Category: Kettlebell Workouts (RKC)

R6 I:A D18 – If You’re Bored Then You’re Boring (RKC To The Rescue)

If you’re bored then you’re boring – Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta

My high hopes for IA are not being met. I am coming to the realization that it’s not what I needed and certainly not what I expected. So instead of following the schedule I am patching together IA, RKC and even P90X and Olympic Style lifts to stave off the boredom.

I have realized why the Insanity Asylum program is only 30 days, because it’s boring. That’s right, I said it. You really only have 3 workouts that you can do that are of any functional use on a repetitive basis, I don’t count Game Day because it is more of a gimmick than a workout. Although it is a tough workout I don’t think is has value as a weekly repetitive workout. So left with a choice of 3 workouts, how could you possible go to 90 days? So I think that I am already about to jump ship on Round 6 which was planned to be 30 days and go into the Insanity Asylum and P90X hybrid. They outline the schedule as follows (according to online sources which I will check this evening):

Weeks 1-3

  • Monday- Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
  • Tuesday- Plyometric Cardio Circuit
  • Wednesday- Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
  • Thursday- Pure Cardio
  • Friday- Legs & Back, Ab Ripper X
  • Saturday- Cardio Power & Resistance
  • Sunday- Rest, Yoga, or Stretch

Week 4– Recovery Week

  • Monday- Cardio Recovery
  • Tuesday- Core Synergistics
  • Wednesday- Yoga X
  • Thursday- Core Cardio & Balance
  • Friday- Kenpo X
  • Saturday- Stretch X
  • Sunday- Rest

Weeks 5-8

  • Monday- Chest, Shoulders, & Tris, Cardio Abs
  • Tuesday- Max Interval Plyo
  • Wednesday- Back & Biceps, Cardio Abs
  • Thursday- Max Interval Circuit
  • Friday- Legs & Back, Cardio Abs
  • Saturday- Max Recovery
  • Sunday- Rest, Yoga, or Stretch

Week 9– Recovery Week (Same as above)

Weeks 10-12

  • Monday- Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
  • Tuesday- Max Cardio Conditioning
  • Wednesday- Shoulders & Arms, Cardio Abs
  • Thursday- Max Interval Circuit
  • Friday- Legs & Back, Ab Ripper X
  • Saturday- Max Recovery
  • Sunday- Rest, Yoga, or Stretch

Week 13– Recovery Week (Same as above)

Much as I hate the recovery week at the end, I am signed up to do Warrior Dash in 5 weeks so I think maybe a week to finish IA and then 4 weeks of hybrid will get me within my fitness goal. Add to that some RKC which I just can’t live without and some running (ugh) then I should be as ready as possible…

 

R6 Insanity:Asylum 1.9 – VP, RKC and Nursing Week

The end of last week was a good time for working out, the weather is getting better, the sun is shining and I did my two current favourite workouts: RKC and IA Vertical Plyo. In stark contrast to the pain I suffered having to do Back To Core again, the RKC immediately took me back to those days when I was working hard at the Kettlebell Challenge. I chose to do 5 ladders, in a 34543 configuration again using the 45lb KB however once I had done the 3 and 4 I decided I would switch to the 70lb KB and try a whole 3 rung ladder. It was tough, especially since I am not doing KB work every day but I was happy to be able to make it through without dropping the thing on myself! I continued with my 4 and 5 to finish which, after doing the 70 pounder felt like I was using a little pink 15lb KB. I finished off with some single arm and doubel arm swings and called that a day. My body really felt like I had worked out, something that you sometimes don’t get when learning a new workout system. I spend far too much time studying the movements before doing them that the workout does tend to suffer a little.

