Month: November 2010

R4 D56 – Best Laid Plans and a new WOD for time (and injury)

The great thing about life is you can plan all you like, you just never know what will happen next. The plan was to do P90X chest and back, but since I know better I thought I would make my own WOD and do that instead. So I did this:

For time, x 5, 2 minute rest between sets

30 wide push ups + 10 wide pull ups
30 regular push ups + 10 reverse pull ups
30 military push ups + 10 narrow pull ups

My results were less than stellar: 4:50, 4:05, 4:30, 5:20, fail

My shoulders and forearms were on fire afterwards and since I still have an issue with my left forearm and elbow I was in quite a mess. Also, I was slated to coach for 3 hours later and so I was not impressed with what I had done. Coaching didn’t help things and after I was done I had a lingering pain in my shoulder, I think I may have strained something, hopefully not my rotator cuff but I am certain something isn’t right. I have done a similar thing before while trying to get to my 400lb bench a couple of years ago. I developed a very painful shoulder and had to give up doing bench all together for about 8 months while it healed. It seems OK now, although I don’t strictly bench much any more. I find that as I get older these things seem to bother me more and last longer than before. All I can do now is protect it and hope it heals soon. Of course, that throws a wrench into the plan for a big finish to my round 4 especially since I was supposed to do Max Cardio today and then shoulders and arms tomorrow. I think I am going to call that workout Sally since it seems like you should be able to do it without a problem and if you can’t, Sally, then maybe you should go back to your stretch class and grab a Kleenex…

Towards The Light

56 Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
57 Max Cardio
58 Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
59 OFF
60 WOD with Pullups
61 Back & Biceps, Ab Ripper X
62 Max Interval Plyo
63 Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, Ab Ripper X
64 OFF
65 WOD with Pullups
66 Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
67 Max Interval Circuit
68 Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
69 OFF
70 WOD with Pullups
71 Back & Biceps, Ab Ripper X
72 Max Cardio
73 Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, Ab Ripper X
74 OFF
75 WOD with Pullups
76 Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
77 Max Interval Circuit
78 Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
79 OFF
80 P90X Fit Test & Insanity Fit Test
81 Max Rep Pullups 10 min max
82 5K Timed Run
83 Max Rep Bench 10 min max
84 FINISH!!

The next few weeks which I can’t help feeling will be usurped by my every growing love for the Crossfit HIIT type training. But, there’s nothing like a plan is there? Also, I know it says “FINISH!!” but let’s be honest this is really just a new beginning especially given the Paleo diet that is working wonders. I have to think that 6 months from now I will be a different person if only physically than I am now. That will be the first time I haven’t had to go on a “summer diet” to satisfy my ridiculous sense of self.

56 Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
57 Max Cardio
58 Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
59 OFF
60 WOD with Pullups
61 Back & Biceps, Ab Ripper X
62 Max Interval Plyo
63 Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, Ab Ripper X
64 OFF
65 WOD with Pullups
66 Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
67 Max Interval Circuit
68 Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
69 OFF
70 WOD with Pullups
71 Back & Biceps, Ab Ripper X
72 Max Cardio
73 Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, Ab Ripper X
74 OFF
75 WOD with Pullups
76 Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
77 Max Interval Circuit
78 Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
79 OFF
80 P90X Fit Test & Insanity Fit Test
81 Max Rep Pullups 10 min max
82 5K Timed Run
83 Max Rep Bench 10 min max
84 FINISH!!

R4 D52-D55 Resting and Meeting Elizabeth

Not Paleo, I abstainedR4 D53 – Coached 3 hours, so no time or energy to work out.
R4 D54 – X Stretch the most uneventful workout on the planet.
R4 D55 – Sunday, coming back into the workouts from 4 days of ‘rest’ workouts.

 

Elizabeth
21 – 15 – 9 Reps
135lb Clean
Ring Dips
Elizabeth:
21 – 15 – 9 Reps
135lb Clean
Ring Dips
Elizabeth was a rude awakening after such a nice few days taking it easy and recuperating. I feel like I slightly over stretched my lower back so it was a relief have a couple of easy days. That said, it was also great to get my teeth back into a decent hard work workout, even though Elizabeth is a very short workout. Since my weightloss is going well, I had planned a reward for getting to 260lbs and I had in mind that I wanted another Olympic bar and some weights to go in the garage during the winter and out on the lower deck during the summer. The reason is that doing Olympic lifts in the basement makes me nervous. Especially if the baby is in her bouncer watching, there are mirrors, a TV and plenty of stuff that would not take well to occupying the same space as the end of a 7ft steel bar. So the easy thing would be to do the lifts I can in the garage where there is a chin up bar and a wall ball and a floor to do push ups on. I figure if I am doing crossfit, I may as well make it realistic! My dip bars were so easy to make I may make up another set for the garage too, just for convenience and I have in mind to make 2 or 3 jump up boxes also.
Back to Elizabeth. Since I was nervous, I didn’t quite do the workout as Rx’d rather instead of letting the bar down to the floor and waking up the baby I kept it against my thighs and did the clean from there. I didn’t make all 21 or in fact all 15 in a row anyway so I ended up doing a few of the full rep cleans anyway. I also only was using 95lb since I am still getting used to doing the Olympic lifts after many many years away from them. I find that my old body is taking  some time to get used to the grip style again and in fact my biggest challenge does seem to be hand positioning. Maybe it is from too many years of benching heavily but my wrists are certainly not as flexible as they should be.
So the workout was under 15 minutes I think. So short in fact that I had toyed with the idea of doing it a second time once we got back from the Gymnastics competition we were attending but instead we went to Demetre Caffe and had ice cream.

