Low E

Last night’s PT was definitely a low-energy affair. I was hoping for a heavy duty PT, but by the time I got around to it, it was late, the coffee wore off ( 🙂 ) and I just really didn’t have “it” together.

Nonetheless, I really felt the need to do something. So, I did, and I’m glad I did. Sometimes, it’s important to do, and sometimes, you have to listen to yourself. There have been plenty of times that my mind and body said “no,” so I didn’t. And I think that was appropriate. This time, my mind and body and spirit said, “you bettah, but don’t push it,” so I listened. I didn’t feel my strongest, I was out of breath very quickly, but I pushed on without going so hard it was traumatic.

When do you get to where you know you whether to go on or not? I don’t know. I just know how to listen most of the time. So I got some stuff done, and I’m glad I did.

Sunday

It was a very basic session, starting again with the EZ-Curl bar loaded with 157 lbs. I started just doing a couple of Yates rows, and put it down immediately. Caught my breath, and went for an easy 10 reps, then hefted it up and did a few overhead jerks. Put it down. Caught my breath; did a couple power curls (yes, curls). “Power curls?” I’m calling that “curls with a little momentum.” So I used some extra swing to get the bar up to a fully curled position.

Back down for some more Yates rows. Then, I didn’t feel like doing any more heavy jerks, so I switched to my faithful middle sized kettlebell (24 kg) and did two sets of 10 (each side) easy-does-it long cycle clean and jerks (LCCJ). And that was it for the resistance training that day.

I finished by doing my usual course of torso yogic-style stretches (cobra, cat stretch), hip splits, that sort of thing.

Diet: slow carb day (Saturday was high carb)
Music: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour Pandora channel

Sweat Soiree

Today’s little soiree of sweat was a near repeat of last time. Enjoyable, so I kicked it up a notch.

Wednesday

First, I threw on a couple of 5.5 lb plates onto the EZ-Curl bar, for a total of 157 lbs. Then did 10 or so Yates rows followed by a clean leading to 5 or so overhead jerks.

Next set was about the same, except I did a couple of clean and jerks after the Yates rows, before settling into the plain ol’ overhead jerks.

Then I went outside to the back yard and did a simple 10 sets of 16 two-hand kettlebell swings (for a total of 160, natch). This time seemed very easy, as I concentrated on “breathing the weights out,” using the Systema “leading with the breath.” This means I would start a forceful out-breath just a hair’s breadth before the start of the swing, from the “hike the ball” position to the top of the swing. It was a little odd, in the sense that I was focused on the breath more than the lift per se, and the weight sort of rose on its own. Which was nice.

Feelin’ good…

Diet: “slow carb” day; I later carbed out a bit when I went out to dinner (for an unintended mid-week carb spike)
Music: none

Just A-Swingin’

Feeling pretty exhilarated right–good PT session. I haven’t posted in a while…mostly just kettlebell swings, some overhead work, and a few sets of deadlifts. I’m trying to keep from bulking, which I tend to do too easily. But I do want to gain strength and lose some flab, so that’s what I’ve been working on.

I’ve been using a sort of carbohydrate cycling form of eating, similar to a cyclic ketogenic diet (CKD), but less severe. What Tim Ferriss is calling a “slow-carb” diet. What he does is basically allot 2/3 or so of your plate to plants, 1/3 to meats and eggs. About 1/2 of your plants are of your typical good, colorful veggies, and 1/2 or so are high-protein beans. If you don’t get enough beans, eat more meat. Avoid anything white (except cauliflower), and/or in the starch and sugar range. Do that for six days of the week, with a carb binge day for the seventh day.

That’s it.

Pretty simple, though I’ve not been as good at keeping to it as I could be. But I’m getting better every week. I do feel the difference, as far as strength, and general “good” feelings. I’d fallen into a sugar/hi-carb pit for a while. Now I’m back into way better eating.

Sunday
For today’s light workout, I started with Yates pulls with my EZ curl bar, loaded with 135 lbs. Then up overhead for jerks, and bounced around to clean and jerks, and overhead squats. After a round of that, I added two 5.5 lb plates (they’re metric) for 146 lbs. Then played with the thing again, doing various things including all the above plus regular squats. Not a heavy weight, that, but it felt good without undo strain.

Then back to my current staple, the two-handed kettlebell swing. Simple. I did six rounds of 15 swings, then four of 20 swings with my middle bell (Wilson–24 kg) for a total of 170 swings. Then a bit of cooldown and stretching.

And I feel great! Goodly breathing and sweating, but not dead.

Diet: low carb day (yesterday was the carb binge day, what I’m calling the “high insulin day”)
Music: Pandora channels–Medeski, Martin & Wood, Femi Kuti (why do I like African music so much? Oh, well…), and The Asteroids Galaxy Tour (been listening to them A LOT lately. The music is exciting and interesting, and I love the chick’s voice)

Can You Feel Mah Heartbeat

This morning’s session was a “no-intensity” day. Just did the “no intensity” yoga/Russian stretching session as from Scott Sonnon’s TACFIT Kettlebell. It’s probably my favorite no intensity/warm up routine to do.