Next day was Vertical Plyo. I am getting more used to this workout, I have to be careful not to smash my head against the ceiling in the basement where the low duct runs but apart from that I think this workout is what I was expecting from IA. It is fast paced, very mobile and extremely challenging. It is also completely adjustable for your ability, no matter how good or crappy you feel you can adjust each movement to match. You feel agile, fast and challenged during the workout, in essence it gives you the feeling that most people want from doing programs like this, the feeling of doing something athletic. Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to call someone who does this an “athlete” since I don’t think (if we are all honest for a second) that a work out at home program has the ability to make that happen but it is close!

It’s Nurses Week here in Canada and the US and it appears that below the border, the fast food giants are once again peddling to the masses and picking on the weak willed and sleep deprived. For my part, I applaud Nurses and their commitment to their patients and not only that, but their dedication to their profession. Yes, some may come across as a little crazy, or forcefully gregarious but as they whooped and hollered in the cafeteria this morning I was reminded of my early years at University and the crazy strong bonds we forged with each other to face the adversity of what was to come. These wonderful people face this kind of adversity as their profession, day in and day out and for that I think we should thank them. However, I think getting over $100K a year is thanks enough… That said, seeing the wonderful nurse that cared for my wife and child while we were here after the birth made me all soft and nostalgic so for today I will forgo my rant about overpaid nurses being in professions where they don’t belong while their own kin cry out for help and just say thanks, you guys are OK with me.

(II also found that doing a search for nurses on google images comes up with some rather interesting results…)

 

R6 Insanity:Asylum 1.9 (Maybe) or RKC. The Mental Focus Trick.

Since I am only counting the IA days, if I choose to jump rope and do RKC today it would not count as day 9. I have been making progress with my rope jumping skills. I am not on to double unders yet but I am up to a full minute of jumping without a break. That took me 20 minutes to achieve by the way. Not only that, it brought home a point that I will share with my girls today at gym about focusing on the wrong thing.

For ages I was focused on the jump, how high, which foot, together, one by one etc. and was having little success. It took me 20 minutes of constant work just to get 15 seconds and I must have restarted about 80 times.  Then I decided that I would concentrate on the “SLAP” sound that the rope makes when it hits the ground in front of me and try to make it as loud as possible. As soon as I tried that, I made 45 seconds, then a minute within 2 attempts.

The point is that as much as you may think you are mentally in the game, it may be in fact that you are defeating yourself. All the belief in the world would not have made the difference to the degree that changing my focus made. To that end, when the girls are learning new skills it is important to not only bolster their confidence but also to try and have them focus on different pieces of the puzzle to find out what works for them. When it comes to physical activities, there are as many ways to do things as their are people, not because the physical move is any different but because what we choose to focus on makes our experience completely unique.

If you want to play a fun trick to see just how critical of a difference this makes and how it affects your brain grab a friend. Tell them to take a look around the room at everything that is green, what kind of green, what it is, how big etc. For 60 seconds let them study to room. Then, tell them to close their eyes and describe in detail everything in the room that is red.

It’s fun, and educational too! Just remember, what you focus on becomes your reality, so changing your perspective can often change your whole experience.

 

R5D64 – Medium RKC, Insanity Asylum And Hello 39″ Waist!!

Today, the 18th, apparently Insanity:Asylum goes on sale on the Beachbody site. I have found a Facebook group where “coach Todd” is reviewing it one day at a time. Since my package still isn’t here I will have to make do with the review of day one.

There is more to come, so go to the Facebook page and “like” the page!

Medium day was OK, I have managed to get over the shoulderblade pain from last week by taking 3 days off which is unfortunate since this week is the 2 month weigh in for Biggest Loser at my workplace. Hopefully I will win this month and at least win my money back! I am almost done the RKC and as a continuance I have several DVDs of advanced KB routines to keep my interested in KB work while I start Insanity:Asylum. I am very excited, I am sure I have already said that, but the idea of being able to transition so smoothly into the next workout is a huge weight off my shoulders. I think after heavy day this week that may be it. If not, there may be one more week to go. Either way, the KB workouts have really made a difference in my physique and my strength. Especially in my core where I am notoriously lazy, the KB workouts have really tightened me up and caused me to go below 40″ in my waist for the first time in a very long time. Even when I was 252 for the wedding, my pants were still a 42! So you can imagine my surprise when I measured in at 39″ yesterday!

