Physical Play As An Adult :

10/17/20 :

The former soviet union must’ve cared more about the average citizens fitness than america does.

The internet shows not only far more pullup bar type equipment built at adult height, but large fully sized outdoor gyms something not here at all with the exception of muscle beach.

The type of things that are gymnastic equipment outdoors, or to be seen on a military base.

However, playgrounds are never very far away, they may be set low to the ground, but they’re free, and generally empty.

You know why kids have better grip strength in proportion to adults?

Firstly it’s less likely that they’re obese, but largely it’s the fact they’re using the monkey bars at recess.

Exercise needn’t be so rigid, nor necessarily thought of as exercise.

Saturday, early evening, I go outside to exercise. I’d been inside, inactive all day, and movement is life.

I look at my barbell, and I look at my bike. Barbell. Bike. Barbell. Bike.

Bike it is, I’ll go to the playground and hit a set of pullups.
Nothing else is set in stone.

A few days ago I realized that there’s a perfect spot at this particular playground for human flags. And I actually dreamt that I was showing off human flags to my father today.

Exercise, the movement patterns themselves, is too rigid.

I do that set of pullups. And as I’m doing so I’m thinking about one arm hangs. I never did video those, I had gotten up to 45 seconds holding onto a 70lb kettlebell weighing about 235-240, and was doing them regularly on the crossfit jungle gym apparatus at that particular gym.

I look around the playground. There’s this tilting balance board, and a spot I’ve pretended to rock climb on.

I roll my bike over there.

My heart was into simulated rock climbing, through I did climb a bit.

I walk on the balance board, trying to go back and forth. The wetness of the ground and my shoes makes this a little more difficult.

I feel my leg musculature firing hard, and remember how effectively balance training builds the cns.

I envision where a slack line would be set up well. “Hey, parallel bar flexed arm hang walks” and I play around with that, going forwards, backwards, hopping forwards, and spinning around to face the opposite way.

Yep, that’s why kids have stronger hands than adults.

I do some more balance walking. I was grokking enjoyment of the feeling greatly.

There’s all these basic activities we don’t do enough of as we grow up until adulthood, that are the most natural of things in our childhood.

Kids don’t have neurotic limitations on movement patterns.

Those who are like that as adults, free of arbitrarily set neurotic limits on movement have a whole lot of mental freedom. Most don’t, but it’s there for all who can laugh, smile, play, and choose it.

I look at the wall and decide to push it. It’s a linemen drill I’ve heard of, and mentally I pictured pushing a truck in preparation to pushing and pulling busses and larger vehicles while doing the isometric. I played around with the angles to feel it in different parts of my shoulder girdle and my legs. Short choppy steps, arms extended.

A wall is not just a wall, a sturdy one serves as a useful piece of equipment.

Now the other day I rode my cart like a scooter to the cart corral, and in the rain ran back to the car. Maybe a 100 yards at a run not a sprint.

It felt good, and I had the feeling that at 260 it looks very loping, or odd to most in some way.

My wind isn’t as bad as it often seems, when I start to ride my bike, or simply go for a walk (this only happens when I’m by myself) I’ll be out of breath fast, as I’m walking very physically tense.

As a mover I’d constantly lift and drop my shoulders in a way that looks like I’m getting ready to fight, but that’s how I stayed loose overriding the tenseness.

When I relax I can still run well. Even if I suck wind after the fact, I’ve stayed able to sprint on a dime at heavier bodyweights, but I was literally talking about running.

When I perceive myself as needing to get somewhere fast on foot I can run well.

However having to be in the right state of mind to not suck wind is an advantage to being lighter of bodyweight.

Those 160lb movnat & ido portal guys running barefoot in the woods, climbing swimming, or setting up a slackline at a playground. Everyone lean at bodyweights of middleweight or lighter, doing “primal” movement – they’re never sucking wind. I respect that.

Bud Jeffries is really cool. He is one thing that makes me think I don’t have to drop weight, all I have to do is play with that primal stuff that’s interesting me lately.

Winter is coming, and that means the outdoors will be mine, in solitude more than in the warm weather.

I may not get to play any tennis this year, though hey maybe I’ll make it happen.

No adults play wall ball like I had at recess. Basketball tends to be available year round somewhere public. Years back I played ultimate frisbee, in this large group that consistently played it pickup style at a park. They’d been doing it for years. I should figure out if they still do.

Physicality, and life needn’t be so rigid. Play makes for feeling the quality that is life.

10/18/20 :

I go back to the playground.

First it’s parallel bar flexed arm hang walks forward and backward. Then the balance bar – forwards, multiple trips forwards, and playing with going sideways both sides, and backwards. If I want to rest from one I go to the other.

I goof around leaping some stuff likes it’s an obstacle course, a rest can be taken by deep knee bends.

Maybe I sit on a bench.

I’m moving, thinking. This is play. This is vitality. I’m one of the few young men who will admit that he wants children. I envision my kids playing on this very playground, me too, my wife too, a happy healthy family at play together enjoying the time, living, far away from the television.

