Yesterday I shared an article about a distinction I use daily in my training. Am I practicing a movement? Am I training a movement? Am I testing a movement?
While there is certainly overlap, deciding ahead of time what I am doing helps to get better results.
As you likely know my house, including my well-stocked gym, burned down to the ground less than two months ago.
And as you might imagine, this changed up my training! Fortunately, when evacuating I brought Dragondoor’s new Isochain with me, which had just arrived.
What better time to devote to a specific program centered on the device? And that’s just what I did. I will be sharing more about that soon. This was my training for six weeks.
The first couple of weeks I could feel myself becoming neurologically adapted to using the device. While I’d done isometrics before, in a wide variety of ways, there was some getting used to this thing.
Around week three was when the workouts started getting quite tough. I was certainly TRAINING.
My plan was to test my new isometric strength after doing the six week program. The problem was I had no weights to do so!
The only option I really had that could mimic what I’d been training was handstand pushups.
Among other exercises, I’d been training the shoulder press with the Isochain. I did isometrics in the bottom, middle and top positions throughout the six weeks.
I had not done a single handstand pushup in months now, or indeed any sort of isotonic pressing. So I was curious as to my results.
My previous best in handstand pushups against the wall, in the easy form was twenty.
Without any recent PRACTICE on these, would my TRAINING be sufficient?
So I set out to TEST my abilities…and I hit 21 reps.
I might have got one or two more but my hands were starting to slide out on the carpet I was on.
In this case, I did not practice the specific movement so much.
But I did train the pattern in a different way.
Both are important. Both lead to results. Understanding when to do what is key.
Overall, I am very happy to see this transference of ability allowing me to hit a PR without having specifically worked on it.
As I said, more of my experience on the isometrics coming soon.
There’s a time to train. There’s a time to practice. And there’s a time to test.
For now, if you want to practice better, then pick up a copy of Practicing Strength and Movement.