Geoffrey Taucer

I didn't get your PM. Try sending again. If you give me an original piece that I end up using as routine music, I'll see what I can do about getting you money for it. In all likelyhood, however, I won't need any more music than what I already have. This topic is two years old.

Got some videos today of me doing a couple of exercises. I'll see if I can post them tomorrow.

Specific needs have changed, and I probably have all the music I need already (and if we need anything we don't already have, I'll just record it myself; already did that for one of my girls -- she's doing a routine to a cover of Ken's Theme from SSF2) I guess I'm always happy to hear more ideas, though. If you have music you think would work, send it my way.

I'll see what I can do. Actually, once my new ring grips come in (hopefully within the next 2 weeks), I'm planning on doing a bunch of filming. I'll film a few other exercises when I do that.

All you need for planches is an open piece of floor. If you want to try planche push-ups, you'll need a set of parallets, but you can build those yourself with <$15 worth of PVC pipes. Here's a site with instructions on how to build them. For front and back levers, you just need a chinup bar. If there's a playground near where you live, odds are it's got something that will work fine. If you can get access to a set of rings, the first excercize I'd reccomend to work the stabilizers is a simple support. Arms locked straight, rings turned out. You'll be amazed at how hard this is at first, but you'll also be surprised how quickly you'll get the hang of it. From there you can start working dips, muscle ups, etc. One thing that is REALLY important when working gymnastics-type strength skills; MAKE SURE YOU WORK YOUR ROTATOR CUFFS. It's common for gymnasts (especially those working with a less experienced coach) to develop shoulder and back problems due to unbalanced strength. Crosses, planches, presses, and even just supports will tend to pull the shoulders forward, putting strain on the upper back. You have to make sure you work your upper back and rotator cuffs to avoid this. Bes excercise for this is to take a stretch band, tie it to something, stand to the side, and rotate your arm outwards with your elbow tucked in to your side, so you're pulling the band outward. I'll see if I can get pics to demonstrate this if necessary.

Sorry, GT, didn't see your posts until now. I don't know how you set those rings up: I don't own a pair, since I can just go to the gym and use the sets they have there. As far as where to start, it really depends on how strong you are right now and what equipment you have access to. The planche progression and the front lever progression (scroll down on this page) are probably as good a place as any to start; since there's a lot of latitude for adjusting the difficulty of these skills, it should be fairly easy to taylor a workout to your abilities. Planches are especially nice, because a straddle planche just looks so impressive, and it's relatively easy to train. A press handstand is another good one (or even just a handstand). I can't really call myself an expert on training these; I can press pretty well, but right now, none of my boys have strong presses (some of my girls do, but most of them could press before I ever started working with them). However, there's a great article on training presses here, and I plan to start using a lot of these drills with my guys over the summer. In fact, a handstand alone is probably a great place to start. It is a full-body workout, since you have to keep your entire body tight to do it properly -- it's not a particularly taxing full-body workout, once you get the hang of it, but if you work a lot of them you'll definitely feel it in your shoulders and upper-back. At some point this week, I'll post my entire strength and flexibility workouts. Some of the stuff I do requires equipment most of you may not have access to, some of the exercises may be too hard for somebody just starting, but the bulk of it should be doable, on some level, for most people. I'll also post the easier variations of these workouts that I use with my boys. (This is gonna be a challenge for me; I'm used to training in person. More to the point, I'm used to teaching these skills by demonstrating and by spotting)

Holy crap, this topic still exists?

The transition on a muscle up is the real killer. Gymnasticbodies has some good articles on the forums about how to train them. Best way to train the transition, in my opinion, is to try to go a little high on each pull-up (ie start the bottom half of the transition), and a little low on the bottom of each dip (ie start the top part of the transition). Eventually, you can get both to the halfway point, and in putting them together go all the way through the transition. Whenever I go into the gym for a strength workout, first thing I do is a set of 10 muscle-ups.

Hehe. I will definitely say this; for anybody who's already fairly strong and wants to get EXTREMELY strong, rings are an excellent tool. You can get a relatively cheap rings setup at www.ringtraining.com. This site also has a few good training articles. Another site with some great articles on flexibility and (especially) strength as well as some KILLER individual excercizes is www.gymnasticbodies.com. (though much of what's here is probably beyond the level of somebody just starting to work out)

I guess I could participate in this. While I already work out almost every day and am pretty healthy (being a gymnast), I'm trying to get into absolute top shape for next season, so I can come out of retirement and start competing again, and this will be my first season competing at the elite level. Among the events I'd like to compete is one I hadn't (until recently) trained in about six years -- and it's rings, which is pretty much pure strength. I could also benefit from improving my diet, methinks. So I guess I'll join if you guys want me to. I may also be able to provide help in designing a workout, if any of you need it. EDIT: If anybody cares, I'm about 5'6", and about 142 lb.

I think $150 is more than I paid for my my first guitar, which was a Squier Strat.

Beautiful. Definitely a keeper.

I'm gonna have to miss this one. Can't get off work.

Bullshit. I bet you didn't even catch it yourself. Wench.

lol, I see what you did there.

Holy monkey this is awesome. Love the bitcrushed percussion, love the guitars, love the chip intro.

Beautiful piece. Definitely one of my favorite piano arrangements on the site.

Ok, just finished listening to the most annoying song ever all the way through, without skipping through any of it. I genuinely enjoyed it, except for the final minute and a half.

You know... I actually like this. It's weird, downright bizarre, but actually pretty cool. I'm genuinely enjoying listening to this.

Poom Bork Dink Zami Plam

The second one.

Holy carp. I want one of these.

SUPER MARIO WORLD 2! THAT'S WHAT IT'S FROM! lowercase

Shit, I know that one, but I forget what it's from.

AABBXXYYABXYABXYstart Super Starwars: Return of the Jedi. Select any stage, use any character on any stage, and (I think) permanent blaster upgrade. Why I remember that, I haven't a clue.