I imagine I won’t have time to work out today, but at the same time, spotting back tuck on floor is as much of a workout as you would need, talk about combining speed, strength and quick reflexes into a workout!

R5D63 – RKC Light Day Outside. Shipping Details.

Today was the first time I was able to go out on the deck and do my workout with the chin up bar outside. I just love to work out in the afternoon sun, it is very calming, but at the same time very invigorating. Also, the chin up bar I have out there is higher and wider than the one indoors and so creates a much better range of motion for the chinups. It was RKC  light day, so the workout was pretty quick, however I managed to develop a pain behind my shoulderblade which I assume is a part of nerve impingement in my neck. It comes and goes, just one more thing to deal with while I wait for my package to arrive. I got a note from Beachbody that my package had shipped and it should be here in 1 week. It’s very exciting, let me tell you!

At the end of last year, this is what the deck looked like. I don’t have big plans for it this year other than to try and extend the chin up bar on the left and secure it with something better than a chain nailed to the side of the decking. I am also going to be making a jump up box of 24″ since at various places around the deck I can go from 14″-10″ of height. Having a sturdy box will be great however I am not certain I won’t bang my head on the upper deck. Even if I do, the lower deck extends past the upper, I will just have to place the box away from the overhang. Those bars are yellow for clarity in the picture, in fact they are both black. One is a plumbing pipe, about 1.5″ thick. The other, longer one chained to the supports is the top pipe of a chain link fence which is at least 2.5″ thick giving me a grip workout at the same time.

R5D61- I Know What Happens Next! I’m Going To The Asylum!!!

Heavy day was pretty good, I seem to have a different way of doing the clean and press with each arm, however, my dominant (and therefore I assumed smarter) arm doesn’t seem to get it as well as my left. In fact, my left arm is quick, mobile and always gets the clean and press exacly right, no forearm banging, no off centre weighting… I don’t get it. It appears that my right side is more of a pull up clean with my traps rather than my left side which is a lift with the legs and then rotate around the bell after pulling back like starting a lawn mower. I am not sure why they are different but I am starting to have more respect for my left arm in the cool side of the body contest.
But that is not the big news, I got an email today saying that “INSANITY:ASYLUM IS HERE!”. Yes, I am super excited that the arrival of my Asylum package should coincide approximately with the completion of the RKC Rite Of Passage. It also means that I am going to have to work the KBs into my Asylum workout schedule, no matter how hard it is. Even if it means just a few swings, snatches and clean and presses a day. I am pretty stoked, mostly because it means I will be getting back into some cardio work which I am occasionally a fan of but also because the Asylum promises to be a bootcamp type sport oriented workout. That sounds like my cup of tea. We will have to see, but P90X was as described, Insanity I think lived up to the hype so I am cautiously optimistic about the new regime. Not only that, but I think it will give me some much needed mobility work in training for the Warrior Dash 2011 which is coming up July 9th. I have to admit the timing couldn’t be better, I was starting to suffer a little from the anticipation of the  90 day wobble where you get to the end of the 90 days, if it is P90X or whatever, and wobble in your workouts due to the lack of structure you suddenly find yourself in. Not this time though. Even though this is my 5th round of 90 days, it still is difficult to set yourself up for the start of the next round so as not to lose momentum.

