APP Nicolas R.G.

Today, I'm going to talk about street workout, and especially about the muscle up. The muscle up is a figure that consists in grabbing a bar, just like for a pull-up, and pull yourself until you can get over the bar. Then, you just have to push on your arms, make a straight bar dips and your muscle up is done.
There is several types of muscle ups, and several ways to get each of them. If you just want a "classic" one, you can work in lots of differents ways. I'll talk about four of them today.

The first one I'd like to present is the strict muscle-up.
This one if pretty basic, but also pretty hard. Basically, you have to realise your muscle-up without any swing or momentum. You grab the bar, with your feet above the floor, you stabilise your body and you pull as hard as you can. It almost only requires strength from your biceps, but mainly from your back, especially your lats. If you can pull hard enough to bring your chest above the bar, or even better, pull the bar until your belly button, then you'll just have to lean over the bar and push on your arms to finish the movement.

If you are not strong enough to perform a strict muscle-up, you can try a normal one :
In this one, you'll use some momentum. Basically, you'll jump from behind the bar, grab it, swing until you find yourself forward to the bar. From this position, try to push your feet toward the floor, without touching it. It will cause your body to extend, creating tension. From this point, as soon as you start swinging backward, use the tension created in your body to pull on your arms, engaging your lats, to bring your body in a horizontal position. You can bend your knees toward your chest to create momentum and make it easier. Then, bend your arms and it will bring your body to the bar. Lean over it, and push once again on your arms to end up in a muscle up position.

Another move that looks like a muscle up and that is almost the same, is the one trained in gymnastics : the swing (bascule in french). You apply the same first step, but instead of bending your knees, you keep your legs straight and try to bed yourself in half, bringing your ankles to the bar while your upper body is still vertical. It's supposed to look good, as you use the momentum to rotate around the bar and end up with straight arms above the bar.

Finally, we can talk about the "crossfit" muscle up. This one is a little easier than the previous ones. It uses less strength and more momentum. The problem is, it doesn't build as much strength.
Basically, you have to do the same first step, but switch from an arch position to a hollow position. Instead of keeping your legs in front of you while swinging, send them behind, shaping your body like a banana, and pull back by shaping it like another banana, but in the other direction. Then, use the same steps.

I think that's all I wanted to talk about for today. I hope anyone that reads this finds it interesting, and if you have questions about street workout, the newbie that I am will do his best to give you an answer. I'll probably keep talking about sport next week. Maybe olympic weightlifting ? Powerlifting ? Strongman ? If you prefer one of those ones over the others, feel free to let me know !

Dear Mister Cox, was this text long enough for a week, or would you like me to push a little and make it longer from now on ? Thanks for replying !

That was great Nicolas, it's not your fault that English is easy for you.

Morning y'all ! It's time for another post in the APP topic,so here I am ! It's 5 past 10 AM, my mind is as clear as the ocean in 2020 and I'm ready to put into words whatever goes through my mind at the moment.
Soooo... Let's talk about sports, once more, and especially about push-ups. I got some great reviews on my post about bedroom sport (by the way John, thanks for adding the mask comment, I forgot about it even though it's extremely important !), but I'm not gonna talk about it again. Or at least not now.
Push ups are a bodyweight exercise used mainly to reinforce triceps and chest. It also works stabilisers muscles and shoulders, especially the front part of the delts. It's extremely easy to perform if your ratio strength/bodyweight is high. Basically, you have to lay on the ground, extend your arms to lift your body (so you're resting on your toes and palms), go down and push yourself back up. It is a very basic exercise that has a lots of advantages :
-First of all, you can do it anywhere, as long as you have your body and a rectangle space of at least 2m by 1. Alone at home ? Push ups. In a store with your girlfriend, bored because she can't choose between 2 dress ? Push ups. At the gym, with a free bench press set-up right next to you ? Push ups.
-Then, this exercice can be cut into so many variations to increase or decrease the difficulty. Too hard ? Get on your knees (not like that John) ! Still too hard ? Find a spot that allows you to have your hands higher than your feet (inclines push ups). Too easy ? Decline your body ! Get your feet higher that your arms ! Add some weight (weighted vest or a backpack with books) ! Do archer push ups, diamond push ups, explosive push ups, paused push ups, tempo push ups, clapped push ups, one arm push ups !
-It's great and fast ! 4 series of max push ups and you got a nice pump in under 10m ! Moreover, it's always good to have a nice, easy and effective exercise for chest and triceps !

