Sunday, June 26, 2011

Half Dome Preview Trip!

Handstand at the top of the Half Dome summit!

Yesterday Brandon, Chris, Javier, Tyler and I hiked Half Dome at Yosemite National Park. Half Dome sits at about 8,900 ft. It is at least a 14 mile hike (round trip), depending on what trail you take from Yosemite Valley and is a total elevation gain of about 4,800 ft. The full hike takes most people between 10-14 hours.

This hike is completely doable, if you are in decent shape. When I say decent shape, I mean you do some sort of physical activity such as CrossFit, biking, running, lifting, etc, or you have done a lot of hiking and backpacking trips in the past.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

My First Muscle-Up!

My first muscle-up! One of the happiest moments of my life.

Today I officially joined the muscle-up club!

I've been working on the muscle-up for about a month and a half. In fact, I made it a June goal to get a false-grip kipping muscle-up. I kept going back and forth between practicing the transition, getting up from that deep dip, and on the rings itself. Seems like every time I tried it, I either did not kip enough, flared my elbows out, or got into the receiving position but could not press out. There was always something I missed. I got used to hearing "You're sooooooooo close!"