Skin the cat, back with pie

Yesterday at the gym I tried a new move I saw called Skin the Cat or also a German Hang.  You grab a bar with a normal pull up grip and then pull your feet up and through your arms and continue rotating backward until you are turned inside out, hanging.

This move put all sorts of tension on my shoulders in a way I never experienced before. It really torques both your shoulders and chest as you use them to lower yourself down in a controlled manner.

The first few times I just got myself into the hang position and held it for awhile.  As I continued I extended into the hang and then was able to reverse the movement back into pull up position. I would imagine doing a set of that movement back and forth would be a good way to work the muscles used for front and back levers.  I can really feel that stretch in my upper body today.

Ali returned from PA yesterday bearing gifts, shoo fly pies to be exact, lots of them.  She brought back enough pies to open a store.  She plans to hand them out to various friends, co-workers, neighbors that have heard us speak of magical PA dutch pie but never experienced it themselves.

Ali was very glad to get home.  The dogs gave her a very enthusiastic greeting and were all over her most of the night.  We celebrated her return with a non-microwave prepared dinner and a couple episodes of Big Brother on the Tivo.