On somewhat of a lark it seemed like a fun idea to drag a variety of favorite “toys” out to the park today. A friend met me for this challenge and I also wanted to borrow her slackline. Because mine is SO stretchy I’d been having to hang it so high between trees that when I was jumping or falling off of it with the usual frequency it was starting to stress out my achilles tendon in that “this is why we STEP DOWN from high box jumps” way. And I’m not about to shred up my achilles tendon when I can just borrow (and my new one is arriving tomorrow) one that we can hang lower and avoid the repetitive potentially damaging landings. Also, over the past few months it’s been a lot of fun to experiment with adding slackline into a workout given its VERY mental and neurologically challenging. In leu of a slackline, and/or if you’re not yet at the point where you can walk the full length of one without an issue (normally) then it might be a good idea to choose something like a balance beam, or other safe/gentle balance challenge. If anything it’s best to err on the side of “too easy” as this sort of thing can get surprisingly challenging depending on the rest of your circuit.
After unloading the car and making a corner of the park look like it was the domain of very strong, very spoiled child, we began this version of our slackline workout experiment
(in the past we’ve played with heavy kettlebell swings and slackline–the theory being that it’s somewhat like the challenge presented by the Olympic Biathlon event… go go go go go then focus while dealing with an elevated heart rate). I think that this kind of training will eventually help with focus under various stressors in real life, but if not, it’s also just really fun and interesting. So far I feel like there’s been a decent amount of interesting learning (as in… CAN I focus on something like this while recovering from a near maximal HR set? or How fast can I switch between physical tasks requiring different thinking, different approaches to motor control etc.) It’s been fun and more than just a little humbling. This sort of experimentation is NOT for ego-building that’s for sure!
Today’s Experiment:
Primal Move warm up, Trifecta (bridges, L-sit or wherever you are in the l-sit progression, twist)
Then as a continued warm up, we decided to do 100 16kg or 18kg kettlebell swings (Breaking it up in any way ie: 50, 30, 20, 10 or 100 in a row or 25, 25, 25, 25 etc.)
Next was the circuit, and I’m ashamed to say we got into it and didn’t write down how many times through, but I suspect it was somewhere between 4-6…
- One walk down the slackline (goal of not falling, but its ok to get back on it to finish)
- 3-5 Pull ups or chin ups
- 10 Heavy kettlebell swings (we carried the 36kg all the way across the park for this…)
- Crow or Handstand practice
- Squats or pistols with the mace (because it was a fun variation and it looks cool)
After all kinds of laughing, sweat, and self-observation we cooled down with Primal Move and a few extra little mobility stretches. Definitely need to do this one again, might swap out some different challenges, but it was a whole lot of fun on a beautiful day outdoors.
I need to make some new slackline videos, and this one was done as a kind of silly joke (we don’t usually walk on them carrying anything) but here’s basically what happens with slacklining the way we do it:
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