Fitness update: Restart, and Some Thoughts

 So, after the 100 Minutes War (which resulted in the most cut, ripped, shredded body I've had in a long time), my two-job schedule and an up-tick in court activity regarding my Old Homestead kept me away from my Insanity workouts for a few months.

I noticed an up-tick in my weight back above 205 lbs, and I simply did not feel as strong as I had before. I had switched my push-up technique to what I thought would a more proper form that would make me stronger, but by rep count went down from 37 to 20 or lower.

So I decided to start slow. I did a one-hour long "Power Yoga" workout from a thrift shop DVD to reawaken my body, then went back to the first workout in the Insanity program.

A sample of the yoga video workout I used:

The yoga went well enough. My flexibility was a smidgen better than it had been the first few times I had tried it before beginning the Insanity workouts, but as for that first Insanity workout? FORGET IT! My strength was lagging behind my cardio, and my cardio was for shit! I dogged the last few exercises, and still felt beat up when I was done. Who knew that so much of the gains I had made would go away after two months of inactivity?

I had thought to do just one week of beginning Insanity and go back to where I had left off (two weeks into the second month) but that was out of the question. If I couldn't even get through the first day? I decided to just start over from scratch.

It wasn't completely from scratch, though.  I did have that slight bit more flexibility. I was able to lift my leg higher in moves like the "Heisman."

I also had learned, discovered, and used a few things that I figured out:

Don't drink orange juice right before a workout.

Don't chug a large amount of any liquid and then jump into the work out. Begin your hydration/pre-workout supplement intake several good minutes before, so the liquid can settle and start to be absorbed.

Take small sips of whatever you drink during the workout. You can chug when you are through.

It is OK to take a few seconds extra rest if you are not ready to continue, if it is important for you to do the reps, rather than to get used to working out when you are exhausted, or to finish in a certain time. I have not been able to really work out when I am exhausted.

There is a difference between stopping because you would have to work harder, and working harder so you don't stop. It's a choice.

And finally, you may not have time to get everything you want to say into one blog post, so when time is short, just post it and move on.

Fitness Update: Return to SCA Armored Combat: 100 Minutes War 2021

That's me in the lower right corner walking away after being "killed" in the skirmish.
Photo by Joshua Gershon Feldman.
 

https://vimeo.com/648215731
You can see me running into battle and raining down blows at 0:31 and 1:34.

While a person should always strive towards fitness as a way of life and part of a complete health regimen (not "regime," as I have seen, surprisingly often, written by folks in the fitness industry). It is, however fun to have an activity goal towards which your fitness regimen is pointed. It helps give you focus, choose what exercises to do and fitness principles to follow, and gives you an objective towards which you can measure your success.

For me, medieval armored combat in the Society for Creative Anachronism is my goal this year, returning to it after some years off due to a shoulder injury and the subsequent surgery, which followed some time of from a knee injury (Well, I did do some fighting at practices and the Pennsic War, but that was, as I said, limited).

I had never done a video workout program until I found a cheap copy of BeachBody's "Insanity"  Workout with Sean T. As regular readers of this blog know, I have started that program a few times, but never got much past the first level. This time I have made it past the first level and am almost finished with the second, and though I am not doing as well in the individual workouts as I have in the past, (whether my muscles or my cardio giving way, set by set, before the end of some of the workouts, so I fail to do all the reps or last out the entire time).

So this spring and summer, when the SCA fighter practice opened up, I served as marshal, not fighting, but rather keeping an eye on the other fighters' safety and instructing where I could. I let other people borrow what armor of mine fit them, because I wasn't using it. 

The reason for this was that I still didn't feel that my shoulder was up to snuff. The strength disparity between my two shoulders is still quite great, and there are some positions towards which my arm just won't get. I can do all the mechanics of sword-swinging that I know, but the right shoulder gets tired before the left one does, and I am still not quite sure if it will hold up to a sudden strain.

So I have been making sure to do extra exercises on my shoulders. I use Indian clubs in the Insanity warmups to give just a little resistance to the arms in things like jumping jacks and the "Heisman" move. This has helped a little. I still feel like there is a ways to go.

So when I finally decided to put the armor on, I fought in the style I had been using before the surgery: Inverted great sword n my right hand, arming sword in my left. It is a style that some people do in the SCA, though I have no idea of its historicity. By holding the great sword by the ricasso (the part just above the cross--guard on the blade), the hilt is high enough to guard my head, while the blade is long enough to protect my leg (if held in the correct location).

