Becoming an Athlete

My wife has some of the best old-school boxing training methods in her bag of tricks! This was fun, difficult, and very humbling!!! 1. Shadow-boxing: 3 rounds (3min / 1min rest) This is a warm-up, but it isn't do be done lightly. I focused on foot-speed and clean form. As each round got closer to the end, my wife drove me to keep up my work-rate; more punches, more slipping, more on the balls of my feet. Most recreational folks could have ended here and called it a solid workout. 2. Heavy bag - speed work: 2 rounds (3min / 1min rest) The emphasis here is on crisp, fast punches. No killing the bag, just hand-speed and movement. Throwing fast punches with little force fatigued me pretty quickly! 3. Heavy bag - free sparring: 2 rounds (3min / 1min rest) I finally got to use my legs but I was freaking tired. It felt like I was swinging 4x6 logs, not legs! My kicks were slow and heavy. I found myself flat-footed more than I care to admit. 4. Heavy bag - Rocky Marciano style: 1 round (3m...

Ahh, one of my favorite and most dreaded training methodologies: HIT. One set for a given exercise, taken to the point of failure, then extended beyond failure; rushing from movement to movement with little to no rest. This is cardio-strength training at it's BEST!!!! My wife helped me setup the stations before-hand and as I went so I would keep rest intervals to near 0 seconds!!!! I felt like throwing up for maybe 30 minutes after completing the workout. 1) Pullup: 30 total reps 2) High wide bent row: 115 x 12 3) Bulgarian squats: 25s x 8 each leg 4) Deadlift: 245 x 3; 225 x 5 (back was spent from pullups and rows) 5) Bench press: 175 x 13 6) Overhead press: 105 x 13 7) Barbell curl: 95 x 8 8) E-bar rvs curl: 55 x 20 I'll add a couple more movements next Monday where i felt this session was deficient.

The hills killed me! We did only about 10 miles, but the hills were steep, tall and many. Uggggg.

We got my wife a new bike on Friday and took it out for a FAST 8 mile ride. Slight hills, but nothing difficult. It was an awesome day for a ride. Her bike is a '08 Diamondback Response Sport.

1. Overhead press: 115 x 1-5; 125 x 1-5, 1-6 2a. Prone raise: 12s x 10 , 10 2b. Lateral raise: 12s x 10, 10 2c. Bent-arm lateral: 12s x 10, 9 2d. Front raise: 12s x 11, 10 3. Close grip curls: 95 x 4, 5, 4, 6, 6 4. Supinating curl: 25s x 10, 10; 30s x 10, 10 5. Skull crusher: 95 x 6, 8, 8 6. Dips: 7, 6

I have to say, I like body-part split training. It is SO easy compared to whole-body training. Its far easier to learn to accept acute pain in a small sets of muscle groups than it is to accept the feeling of total exhaustion. Training till your lungs are on fire, you are lightheaded, and the your hearing fades out takes a commitment to athleticism that not everyone has. And for the last few weeks I haven't had that commitment. I needed a reentry phase. Bodybuilding is a great reentry. Watching the weights or the reps go up is rewarding. Seeing individual muscles grow is rewarding. But now it is time to test my mettle, but in progessively harder phases. Monday 15th will start my 3/wk whole body HIT phase. Do a search on this blog for HIT if you don't know what that is. Additionally, Tuesdays and Thursdays will be some form of running. After 4 weeks of this, I'm switching back to a hybrid aproach: CrossFit style workouts + basic whole body workouts; both done til...

I hit legs last night and felt like doing something a bit more random. 1. Pullup ladders (1,2,3,4,5): 15, 15, 15 2. Weighted chinups: 20lbs x 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 3, 1, 1, 0 3. Wide grip pullups, 4, 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 1, 2, 0, 1 I was mostly just goofing around to enjoy the sun.

I didn't start this workout till 8:00PM, so I made it shorter, and harder, focusing just on the most productive exercises. 1. Alternating jump lunges: 1 x 20 2. Deadlift: 225 x 1-5; 245 x 1-5, 1-11 3. Front squat: 135 x 10; 155 x 10, 10 4. Back squat: 135 x 23 Wham! Bam! Thank you, vastus medialis

What the hell happened Saturday morning? I have NEVER thrown up from doing arm work before. I must have spent a solid 5 minutes or more heaving after this workout 1. Close grip chinup: 8, 8, 6, 5 2. Inclune dumbbell curls: 30s x 9, 5; 25s x 8, 4; 20s x 8 3. EZ bar curl: 65 x 13, 13; 55 x 20 4. High wide grip bent row: 95 x 12....... I stopped there because the puking just completely drained me, literally and figuratively. This wasn't supposed to be a biceps-only workout. I just wasn't able to get to back work after that one set of High Wide Rows.

I ran out of time to finish any degree of back work. 1. Bench press: 195 x 1-5, 1-5, 1-5 2. Incline bench press: 145 x 10, 10, 10, 6 3. Pushup: 14, 9, 11 4. One-arm T-bar row: 60 x 1-5, 1-5, 1-5 for each side

Good lord!!!! This sounds counterintuitive, but far be it from me to do anything according to common sense or common wisdom. My hernia surgery was scheduled for 3/3, but since I didn't have a ride home (post anesthesia) I had to reschedule to 3/16. Now here is my thought. I prefer natural healing to surgical 'correction' in all but the most severe cases. So my goal between now and 3/12 is to push myself and my core as hard as possible. If the pain is unmanageable or there is a catastrophic failure, such as additional tearing, then I'll get the surgery. If, however, things hold up to the self imposed abuse, I'll trust that the hernia is marginal enough to live with. This morning's wprkout leads me to believe it is getting better. I had a great showing in deadlifts!!!! 1) Split squat: 30s x 10, 10, 10 2) CF-style Air squat: 50 3) Deadlift: 225 x 1-5, 1-5, 1-13* 4) Front squat: 115 x 22 * 225 x 13 is tremendous, considering how slowly I've been ramping up the ...

1) Cuban press: 10s x 10, 10 2) Overhead press: 115 x 1-5, 1-5, 1-5 3A) Prone raise: 10s x 10, 10 3B)Lateral raise: 10s x 10, 10 3C) Bent arm lateral: 10s x 10, 10 3D) Front raise: 10s x 10, 10 4) Close grip curl: 85 x 6, 6, 6, 6 5) Supinating curl: 25s x 10, 10, 10 6) Skull crusher: 85 x 6, 6, 6, 6

1A) Incline dumbbell curls: 20s x 10, 10, 10, 8, 6 1B) Westside tricep extensions: 20s x 10; 30s x 10, 10, 10, 10 2A) Chinup: 6, 5, 4, 6, 5 2B) French Press: 75 x 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 3) Lateral raise: 15s x 5; 20s x 5, 5; 10s x 15, 22

1) One-arm t-bar row: 50 x 1-5, 1-5, 1-5 2) Bent row: 115 x 10, 10, 10, 12 3) Upright row: 85 x 10, 10, 10, 10 4) Bench press: 185 x 1-5; 195 x 1-5, 1-5 5) Incline brnch press: 155 x 10, 10; 135 x 7; 115 x 13