 

R5D59-60 – Recovery

I have finally managed to shake this lingering sickness. The baby is better, my wife is recovering nicely and thankfully we were both in good enough shape to enjoy this past weekend at Orangeville for the gymnastics competition. My workouts have suffered though, over the course of a week I have managed only 2 workouts, a light and medium day of the RKC. Interestingly, my aches and pains are much improved and although I hadn’t really planned to take the week off, my body certainly had other things in mind. I have never really been one for rest weeks, I find them frustrating and a block to progress, of course that is because I am an idiot. Your body needs rest, your body cannot perform without adequate sleep but also without adequate rest cycles. You can not go anywhere once the tank is empty, but fill up when you are at 1/4 and you will go forever. My new found respect for rest weeks will continue to add to my personal knowledge and probably enable me to go further with my fitness than I have been able to previously. If only I can remember to rest when I start to feel sore instead of waiting until I actually run myself into the ground. I am supposed to do RKC heavy day today or tomorrow, depending on time availability and then I will be back on track. However, I am coming to the end of the RKC and will have to find a KB integration method to help me maintain my love of the KB workouts and allow me to explore my next big thing.

R5D52/3 – Heavy Day and Coffee… And Other Rambling Tangents…

Sunday I did heavy day, including more with the 70lb KB. I took Monday off since it was the Mock Meet for my gymnasts and I was short on time. This week I have to try to stick to the schedule, adding an extra day off is messing me up. I am a little torn however since I seem to be sore and tired alll the time at the moment and I am wondering if I have been slightly overtraining. It’s hard to say if I have or if I am being lazy, there seems to be a fine line there!

What about coffee? There is some chatter on the Paleo landscape about if caffeine is permitted or not. I don’t really care if it is or not, to be honest, I enjoy a cup of tea or coffee but I don’t have it after about 1 in the afternoon. The reason is not because of the caffeine, but rather the stress it creates in your body. It’s fine in the morning, although I don’t think I need it since I have sworn off caffeine for a year on 2 separate occasions, but towards the end of the day you are bound to interrupt your sleeping patterns and that is a cardinal sin. You see there are right and wrong ways to think about health and what is important. For example when I used to spend 2 hours in the gym in the morning and then scarf down 2 bagels with cream cheese and load up on pasta each day I would have prioritized the major factors like this:

Exercise
Diet
Rest Days
Sleep

Since then, I have come to realize that exercise is a small component of health and fitness and my outlook appears more like this:

Sleep
Stress
Diet
Exercise

So why stress? Well, studies show that our performance is directly related to stressors, both physical and mental. So the more stress you place on your systems, the less healthy you will be. The folks over at Catalyst Valley have created just the graph to illustrate the new world order:

So try and reduce your stress, and I know there are a thousand sites and methods but the ones I find are simple but effective go like this:

– De-stress in the car on the way home. Most people, myself included, hate to commute but my 30 minutes in the car have become a time to unwind, laugh at a podcast or two, sing along to some 80’s pop or simply plan my next workout. Whatever you choose, don’t let your drive home add to your stress, it is the perfect time to relax and decompress.

– Use one workout a week to do some relaxation, stretching or yoga. Don’t add it to your schedule, replace an existing workout with it. You would be amazed what a couple of weeks of quiet yoga will do for your workout ethic.

– Be early. Most people are rushing because they are disorganized. If you are early, you will always have a few minutes to yourself to relax before you start whatever you are doing. A few minutes or quiet reflection in a day while basking in your organizational nirvana is pretty amazing. Do you remember the last time you were early somewhere?

..and what about dairy? I have my own take, I am phasing it out just because I don’t seem to miss it, but as usual, Fitbomb has done a stellar job of working through the issue here.

And don’t think that these Paleo people are only south of the border, the Canadian Physicians are starting to notice that we are resembling Tim Horton’s Donuts not just eating them… Diseases of Affluence he calls it…

R5D51 – Medium and Much Anticipated Photo Update

Medium day, the day when I feel like I can use the 70lb KB to do Clean and Press because I took it easy on Light Day. Medium day = sore back the next day. Either way, almost every person who claims to know anything about Kettlebell training says you are supposed to occasionally use a KB that is heavy for you and difficult to do anything with. That in mind, I tried some C&P with the 70 and almost killed myself in the process. However, I was able to do at least 1, 2 and 3 C&P with it during my 5th and final set. I woke up this morning still able to walk so it didn’t kill me!

