Despite having no interest at all in doing a workout, I forced myself into it anyway. It went like this:
Whole workout done in one go with no rest. Took 15-20 minutes ish.
Damn I’d forgotten how brutal the humble kettlebell swing could be. I was totally wrecked after today’s workout:
Yep, that’s it – more than enough at my current level of fitness. The clean + presses took around 10 minutes, so add about 2 minutes between the two parts and the total workout time was around 24 minutes.
Just a short one today enjoying some tabata intervals.
Total workout time 14 min 35 secs.
Funny what doing the same workout in a different order can do. The second half of this one was hard work.
Part A – repeat x 3 without rest
90 second rest
Part B – repeat x 2 without rest
Workout time: 24 min 35 sec
Today’s diet:
The fact that I only had salad for lunch probably didn’t help the workout, but such is life.
Well 2009 didn’t go quite the way I had expected workout wise. I’ve had pretty much a 6 month break from workouts and I have to say I’ve enjoyed it hugely, but now I’m back to it.
A – repeat twice
B – repeat thrice (three times)
Part A done in one continuous workout, then a 3 minute rest, then part B done in one continuous workout.
Tomorrow, a job me thinks.
Yes that’s right, TWO workouts in a row!!
Repeat for 5 sets:
Pretty happy with that workout. The getups were torture, especially with the flies and presses in there. Think I might have to have a rest tomorrow, after two hard full-body workouts.
Just finished an impromptu workout. I’d just finished helping Megan with some cooking, had nothing better to do, so I thought ‘Hey, why not do a workout?’.
So here it is, repeated for 4 sets:
Yep, that’s a 15lbs dumbell in the right hand, pressed over head for the duration of a one-legged squat. I have massive respect for anyone that can do 5 or more of those in one go without stopping in between, that s**t is haaard!
Actually counting up, that was 280 reps. Should have done 1 more exercise for a 300 workout! Anyway, the whole thing lasted about 4o minutes and was one of the most mentally challenging workouts to date, mostly because those pistol squats were seriously hard. I guess I kind of punished myself a little bit for slacking off for so long and making excuses. No more of that sissy crap!
No, this workout isn’t part of my Gumdo training routine, although I did borrow the pistol squats from it. That will start next week I think.
Anyway, if anyone wants to destroy themselves I recommend giving this workout a try. Stay fit and work hard!
Yep, I’m back. Didn’t fall under a bus or anything like that!
Honestly, I’ve just been enjoying not doing any workouts. It’s always nice to have a good break from spending hours a week in a cold garage. I’ve also been pretty time-poor lately between work, Gumdo and a personal business venture I’m trying to get off the ground.
I guess that’s a bit of a cop out, I made myself a promise a long time ago that I’d always make time for my fitness, but I have been! I’ve been going out at lunch every day for the last few weeks to practice my Gumdo patterns for 20-30 minutes, so the fitness is still there, I just haven’t been doing any strength training lately.
Speaking of Gumdo, dad and I had our first class 2 weeks ago which went pretty well. I think we tried to do a bit too much in an hour, and the students probably walked a away a bit overwhelmed, but they all came back (all 3 of them) last week, along with another 3 newbies, for more. Last week we worked out a shorter class format which worked a lot better, and I have to admit I got a real buzz from the class. I’m really starting to look forward to starting my own class!
Back on the fitness topic, I think it’s time I got back in to a solid routine. Rather than just doing some weights to bulk up or look better or anything like that, I’m going to put together a training plan that is Gumdo specific. My plan at this point is to have three stages: strength, endurance and finally speed. They will go in that order. To begin with, I’m thinking 2 weeks each would be a good trial period. If the plan works well, then I will look at 4 to 6 weeks for each phase.
I’m still writing out a list of exercises and activities to include though, so I won’t post the specific plan just yet…
Also today I’ll try to get a post up about meditation, as I promised it to Rob a few weeks ago. Sorry Rob, I haven’t forgotten honest!
Hope everyone is doing well!
I have to say, I’m shocked. My last workout was Saturday and I’m still sore, which is a bit alarming considering it’s now Wednesday!! I suspect that maybe my restricted eating as stopping me from recovering as fast as I otherwise would. Today I’m going to eat a fair bit more (cookie jar here I come!) in an effort to get those mucsles rebuilding a bit quicker, and tomorrow it will be back to normal.
In other news, last night I started learning a new pattern in Gumdo which is quite exciting. The pattern itself is MUCH more fun than the one before it, so I’m looking forward to learning more of it!
In yet more news, tonight is the first lesson of Gumdo for dad’s school, which I’ll be helping out with for a while until I’m feeling confident enough to start my own class. Annoyingly we don’t have quite enough Gumdo specific wooden swords – only 4 when we need 6. I was hoping both dad and my proper swords would have arrived in time but sadly not! So dad is going to pick up some bokken’s today which are used by Japanese arts. Only real difference is they’re a bit heavier and thicker, so shouldn’t be too big an issue…
Wow, it’s been a full 4 days since my last workout. Shameful!
On the up side, my muscles are only just fully recovered from my last workout. My back was quite uncomfortable for a while there. Only muscular though – no injuries thankfully!
After my last workout of doing 2-arm exercises, I’ve decided to stick to one arm at a time. I feel my core doesn’t get a very good workout otherwise because having equal weight on both sides balances everything out so your core doesn’t need to work to hold you in the right position. To me, doing single arm exercises like this is a far better workout than crunches/knee raises/what ever other ab workouts you can think of will ever give you.
For this particular workout the first 3 exercises were done as a single superset – ie 5 reps of each arm for the first exercise, 5 reps each arm of the next, then 5 reps each arm of the next, then back to the first exercise. Then I threw in some pullovers because I like them 
Next time I will up the weight quite a bit I think, but I couldn’t be bothered restacking the dumbells so I stuck with 40lbs today.
Also to finish the workout, I did 20 mins of meditation. Doing only 10 mins at this stage, I don’t think I can really get the mental clarity I’m aiming for – it takes too long to silence all those annoying thoughts racing around the mind. 20 minutes was great though. I did manage to get a complete empty-mind feeling going, if only for 2 or 3 seconds before the ‘Woo! You did it!’ thought raced into my head…
Nutrition the last few days has been pretty good. No snacking or over eating (except last night when I had a little bit too much pizza ). I’m kind of looking forward to returning to paleo eating when I can, but on the other hand I’m also really enjoying having some bread and pasta here and there.