R4 D51 – Front Room Rug Workout and HFCS Believes Kids Are Stupid.

corndroop

High Fructose Corn Syrup, the basic ingredient that is causing the obesity epidemic has been renamed to Corn Sugar in an attempt to make it more palatable. Don’t be fooled. HFCS and basically any sugar in purified form is the single worst thing you can feed your body.

Maybe they should have renamed it Cute Sugar instead since their recent advertising is aimed squarely at children. Well, in our house at least, the parents are the ones who make decisions about what the kids eat, not the kids.

Maybe they should try being honest and leave it as HFCS but have the long name be Hardly For Children Stupid or even better Heart Failure Causing Sugars.

Anyway, I got home late last night and since I had to coach gymnastics I only had a window of about 20 minutes while the baby napped and my wife was out shopping. So since I was in the living room I moved the litany of baby items away and thought I would do a quick workout on the rug just to see if I could improvise something with no warmup and no time. The following is what happened and this morning, my butt hurts like crazy!

50 Bodyweight Squats
50 Pushups
50 Full Sit Ups
50 Lunge Knee Touch (25 per leg)
50 Superman (laying back extension)

Funny it doesn’t sound like much but it was a solid quick workout which you could basically do anytime anywhere even while you watch your favourite TV show.

R4 D50 – What’s The Frequency Kenneth?

If I could, would I want to?

Frequency, consistency, repetition.

That is my problem with Yoga. The fact that I don’t work it in enough to get used to it or any good at it means every time I do it I feel a mixture of great and mind numbingly sore. The only consistent part is the constant disappointment I have with my flexibility. Of course, we will have to see if losing 50lbs or more helps with my flexibility or if it truly is a muscle mobility thing and not a layer of fat thing. Not that I have a thick layer, but there is probably more than there should be and according to the useless BMI scale I am “very obese” at 6ft and 260lbs.

So I took Tony to the basement and did Fountain of Youth Yoga, a far more appealing session than the P90X version however at the same time slightly less satisfying. It is quicker, no doubt, but maybe that is not the best thing about it. I think maybe I was more in the mood for stretching than actual yoga so possibly I wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind. Whatever it was, I struggled and by the end my back felt more sore than at the start. However, you can’t always count on soreness as an indication of wellness. I was OK before I started, but I know I was tight and immobile. When I finished I was in more pain but was far more mobile which in the long run is a better place to be.

On to the rest of “rest week 2”.

R4 D50 – Rest Week Part II

Since I am not strictly sticking to the 6 days on 1 off routine of P90X or Insanity, I am thinking that a whole week of rest is going to be a little excessive. So since a change is as good as a rest I am thinking that 4 days should suffice and of those 4 days 2 should be Yoga for the simple reason that I haven’t done it in a while and my tolerance is way up for twisting myself into a ball and trying to wrap my spine into a twizzler. I thought I was going to bag my rest week plan and sub some Crossfit instead but now I look at the schedule, it actually seems pretty appealing.

That means yoga tonight.

Well, at least I can rest assured that I will be on par with these ladies:

Namaste TV Bloopers

Follow Yoga (Fountain of Youth Yoga) with Core, Cardio and Balance and then Core Synergistics and you have a pretty quiet week with lots of muscle lengthening stretching and flexibility. On thr 4th day I may even go the whole hog and do Yoga X… We shall see.

As far as my workout schedule is going, I read this today over at “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and liked it’s simplicity.

How about a weekly plan?

Monday – Strength training – Upper body pushing movement [Anaerobic – ATP]

Tuesday – Sprints [Anaerobic – ATP + glycogen]

Wednesday – Strength training – Upper body pulling movement [Anaerobic – ATP]

Thursday – Yoga/slow biking/walking/jogging for 30-50 mins [Aerobic]

Friday – 10-20min high intensity conditioning workout [Anaerobic – ATP + glycogen]

Saturday – Strength training – Lower body [Anaerobic – ATP]

Sunday – Rest

R4 D46 to D49 – Kelly (incomplete) and catchup

R4 D46 – Kelly

I find that when I do new Crossfit workouts that I often fall short. That in itself is weird since I usually (and I believe I am not alone in this) blast as hard as I can the first time I try things. For some reason it is just not the case with these workouts, a case in point is Kelly. Maybe it is intimidation, maybe just because I am at home doing this alone I am not sure. In retrospect, maybe it was because I was outside and it was 3 degrees but I am a man dammit!