I go to the spot I realized would be good for human flags. Myself open to possibilities, I notice a few spots for doing human flags. One of them, has an easy top hand hold, I’m kicking into the human flag at this spot. I try another spot, the metal sturdy and thick, a good vertical pole, and here too I can kick into a momentary full human flag.

Within the last week I’d read some Al Kavadlo stuff on the flag. I didn’t need to train for it. I possess the strength to have my weak hand at the top, strong side supinated on the bottom and enough core strength to hold the entire thing for a brief moment.

I’m playing at the human flag, play & fun practicing, and figuring out as I go. I realize with the top hand to use the thumbless false grip and to really pull with that side. I was doing a good job pressing with my right on the bottom.

I see myself doing a fun workout at the playground video with all of this on it, myself wearing my own merchandise.

Balancing it out didn’t really work for me. My flexibility to get in a good position wasn’t there. My left hand wouldn’t supinate enough. I did think :

1. Balancing isn’t necessary.
2. I could do it as an isometric, my feet on the ground, to balance the upper body demand. I did this briefly.

Some military press and pullup isometrics.

I attempted to go over the top into another dimension on the swing.
(I wonder who got this reference.)

Top hand vertical, bottom hand horizontal didn’t work well for me on flags. I forgot to try both hands vertical. I went back to the vertical pole I had success on, tried a thin vertical pole, and ended flags on a strong note really locking in my upper body before kicking up on the thicker vertical pole that worked well for the movement.

Thinking I’d leave I realized I hadn’t done a single pullup, riding my bike here to do pullups being how I convince myself to get outside, so I did one strict low rep set. It’s a fat bar, I even had my thumb around.

I enjoyed watching the birds flying around. Watching a plane overhead I thought about life’s truly limitless possibilities. A mangy cat was hunting.

I took a seat and did some freestyle breath work. More like this video than Wim Hof style, though I’ve done Wim Hof breathing for a few rounds most days this last week.

With the breath work i was doing, at one point the world got very bright, and I went from feeling good to even better. There I was tripping myself out on breath work, with good thoughts, after physical play.

Having rode my bike home I grabbed my barbell for some high rep overhead squats and military presses.

That done I took a small dinner back outside, with a water bottle, and can of pineapple juice (tropical juice very much contrasting with the fall air) eating and drinking it all siesta style, relaxed, while typing up another article on the day – a bite, a sip, a few words, breathing, listening to the sounds of nature.

Happy, strong, and healthy is a mindset.

Okay, article isn’t done – I just ran inside to get a skull cap. It’s New England, my ears got cold.

Right now I have a pump in my left forearm.

The parallel bar flexed arm hang walks yesterday made it so I couldn’t close my 200lb heavy grips gripper when I went to bed. I awoke with good bicep activation, the kind of pump that stays with you, and my arms looks bigger in an athletic way to me.

It was the same last night which imspured me to get a good pump on, and I went a little crazy with pushups and dynamic tension style curls and the thing I think of as simulating nail bending.

I did the parallel bar flexed arm hang walks again today. While the hands clearly were worked, the left forearm is a result of the human flag work.

Based on how it feels ; during a human flag the top pull hand gets stimulus very close to a one arm hang as far as grip demand, while the bottom press hand need be locked at the elbow and have shoulder and tricep strength along the lines of balancing one handed in a handstand against a wall.

The Al Kavadlo article was right in chin and handstand pushup work very much being crossover to the flag. For me pulling in general, getting to one arm hang ability, and for pressing to get to be able to do the shoulder tap drill or maybe even barbell military pressing with low reps would work for the flag.

Of course specificity does work. I keep kicking into human flags and I hold the flag longer and longer. I’m looking forward to playing with them again next weekend.

While I may lean out, it’d be hilarious to hold a long flag, and then take off my shirt to show the
stomach fat off, since extra weight, especially fat is supposed to limit one on calisthenics.

However, try telling that to Bert Assirati. He doesn’t agree, and may put you in a boston crab for your trying to tell him his limits, and for your general negativity.

The balance board walking got me to thinking :

Lots of balance work is like a cheat code for future athleticism.

Most don’t have the ability to balance as adults.

While the gymnast has serious balance ability with his upper body, and his lower body, the skater and surfer are building their balance with the lower body.

All three take to sports and physicality well if they so choose having that ability to balance as a base.

You can make quite the athlete out of the bored teenage skater, and there is a surfer to mma track already.

Getting balance is readily available : just teach yourself to handstand, then start hand walking in that position, and for $20 you can get an inexpensive skateboard which for just learning to balance while cruising around serves it’s purpose.

P.S. Five hours after the flags I have the best upper back pump of my life. Wow what a movement! The simultaneous push and pull required to do the movement is an amazing stimulus.

And a couple hours after that I hit a PR with the 200lb Heavy Grip gripper in my right hand.

(5-7 closes/mm near closes, with quick “set” reset between singles, the first rep no “set” and fully closed, the next two or three closed fully, and two or three more within a mm or so. This is a performance PR even if not for reps.)

I attribute this to the flexed arm parallel bar walks.