Fitness role model du jour: Alicia Alonso

Alicia Alonso, the Cuban prima ballerina assoluta, was one of the great ballerinas of the 20th century, though she's not so well known in the US because after the revolution in Cuba she wasn't seen much in this country. Her most famous role was Giselle. Here are some clips of her dancing the same entrechat sequence from the second act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdLnWVvdD3k&feature=related

In the first of the clips, filmed in the early 60s, she was 43. In the last she was in her 70s. Still en pointe, still able to keep up with the music, still exquisite. Whenever I think about hanging up my pointe shoes, I remember Alicia Alonso and her incredible career of 50-plus years.

From a fitness standpoint, I think one of the keys to her amazing longevity as a dancer is that for a ballerina she had a very muscular build and feet that were more notable for their strength than their flexibility. This was actually pretty standard in the dance world pre-Balanchine ... and guess what? Those ballerinas had longer careers. These days if a female dancer is still with a company at age 40 it's pretty unusual, but that didn't use to be the case and I'm convinced it's largely because of the current craze for ballerinas with long, thin limbs and hyperextended joints. That kind of body just can't take the repetitive stress of dancing the way a stronger, better aligned body can.

Oh, and did I mention that Alicia Alonso was very nearly blind? That part boggles my mind even more than her age because I am so dependent on my eyesight when I dance. Try balancing on one leg with your eyes closed, and you'll see what I mean. Most people can't do it for more than a few seconds. You can? Great! Now try it on releve, with your working leg in back coupe. And if that's a piece of cake, get out your pointes and knock yourself out. Seriously, I can't even imagine how she did it.

RKC vs Girevoy Sport

Because I am very much a kettlebell novice, I'm not even going to try to describe in my own words the difference between the two styles. Instead I'm going to refer you to a couple of useful essays on the subject, one written by Scott Stevens, RKC:


http://omahakettlebell.blogspot.com/2009/01/rkc-system-vs-girevoy-sport.html


and the other by Steve Cotter, IKFF:


http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/59_07_Cotter_Kettlebell_Methods.pdf



Both, I think, are fair discussions, which is why I chose those two as opposed to some others. Let's just say that the proponents of the two styles can get a bit passionate about the subject :)


As a bonus, this blog post authored by Dr. Mark Cheng, RKC Team Leader, does a great job of explaining the hard style lock that it pretty much the foundation of the RKC style of training.:

http://kettlebellslosangeles.blogspot.com/2008/09/hard-style-lock.html

Master it, and you will have the ultimate stability and strength that will enable you to get massive amounts of iron up over your head without killing yourself. Get REALLY good at it and you'll even be able to get up on your pointes. I'm serious: the only real difference is that when you're en pointe it's the tips of your big toes , not your heels, that are driving down through the floor. The knee lock and the glute clench are identical, as are the bracing of the core and the depression and retraction of the shoulderblades. Your ballet teacher won't think to phrase it in quite that way, most likely, but physiologically it's the same thing happening.

Even so, do not attempt to swing, clean, press or snatch a kettlebell en pointe. It just sounds like a really bad idea. (It's a shame I'm so lazy about taking pictures, because this would be a hilarious "what not to do" photo assuming I didn't kill myself.)

Oh, yes, and my workouts this week ....

I've been slacking a bit, sort of. I didn't feel great Monday, so decided to take a rest day. I actually felt a little worse on Tuesday, but sucked it up and worked out anyway before teaching spinning. It was my third time through Strength Workout B of the Infamous TRX Workout:

Joint mobility to warm up, then 2 sets of barbell squats @100 lbs to warm up, then

Barbell squats, 3x6x150; 1x12x115

DB step-ups onto 16' bench, 3x6x30's

superset: pullups, 3x6; DB overhead press, 2x8x25's, 1x6x25's

superset: SB jackknife, 3x10; cable rope pulldown, 3x10x50

I woke up feeling a little funky in my lumbar spine which is why I didn't try to go real heavy on the squat. It just wouldn't have been smart. In fact, I should probably have backed off on the weight even more than I did because I feel as though my range of motion was compromised.

I didn't feel wonderful on Wednesday either, so I took another rest day. Well, it was an active rest day since I had ballet.

In case you were wondering, pointe shoes hurt. Think about having all your bodyweight resting on the tip of one big toe. That's basically what's happening when you''re doing something like an arabesque or pirouette en pointe. I weigh about 115, which is a lot of weight to be resting on an area that's maybe half a square inch. When the pain gets too bad the natural tendency is to fall back a bit so your weight is spread out over a little more surface area ... but that's wrong and it looks ugly and if you do it in class all the other ballerinas will make fun of you and poke you with sticks.