Kelly:

Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
30 Box jump, 24 inch box
30 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball

As is well documented, I have a 26lb ball that I use for wall ball and having to run outside and do the wall ball outside meant this was going to be a cold workout. For that reason, among others I suppose, I only managed 3 rounds. My time was around 4:30 per round which if I was able to maintain that pace would have put me around the 22:30 mark for 5 rounds. That seems unreasonably fast to me. I didn’t measure the run exactly and I believe I may have been doing a 300m rather than 400m. Given that, it means an extra 500m for the whole round which makes more sense. Anyway, the block jumps were 20″ and the wall ball 10ft. Hopefully next time I will be able to get the 5 rounds but with the weather closing in, I am not sure I will be running outside again any time soon.

R4 D47 – Clean and Press 100

As a change of pace I opted to do 100 clean and press today. Unfortunately due to the low ceiling in the basement I had to settle for 45lbs for 75 clean and press (mostly in order to get the motion correct) and then around 30 95lb cleans.  After, I got the idea that I hadn’t really done enough so I did another 30 or so clean and press with 35lb dumbbells. That is a lot harder than it sounds! I had wanted to do some deadlift high pulls too but time was short and so I will have to leave them for another time. The important thing was that I was, in a manner, greasing the groove by reinforcing the movement with strict control over technique. Over time, this reinforcement should allow me to increase the weight so that once I get an Olympic bar for the garage, I can start to use heavier weight.

R4 D48 – 5K Run

Well, run is probably a strong word. I was tired, I assumed I was too tired to bother with keeping up with Shaun T and his minions so I though a brisk walk would do me as much good as I could tolerate. Besides, I hadn’t had a workout longer than about 30 minutes in a while so I thought a long walk would tick that box too. Uneventful would probably be too colourful a word for the workout and it reminded me why I do Insanity instead of the treadmill.

R4 D49 – Rest

I feel a little worn down and since this coming week is supposed to be rest week 2 I have some thinking to do.

R4 D45 100 Pullups

Supposed to be back and biceps but I am not a fan of the chin up bar in the basement so I decided that I would just hit the bar in the garage and see how I do at 100 pullups. I didn’t realize that there is a WOD (Angie) that calls for 100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups and 100 squats and now I know that I feel even worse about hardly making it through the 100 pull ups. Could I have finished Angie? Not the way I felt after 16.5 minutes of pull up misery. Even though the pull ups would be by far the worst part of the workout, still, I was pretty beat up after my first attempt. It seems ridiculous when you think that for Cindy and Chelsea both contain 100 pull ups along with other things and I didn’t have a huge problem with them. Anyway, it didn’t help that it was only about 4 degrees in the garage and it was also Friday, my worst performing day of any week. Tony Horton calls himself pull up boy, myself, I think of myself as push up boy and since pull ups have always been a problem for me (in fact, I never did pull ups until 2 years ago, I just couldn’t) I probably shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

R4 D44 – Plyometric Cardio Circuit & Kenpo??

KenpoYou know, I almost did Kenpo today. Maybe my memories are foggy or I just got a pang of nostalgia but for a second there I actually missed Tony’s attempts at cardio workouts. Maybe I will sneak in a Kenpo this week somewhere just to go old school and get a longer, lazier workout done. The reality is that the insanity workouts are great but of course, after a while they get repetitive. That is the good thing about having a couple of sets to choose from, even after this long (322 days of BeachBody and counting) you can still go back to a video that you haven’t done in ages. For me, these are the cardio workouts from P90X. Not because they are bad necessarily, but they are anemic in comparison to Insanity. However, a change is as good as a rest so a sprinkling of Tony may be fun.

Instead though, I hustled my way through Plyometric Cardio Circuit, even though I think I was supposed to be doing Pure Cardio. The reason I like PCC is that it is not all cardio, there is an assortment of plank based moves too. For some reason that makes the time go by all the more quickly for me. I would say that this is probably my favourite Insanity workout. I would pick one of the Max workouts but for the fact that they are killers to get through due to the extra round.

insanityvsp90x

I wonder if there is another set I could add to the mix. I don’t know off the top of my head if BB has any other workouts I may like to sub for Insanity, and I don’t really want to get into the Tony 1-on-1 system since I am not that invested. I am also leaning towards more Crossfit and maybe even less cardio, but I don’t want to lose what little endurance I have. Also, I still enjoy the Insanity part of my program, I guess I am just feeling a little unsettled. Max will cure me of that I am sure, either that or forcing myself to do Yoga X or ARX…

Today (Day 45) is P90X Back and Biceps so hopefully I will get this out of my system today and concentrate on which Crossfit WOD to do for tomorrow.