Physical work is great but what about Mental work Nicolas?

Guess I'll talk about that in my next post

Sooooo... We had a deal, and now I gotta talk about mental work. Dear Lord, I don't even know if I gotta cover the topic in the "studies" meaning or the "preparation to a physical effort" meaning. I guess I'll just talk about the second one. After all, we're in STAPS, let's stick with the topic.
So, being mentally stable and prepared is very important when preparing an effort, a performance or a competition. There's a lot of reasons to this.
First of all, you have to control your mind. What I mean is that if you're very stressed, or even panicked, you're gonna lack self confidence, sleep, appetite, etc... Which will decrease your final performance. Moreover, if you're too worried when about to do the effort, you're gonna lack accuracy in your movements and you'll have a lot of troubles using your full potential, in strength, speed, explosivity, etc... Which is why you have to control yourself and your mind before those kind of moments.
That was a "why" on avoiding to have your state of mind working against you. But if you prepare yourself correctly, you'll even be able to have it working for you !
If you're about to do something you've never done before (let's take the example of a new personal record in Clean & Jerk), you're gonna face a barbell loaded with an amount of weight that you have never lifted, and in most cases, never tried to lift ! It means that you don't know how hard it's gonna be, you only can speculate about it. To prepare yourself, you have to focus on how you're feeling with lifting weights that are close to that new PR. That's a very good way to have clues about how it's gonna feel. When I'm at 90%, my legs and back are good, but my jerk is weak and my shoulders are not stable. Which mean, if I go up to 100%, my legs and back will probably still be good, or at least, correct, but my shoulders strength and stability might be a big problem ! And that, kids, is called targetting your weak points in order to improve.
Mental work is also about being able to focus on the right things at the right moment. Still in our example, when you're about to attempt your lift, who cares about how much the guy next to you is lifting or if that guy at the opposite side of the room is watching you. You have to be focused on you, your movements, your positionning, etc... And that can sometimes be hard because of the pressure and everything going on around you !
There's still dozens of things we could say about mental work for performance, but I think it's enough for today. If you want to give me an idea for next week's topic, I'll be glad to give it a look. If not, I'll probably just find something by myself. Sometimes I successfully connect the two sides of my brain together.

I swear everything from this point has been written by me (no copy past) and stolen from Eminem

His palms are sweaty, knees weak arms are heavy.
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetties
He's nervous
But on the surface he looks calm and ready
to drop bombs
but he keeps on forgetting
what he wrote down
the whole crowd goes so loud, he opens his mouth,
but the words won't come out.
He's choking now, everybody's joking now
The clock runs out, time's up, over, BLOW !

That was the beginning of the first verse of "Loose Yourself" by Marshall Bruce Mathers III, also known as Eminem, Slim shady, Bunny Rabbit or the rap god.

He also wrote a lot of other texts.
Let's read some lyrics of his song "criminal" (get ready, it's not PG and not LGBT friendly):

My words are like a dagger, with a jagged edge
That'll stab you in the head, wether you're a fag or lez
Or a homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest
Pants or dress, hate fags ? The answer's yes.
Homophobic ? Nah, you're just heterophobic.
Staring at my jeans, watching my genitals bluging.
That's my motherfucking balls, you'd better let go of them
They belong in my scrotum, you'll never get hold of them !

At this point, I should probably say that it's obviously a joke from him and me. Neither of us is anti LGBT, racist, sexist or anything. I just love this song and I think it would help a lot of people to take a step back from being serious all the time.

Eminem wrote that at the time he was Slim Shady, a very dark and sadistic character. That's the alter ego that made him blow up. That also created a lot of troubles with the church, the LGBT and basically everyone. I bet he found that hilarious.

Can white men really do rap?

