Thursday, December 26, 2013

A little bit of running

Day 3 I slacked a bit on the warm up, I did none. I did start off slow on the run though and was pretty tight for the first 1/4 mile. It is cold as shit out there too which doesn't help. It was 26 degrees when I took off from the house. I ran 2.43 miles in 32:49. Before you go all bat shit on me talking about how slow I was let me finish. At 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 I did the following:

  • 20 walking lunges
  • 20 tiger crawl
  • 20 mountain climbers
  • 10 burpees
As you can see I did not do the recommended 5 miles from the workout I told you I was basing this on. I will get there but not yet. I also did 10 rather than 20 burpees, I am a wuss and will punish myself tomorrow. I walked a little to cool down but no stretching. I felt generally pretty good during the run and I think I was doing a bit over 9:00 pace when actually running but it is hard to tell because the split times get all screwed up when you do the exercises in the middle.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve Workout

I did day 2 of the plan I posted yesterday, sort of. I started off with a warm-up of a 400 meter run followed by 3 rounds:
  • 10 push-ups
  • 10 sit-ups
  • 10 PVC arm circles
I then did a bunch of stretching focusing on my back again as yesterday. I figured I might as well be safe and take the extra time. I then did the following workout:
  • 3x
    • 100 meter sprint
    • 8 barbell rows @ 68#
    • 8 push press @ 68#
  • 2 minute rest
  • 3x
    • 100 meter sprint
    • 8 barbell curls @ 58#
    • 8 tricep extensions @ 48#
  • 2 minute rest
  • 3x
    • 100 meter sprint
    • 8 hang cleans @ 78#
    • 8 slamballs @ 20#
I said yesterday that I had told everyone about my last race a month ago but after going back and looking at the blog it appears I had been lazier with the blog than the workouts. I was working out consistently until a month ago when my sister and I did a 10k relay together in 25 degree weather. As I mentioned I was sick for awhile and jacked my back up again but here I am going at it again. 

As you might notice I switched up the high pulls on the last set for slamballs. I am not a fan of high pulls after reading a few articles by PT's about how they measure shoulder impingement and that the move is much the same and how they would not suggest doing that move under much load. I also was not a big fan of the pairing of that with cleans. I would rather pair something that works a little different set of muscles, not sure I did real well with slamballs on that but I felt it was better than high pulls. You may also notice my weights are pretty low starting out this new workout, especially on squats yesterday. As I mentioned I am coming off a tweek in the back and a month break so I figured I will ease in a bit. Finally you might notice there was a finisher in the workout for both day 1 and day 2 that I skipped. I will work my way up to that but again I figure I will ease in. Wait until you see how much scaling I do on day 3.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Finally Worked Out Again

If you recall all that long time ago when I did that 10k relay with my sister I mentioned I had a chest cold. I was having a hell of a time breathing and was coughing like I still smoked or something. I could not shake that thing for the longest time and I tried some running a couple times but I really could not get any air once I started working out so I figured I would just give it a week or two. Well just as I was getting better we had a snow and ice storm here and I slipped and went feet up on the street in front of the house and hurt my back. I was out of commission for a bit longer with that and finally now felt like I could get back at it. I think it has been just about a month sincce I did any regular sort of workout.

I started off with a warm-up of 200 jump rope singles followed by 3 rounds:

  • 10 push-ups
  • 10 sit-ups
  • 10 PVC arm circles
I then did a bunch of stretching focusing on my back. I figured I might as well be safe and take the extra time. I did three supersets as follows for the workout:
  • 5 sets of 3
    • back squat @ 118#
    • box jumps (weight bench)
  • 3 sets mixed reps
    • kettlebell swings @ 35# 20 reps
    • pull-ups 5 reps
    • dips 8 reps
  • 3 sets mixed reps
    • farmers walk @ 45# each arm for 40 paces
    • hanging knee raise 10 reps
I was certainly a bit out of it today after so long off but it felt good to get back at it. I am going to modify a Spartan beast workout plan I found a bit and work that for the next couple months I think. It is based on 4 days a week of work with day 1 being strength based, day 2 is anaerobic, day 3 is running, and day 4 is muscle endurance. Day 3 is supposed to be trail running and I will do some of that but I will also do road running and probably mix in some work wit a 50# pack as well. I have some thoughts on some other modifications as well but we will see. Mostly I just want to keep it interesting. I actually did not do all that was prescribed for today but it is pretty aggressive and seeing how I am coming off a month break I figure I will work up to the workouts over a couple weeks. The plan I am basing this on is here if you want to have a look.

Good to be back at it.