Last Day of Summer

As Summer draws to a close I find myself thinking about winter and how I can continue to improve as the weather turns against me. But before that I want to reflect on summer. At present I feel quite happy with how the summer has been and quite optimistic about the winter. I also think the targets I set myself were a little bit more than i could have achieved. It seems I am no nearer to a muscle up, haven't improved greatly at climb ups for the last 3 weeks but the first 3 weeks of the hols saw a improvement, and my kick up to handstands are, at best ,half of what I wanted, but even though I still feel quite happy with my progress. Although I can't see the improvements, have been conditioning and have been sore afterwards so I must be getting somewhere.

The biggest recent improvement I have seen in myself is in precisions. During resent trips to Ipswich I have found myself finding the confidence to do wall precisions further than I have before and rail precisions nearly covering the same distance as the wall precisions i was achieving at the start of the summer.

This is, I think, because of 2 main reasons:
1. Having more strength in my legs and Quads in specific. Conditioning my quads and training harder when training generally has improved the control i have in precisions as well as greatly improving the kick I feel from the wall/rail when I take off.
2. Technique. I have really thought about technique of precision. Not only the landing and sticking the landing but the take off. Flicking the toes, exerting with the quads and taking off at the right angle have all improved the distance and quality of my precisions.

Heres a short video of a rail precision i filmed today. This in my opinion has the best form of any rail precisoin i have done recently and is further than i have ever done before.

I have been really strict recently with flexibility and made sure I stretch really thoroughly before and after every physical activity. I CAN TOUCH MY TOES! and not only that my palms on the floor with straight legs. I didn't expect to see such an improvement and i have so that's something to definitly keep up.

When looking at people I admire in the disapline such as Teige, Joe, Philip, Guy and Anton I can now see how they have achieved so much and I can see that I am on the way to reaching a better level of physical and mental strength. Winter gives me an opertunity to focus on improving strength through conditioning and this should reward me when I come to train again properly early next year. So the plan is to train as hard as I can through winter and then see what happens next year.