I took a few weeks for a break from real intensity. As I posted below, I’ve recently started back up. My long range strategy is to follow a “heartbeat” sort of pattern, varying the intensity and duration of the sessions so that I have sort of a good bit of low level stuff and occasionally spiking up for intensity and/or duration.

That can be spun in a fractal pattern, where you have a session that is almost all intensity and/or duration (sort of the Tabata protocol), or one that is mostly low level with a couple of spikes in there.

You can can also spiral up such that you have a yearly pattern reflecting the same idea.

So much to play with. 🙂

Diet: Fasted since last evening.
Music: Pandora channel Paramahansa Yogananda Radio.

That Ol’ Tabata Feelin’

Today’s little PT was simple but brutal. Total Tabata with kettlebells. Did it outside in the 800ºF/1000% humidity for a little back-to-nature feeling.

Grabbed the middle bell (Wilson @ 24 kg) and using my Android app HIIT It Pro I had programmed for the Tabata protocol for 20 sec work/10 sec rest, proceeded to breathe hard and sweat. Started up with a couple sets of two handed swings, then alternated LCCJ back and forth a couple of times, back to two handed swings, LCCJs, back and forth until the four minute stretch (16 sets) was finally done. I know, a little four minute stretch sounds a bit wussy, but hey. Ya do what ya do.

Finished off with some of my qi gong and yoga work, then proceeded to get my dry stuff out of the laundry. Back to the real world, I guess… 🙂

Diet: Evening fast.
Music: Pandora channel Paramahansa Yogananda Radio.

Fried Forearms, With A Side Order Of Sweat

Haven’t logged much in a little while. Been doing small, sporadic little workout sessions, mostly picking up the kettlebell for a few drills, some qi gong and yoga exercises, and a good longsword session.

Today, I went hardcore. A little strength, a litte METCON. A good bit of sweat. I think I needed it. I’d been feeling out of sorts for a couple of days–achy and a little bummed. Maybe an energy let-down after a high-e week where we let our excellent product at work loose.

In any case, today I started off with several minutes of double heavy bag striking. I like working with my two bags. Adds interesting tactics to my multiple striking options. Fun! 🙂

I then did a variety of kettlebell movements, working a lot of different angles and areas. That led to an energetic six-minute kbell swing session. Using the 24 kg bell, I did both two-hand and single-hand swings, taking breaks to catch my breath.

Followed that up with 10 reps each side of the twisted press (24 kg kbell), then 5 or 10 each side of the two hands windmill, with the 24 kg bell on the high side of the windmill and the 32 kb bell on the low side.

Then I did one of my absolute favorite exercises, the long cycle clean and jerk (LCCJ). 10 each side, 24 kg kettlebell. For some more ab work, I used the 24 kg bell for 10 each side of the half Turkish Get Up.

And to cap it all off, I went back to the venerable two-handed swing, for five minutes with the 32 kg bell. Forearms were still there, but barely. Mostly smoked.

Breathing, stretching and light meditation to recover. Booyah.

Music: Pandora Loreena McKennitt station.
Diet: Fasted since breakast (eaten at lunch time).

What, Again?

For the last couple of workouts, I did basically what I did and cataloged in Saturday’s, directly below. Qi gong breathing exercises, then focus on a few kettlebell drills.

Don’t remember exactly what I did the earlier day, but today’s kettlebell component was:
– Single hand swings, several each side (24 kg)
– LCCJ, several each side (24 kg)
– Windmills, 10 each side (24 kg)

Diet: Fasted since yesterday evening.
Music: Pandora Calm Meditation station.

A Twist Added

Two more little PTs from this weekend to document. Both were late in the evening (1930 or later).

Saturday

Similar to last Sunday’s, this was a simple kettlebell protocol using the 24 kg bell. After warming up with several minutes of loose striking on the heavy bag and floor movements, I did two sets of five minutes of relaxed kettlebell goodness.

First was a diagonal clean and twisted press combo, alternating sides every few reps for five minutes. Then on to swings, alternating hands for the single hand swings, and finishing off with two handed swings. Last minute or so was cool-down with salsa dance moves.

After that was an active meditation aikido style. This is helping stretch out my ankles nicely, as I sit in seiza as long as possible, then bowing (rei) to relieve the pressure for a tic before coming back to sit up.

Music: Pandora mix of Brazilian and samba, finishing with the Calm Meditation station.
Diet: Fasted since breakfast.

Sunday

Started with qi gong breathing and movements. Then went into the TACFIT Kettlebell “No Effort” day yoga and stretching/recovery. Finished with more of the meditation similar to yesterday’s.

Music: Pandora Calm Meditation station.
Diet: Fasted since breakfast.

Brute Force, Averted

I took a week or two off from heavy physical training, and today, I’ve broken that fast. I was getting worn down by a lot of time at work, odd times at home, tension of various sorts, etc. And was just feeling like I needed to take a PT break, so I did.

