DC Velodrome now looking at Montgomery County

[dplasters]

Side fun fact – The rock wall isn’t a Dick’s things. It was a “we purchased Galyan’s and they had rock walls thing”. Dick’s has killed the rockwalls in all the previous Galyan’s stores I’ve seen. No insight into the reason.

I loved that wall. Climbed it all the time as a kid.

[OneEighth]

Alexandria has an indoor parkour facility. http://urbanevo.com/

[PotomacCyclist]

I’ve looked into that place before. I think they used to be next to the Van Dorn Metro, but they moved closer to Springfield.

There’s also a parkour gym near NoMa: http://americanparkour.com/academy/washington-dc/

Even so, there could be room for a third such facility, especially if it’s located in Maryland. I’m not sure if there are any in the Maryland suburbs. (Urban Evolution has a location in Baltimore.)

I thought I was going to do more agility training myself last year, but then I developed the quad issues. (I think it had a lot to do with quad/hamstring muscle imbalance, leading to the injury during a run hill sprint workout last summer.) I’m gradually getting back into cycling, running and strength training. (I resumed swimming a couple months ago.) I’ve read that for America Ninja Warrior-type obstacles, you have to be comfortable with doing at least 15 pull-ups before moving onto advanced skills. I’ve got some work to do there. I was up to 7 pull-ups last year, but after the layoff, I’m only at 3 pull-ups per set now. I’ve never done a 15 pull-up set in my life, so this will require some work…

[OneEighth]

Grab yourself an iron gym or similarly easy-to-install indoor pull-up bar and start doing alternating sets of pull-ups and push-ups every morning. Maybe one set of 1 pull-up followed by 2 push-ups to begin with and repeat for however many sets works for you. Should take less than 15 minutes and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you start seeing results if you stick with it.

[Raymo853]

@PotomacCyclist 106439 wrote:

I don’t know much about the market for climbing in the D.C. area, but there are several stores that include climbing equipment, so someone must be buying the gear. . If there were such a facility closer to me, I would consider trying it out once in a while.

There are a lot of climbers in DC and a lot of facilities. I was at Sport Rock in Springfield Sunday afternoon and it was packed. The Results on G Street SE still has a room/wall, there is another Sport Rock in Sterling, the three EarthTreks in the Maryland DC suburbs, and the new gym down around 14th and W NW and I suspect others I have forgotten. Climbers that I know around here always say another facility the size of the Springfield Sportrock could be easily be handled in this market. I suggest in the warehouse district off of NY Ave near West Virgina. Anyone got an extra 5M or so?

[PotomacCyclist]

@OneEighth 106558 wrote:

Grab yourself an iron gym or similarly easy-to-install indoor pull-up bar and start doing alternating sets of pull-ups and push-ups every morning. Maybe one set of 1 pull-up followed by 2 push-ups to begin with and repeat for however many sets works for you. Should take less than 15 minutes and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you start seeing results if you stick with it.

I was making some progress last winter. But I barely did anything between Sept. and Dec. other than some swimming in Dec. and 1 or 2 bike rides. A few strength workouts too, but I kept struggling with the quad problem until I figured out that I needed to put more emphasis on hamstring exercises. That seems to have solved the problem.

How many pull-ups can you do? You’re talking about the “greasing the groove” method, I think. That kettlebell guy, Pavel, talks about it. He’s supposedly a former Russian special forces operative who now lives in the U.S. He publishes workout books and runs a popular training website, focused on kettlebells, some bodyweight training and mixed martial arts. I’ve thought about it, but I get concerned about overuse issues, especially since I’m doing a lot of swimming, which also uses the lats. That may be part of the reason that I haven’t made as much progress as I could, that I mix in too many things. That’s OK though. I think I would get bored if I only did one activity. (For many years, I didn’t do any athletic activities at all, not even casual cycling.) I do have easy access to a pull-up bar in the fitness center where I live, but I’ve only been doing about 2 or 3 strength workouts a month over the past few months, and I’m just getting back into leg exercises.

****
Interesting about Sportrock. I’m looking at their website now. Looks pretty cool. But it’s a little too far away from me to be convenient right now. Maybe at some point in the future.

[PotomacCyclist]

@Raymo853 106559 wrote:

There are a lot of climbers in DC and a lot of facilities. I was at Sport Rock in Springfield Sunday afternoon and it was packed. The Results on G Street SE still has a room/wall, there is another Sport Rock in Sterling, the three EarthTreks in the Maryland DC suburbs, and the new gym down around 14th and W NW and I suspect others I have forgotten. Climbers that I know around here always say another facility the size of the Springfield Sportrock could be easily be handled in this market. I suggest in the warehouse district off of NY Ave near West Virgina. Anyone got an extra 5M or so?

