 Welcome back to School of Castellanx. It is a croaky Jacko and Tim, cos I'm a little bit poorly, so I'm probably the only one who's... Jacko's poorly today. It's not very well. Husky boys, I can do great impressions of who's like the husky singers. Barry White is one of them. Barry White. Do you know any Barry White songs? I don't really. What does he sing? I've got a Barry White album. Have you? Yeah, it's quite good. He's a sore thing that, like, I'm not much of a singer anyway. So to sing anything, let alone Barry White, which requires a certain amount of talent, I think, to even venture into that. Or a cold. Or a cold, yeah. And you're... Great at singing. I was going to say you've got Welsh heritage that might lend itself to a good voice. Like Tom Jones. Yeah. See, we do a good rate Welsh accent. Anyway, you haven't tuned in to listen to about Biowai, but we'll give Jacko a little bit of grace today. So why don't you ask the first question, Master? Well, so there was two people that asked a very similar question. We had Talitha Judith on email asking about training diaries and what you should keep in your training log and how to use it most effectively to help your calisthenics journey. Yeah, I had a similar question came through. I think it was on YouTube from Raphael Kotzok, which was how to keep an organised training log. What's his surname? Kotzok. How he's thought about starting a training log himself, but didn't know how to start a what to write down. So let's cover training logs or training diaries. You may have seen those on what's on YouTube. We do have the training diaries back in stock. Beautiful little things. Well, yes. It's an email about that. Yeah, they're out of stock, but they are coming into stock. Well, hopefully by the time you're here... By the time you're here in this, they'll be back in stock. What you'll notice is that the page is inside our blank. So to use your own creative flair to be able to record your training log diary and what we're going to discuss. Yeah, I've found that over the years of trying to... A number of different formats to help athletes to record training information. And let's just kind of pitch this in it. Why is it even worthwhile? Well, if you go through a training week or from months or six months or a year, whatever, it's really useful if you know from session to session what you did in the session before. So that's the one benefit. So when you come in and say you did six pull-ups last time, when you're working to try and get to 10, you know that you did six so you can aim for seven the next time. Or you might be... You can change the variables so that you're constantly working out. What have I done before therefore? What do I need to be trying to move towards? And you can track that progress every time. You can look back over a six-month period and go, it's amazing like I've actually done quite well to move from where I was at. Because sometimes when you go ahead in the training program, you always look for that. Yeah, you forget, yeah. And sometimes it can be more motivating as well to look back and go, oh, because sometimes you feel like you're in a bit of a hole and you're like, oh, training's difficult. I'm not making any progress. And you go, you look back in your diary a couple of months and you go, actually, I was only able to do excellent now. I can actually. We just forgot about it. Yeah, definitely. So I think that's the one major point. And the other one to start off with is just to go, it actually encourages you to think about what you're doing. So rather than going to the gym and going, I don't know what to do today, it actually leads you into that mindset of having a structured program, which I'm going to write down these three sessions that I'm going to do a week. These are the exercises I'm going to do. And then that big thing about that is it's going to help you to commit to that consistency over a longer period. Because you're almost, each session is holding yourself accountable to the training program and then what you're going to do from what you've done in weeks before. Yeah. And you've talked about how important that is. Rather, it's not about doing one amazing session. It's about doing lots of good sessions over a long period of time. Yeah. And we've, over the years, played around with different templates for athletes and different methods of them, recording data. And I've tried to structure that over the years and gone, well, here you represent your sets. Write these numbers in this box and then all of a sudden the session just goes in a way which is like, I didn't quite do it like that this time because I had to adapt it or I wasn't feeling great or I had a rough day. And then all of a sudden you kind of stuck with this structure that doesn't work. And what I ended up doing was just scribbling all over a piece of paper and not actually worrying too much about what the actual kind of, the boxes were that I was supposed to be filling out. Yeah. So we've kind of taken it, it's a very simple approach. It might not look that glamorous and you might think, well, actually what I want is, how many sets and reps and percentage repetition max and all that kind of stuff. Sleep, hydration for the day. You can massively complicate training diaries. I actually just think the best way is a real blank clean piece of paper and you've got freedom, like you said before, the creativity to go, this is what I've done and make some quick notes here. Mine's a mess. You look at my training diaries, it's an absolute scribble mess and no one