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The Kipping Manuever September 28, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, Flexibility, Run, Kettlebell, Tabata, 6 Minutes of... Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Today was the last class of our 6-week sequence. I’ve come to like these sessions because I can look back over my PBs and feel a real sense of accomplishment. Also, we tend to use this class as a free-for-all, and do some fun stuff.

For today, I requested that we work on our Kipping movement. This is a key movement to get into the swing of if you want to really do a lot of pullups. Based on the results I’ve seen other people achieve, once you figure it out, you get an automatic 2x to 3x improvement in your pull-up count. In my case, I can usually get to 12 straight pullups before I can’t pull myself up again, and the thought of getting 24 in has somehow captured my imagination.

Warmup:

Workout:

So, even though this was a mish-mash of stuff, I’m VERY proud of my Personal Bests today. In the case of the Tabatha Sit-ups, I got greedy and moved up from 16 to 18. Usually, you just try to go for one more, but I was feeling my oats this morning. And on the push-ups, I did 10 more than last time.

I wonder, though, how sore my abs & arms are going to be tomorrow…

Logbook Day Info

So Close, So Far September 26, 2007

Posted by hardly Flexibility, General Cardio, Kettlebell, Dumbbell, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Warmup:

Workout

I know I should be jazzed about another pb in rowing, and a tie in 6 min situps, but in both cases I thought I could do better. In the case of the row, the display of the rowing machine was set oddly, so for half the row, I wasn’t sure of some key stats. I know I could do better since I wasn’t in immediate need of laying on the floor upon completion of the exercise.

The good news is that next time around, I’ll be hitting a pb!

Logbook Day Info

Time to move it up a notch September 24, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, General Cardio, Kettlebell, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

One of the things I like about my coach is that he always keeps things challenging.

For today, my new challenge was stepping up a notch on the kettlebell scale. Now, I’m doing 20 kg kettlebells for my high-volume work, and I’m sure that means that I’ll be at 24 kg for the heavy low-volume excercises. On the one hand, I’m very proud of the accomplishment. On the other, I could see my shoulder & arm muscles twitching in the mirror today after my shower, which is a little odd.  The price of success, I guess!

Warmup:

Workout:

On that abysmally slow row, I think that was about the same time I started at, and which about killed me, back in January. I guess that’s progress, though I would have liked to have done better.

Logbook Day Info

Outran two Boy Scouts September 23, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Walk Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

This weekend I was out with my Troop, wandering around on the trail to Ashland Lakes. It was a short hike, not too much elevation gain, and just right for the new Scouts who are getting their feet wet, literally, with this new thing called backpacking.

I was  feeling my oats on the way back, it was an easy trail, and so I started challenging some of the older kids to see who could get to the trailhead first. They started walking faster, blocking my path on the trail, etc. - normal 13-yo stuff. So, I figured I’d up the game, and when I saw an appropriate opening, I started running. Mind you, we have packs on, and mine was in at about 40 lbs.  I didn’t have to go too far, say 300 yards or so, but it finally got my heart rate up a bit.
My reward for beating them to the end was several nice pictures of them in the sun on the trail - the first sunlight we had really seen the whole trip.

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What to call it? September 19, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, General Cardio, Run, Kettlebell, Dumbbell Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Our trainer comes up with new things for us to do, and sometimes they even have names.  For example, there’s “Fran”, and this is three rounds of Thrusters 21-15-9, then Pull-ups 21-15-9, and your score is in how fast you completed the three rounds.

Today, he had us do something that was very insidious. The movement is relatively simple, the Dumbbell Snatch. In this, we had 3 dumbbells in front of us, my load was 30 lbs, 40 lbs, and 50 lbs.  We had to do 21-15-9 (on both arms), starting w/the lowest weight and working up. Then, starting w/the highest weight, you started at the lowest rep count, and worked you way back to where you originally started. The problem is, no name. What would you call this fun little exercise?

Warmup:

Workout:

Oh and yes, I’m totally excited about making the PB in the Tabatha squats. 19 means that for each of 8 sets, with 20 seconds per set, I completed 19 bodyweight squats. I was literally flying! I wonder what it’s going to be like to get to 20, which would be 1 per second?

Yeah, I want your thoughts about the name - give me it to me baby!

Logbook Day Info

The 6+ event, 6 minute workout… September 17, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, Run, Medicine Ball, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , 4comments

O.K., it’s not quite the 666 workout, but having 2 of the 3 of these numbers in one workout is enough to signal something of a challenge. We’ve not done something like this before, so once again we were off doing new, hard workouts!

This was also one of those ‘pick your poison’ kind of things where you got to select your challenges from a long list of options. Oh, so much fun!

Warmup: 1/2 K run

Workout (6 minutes of each of the following, 3 minutes between challenges):

  1. Row: 1609 M (new event, and thus PB)
  2. Push-ups: 127 (tie for PB)
  3. Body-weight Squats: 170 (PB)
  4. Pull-up: 29 (No PBs from here on out… I wonder why???)
  5. Sit-ups: 154
  6. Wall Ball @ 18 kg: 93

Other challenges we could have selected:

There was a bit of reasoning as to why the Box Jumps & Snatches were not selected, and that’s because I was alternating leg events w/other options. Something had to get cut, so there you have it.