I had not worn armor for that long continuously in what felt like years, and certainly had not fought in a melee since Pennsic 2019. But then again, most everyone else had not fought in a melee since the COVID shutdown either. Less than halfway through the battle, my left bicep was sore and tired from holding my greatsword up. I was limited in my hand use because my right-hand gauntlet was locked in a gripped position due to some damage it had taken. I was able to run to and from the resurrection point at the beginning, but towards the end the best I could manage was a brief sprint followed by a quick march.

Being as my greatsword was not as long as a spear nor wide as a shield, my effectiveness in the front line was minimal. Most of what I did, then, was stay behind the lines, direct some traffic (telling spearmen and shieldmen where they were needed based on the calls of the local commander). then, when there was a push from the other side, I would jump in to help out where I could. Sometimes that could mean pounding on someone's head, sometimes pushing against a charging shield wall, sometimes charging against several spearmen to keep them from stabbing other guys.

The battle was on a field longer than it was wide, sloping up from the ends to a crest of a ridge anout one-third of the field away from one end. At that crest there were several picnic tables and a small rock garden that were off limits to fighting. So the top of that ridge, being the narrowest part of the field, was where the battle raged, as the two armies faced each other. They fenced with spears seeking to attrit the other side until an opportunity for a push occurred. But, like the Western Front in WWI, no push made much in the way of territorial gain.

This actually was not much of a strategic problem, as this was a "resurrection" battle, meaning that when a fighter was "killed," they were to go back to their startline, where they would be counted, then "resurrected" and sent back into battle. That is what makes the 100 Minutes War such an endurance test, has a relatively stable front line when in a location like this, and was the perfect sort of battle to break our quarantine from fighting.

There were a few issues with calibration early on, but plenty of expressions of relief and joy at getting back into this mix when it was all done. 

https://vimeo.com/648215731
You can see me in the foreground at 1:45.

Some of the best moments for me:
I saw a small line of enemy shield men one rank in front of their main line. I was to their right, and a left-handed shieldman was anchoring that corner. I had decided, going into that day, that I would find an opportunity to charge across the line, knocking through spears and clonking heads as I went. i figured that this would be that time. Charged across the three spearmen to the right iof this forward line, miraculously not getting stabbed, and crashed into that left-handed shieldman. I pushed that entire group off the line.

I saw a shieldman who had joined a charge and there was no one in front of him. I stepped up and started pounding his shield repeatedly so he could not advance or swing his sword (until I got speared by someone else).

I took a spearpoint to my left arm, so I was now stuck holding my greatsword with my right arm. I found a local commander and said "I have a greatsword and one arm. Where do you need me to die?" He pointed out a mass of fighters that he said were about to charge the line, and told me to stop them when they did.

They charged, and I put my sword, body and face into the first shieldman coming at me. I held my sword horizontally at stomach height, and it wound up holding back three of the enemy. I then proceeded to rotate, using my sword to make the line wheel to their back-left. It actually took a while for the shieldman in contact with me to realize that he could simply bop me on the head!

I woudl love to tell more but this has been sitting in my "drafts" folder for a few months now and I have to move on.

But here is the punchline. When I got home that night and looked at myself in the mirros, my body looked cut! Shhredded,! more definedly muscular than I have ever seen it in my life! I guess the Insanity workouts had been helping, and then three hours in armor just really brought it all out!

Unfortunately, an uptick in my workload and increased court activity regarding my old homestead kicked my ass for the next few months and my strength and fitness level went down and weight went up. So now I am starting Insanity from the beginning all over again :(

FITNESS UPDATE: Pushups

 One of the weakest aspects of my "Insanity" workouts is the pushup. When it comes time to do any kind of pushup in the routine, I am toast. I can't do as many, as fast as Sean T demands, and I wind up having to do them off my knees, or slower, or not as deep. Or I just hit point of failure long before the set is done.

I have a long, on-again, off-again relationship with the pushup. Almost always I have been able to squeeze out at least ten, but doing any more than that has required a period of regular exercise, doing them every day, and complimenting the work with other exercises for the arms, chest, and shoulders.

There are many different ways that people do even the most basic pushup. This is a pretty good video of one very effective method.

Some years ago there was a Facebook mem going around that said "One 'like' = 5 pushups" I posted it, and got  enough likes to do 150 pushups. I turned on my camera and was able to crank out 50 before failure. I promised that I would train up to 150.

Someone sent me a link to a website that had a training regimen (no "regime." Learn your vocabulary, all you fitness gurus) that promised to get you top 100 pushups. It started from whatever number you said you could do now, then gave you a place to start and a progression that would get you there if you trained five days a week.

(I can't find that website any more)

For me this began with doing four set of 16, 20, 20,and 16 (I think) with timed rests between sets. Each day it added more pushups. I got to the point where I could do about 40 reps per set (give or take with each set), but that workout near killed me. I decided to take a rest day, and never got back to it. But 40x4 is 160, so while it wasn't in one set, I did reach my 150 in a single session.