else will understand it apart from me. Yeah. So any person that does need to do that. Exactly. Actually you don't want all the people to do that. It's all you do in the gym. But just getting into the take home things for that little part of it before we move on to other things you might want to record is like, so the exercises that you're doing, the reps and sets that you are planning to do and then what you actually manage to do because they might be different. All those acute variables with reps and sets and then the target ones and actually at the moment I might have targets just because some of the work that I'm doing, let's say eight reps and four sets, because of the some of the tempos and the loads I'm getting into the back end of those sets and I can't do them so I'm breaking them down to clusters. So I might go 8, 8, 6 and a 2 and my last set might be 4, 1, 1, 1 but then I know the next time I go in I'm going to try and at least add an extra rep on to that third set so it's a 7 and 1 and what I'm pushing so that means that in that period of time I've made an improvement. Yeah. And then if you've used any tools from the locker so whether you're doing like isometrics like how long, what was your target hold for and what did you actually manage to do. Yeah. Did you manage to do one of the sets at a harder progression because you've got better like keep a record of that. Did you use a resistance band? What type of band was it? The green one was the purple one. Which, what level of band did you use? Like having kept track of those things as the nuts and bolts of like the data collection if you like of what's going to go in your log. I think that's pretty much everything in terms of that. And that's why I think that some of that stuff even just saying it it kind of sounds a bit uncoordinated and messy because it's just going to be like to say it can be fairly rough document. It needs flexible. Yeah, totally. And you don't want to end up like just kind of feeling that you've got to spend ages for this diary. I'll literally finish a set of bank numbers in the next one. And I think you're right as well. Like sometimes I've got a number of sessions. This is my programme but generally when I programme for myself I'm putting fairly challenging well I'm putting challenging sessions together and sometimes after a week it's just not it's just not what I want to feel like I want to do. So just changing that. Yeah, don't feel restricted by what you write down. I know often I've done this loads. When you're not in the gym and you're writing it you have this elaborate idea of the amount of stuff you can do in an hour and an hour and a half and you write down all these different exercises then you get in the gym, you've done like three and you've written down ten or something and you're like I'm smoked, there's no way I'm going to and then the only problem with that is is that you can then start to feel bad because you haven't done it and you try to finish it rather than being realistic, I would plan to do less and then add something on if you're feeling great at the end of the session. I almost have a couple of things at the end where you go these are my finishes so if I've got these it's going to be these kind of sets of reps that I'm going to just do to blast out that session. I kind of think about it like as we're talking it's a little bit like your old revision timetable for your exams and there's this old thing that teachers say don't spend ages to do your revision timetable and one of the things that I would do is that in temptation I was never that structured but first different sized boxes like make this beautiful revision timetable and actually what you need to do is crack on and revise. It's the same principle just have a rough idea of what you're going to do on your diary but then actually train their gym and train. There's a couple of other things I would sort of recommend you could dabble with trying to record would be top end goals that you've got for yourself so having a record written down of like this is the thing that I'm working for work back from your long term in terms of goal setting like look at what's the impossible that you're trying to achieve and work your goals back from there research into goal setting says you're 10 times or 5 to 10 times more likely to achieve it if you've written it down compared to just keeping it in your head. I think when you write it down and see it in black and white in front of you it becomes accountable to you rather than just being a thought or a bit of a dream in your head and if you're looking and using it your training diary regularly for your sessions is going to remind you you're going to be more likely to stay on task with it and then a couple of other things that could be useful to do would be like a score out of 5 or a score out of 10 of how you actually feel before you start the session so you've got an idea of like how fatigued am I or how great am I feeling like 10 being the best and then also at the end of your session another score of like how hard was that session and I would also keep a log or just a note of any like little niggles not like injuries but like that felt like my right shoulder just felt a bit funny on that last muscle up making notes so you can start to go if you do start to pick up injuries you can then look back and go actually I saw that coming 4 weeks before and I didn't do anything about it like next time I'm going to make sure I do and then if you start to see in your session your score is like 1 out of 10 after my