Oh, I can’t wait to see what we’re doing on Wednesday… I’m still shaking a bit and it’s almost 2 hours after the workout ended!

How fast can you go up and down and up and down and… September 14, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, Flexibility, General Cardio, Run, Kettlebell, Bar, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , 3comments

Warmup (ha!):

Workout:

I love it when I make a new personal best in any given movement. In this case, I made two of these today, and that’s a great thing. One in a given workout is hard, and two in a given workout really makes my day.

So, the tabatha squats number is kinda interesting. I’ve described tabatha exercises in the past, and in our class, the idea is to always do one more than your last best record. Of course, this is always challenging, regardless, but in the bodyweight squat setup, we have 20 seconds to do one set, and then 10 seconds rest. We repeat this 8  times.  Your score is the lowest rep count in any one given set of the 8. I’m ecstatic because a score of 18 means that I’m almost doing 1 rep per second (up and down and up and down and up and down…), and I was able to maintain this for 8 sets. Woohoo! Of course, the bad news is that next time we do this, I’ve gotta hit 19 to get a new record.

And then, a PB in the 2K row! Now, admittedly, it was only 1 second better, but still, I did it after making a pb in the tabatha squats, and then running a mile. Not bad, methinks. I hadn’t expected to get this, but w/600 M left, I was just a touch under the pace for the record, so I thought, “I gotta try, it’s sooo close”.  Fortunately, no nausea attacks today!

Logbook Day Info

Hello Nausau, My Old Friend… September 12, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, Flexibility, Kettlebell, Medicine Ball, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , 2comments

Warmup:

Workout:

So, yeah, in the middle of the workout, my stomach decided to let me know that perhaps, just maybe, could be that my core body temperature was a bit too high. Perhaps it was time to stop. Sit down. No wait, lay down. Drink a quart of water. Think thoughts other than those involving repainting the weight room a nice color of, well, stomach juice. I was successful, but still. My trainer and I think that I may have pushed too hard on the row. It was a personal best effort, so it could be. I also ate breakfast later than normal because we woke up late because both the girls decided that they needed to wake up mom & dad - about 5 times during the night!

I wasn’t expecting a great workout today because of the sleep issue, but I didn’t expect this!

Tomorrow, though, another day.
Oh, and my coach and I had an interesting conversation today about fitness. He talked about how Triathalons were developed, in part, because they require multi-discipline capabilities. But, as the sport developed, everyone started the specialized training that is used in triathaloning as we know it today.

He posited the following:

To achieve true all-around fitness, a person should be able to compete in any given event at the drop of a hat. The person who most consistently excels at a wide variety of sports is probably both the best competitor and the one who is in the best shape. His idea is to have a competition where everyone shows up on the given day, draws their event out of the hat and then goes and does it.

I kinda think this is wild idea. One that would be fun to watch.

For example, let’s say you show up and you draw the folllowing five events:

-or-

-or-

Wouldn’t these be fun, challenging, and a hoot to watch on YouTube? Just thinking, mind you. Sorta like World’s Strongest Man combined w/modern Pentathalon (Kim is wondering where in the heck Dressage or Fox Hunting is in my lists, I’m sure!).

How do you feel about squats? September 10, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Sheesh, the trainer was just going after our legs today. By the end, yeah, we all felt it!

Warmup (2x through the following):

Workout:

One of the things that’s very interesting about many of the movements that we do is that the squat form is used in many of them. For example, bodyweight squats, swings, thrusters, wall-ball, bench jumps, etc., etc all have that same mechanical movement of pushing up with your legs. It’s great that our coach mixes things up a bit, for example, 12 minutes of stuff is going to be aerobic fur sure, but still, at the end of one of these, you’re walking funny.

Logbook Day Info

My Nemesis Returns September 7, 2007

Posted by hardly Uncategorized, Strength Training, Flexibility, General Cardio, Kettlebell, Bar, Medicine Ball, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Warmup:

Workout:

This was a fun workout, and I smashed through three personal bests, which is pretty darned good.

The interesting bit is in the middle where we were doing Overhead Squats and Snatches. The coach is clearly getting us trained on some new methods of torture, and it’s fun to do new movements, especially those that you occasionally see in the Olympics.

Turkish Getups are one of those exercises I have a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand, they work EVERYTHING and are very challenging and I like that. On the other, when you’re done, you feel like you got worked over, and are just glad to be alive. Plus, the next day, you’re always sore in places that you’re never, ever sore in with any other workout other than some fighting sport like wrestling, etc.

Also, I attempted to come up with a picture for my blog prior to the session, but the light was on the wrong side of the building and all the pictures sucked. Guess I need to workout in the evening!

Logbook Day Info