I am nt sure if this is the same website, but it promises the same result: 100 pushups.

In time I learned different kinds of pushups. 

• There are "Hindu pushups" that involve going through a couple of yoga positions. 
• There are pushups that alternate with swinging your arm and body up sideways. 
• There are "moving pushups" where you "walk" sideways in pushup position, doing a pushup between "steps." 
• You can do pushups on your fists, and fingers, and with your hands together, making a "diamond" with your thumbs and forefingers. 
  
• You can do pushups while in a "downward dog" or "pike" position (there is a difference) in a variety of ways, and get a different result from each one.
• There are "man-makers," in which you are holding on to dumbells on your way down and up, then pull one of them up like a "row" when you get to the top. 
  
• You can swing the dumbell up in front of you when you get to the top,  instead of "rowing" it up.
• There are "pushup jacks" Where you spread you legs like doing a jumping jack when you go down, and bring them together again on the way back up.
• There is the "in-out abs" pushup, in which you start in a squat with hands on the floor, kick your feet out and do a pushup, then jump your legs back into a squat.
• There are even pushups that you can do while squatting and by going to to one elbow after another.

Each of these different kinds of pushups hits different muscles and muscle groups. Some give more of a cardio burn than others. but all of them have in common the shoulder, chest, and triceps work that defines "pushing."

So when I can't do these pushups in the routines, I felt that I am cheating myself of the full potential benefit of the program. So I decided to start doing more pushups, more often, on my own time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few videos with a variety of push-ups in each of them:

 

 

 

 

Now, at my night job, I try to do at least three sets of 20, or to failure. I try to mix up the type of pushups. Lately I have been doing the "swinging the arm up" type, the "walking" type, and the "Hindu" style, in addition to the regular ones. I also try to throw in a set at home when I am bored, or distracted or have just completed some small task, like washing the dishes or completing a portion of my day-job work, or didn't get a chance to do them at my night job.

So far my top number of reps without stopping is 29, but if I miss a few days, that number goes down. I guess I just don't have a strong enough "base layer" of fitness to be able to keep up that level fitness without constantly working at it.

So I will continue to fight the card that nature gave me, and may I will get to 50 reps soon. Maybe I will even get to the 150 I promised! Won't that be a sight!

FITNESS UPDATE: Insanity progression

Well, I made it through the first stage of "Insanity," the Beachbody workout program that I have been doing for the past couple of months. It only took me six weeks to get through the four-week stage of the program, being as I could only work out 3-5 times a week instead of the 6 days a week the program has scheduled. I don't know if this negatively impacted my progress. I do know that I did see some progress, because the "Fit Test" showed gains on most of the moves. Also, I was able to do some of the exercises better at the end than the first time around.

During the "recovery week," the program provided a specific workout to do five days in a row. It took me two weeks to get in five workout days, and I decided to alternate the ":recovery" workouts with the "upper body weight training" workouts, because I want more upper body weight training. 

I don't think this is fighting against the intention of the program too much for a couple of reasons:

1. The recovery workouts, both in this period and once a week during the regular program, are low on the cardio, as is the UBWT. 

2. Those recovery workouts focus on building strength, as does UBWT.

The one big difference is that the recovery workouts really focus on building leg strength, while the UBWT, of course, is about the upper body.

Leg strength is really important in building cardio, it seems. Most of the exercises involve variants of running, jumping, hopping, and squatting. I have found that my ability to complete a set is dependent on my cardio and my leg muscle endurance being both better, and at an equal level. I can tell when my lungs and heart are not done but the legs won't move any more, and when the legs can still do more, but I can't breathe and my heart is about to explode.

I am still using the Indian Clubs to augment my shoulder-arm workout. In fact, as I get stronger, I use them more. Although their weight combined is barely equal to my daily weight range, I can feel the resistance and it does add marginally to  my fatigue, but particularly in the shoulders.

I also notice that the way the clubs are held affects the exercize. When held at the bottom of the handle, the clubs can be swung, creating the opportunity to exercise my fingers and sword-gripping muscles (hand and forearm). Also, when at arms length, they feel heavier. If I choke up on them, I am still holding the same weight, but the stress is different. In some moves where I am supposed to pretend I am punching something, I adapt to striking them with the clubs. SCA-style.

More to come...

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...

