The Return

Finally, as Pete has  recovered from his twin injuries (twinjuries?), we are back on the playground. Of course, now the weather is double stupid, so when we went back to Parc Lafontaine, it was half underwater. Appropriate, given the nautical theme of the playground, but not conducive to running around outside. But we are nothing if not determined, so we got some good body-weaving challenges in, as well as some good monkeybar action. It feels amazing to get back into things, we had been quite sedentary over the sabbatical.

Oct. 30, 2011 - Parc LaFontaine

Boy oh boy, this was a great day, and an excellent workout. Parc LaFontaine has some incredible equipment. Unfortunately for us, this, plus the idyllic weather made for pretty crowded conditions, so we weren't able to get as much monkeying around as we would have liked. We made do however, and I went home feeling like my legs could fall off. Good times.

We took a lot of video today, and we hope to show you most of it in future posts, but today I'm going to focus on something that is the basis for a lot of our playing around: climbing techniques. Specifically, pole climbing.

We were really excited to get started showing off some of our techniques, so much so that I pulled a muscle in my thigh before we realized that we hadn't done our pre-play stretching. Pretty dumb move on my part. Oh well, live and learn.

Pole Climbing

The Snake

Wrap your legs around the pole, applying a scissor force so that friction is applied between your thighs, as well as between the back of one heel and the top of one foot. You won't get much lift from your legs through this technique, all they will be doing is keeping you from slipping down. All your upward motion is going to come from alternating hand over hand and dragging yourself up.

The Monkey

This is the one that caused me to pull a muscle. Limber up, and wear shoes with good grip! Pinch the pole between the soles of your feet, and use your legs and your arms to hop your way up.

The Sloth

Not very slothful actually, it's pretty darn fast! Also, a great workout for your back. Clamp on to the pole with your hands, and place your feet as far out in front of you as you can, using the leverage of your weight to keep you on the pole. Then, walk up!

A note regarding these techniques: I have no idea what the proper names for these techniques are, I only chose the ones I did because it makes them sound more loike kung-fu styles, which is more fun for me.

A final note: You can't even pray for a day more gorgeous than this. Just look at some of the pictures Pete was able to capture:

Exercises:
Pumpkin Lugging: 45 lbs., 1.5 km (Happy Halloween everyone!)
Longboard: 15km
Pole Climbing
Stretches
Fence Hopping
Swing Jumping
Planché
Picnic Table Grinding (we'll explain later)

Overall workout rating: 9/10
Overall fun rating: 8/10
Overall playground rating: 9/10

Parc Jeanne-Mance 25-10-11

I'm not convinced that we found the only playgrounds in Parc Jeanne-Mance, but we certainly found an excellent one.

Once again we found two playgrounds, aimed at different age-groups. We basically disregarded the smaller playground, especially as it was occupied (we have strict rules about not going on equipment if kids are using it). The bonus here is that the "big kid" playground has a superb mix of old and new equipment, including some super-fun old-school swingsets. They're still not as tall as some of the ones that were around when I was a kid (I remember some that had to be 6m tall - I remember them as 8 or 9m, so I'm compensating for the tricks of memory), but they're probably 3m tall, and really good for jumping. There are also some classic stand-alone tube-steel monkeybars - two sets at two heights - and a set of free-standing bars! It was these last that allowed for tonight's ground-breaking moment, Tay's first pull-overs:





Unfortunately, it was too dark to take any more video after that, though I think that I should've played around with the flash on my phone more. Something to try in the future, anyway.

There's also a great contemporary climber on the playground, with lots of opportunities for us to practice our 'weaving' exercise. More on that soon.

Exercises:
- Stretches
- Several adventure/weaving routes on the climber
- Swing-jumping
- Monkey bars
- Parallel bar ascents/descents
- Pull-overs
- Pull-throughs


Overall workout rating: 7/10
Overall fun rating: 8/10
Overall playground rating: 8/10

Oct. 23rd, Benny Park

Our second outing. Weather was peachy, and we were excited. A park in my neighborhood had been highly recommended to us, and so we set off for fun and adventure.

Benny Park is a treasure. There`s a lot of great equipment here, that allows for tons of imagination. See for yourself!

Unfortunately, the monkey bars were too low for us to play with, unless we detached our legs.

If I was still 10 years old, I would have imagined that this was the Millenium Falcon, and that the suspended chairs were the gunner seats

This looked like a ton of fun, like a logdriver run but on a horizontal axis. Naturally this made it super popular with the children visiting, so we didn't want to get in the way.

Exercises:
- Warm-up run
- Stretches
- Several adventure routes in the Death Prism

- Some runs through the Falcon

- Vertical Poles

- Individual inverted spinning on poles
- Pull-overs (smaller swingsets)


- Pull-throughs (larger playground)
- Capoeira kicks

Overall workout rating:7.5/10
Overall fun rating: 8.5/10
Overall playground rating: 7.5/10

Parc NDG 20-10-11

Our first real exercise day. It had rained all day, and was drizzling for most of the time we were out. Nevertheless, it was a great time.

There are two playgrounds here, apparently aimed at different age-groups. The larger playground is where most of the fun and good exercise is to be had. The climbers are large and have a nice variety of ascents and descents, and there are some good action toys including one spinning toy that involves standing on one angled wheel while gripping another one overhead, and another spinning toy consisting of two hoops stacked on end.

As I'm trying to describe this equipment, I'm lamenting the lack of photos or video from this run, but as I said, it was raining. The rain also kept us from doing a lot of activities we were interested in, simply because it made everything slippery.

Exercises:
- Warm-up run
- Stretches
- Several adventure routes on the climbers (mostly larger playground)
- Team spring-teeter-totter (smaller playground)
- Team spinning on two-hooped spinner (larger playground)
- Individual spinning on standing wheels (larger playground)
- Pull-overs (smaller swingsets)
- Pull-throughs (larger playground)
- Capoeira kicks

Overall workout rating:6/10
Overall fun rating: 7/10
Overall playground rating: 6/10

Planning day.

We ran around the Gay Village a bit today, and planned some exercises. The first real outing will be this week.