session because I smoked myself my shoulders are niggly and make sure next time you come in you look back at that and remind yourself you need to do some decent release and prep work before cracking on to your session I think that you've got a load of stuff there which plays different personalities and different types I'm fairly in tune with how I feel and there was a period where I was doing some more advanced data collection through an app based system with some physiological measures but I was writing down those kind of things how do I feel, what was my motivation like how hard was the session because that was giving me a gauge of that level of detail whereas my diary is literally where I've done the session because I'm training at home or at the gym what number session week that is my exercise is super sets reps and sets achieved and I knock it on the head there but that's enough for me to go back because ultimately some of the wellness stuff is really important if you're training a lot and identifying niggles but also I don't have the luxury of I'm relatively short on training time so I just got to get something done that's always the biggest thing around it like we can add these things in but it's got to enhance what you're currently doing so make sure that it is facilitating better training rather than being a distraction if you're training, you've got a beautiful training like as you've ruled out, highlighted different coloured pens but actually you don't do anything in the gym what's going to make you progress the most is your training like you say, facilitating it rather than oh I've got a training down now my gains are going to go up tenfold it's more about how you use it to facilitate better training a really useful piece of equipment if you want to call it that or a tool in helping you to progress and if you want to get one of the diaries from us, you can obviously just write it down, any piece of scrap paper to be fair but if you like this sort of look of those fancy school cast there's a link in the description but over there so the next question it's coming from somebody called Joshua Hundsteiger Joshua is pretty active on our YouTube channel German, sounds German that name I wouldn't like to get it so Joshua saw the video that we put up a few weeks back now about my deep handstand push-ups asked a question about this and it's one that's come up quite a bit and we're actually going to film a handstand tutorial around handstand, wall handstand push-up tutorials which you have a look out for so he's written quite a long he's on a question, he's a great video once again you can continue to raise the bar on quality content oh Joshua you're in but I feel like that's genuine well to be fair some of that I didn't mention those questions about the training diary was it started with a nice comment so he says that the question he's progressively trying to work towards handstand push-ups against the walls work on his pipe push-ups with hip-stats over his shoulders basically should he do those with the chest facing the wall or chest away so that would either be a wall walk-up into a handstand position against the wall or a kick-up position he says he's seen me doing them with my chest facing away from the wall which would have been a kick-up and actually Joshua you've done well to get on here because he says I saw him performing the chest away from the wall which seems to me to reinforce poor form with a banana bike awkward but I've got some signs for ways so he says a shoe that chests away will be better form and it would lend itself eventually to freestanding progression which is again a good point about where do we go in terms of freestanding handstand push-up could you explain which one would be better can I just say one thing for you to start it does depend and one is not necessarily better than the other one is not wrong you can use both and I'll elaborate on that later after you but I just wanted to start with that this idea that certain things are right certain things are wrong if they're dangerous and you're going to get injured but not everything is just black and white one's right, one's wrong what's the best training program you're going to follow the same training program for the rest of your life things change and you need to do different things at different times depends on what your problem is where you need to get stronger there's so much in this I'm going to try and build it through a logical order in my mind because there's a number of different reasons why you might choose one or the other so the first one I'm just going to throw in is if we have got a banana back and I'm going to talk a bit about that later from my perspective if the spine has the capacity to move like that it should be able to load bear like that so if we're stable it's not ideal if you want to go on a handstand on a perfect handstand position but in the context of a wall kick-up handstand it's almost a little bit inevitable because you can't put your hands directly towards close to the wall to create a completely straight line because we have to create space for the head and we also we want to think about what's happening with the elbow position if we want to make this sort of tripod which is what happens in a freestanding handstand so the head is actually going in front of the hands elbows are going close to the body nice and tight which creates a nice stable shoulder position with that in mind when you're using a wall for stability you have to find the wall otherwise if you were doing that that same position