One of the questions I have had ever since the beginning of my P90X journey is for photo updates, mostly because people’s reluctance to subscribe to the system is that they think it won’t work. If they are willing to give it a shot, it is usually on the back of seeing someone just like them who has succeeded. I know I am the same, the reason I started with P90X was not only because I had tried P90 with my wife during the summer a couple of years ago and pretty much hated it. It was too easy, it reminded me of a bad 80’s aerobic class. I had a hankering for something that would make me feel manly, like I could rip a phone book apart with my bare hands, something that would help me to return to my former fitness glory. I was fat. I had got down to 252 lbs right before the wedding in 2007 but since then had ballooned back up to 292. During the wedding push we had eaten vegan, tried the raw diet, ate a lot of fruits and veg but just couldn’t stick with it. The problem was cravings for carbs since we had inadvertently gone full carb in our diet. It was a train wreck of a diet but as with most things, if you are really fat, but exercising, you will likely lose some weight. I knew as we started our honeymoon cruise that I was never going to be able to maintain that low number. I had forced myself into that weight, given up everything I wanted and been miserable in the process. The photos from the wedding looked great, but I was setting myself up for failure. When we went toEngland in 2008 I was at my all time high (again) and was one Sticky Toffee Pudding away from 300lbs. Fast forward to now, at 245lbs and I feel like I can still go lower without really trying. Weight loss has become simple and a no brainer for me since giving up grains and going paleo.

So what of the photos? Well, during my first round of P90X I didn’t follow the diet plan, in fact, right up until the third week of round 4 I wasn’t really on a diet as such. I always had reasons I didn’t need to, and as a result, I always had a reason not  to take pictures. The reason: I wasn’t losing any of my stored body fat. I was getting fitter, although during round 2 I was also getting heavier, not lighter. It was a struggle at times to keep up and keep going but once I started in with Insanity, things started to improve a little. It was round 3, I had a new baby as motivation and so I dropped  a few pounds, not that you could really notice since losing 10 lbs when you are 270 is like Justin Bieber, largely irrelevant. I would like to say that I did P90X and was transformed but my journey wasn’t that direct. During round 1 I took bodypart pictures because I still wasn’t proud enough to do a full body shot. I am not sure why, I was in OK shape at the time but still weighing in at a whopping 260lbs. That was the last time I was anywhere near confident enough to share my shape. So I thought since I owe so much to this system I have developed that I would put together some pictures to show my progress. Not just my progress in P90X but my overall progress to where I am now which, I am hoping, is only half way to where I will end up.

Here are the pics… You can figure out which is which.

1991 – around 190lbs

The picture that brought it all home. Summer 08

March 2011 – 245lb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that is where I am and where I came from. I am hoping that from now on I will be able to post more picture updates, it’s good for my confidence, my comfort level and hopefully it will be a good motivator for someone waiting in the wings hoping to step into the game…

R5D49 – Light Day and The Return Of Tony – P90X+ Style!!

He's baaaack!

I finished light day and was happy that the workout was, in fact, easy. I think I overdid it a little last week, my back has been feeling off and with the coaching spotting back handsprings I have been overworking myself. So yesterday, Monday, came as a welcome rest. Today has the ring of opportunity and anticipation to it since I managed to score the P90X+ discs. So I am modifying the plan a little. I have 2 variety days that I am going to fill with P90X+ workouts and maybe if I am feeling really good, one of the off days also. The P90X+ workouts are as follows as far as I can tell:

Interval X Plus
Kenpo Cardio Plus
Upper Plus
Total Body Plus
Abs-Core Plus

I am concerned over the Kenpo, it was a dud during P90X and also having a full day of core, but I will give it a shot and tell you what I think. Today will be Interval X Plus if I can remember to take the discs home.