Monday, September 24, 2012

A Couple Training Experiments - Weight Vest and Blind Start

The Past month has been pretty hectic getting back into the schedule of school and CrossFit.  Nonetheless I have been getting some training in and would like to share a couple exercise experiments.

Weight Vest

20# weight vest - an awesome investment - I initially picked one up for CrossFit workouts and have gotten some good use out of it over the past couple years. They run between $60-100 depending on the quality, but they are pretty durable and worth the money if you intend to use one. On this day of training, being the first time using a weight vest for parkour, I decided I would go into it without any plans/intentions and just see what I could discover. Below is a summary of this day.

                               

The complete workout I did after precision training is as follows:
50 box jumps
30 push up to two-hand hold
20 pushup to one-hand hold (each hand)

Couple things to take note of during the training portion (precisions) - the weight vest obviously adds an element of resistance for any exercise - in this case the lower body being used during precision. What I did notice, and was not totally prepared for, was the lower back strain it caused as well. Primarily I think this is due to the location of the weight being above my hips. This causes an additional need for back extensor stabilization as I land due to the upper body weight + vest still moving forward. In the end my core fatigued faster than my legs during the precisions, although I continued with conditioning afterward to finish off my legs.

Training application - Besides the obvious benefit to adding a vest to body weight conditioning, I believe there could be some training benefits as well. As I mentioned in the video, I felt like I was literally floating after I took the weight vest off. I felt much more in control of my movement and strength during the post-vest precisions vs. the pre-vest precisions. Also, I believe weight vest training can be a great addition to any flow work or light intensity training as it will add resistance and create more of a workout during those times. The vest makes easy vaults, jumps, and climbs become strenuous - this has the benefit of forcing your mind to focus on the skills you believe you have down and can mimic the effects of fatigue that could occur in "the emergency situation."

Blind-Start Training
I would first like to thank a member of the Panther Parkour club - Jabari Dawkins - for being my guinea pig for this training experiment. Jab and I were training in a spot that is awesome for stringing together strides, vaults, and precisions (as you will see in the video) - This was the perfect area where I intended to try this training experiment, which was hanging around in my mind for a couple weeks at this point. I did not tell jab right away that I planned on using him, and instead allowed ourselves to warm up, fool around, and try a few things in this area.

After we were sufficiently in training mode I say, "Alright Jab, were gonna play a little game. You're gonna start over here, and keep your eyes closed. I'm gonna yell "GO" and you will open your eyes and run to me, wherever I am, as fast and safe as possible." Thus Jab kept his eyes closed, I would run to a random part of the area, scream go, and Jab would run to me. Done. Below is a video of a couple runs filmed during the exercise that Jab, and later I, participated in.


I will first talk about my predictions I had for this exercise, followed by what I actually observed during the training.

Predictions - The warm up and fool around session went exactly how I expected. This is because it is what I have observed that most people do during training sessions. It consisted of exploring the area - Doing big/fun precisions and vaults - and more importantly for the sake of this exercise, it consisted mainly of planing out runs, stringing together specific strides and precisions and repeating the run a couple times to make it more fluid and perfected. This was the point I wanted to challenge.

How big of an influence does the observing-analyzing/planning-try-repeat-do-repeat-perfect method of training have on our overall ability to adapt in emergency situations? My thought was that Blind-Start training would force the first 2 steps of above process to happen immediately and eliminate the rest of the steps since there was only one try, and it was a must do. This would mimic an emergency situation. I believed that this would have a large effect on what movements we chose to do when put "on the spot."

Observations - Jab, you were a wonderful guinea pig. On the first run, Jab reinforced all my beliefs at what this training exercise would accomplish. Jab's exclamation of "ahhh" near the end of his first run showed this - he realized there was a more direct route if he were to stride onto the planter/wall instead of drop off the table and run around it, but his mind did not feel 100% capable of making that move, and thus naturally chose the safer route. Knowing Jab's abilities, I am completely certain if he had time to see the route beforehand and prep his mind, he could easily have continued that stride - but he did not have that time. I inferred from this that whatever moves you have in your parkour repertoire that are not 100%, in an emergency situation, your mind will not let you attempt them, when given the choice. Since fear is meant to keep you alive, any seed of doubt during an emergency situation will play a role on what moves you may perform, when given the choice. And this makes sense - Jab could have made that stride - and saved maybe 0.3 seconds on his time reaching me - but made the safer choice. Ultimately it was a decision between 0.3s and a sure-thing movement. Now to what I observed from my turn.

My initial observation - anxiety. Exactly like waiting for the gun at the start of a race. I had no idea when Jab was gonna yell "GO," nor did I have any idea where he would be. I was surprised at how much a sense of this fear/anxiety built up in me. Next, Jab yells "GO!" Even before my eyes are fully open I start running. By the time I spot Jab and attempt to direct my path I am already at full speed and within a step of my first obstacle. At this point I literally have "Oh Shit Oh Shit" going through my mind on repeat. Besides that, there was close to no thought process going through my mind. No planning routes, steps, or foot take off. During the pre-exercise fool around training, you have the ability to plan a route and make sure you follow that plan, thus have a sense of control over your movement. During this exercise, however, there is no planned route, and once you are in motion, you stay in motion. You can only control the current movement, and have very little sense of seeing what the next move should be. An example from the video - on one of my runs (3rd run I believe) I take 2 steps on each table before striding to the next one. This route could have easily been accomplished by single stride across each table, but it was too late. I got in a rhythm of 2 steps on each table and could not, if I tried, switch it to 1 stride without loosing speed. 

Also, on my first run, you can see a similar instance to what Jab experienced. I have a distinct change in direction in the middle of the run. I remember feeling that I had no safe/efficient path going in that direction, and even before I completed that thought, my body was already switching directions and I was forced to instantly find a new path. It was not a feeling of - see a path-switch direction-go on path. It was a feeling of - can't do this path - body automatically switches to new direction - mind catches up and searches for new path - then go on path. It very interesting realizing how much my body responds to second nature, and how little on the spot analyzation is actually accomplished.

Conclusion- What I took away from this experiment was this - Blind-start training should be implemented in every traceur's training and can be a good addition to the "plan-a-route" training session. The observing-analyzing/planning-try-repeat-do-repeat-perfect aka "plan-a-route" had little to no affect on the ability to adapt when put on the spot with blind-start training. With no time to observe and analyze, it is impossible to consciously think of a route. Instead your body acts on what it knows and your mind tries to keep up. Thus I can see the plan-a-route training as necessary to improve this blind-start training - as you train movements in a planned setting, it allows you to focus on those movements to perfect them and reach the point of second nature. Only when they are absolutely 100% perfected will those movements be useful in emergency situations. Even then, it is interesting to note how regularly the mind will choose the safer, possibly less time efficient, and definitely less flashy route. The Blind-start training as a great method in testing what you have down as well as giving you the opportunity to analyze yourself, your movement patterns, and your adaptation skills.


1 comment:

  1. Liking the experiments so far. I also suggest training with a heavy backpack to simulate carrying a heavy load that isn't equally distributed like a weight vest. Also, try playing with carrying a load in one/two hands, such as medicine ball or sandbag, to simulate having to carry a person or other precious load. Completely changes what you think you're capable of in the middle of a run.

    ReplyDelete