you would have the feet off it's about having more crossover I think the video that you've seen Joshua was about me doing some elevated handstand push-ups and that changes the dynamic of that exercise quite significantly The other thing about the banana back is a term there's a big difference between thoracic extension and lumbar and if there is an extension coming from your thoracic when you're overhead your thoracic is supposed to extend properly for you to go into an overhead position so you're not supposed to the way the shoulder and the mechanics of the shoulder and the scapula work we need some thoracic extension so when I look at your position where yes your feet have to go over the top to touch the wall there's going to be some of that shape it's not a lumbar issue putting strain on the vertebra it's more of a thoracic extension and I was going to say actually from a tight position the hips got about 5 degrees of extension so in that shape actually is it hip extension or a combination of the point for me is when I do it like that it's for the point of getting strong and I can transfer that into a handstand and I can do a handstand with straight body line and if you didn't have midsection control when you're pushing down hard to get out of that deep position you wouldn't go up you wouldn't be able to transfer that force through so I think some parts of it is like kicking up creates a banana position therefore it's bad and not actually fully understanding what a banana position is what hip extension is what thoracic extension is so the reason for kicking up in my rationale is that it gives me the opportunity to create more vertical pushing strength because it puts me in a position where I can actually drive vertically if you were to walk up and then go and do handstand push ups in a walk up because of where the elbow position is so you could go super tight to the wall but then when you come down to that position the elbows are going to get in the way it's going to be a bit funny the feet as they slide on the wall is a bit uncomfortable and you're still having to put the head down into a tripod position otherwise you're going to load up the shoulder in a particularly effective way so you're going to slide down which is going to tip you into a slightly more horizontal style pushing movement which is again in a handstand free standing handstand push up you are kind of dropping into a slight angle so you do need some of that horizontal pushing force but it's at a high angle it's high horizontal vertical almost at the same time but I'm interested in that vertical pushing strength that when those in my program it's because that is part of the movement so when I go I've got a horizontal pushing and pulling vertical pushing and pulling and I want to load vertical pushing as much as I can because it's going to help with a lot of the handstand work that I want to do so there's so much in there my last point on this one is if you're going to try and go elevated because wall handstand push ups with me my hands on the floor are fairly easy obviously you only get range of movement where your hands are going to go to your head so to elevate them and to the level that I need to elevate them it's actually I would say not safe for me and not achievable to wall walk and then go step myself up onto a high box so that I can then get into a deep position but as in hard to get into the position and you feel like you're going to just crumple like when you can't do that last rep you're in a bit of trouble so it's potentially going to put you in a spot of bother so I think that there will probably be jumps around and there's quite a lot within that so if we just try and summarize that the kick up for me allows me to give me better vertical pushing training it allows me to use a deficit so to elevate my hands on a box so I can get a better range of movement in a safe way I'm working hard through mid section and if there is some back extension it could be coming from some thoracic spine I'll try and minimize it as much as I can so I lock down the mid section I don't get any pain while I do it and the capacity within this body is to move in that way so with those things combined I'm actually quite comfortable with it is it the perfect alignment for handstand training but it's not but that's not what I'm using that exercise for if you were you touched on it when you talked about the wall one where you'd come down and you'd come forward and you'd be on a bit of an angle so rather than vertical you've come to slightly more horizontal but no a near horizontal and that's the freestanding position you need to get into so you can create that tripod with your head in your hands using the wall to practice to help you practice that bit is relevant to get that position but what you've found is that if you get really strong with your vertical pushing and you practice your freestanding handstand balance when you put the two together you practice your freestanding handstand push-ups by literally doing freestanding handstand push-ups because you've got the balance and you've built the vertical pushing strength and you can then put them together if someone's really struggling to get that alignment and that position it might be that you want to use the wall the other way but it might be actually that you just a lot of the time we're just not strong enough so actually getting better at vertical pushing is beneficial I find when I walk up and I go high and I try and do sort of like a high walk-up so chest to the wall handstand push-up I