Okay, not really. Still, next time you go to a school dance recital check out the pointe girls if there are any. Unless it's a company school the odds are pretty good that 3/4 of the girls won't really be up on their pointes. If one of them is your daughter, try not to be offended by the old bat behind you who's muttering, "Pull UP, ladies!" under her breath. She's doing it with love. At least if she's me, which she very often is, she's doing it with love.

I had another ballet class today, and also struggled through TRX Workout A, Phase 2. Same parameters as last time, except this time I went for 4 rounds.

The Infamous TRX Workout--Phase 2

Here's a quick overview of Phase 2: basically, the strength workouts are the same as in Phase 1, while the TRX conditioning workouts are somewhat more challenging both in terms of exercise selection and duration of rest periods. Basically, harder exercises and less rest.

Today I did TRX Conditioning Workout A. The exercises are a progression of the ones introduced during Phase 1:

single leg squats, 30 sec. each side
atomic pushups with a full pike instead of a jackknife, 30 sec.
deep rows. 30 sec.
crossover instead of regular balance lunges, 30 sec. each side
suspended side planks with hip dip, 30 sec. each side.

The prescribed rest periods were 30 seconds between exercises, 2 minutes between circuits. The circuit is meant to be repeated 3 times in Week 1 and 4 times in Week 2.

Here are my thoughts about the workout:

I found the atomic pushups with full pike to be very challenging but doable. The crossover balance lunges were a nice variation but not significantly more difficult than doing regular balance lunges where the leg goes straight back. (Note: if you have trouble picturing a crossover balance lunge, just think of an old-fashioned curtsey where the back leg crosses behind. It helps if you pretend you're at a debutante ball, wearing a big white dress and long gloves :)). The suspended side planks with hip dips were simply vile, and nothing helped with those.

I ended up taking about the full 30 seconds rest allowed between exercises, but found a minute's rest to be plenty between circuits. I'm not Superwoman or anything, but I'm quite familiar with metabolic resistance training and I've developed a certain amount of specific fitness for this sort of thing. It's the SAID principle at work. Give your body a reason to change, and it changes :)

For more details and a video demonstration of the exercises, go to John Berardi's blog on the Precision Nutrition website: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/trx-workout-phase-2

Three times through the circuit took me about 20 minutes, so I had a little time left for some kettlebell fun. I did 2-handed swings with 14kg, 10 sets of 20, and cleans with 8 kg, 10 sets of 10 each side, alternating exercises. Since I had 20 minutes in which to do 20 sets, I started each set at the top of the minute, then rested in whatever time I had left. My cadence was quite consistent throughout: the 20 swings took about 30 seconds and the 10 cleans each side took just over 40. I was pleased that my wrist stayed straight and strong on every clean, but there still was some clankage as opposed to a nice smooth swivel.

Then it was off to work to annoy some clients, and after that an hour and a half of ballet.

It occurs to me that while lots of people use the TRX, and lots train with kettlebells, and lots dance en pointe. there probably are not too terribly many people who do all three. On the same day.

I've got more pointe tomorrow, so I guess I should wait until Friday to deadlift :)

What passes for a rest day chez moi

I didn't lift today, but I did take 75 minutes of ballet, then taught cycling. I don't usually teach Thursdays, but I was covering for another instructor. It was difficult mentally to transition from "Waltz of the Flowers" (we've already started learning it for next year's Nutcracker, Goddess help us!) to hillclimbs and sprints, but at least I remembered to change shoes.

You can't imagine how funny pointe shoes look with bike shorts. I'll post a photo some time and you'll see what I mean.

Tomorrow I'll be doing Strength Workout A as per last Saturday. Then on Saturday I'm going to do a barbell complex:

Bent rows x8
Upright rows x8
Military press x8
Good morning x8
Lunges x8 (each leg)
Squat push press x8
Deadlift x8

This is a Randy Couture MMA conditioning workout. I think you're supposed to do it 6 times, resting 1 minute between rounds. I'm going to give it a shot with 40 or 45 lbs--we'll see. I haven't done upright rows in forever, so I can't really remember what weight I use for those. The upright rows/militaries definitely will be the sticking point for me. Hmm ... maybe 30 or 35 would be more appropriate :)