Add intensity by reducing time

Mar19
by Duf on March 19, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Posted In: GUTS

This week I finally feel like I am out from under the haze caused by my body battling an ear infection.  I celebrated by doing a GUTS routine. I decided to try to really make it a minimal rest session.

When I have done GUTS thus far, sure I am doing dips, pull ups and push ups back to back but I am doing so with a brief breather in between which at a minimum is a minute and potentially more if I get side tracked into a conversation with one of my gym buddies.

Well today I tried to be more deliberate, taking no more time between the exercise then it took to walk to that section of the gym.  Well it made a significant difference.  I only posted a total of 78 reps but I felt like I did work equal to if not greater than my GUTS sessions where I do more reps with more rest in between.

I also think I am going to buy a cheap $10 sport watch to start wearing at the gym.  Being able to add a time element to certain exercises is very motivational.  If I do 50 reps of a movement on Monday and do the same 50 reps on Friday it doesn’t sound like much improvement. However if I do those reps in 90 seconds on Monday and 75 seconds on Friday I have made a huge leap.

I plan to utilize the watch to monitor how long it takes me to do my 5 pull up / 10 push up routine x 10.  It will also be useful to help time things like static holds since doing that in my head never yields an accurate number.

Years ago I introduced a watch into my famous 300 work out and it resulted in consistent improvement in my performance doing the routine.  It also resulted in a lot of pain and suffering as I constantly felt the need to beat whatever time I posted the previous work out.  I eventually ditched the watch because I didn’t want the added pressure.

It’s time to reapply it.

 

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March hard mode challenge

Mar18
by Duf on March 18, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Posted In: Physical challenges

This has not been a great month…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFL6gmjhFk8

 

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Ear infection = empty

Mar14
by Duf on March 14, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Posted In: General Fitness Talk

I started developing an ear infection yesterday, a side effect of the swimming I did on Sunday.  I have always had a tendency to develop them.

I started right away on antibiotic ear drops last night but even doing so my ear hurt like hell for a good portion of the morning.  I was considering skipping the gym entirely as today was supposed to be leg day.

I took some aspirin and eventually the pain got to more tolerable levels so I decided to go to the gym anyway.

I skipped a GUTS session due to feeling low energy overall, presumably due to the infection, and residual soreness from doing the 50 pull up, 100 push up warm up yesterday.  I would have just put in a lousy performance if I tried it.

So instead I just did three sets of light squats (135 pounds) with good ROM along with leg extensions, curls and three sets on the seated calf raise.  That was enough for me, I just had no get up and go.

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Big brick, a bit lacking

Mar13
by Duf on March 13, 2012 at 10:06 am
Posted In: Endurance activities

Sunday I did a large training “brick” with my wife who is training for an upcoming olympic distance triathlon.  We did a 90 minute bike ride followed by a 60 minute run followed by a mile swim (in a lap pool).  I was quite spent by the 3+ hours of cardio activity.

The biking is the most annoying of the three disciplines for me.  Sitting on a road bike for that long is just uncomfortable as hell.

My body weight work hasn’t been as consistent as I would like recently due to several factors. I have been busy with some other projects around the house, felt a little off physically after running the half marathon and also suffering in the midst of a general mental malaise (a regular occurrence) that has cut into my normally high motivation levels.

I have not yet tried a signal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge nor have I given the March 20by12 challenge a shot.  With the time change I will have considerably more daylight available after work.  Hopefully that translates into more time on the bars.

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Documenting

Mar09
by Duf on March 9, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Posted In: Exercises, Muscle Ups

Yesterday at the gym my legs actually felt decent enough to do some squats.  Considering I almost needed a walker on Monday I was quite happy the rebound my body has made after running the half marathon.

Last night after work I shot a video documenting where I am at with my form on muscle ups, slow muscle ups and static one handed chin up holds.  With the muscle ups my focus has been using less swing, less kip and keeping my legs together and in control.  In the video it looked like I succeeded on two of the three items.  My swing is about as small as I can make it and my legs did stay together.  However even though it felt like I didn’t use my legs much for lift in the video, it’s obvious I have a powerful knee raise going on.

My slow muscle up was pretty clean.  I made sure I was fully extended below the bar before pulling up and I did not use any appreciable kip to get over the bar.  I find the keys to the slow muscle up are of course a false grip (or wrists resting on top of the bar in my case) and trying to really pull hard during the transition phase so your shoulders get up and over the bar to a point where your center of balance is on top of the bar.

My static one handed chin holds documented the large discrepancy in holding power between my right and left sides. I held on with my right arm for almost a full 10 seconds.  On my left side I barely could hold a second which actually is a slight improvement where as normally I will drop almost immediately on the left.

I need to keep working to narrow that gap in strength as it will affect any pulling body weight movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MkIfQZAJhE

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