Fitness Update: Lessons being learned 7/23/2021

 You can support this blog by buying this product through this link. Or click on the link and then buy a different product. Either way, I get a small percentage of the sale :)

 So I have been at the "Insanity" fitness videos for the past month or so (Click on the Amazon product ad above for more into about it). While they are designed to be done 6 out of 7 days, I am lucky to get in as many as five, more often, three or four, but I have tried to make up for some of those missing days with a 30-minute workout I found on YouTube, or a routine with various weights I have at home. This is mostly because my double-work schedule often means that if I am home and not working, I must chose between sleeping and doing anything else in the world, and sleeping is the thing that most needs to be done.

That having been said,  I have discovered a few things:

Initially, my cardio was stronger than my muscles, meaning my legs would give out before my cardio reached its peak. The muscles have been catching up a little bit, though, or else my cardio has gotten a little worse.

I need to do squats and other leg exercises with weights, because on pure body weight I am just not getting the power I need.

About 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a set, I find my self flagging. I can dig in and do the move great about 3 or 4 times, then I fall out again.

Judging by my push-ups and chest presses, much of my chest size must be fat, not muscle.

My serratus anteriors are starting to show definition, if you look real hard.

There is a layer of fat around the middle of my torso. It juggles on my back when doing things like "floor sprints" and "in-and-out abs. It is still there, but it is "jiggling' just a little bit les, like it is becoming more solid.

My weight can vary as much a 3 lbs a day!

My weight was getting just under 200 lbs, when I went to a wedding. The next day I was at 304lbs. I could not get back under 200 lbs until just yesterday, after a couple of days in which I spent most of the daytime in bed, asleep, after working overnight shifts. Maybe that weight was just bloat from eating?

As the program goes on, I am using a pair of Indian clubs I have by carrying them in my hands through the warm-ups and some of the regular exercises. I started after the first week, and have been gradually increasing the number of sets I do with them in my hands. They combined weight is barely equal to my daily weight fluctuations, but it does add just a bit of resistance to the movement of my arms, particularly if I hold them at the ends of the handles during certain moves. I consider the number of times I pump my biceps and shoulders when jogging in place, doing the "Heisman, or jumping jacks, that little bit of resistance must be accentuating the work out here just a little bit. Eventually I will move up to wearing my steel gauntlets, which I did the last time I went though a hardcore period of these workouts.

But these workouts alone will not get me back to anything near my top physical shape, I don't think. For that I have to get back to serious weight training, fighting in armor, and doing kickboxing, BJJ, or both, five days a week. For that, I will have to quit one of my jobs.

Stay tuned...

Fitness Update: Actual "Worst Shape of My Life." Part 2

 ...but before I tell you exactly what happened, let me describe just a little bit more of my fitness journey. Bear with me, it won't take long and everything else will make more sense.

I had started fitness training (mostly weights) from the influence of a friend of mine whom I would later start dating. I found that it very positively affected my fighting in the Society for Creative Anachronism. I later took up Brazilian jiu jitsu, competing in 50 matches, and then full-contact medieval armored combat, going to world championship competition with the USA team for three years.

Here is possibly the most epic match of my competitive grappling career:

With each of these new challenges I found myself experiencing more means by which to gain strength and endurance and reached new levels of fitness. At my peak I was doing some form of training or fighting five or six days a week. My weight ranged from just under 180 lbs to a bit above 190 lbs depending on what I was training for.

In addition to the SCA armored combat and the BJJ, the training I did included weightlifting, running, Crossfit, kickboxing, Insanity videos. and various bodyweight exercise drills.

Then I tore the ACL in my right knee:

I still trained, but I was unable to fight, and when I got my knee surgically repaired, I was unable to train in certain ways until I was fully healed.

Then I tore my rotator cuff (sadly, no video of this exists). This again limited my training, as there were things I just could not do with my shoulder after that.

Then other "life stuff" got in the way and my weight ballooned to over 200 lbs. I took pictures of myself. I can "suck it in" with the best of 'em, but when I released my belly, I honestly looked like the fat guy with skinny arms.

When I decided to get back to training, I started the Insanity videos again. This time, however, I could actually feel the fat on my torso jiggling up and down when doing any routine that involved having my hands on the floor. It was disconcerting. But progress was being made. I would wear my steel gauntlets  and padded gambeson while doing Insanity videos, getting a little extra resistance and sweat in my workout...and then my room got hit with the "Order to Repair/Vacate Order"....and that brings us up to date.

So, after the yoga, and looking at my bathroom scale not making the number go down below 205, I started up with the Insanity again.

I determined that my muscles were not as strong as my cardio. They would get too sore and tired to continue before I would get too out of breath to continue. I felt the jiggling of the fat in my chest and my stomach when doing running and jumping things, and again I felt the fat around my torso bounce up and down as I did "floor sprints" and other hands-on-floor exercises.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT POST AND FIND OUT!