Aww, I just saw your comment. C'mon Cox, yes they can ! And you know it as much as I do ! Eminem is the perfect proof of this statement ! But I'm not gonna enter a debate, especially when I know I'm right
Instead, let's talk about olympic weightlifting (yes, I lack ideas today). This sport is composed by two differents movements : the snatch and the clean & jerk (not to confuse with the jerk & clean, used by every teenagers when they discover their body).
The clean & jerk requires you to pull a barbell from the floor until your shoulder, and then lift it overhead. In order to make a good looking efficient lift, you have to start by having your weight spread evenly on your feet. Your back should be "flat", and ready to lift. The barbell has to stay close as possible from you, making your shins bleed if you do it properly. Your shoulders should be above the barbell, even a bit further, and your arms, relaxed and straight.
During the first pull, raise your hips and back at the same time, while keeping it tight and flat. Once you reach your knees, you have to disengage them, and when the barbell is over them, engage them back in order to stick the barbell to your thighs. Activate your lats to keep the bar close, and don't flex your arms yet ! End the pull with straight legs and back. Once you reach that point, if you gave proper strength and speed, you should have a nice power (power = strength x speed).
Then, it's the crucial step of the triple extending. First, you shrug by flexing your upper trapezius muscle. Then, you get on tiptoe, by flexing your calves muscle. Finally, you bend your arms. By doing so, you expend a little backward and you help the barbell to go a bit higher. The higher it gets, the higher your squat will be when you'll catch it. At this point, your feet leaves the ground for a very short amount of time, and when they touch again, you're falling under your barbell to catch it in front of you, around your collar bone.
Then, just get up.
I'll talk about the jerk and the snatch in my next post.

Today, I'm going to talk about Australia. I was supposed to talk about the jerk and the snatch but I just don't really feel like doing so, sorry.
I spent some time in this country and there's a lot of things that could be interesting to talk about in my opinion. Moreover, it's a former english colony and an english-speaking country, so it fits pretty well in mister Cox's lesson.
First of all, I'd like everyone to notice that australian people are extremely nice. You can compare them to the stereotype of the canadian, always smiling, helping and doing their best to create a great and pleasing living environment. Of course, there's exceptions, but most of the people I met were really awesome with me and with other people around them.
First of all, I found a lot of students willing to make my experience better in the school I studied in. They all volunteered to be my "buddy" and help me find my marks around the school. They were all very curious about France and stuff I could talk about to them. They could spend long amount of times listening to me and asking questions, they were truly interested.
Fortunetly, I already spoke a english pretty well before going over there, which allowed me to follow the lessons without too much problems.
I could (and I will) also talk about spiders. There are spiders everywhere, and they're all huge, it's ridiculous. Every single house has a double layer in the doors an windows : the actual door or window + a metal gate that allows people to open their doors or windows without any animal being able to come in. It's obviously very helpful with spiders, but also with lizards, and even sometimes possums ! I saw some climbing on the electrical poles and trying to find a way to get into houses.
While we're talking about animals, koalas are a true problem in Australia. Or at least, they are a problem for themselves. Basically, they cross the roads. THe problem is that they're extremely slow, which mean that they keep being hit by cars when they get on the highway. That's the reason why you can see a lot of signs with a koala on it and a phone number. If you see a koala on the road, you have to call this number so they can come and catch it to release him in the nature. They built fences with mechanisms that prevent them from getting over them.
Sometimes, they also find a place to sleep (20h a day on average) in garages. A neighbour of mines found one, and got attacked when he tried to remmove him. Those animals are pretty dangerous when angry, you shouldn't mess with them and let the skillful people deal with this problem.
There's so much more I could talk about, and I probably will in my next post.

I'm not sure I posted enough, dear sir Cox, should I write more ? If so, how many more posts please ? Thanks in advance.

