Fitness Update: Lessons and Realizations

A short history of Indian Clubs and their use in exercise. They are mentioned in the post below.

I started this portion of this Blog in the hopes that I would share discoveries and revelations and realizations and lessons learned and gains made after every single workout. Then it became every week. Then it became...eventually, like today.

I am realizing that my 60-hour work week, with "free time" taken up by helping my mom (who is "at that age," as they say), spending time with my GF (which MUST be prioritized!) and sleeping allows little time to do this at all. The best I can hope for is a slow period at work where I can squeeze this in. that being the case, here are some observations and achievements of the past few weeks...

I finished the first month of Sean T's BeachBody "Insanity" program (from a ten-year-old DVD set). It only took me six weeks because I could seldom get more than three or four days of workouts in per week, while it was designed for five days a week. Sometimes I threw in the "Upper Body Weight Training" workout during the "off" day of the rotations because the regular program does not do much in that regard. That specific workout has left me dizzy and even a slight ringing in my ears the way it mixes lifting weights with cardio in 4-part supersets done at high intensity, often working more than one body part per exercise.

Because I still need to focus on my surgically repaired shoulder, I would occasionally follow up a workout with a half-dozen shoulder-focused exercises from a Wai Lana yoga DVD I found in a thrift shop. There are some things that shoulder will never do again, and I am coming to the realization that I am going to have to work that shoulder out more often to get it to do certain things that it can do to do as well as the other shoulder. 

These and other workout, fitness, and yoga videos are available on Amazon.com. I get a small percentage of any purchase you make if you click on any Amazon link to get there.

 

 Mostly, right now, the trouble is the strength and the endurance. For some movements I must recruit my shoulder blade and my abdominal muscles to get the shoulder to go places it used to by itself. Those muscles are not used to working that hard to do that, and even simply rotating them tires out the new shoulder faster than the old one. 

My fitness gains are sort of a competition between my muscles and my cardio. When I started, I found that my muscles gave out before my cardio did. Maybe this was from the jogging I had done a few times? Or perhaps my base-level of fitness and the way my body has become accustomed to cardio work has stayed with me better than the muscle strength I used to have? But my muscle strength is coming back, slowly. 

 I have incorporated my Indian Clubs into my workout. While their total weight is probably less than the natural variance of my body weight on a busy day, they do add just a touch of weight resistance hen moving my arms in running- and jumping-type exercises. Adjusting how I hold them gives different effects to the act of moving them, lifting them, swinging them. Sometimes they even encourage me to do more shoulder-focused movements, which I need. 

You can shop for Indian clubs and books and videos on how to use them on Amazon.com. If you buy anything after clicking one of the links below, I get a small percentage.

 My abs are weak, but a lot of abdominal exercises in Insanity really are all about the hip flexors, those muscles that lift the legs. Mine are also pretty weak. It turns out that lifting one leg over and over again is a tougher workout than marching, or moving your legs in the same manner alternately. I guess that is because when you walk or march you give the hip flexor time to recover between each rep (or step). 

I have worked my way down from my starting max weight of 205 lbs to a minimum weight of 198, with about a 3-lb variance over the course of a day. My goal is to get comfortably under 200 with some solid muscle and less fat around my middle. I am capable of "sucking it in" with the best of 'em, showing some abdominal definition, but when I relax there is a significant pot that "dun-lopped" over my belt.

My ultimate goal is to have a functionally strong body that looks it, and to return to armored combat, grappling, and stage combat. I am a little concerned that my shoulder won't be ready and that my non-surgically repaired knee, injured last winter in a slip-and-fall, my need surgery before I return.

MORE TO COME...

Return to Training: New Boxing Gym

So, as regular followers of this blog may be aware, I have gotten back  into physical training lately. As part of that, a couple of months ago I visited a boxing gym around the corner from a place where I work. It is called Supreme Team Boxing. They also have MMA, kickboxing, muay thai, and BJJ. I signed up for a “ten-pack” of boxing classes that also allowed me to use the gym for doing my own workouts for a limited time.

For the first few weeks I failed to find the time to work their classes into my schedule. I tried the weight room, but being as this is more of a martial arts school than a fitness center, there was not the variety of benches, chairs, racks, and machines as one would expect. I was able to do some lifts and presses, and was not displeased by my strength level, though I know it is far lower than it has been during my periods of hard training.

The next time I went I decided to hit the mats when they were not being used and do some BJJ warm-ups and other equipment-free exercises. This was the first time I had done this sort of thing since before going to the IMCF world championships in 2014. My ACL injury had kept me from doing much grappling and after my surgery and recovery I had not gone back.

I nearly died. Even the simplest things, like forward and back rolls, were near-impossible. Moves that required push-up strength and grappling endurance beat me like an after-school bully. I pushed through as best as I could, and walked out of there with the realization that I had a way to go before I would be back in the fighting shape I used to be.

My gym membership at Absolute Power in my neighborhood had expired a year and a half ago. I had been going to the SCA fighter practices over the summer at which I would do three laps around the lawn before putting on my armor (down from my usual 5 laps that I had been doing for years). I had even done my combination run/workout at least once a week, either in my neighborhood or that of my GF. I had been noticing gradual improvements in my performance. I was already starting to be able to run further, I was advancing from doing one to two pull-ups at a time, and so forth. I was still well below my “fighting shape” performance metrics, however, so my substandard performance in the gym was not really a surprise.

So I kept on coming back for the next few weeks. I would play superhero movie themes or 1950’s rockabilly to get me energized. Then one day I realized I had time to try the boxing class…

Fitness update. Not there yet

so I started gong to the gym. First it was twice a week, doing 15 minutes on the eliptical and a full-body circuit on the weights. After a few weeks I switched to a 2-day split, pulling exercises and pushing exercises. Then I added a day for legs. I was feeling stronger, my body mass was shifting from fat to muscle, and I was adding weight and resistance to my exercises.

Then one day I found myself having to run three blocks to catch a bus. In combat boots. Pulling a small suitcase.

When I got to the bus there was a great cheer from all the passengers (no there wasn't, but I like to think there was). But I was out of breath, like I had been fighting in armor for a minute or so. In the course of the run my legs got tired lifting up those heavy boots. I realized what it was: I am still out of shape.

I went into the gym his week and decided to do functional movements; the warm-up exercises that we would do in Brazilian jiu jitsu class, for instance. They kicked my ass. These were things that wee never "easy," but in time, I was able to do. Now it's a drag to do more than one or two reps.

All those months of "healing" did my conditioning no favors. We got a lot of work to do.

The good news is that I discovered that yes, I can run again. The knee is no longer the problem. Now I an run every day if I want to. And I think I shall.

Look out world!