didn't want to kill myself with the cold so I did 55 mixing the two techniques.

Short break. Everyone's face was pretty pink by this point.

We stretched as he talked. He said that he believed that it was better to train intensely for 10 minutes to invoke an endocrine response than to spend an hour in the gym on the weights. WE might just do one exercise for ten minutes, but it's a good idea to do one exercise right after the other. Another thing he stressed a few times is that if we are measuring our improvements we should take time into account. That is, instead of saying I can do 100 pushups where I did 80 two months ago, I better measure is saying that you can do 100 pushups in 4.5 minutes instead of 5 or measuring how many you can do in five minutes.

We paired up and did elevated push ups. Our partner was on all fours and we did the push up with our legs on their back.

There were some other pushups. Turning our hands in for a more tricep push up with our elbows at around 30 degrees. He said that the problem he had with the tricep pushup where you make a diamond shape with your hands is that too often people have their elbows out to the side and it should be closer to the body.

We did Bear Crawls. We run across the floor on all fours. Our right hand moves the same time as our left foot and vice versa. The first way was to put our foot outside our hand and the second time inside. This is where I hurt myself the most. I tried to look ahead of me and cranked my neck. Look down at your hands or the floor! He said that these were great for the stomach core--abs, hip flexors, and all that. Kids like this and have an easier time doing it.

Next was hand stands. The first one, which I screwed up, was to have our hands six inches from the wall. He latter added, after he watched me, that we should have our head against the wall and get our neck against the wall when we get up. We start up in a squat like pose and kick up our legs and our partner helps us get our legs up the wall. Legs are together and straight. I wasn't pushing on my arms or anything and landed on my head with no really pressure on my hands. The second time was better but it was obvious that I was focused on my arms as everything else was everywhere. The second variation involved your partner moving your legs out from the wall and you straightened your back. Then some people, actually I think everyone but me, had one or two focus mits under them to do hand stand push ups.

The last exercise was to grab two weights or a large heavy gym bag. Hold the weights above your shoulder or in front of your face for the bag. Do a squat and stand up, straighting your arms, to pushing the weight up. We should do these fast so that we are using our hips to thrust up rather than using our upper body strength.

There was probably more. I'll add it in as I think of them.