Rgnicolas wrote:Today, I'm going to talk about Australia. I was supposed to talk about the jerk and the snatch but I just don't really feel like doing so, sorry.
I spent some time in this country and there's a lot of things that could be interesting to talk about in my opinion. Moreover, it's a former english colony and an english-speaking country, so it fits pretty well in mister Cox's lesson.
First of all, I'd like everyone to notice that australian people are extremely nice. You can compare them to the stereotype of the canadian, always smiling, helping and doing their best to create a great and pleasing living environment. Of course, there's exceptions, but most of the people I met were really awesome with me and with other people around them.
First of all, I found a lot of students willing to make my experience better in the school I studied in. They all volunteered to be my "buddy" and help me find my marks around the school. They were all very curious about France and stuff I could talk about to them. They could spend long amount of times listening to me and asking questions, they were truly interested.
Fortunetly, I already spoke a english pretty well before going over there, which allowed me to follow the lessons without too much problems.
I could (and I will) also talk about spiders. There are spiders everywhere, and they're all huge, it's ridiculous. Every single house has a double layer in the doors an windows : the actual door or window + a metal gate that allows people to open their doors or windows without any animal being able to come in. It's obviously very helpful with spiders, but also with lizards, and even sometimes possums ! I saw some climbing on the electrical poles and trying to find a way to get into houses.
While we're talking about animals, koalas are a true problem in Australia. Or at least, they are a problem for themselves. Basically, they cross the roads. THe problem is that they're extremely slow, which mean that they keep being hit by cars when they get on the highway. That's the reason why you can see a lot of signs with a koala on it and a phone number. If you see a koala on the road, you have to call this number so they can come and catch it to release him in the nature. They built fences with mechanisms that prevent them from getting over them.
Sometimes, they also find a place to sleep (20h a day on average) in garages. A neighbour of mines found one, and got attacked when he tried to remmove him. Those animals are pretty dangerous when angry, you shouldn't mess with them and let the skillful people deal with this problem.
There's so much more I could talk about, and I probably will in my next post.

Great subject and looking forward to hearing more. Tell us about sport in school (compare it with France) because the Aussies certainly pride themselves on their sporting prowess and they have a great rivalry with their British superiors . Have you learned to love Cricket?

Rgnicolas wrote:I'm not sure I posted enough, dear sir Cox, should I write more ? If so, how many more posts please ? Thanks in advance.

you're supposed to do 7.5 hours but your posts are so interesting I'm happy for you to do more.

Admin wrote:

Rgnicolas wrote:I'm not sure I posted enough, dear sir Cox, should I write more ? If so, how many more posts please ? Thanks in advance.

you're supposed to do 7.5 hours but your posts are so interesting I'm happy for you to do more.

You flatterer ! I will then

Soooo, today, let's talk about my little knowledge about sport in Australia.
First of all, in school, sport is more important than it is in France. In the school I was in (Redlands College), we had 4 "houses" wich color, animal and we fought in sport events in order to win prizes (just like in Hogwarts, yes).
I remember the Finnegan falcons, in green; Thompson tigers, in blue; Pamphlett panthers, in yellow; and Parsons piranhas, in red. I was included in the Piranhas, and... We lost everything. I actually placed third in long jump, but as I could not be qualified toward regional competitions, I wasn't taken into account when checking the results.
Still at school, we could choose which sport we wanted to practice. There was basketball, with matchs between schools. The same was going on with volley ball, and another sport for girls (forgot the name, sorry). I chose jump training, and there was a lot of others.
Outside of school, they have 2 differents sports called rugby : rugby union (15 players) and rugby league (13 players). I saw a match of rugby league in a stadium between the Broncos and the Bulldogs, and I loved everything about it. Supporters were more respectful, horses were running around the pitch when someone scored, and the food was soooooooo good but also sooooooooo fat. There's probably a link between good and fat, but anyway.
I didn't learned cricket, sorry, but I sure tried stuff out.

Here's my last post; and I have no idea what I should talk about.
I talked about sport, about Australia... What in the bluest of hell will I write about ? Damn it, my mind is empty. Someone sends help ! Maybe fun facts...
-Sloth are not the animal that sleeps the most, koalas are !
-When your nose is stuffed, if you stick your tongue out, press your forehead with a finger and try to sing in german, you'll look like an idiot with a stuffed nose.
-Four is the only number in the english lexicon that has as much letters in its name as its meaning.
-Fire has no shadow. If you lit a candle and look on the wall, you won't see it.
-The english word with the most definitions is "set".
-The letter "e" is the most used in the french language. Still, the book "La Disparition" is 300 pages long and doesn't use this letter once.
-Talking about the letter "e", it appears in 11% of the english words, making it the most used letter, just like in french.
-Red-haired are actually not children of Satan. Still, feel free to throw rocks at them. Safety first.
-In Australia, we can witness spiders rains. I'll let you check it out.
-If you search up "blue waffle" on Google, you won't find a recipe. Don't try it.
-Same goes with "couronne perlée".
-Cows kills more american each year than sharks. Damn walking meat...
-Eminem is the best rapper of all time. Period, no cap.