There are already redevelopment plans for part of that neighborhood, the so-called Ivy City. I think it’s primarily apartments, some offices and retail. REI plans to move into the old Uline Arena, not too far from Ivy City.

[OneEighth]

20-ish. It’s been a while since I tested it.
Pretty much every morning consists of playing around within the 1:2 push-up to pull-up ratio and totaling 60 pull-ups/120 push-ups. Usually I do 5 sets of 12/24 with some abs thrown in if I need a break between. Otherwise, I do 10 sets of 6/12 and just try to knock them out quickly.
I’m honestly too lazy to take the third option which is to do as many as I can in a row for as many sets as necessary until I hit the target numbers.
I hear you on the over-use concerns. I row—so my back, shoulders, and arms get an additional flogging, but I find that if I listen to body and take breaks when I honestly need to (as opposed to when I’m just being a wimp), I can usually avoid injury.

[PotomacCyclist]

Another one of my side goals (not a priority but something neat to accomplish someday) is to be able to do true one-arm push-ups. So I don’t do standard push-ups except as warm-ups, and not every workout. Instead, I do push-up variations that are between regular push-ups and one-arm push-ups. Things like staggered push-ups (one arm placed about 12 inches ahead of the other, to put more stress on one side, then I switch sides), decline staggered push-ups, one-arm incline bench push-up (incline push-ups are easier, but I do them one-handed — easier than doing a flat one-arm push-up, but much tougher than a normal incline push-up, which is a beginner exercise) and sometimes dips. (I’ve heard some people say that dips can be problematic in terms of injury, so I don’t do too many dips.)

I haven’t been consistent with these either, so I haven’t progressed to doing one-arm push-ups. Probably not even close right now, but I think I can make some gains this winter and spring.

[UnknownCyclist]

I’ll stick to 12 ounce curls, thank you very much.

[Tim Kelley]

Dragon flags anyone?

[PotomacCyclist]

You mean this?

http://www.beastskills.com/the-flag/

That guy is based in DC now. I think he has one of the most popular bodyweight training sites. I can’t do most of the movements in his tutorials, except for pistol squats. I don’t know if I would ever be able to do the no-handed one-arm chin ups. That is seriously hard!

http://www.beastskills.com/tutorials/

[Tim Kelley]

@PotomacCyclist 106574 wrote:

You mean this?

No. Dragon flags are similar though: http://www.mensfitness.com/weight-loss/burn-fat-fast/bruce-lees-ab-move-the-dragon-flag

[MFC]

There is now an on-line petition to support building the velodrome in Wheaton. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/255/485/978/move-it./?taf_id=16867672&cid=fb_na. If this url doesn’t work, go to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ and search on velodrome.

[PotomacCyclist]

@PotomacCyclist 106570 wrote:

Another one of my side goals (not a priority but something neat to accomplish someday) is to be able to do true one-arm push-ups. So I don’t do standard push-ups except as warm-ups, and not every workout. Instead, I do push-up variations that are between regular push-ups and one-arm push-ups. Things like staggered push-ups (one arm placed about 12 inches ahead of the other, to put more stress on one side, then I switch sides), decline staggered push-ups, one-arm incline bench push-up (incline push-ups are easier, but I do them one-handed — easier than doing a flat one-arm push-up, but much tougher than a normal incline push-up, which is a beginner exercise) and sometimes dips. (I’ve heard some people say that dips can be problematic in terms of injury, so I don’t do too many dips.)

I haven’t been consistent with these either, so I haven’t progressed to doing one-arm push-ups. Probably not even close right now, but I think I can make some gains this winter and spring.

Update on the one-arm push-ups: I didn’t even do that many strength workouts last winter. Maybe one every two or three weeks. But I did a lot of swimming, including more pull buoys sets. Occasionally some paddle work, but not much. I noticed that the staggered and incline bench push-ups started becoming easier. In the spring, I went ahead and tried a set of one-arm push-ups. (I was competing against my young nephew. He couldn’t do them though.) It just happened. I knocked out a set of 4 or 5, after only minimal strength training that winter.

I included the one-arm push-ups sporadically this summer but I haven’t done much ST this fall. I’ll get back to it soon.

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