don't feel my feet slide very well it feels and comes well I feel a range of movement is really small I think you've hit another head there if I'm strong enough to push up into that position I've just got to do some pattering work in my freestanding positions to find out where that is and the other thing about the wall walk-up handstand is that I feel like when I lower down that direction which is actually going to mean if the wall's not there my feet are going to collapse I'm relying on that to break almost whereas if I go up overhead and I kick up I can actually use the wall a little bit less I've got a bit more I feel like I've got more choice there to how much that wall support I'm going to use and I think I just think about my own training where I've played with that face in the wall and actually the thing that I use if I want to work on I'm going against myself now actually because I'm starting to think that what has worked best for me just because it worked best for me is going to work best for everyone and vice versa with yours if I want to work on that alignment part being at a slight angle when I'm going down for those freestanding ones I find it much better literally kicking up coming away from the wall and trying to just do the eccentric come down almost like a headstand and feel that body line as I'm coming down not using the wall and then build the strength to push back up and using the wall I think using the wall with your chest facing it and the feet resting on it takes all of that control and load out of the midsection to hold the feet up and that's probably actually the most challenging bit that you actually need so I think it ultimately I don't want to say it's wrong because I said at the beginning that it's not I think it can be used but I think we've both found that the other way and depending on how you do it the priority is about moving with good quality like move with high quality control high quality awareness and if I see people doing handstand push ups and they've got massively bent out of shape I'd be like well you're not transferring force well because you haven't got the midsection locked down if there's some curvature there and it's not causing pain so before I'm not too worried we've spit bored a lot in there because it's actually it's a really good question it's interesting because there's lots of different aspects to it I think it's really good that you're thinking like that and I think play around and see how I think there's so much value in practising this sort of stuff I've over the years as an SNC coach my training for a long time now has been an experiment and that's how we got into calisthenics and a lot of how we teach now is because we've tried a lot of different things and we hope we can add a little bit of depth and texture because we've kind of done that and gone actually when I walked backwards for me to try and load my body onto a wall handstand and try and step up which was probably about a foot that I was doing it was deep it's just not nice so have a play around and see what works see where you feel like your strength what the strength requirements are and make your own decision we've always had a thing from an athlete perspective is that we should be able to rationalise and provide justification for every single exercise that's on a programme so if someone came to me and said to me why have you done that I should be able to link that into the athlete's individual requirements and assessment that I've done and the sport specific requirements and actually there's no need for exercise to be in a programme so I think critically evaluating why you're doing what you're doing having it written down in your training guide great way to actually put pen to paper and look and then go why am I doing that rather than walk into the gym and go what should I do today we've talked about that and I think in one of the early Q&As and podcasts about understanding what it is you're trying to get out of it and then choosing your exercise selection based upon a rational decision as to what bits you're weak at and what bits you need to improve on great, we're going to leave it there because there's quite a lot of stuff there to go and digest and my voice is about to disappear Dave needs to get a schedule we've got a Barry White song Harvey will put one on there there at least a picture so thanks for joining us guys if you've enjoyed it let us know drop some comments in below or send us a again touch with us on social we are always open for questions so drop those over to us and we picked the best ones the ones that we think are going to help more people and often some trends like today and they say nice things about us please do that because it gives us a warm up especially when Jaco is not well he can get in his sick bed tonight and he'll just be like just your own style what would really make me feel better I think my voice would make me feel a lot better would be a nice review on iTunes five stars maybe that would make me fit we get quite a few Facebook reviews and somebody gave me one and gave us three stars that's great it's a bit middle of the road it's good that they've done one so I said to him just wondered how we could send that three stars into five and he wrote it back and he's like come and trade me he's in India at least you've did you go back and say how do we turn into four let's go halfway freebug so we like the higher end of the reviews if only if you think it's worth it but yeah thank you very much for listening until next time am I loud? class dismissed