Today, I’m back to it. I was really thinking about a super heart-thumping, gorge-rising in your throat, can’t breath-so-I’m-laying-on-the floor workout, but something told me to hold off a bit on that. So instead, in the vein of continuing to de-stress and remember to let go of excess tension, the whole workout was dedicated to projecting as much power, while remaining as relaxed as possible.

I’ve been re-cultivating my Daoist ways and making sure to remember to hold myself as loose as possible, to maintain good form and posture, breathe, all that sort of stuff. I have felt that I’m a bit separated from that, and it’s time to come home, as it were.

Having said that, it should be noted that I’ve been very good about holding true to that in my work life and political life (such as *that* is). As the site lead for my company at the facility where I work, I’ve been blessed with a really good team, and my role as often as not, is *not* to manage them, but rather to stay out of the way as much as possible and let their strengths shine through (as much as the team sometimes would like me to just lay down the law… but they are really good, smart people, so I’m not going to let them have it so easy 😉 ).

As for PT today, I started off with gentle movement, vaguely martial, progressing to weaponless striking of the heavy bags, with as much force as I can whilst remaining as relaxed as possible. Over the years I’ve become fairly decent at striking that way, and it just feels good. A friend was over the other day, and she mentioned something about hitting “like a bear,” or something like that. I don’t remember exactly the expression, but I know what she meant, because I was showing her elliptical, relaxed open hand strikes, which often don’t resemble boxing jabs and such at all.

I did some good relaxed floor work, changing levels and rolling and such. Then a short bout of kettlebells: five minutes of LCCJ, and then five minutes of single hand swings. Both exercises with the 24 kg bell.

Again, the emphasis was relaxed power; for the LCCJ, I went at an extremely slow stroke rate, making sure not to muscle it up or anything, but to sort of “let the bones” do the work. The motion simply came from movement, and I made sure to stop it at the top, and work my bones and posture into a good solid position, held it, then let the ball fall, starting the next movement. As much tension as possible gone from the movement.

Same with the swings. I swung the bell for ten reps, then switched sides, back and forth, holding it as loosely as possible, letting my body movement control the bell through the whole swing.

I followed up with some stretching, and some bodyweight squat/calf raises, then finished off sitting in seiza for quite a bit, allowing my shins and feet to slowly stretch out and rest my bodyweight further into the ground.

Feel pretty good right now, energized rather than exhausted, loose rather than tight (forearms a little tight, though). Good stuff. I’ve been fasting since breakfast this morning. Might get a little something in a bit, or just not worry about it. Don’t know, yet.

Music: Pandora yoga mix (Arabian/Indian electronica/trance).
Diet: fasted since brekkies.

Taking It Easy

So–

Wednesday

Wednesday was a good SEAL Ultimate Aerobic Workout (see to the left), finishing up with a few diagonal clean + yaw (twisted) kettlebell presses each side (instead of going back upstairs and hitting the pull up bar again).

Shoulder was hurting a good bit, but surprise–using the 24 kg bell actually felt good after I got into the groove on the right side. Actually felt much better after working it. So–improvement! Yay! 🙂

Saturday

Today, I also wanted to go relatively light, so I stayed with the 24 kilo bell. Pretty simple “man lifts rock” workout again, though with multiplanar twisting again (I think I like “twisted press” better than “yaw press,” so that’s mostly what I’ll refer to it from now on).

Core
– 5 minutes, TGU (Turkish Get Ups), alternating sides (24 kg)
– 5 minutes, diagonal clean + twisted press, both sides (24 kg)
– 5 minutes, LCCJ (long cycle clean and jerk), both sides (24 kg)

Stretch/Cooldown
– TACFIT Kettlebell Cooldown “yoga”

“Alternating sides” means that I would do one full cycle of the TGU (all the way up, then all the way back to the floor) then switch to do the other side.

By “both sides,” I mean that I would do several on one side, the switch and do the other side for the same amount of times, then switch back, etc.

For the TACFIT “yoga,” don’t be thinking some nice peaceful relaxing yoga studio stuff with cute girls in spandex. This is a fairly hard isometric workout that while it includes stretching, also includes pain, concentration, and a lot of sweat. It’s a workout in itself, and when I’m done with that, I’m laying on the deck in a big sweat soaked patch of carpet, just glad to be alive.

BUT–it’s good for you. I have a lot of hip mobility, but my shoulders, esp my right, are really pretty tight (darn you, “Double Handcuff!”). Then there’s static exercises like “Flying Boat,” which have you bow up, supported only on your pelvis–arms and shoulders back, legs up (for 60 seconds… whew!).

“King Pigeon” I really like, and I think it’s one of the things responsible for allowing me for the first time to sit in seiza tonight longer than 5 seconds. Really. First time in a least a couple years I wasn’t in extreme pain trying to sit Japanese-style–which is something I used to be able to do for hours at a time before. Before killing both of my knees and practically breaking my ankle.

I’ve been using my HIIT IT Pro Workout Timer Android app on my phone. Really handy, I tell you. Recommended. I think there’s probably one for iPhone, too.

Music: Pandora Yoga mix (Indian/Arabian ambient/electronica mix).
Diet: Higher carb day.