Exercise Doesn't Have to Make You Feel Bad

Had a great weekend and a good workout this morning. Saturday, I did an indoor bike ride of around 45 minutes. Not really a hard workout, but it was instructive. Doing the LSD (Long, Slow Distance) page left me feeling stiff in the legs and back. Not exactly the best feeling.

 Sunday was a lot more fun. I spent time mostly hanging out and playing with my daughter. We played chase (ever try to follow a little 7 year old through the trees? Not easy.) and jumped rope. The jump roping was fun, since I was able to work on double unders while I played. We did the normal "Cinderella, dressed in yella" rhyme while I did basic singles. Then, when it came time to doctor counting, I started doing double unders. I never got over 15, but I did feel a lot more comfortable doing consecutive double unders.

Today was a pretty nice day as well. This mornings workout was Tabata intervals of:

Kettlebell Swings (25#)
Sit Ups
Jump Rope (# revolutions)

I put a lot of effort into the workout, but it seemed to go by pretty quickly. I've done some Tabata interval workouts that seemed to take forever, so having one fly by was a nice change.

After the WOD, we worked on double unders a bit more, since they're the movement of the month. I've found there are a couple of tricks to double unders. One is learning wrist speed. Without the ability to move the rope, you can't jump over it. The second was how high to jump. I focused some time on each of these aspects and was again able to string together several double unders again. I'm definitely feeling better about my double unders now than I did at the beginning of the month.

Update:
The work out at Unity Martial Arts today was pretty tough on the legs. We worked on stances and kicks today. By the time I finished the workout, my legs were burning. Two workouts a day are pretty tough sometimes, even when one is a martial arts workout.

We worked on our back stances quite a bit. In addition, we worked on the transitions for our kicks. This is tough because you're standing on one leg and using that leg to push yourself forward into your next stance, all the while trying to stay low and keep your balance.Not easy at all.

Rest Day and Weight Lifting

Thursday was a good rest day. I did some stretching, but other than that I took it easy. It definitely gave me plenty of energy yesterday. I wasn't able to work out in the morning because of the rain. So, instead I had to wait for the evening.

It definitely had me bouncing around the office, not having worked out in the morning. It was kind of fun, really. I didn't feel sore or tired, even at the end of the day. Friday evening, I did my weight lifting workout, after a good warm up of course.

WOD:

Front Squat - 5x5
95, 115, 120, 120, 125

Clean and Press - 5x5
65, 75, 85, 95, 95

Dead Lift - 5x5
135, 155, 175, 195, 215

During the workout, I worked on my hook grip. It made the cleans and dead lifts easier to do, and even made my pull ups easier.

Today should be an interesting day. I'll try to work on more endurance stuff, probably an indoor bike ride. =D

Update:
Well, the only thing I really did today was an indoor bike ride. I set up the trainer and kept a pretty easy pace as I rode. I watched a TV show as I rode as well. I tried to change my pace a bit, but not too heavy. At the end of the "ride" I felt a little stiff, especially in the hips and knees.  Should be interesting to see how this shakes down over the rest of the weekend. 

And the Beat Goes On

I did more Met-Con this evening. It's pretty tough to come up with something else when we really don't have much equipment. I worked in some strength work, though, with kettle-bell swings.

The workout was:
AMRAP in 10 Minutes
12 Kettle-bell Swings (25#)
Shuttle Runs
10 Sit-Ups

I managed to get almost 9 rounds completed. I only needed 8 more sit-ups and a short trot back to the start line.

I scaled the workout for others, though. They used less weight and fewer reps for the kettle-bell swings. Of course, everyone still seemed to get a good workout. It's all about high "relative" intensity.

Right Back at It

I had a pretty good workout this morning. The work out I had planned included mostly met con work, with some weighted movements. As usual, I felt a little sleepy. Right up until I did the warm up.

For the workout, I did:

7 Rounds of:
10 Kettlebell Swings (25#)
Shuttle Run
10 Decline Push Ups

We then worked on double unders for a bit. I think all the jump rope work I've done so far has really made a difference. My single unders are getting better, I'm able to do crossovers pretty easily and able to do alternating double unders for awhile. I just need to keep working on it.

I ended up skipping my Karate class, though. I didn't drive to work and stayed in during the evening to hang with the family. It made things pretty restful, actually. It's surprising how much energy I have when I only work out once during the day.

A Long Day and a Rest Day

Saturday was a good day, although it was fairly long. Exercise wise, I did quite a bit, but at a low intensity pretty much all day. It started with almost 2 hours of martial arts. We worked mostly on push hands for the class.

I like push hands. It's a way to work on combat skills without the possible injuries of hard style sparring. I'm usually pretty good at it, too. We did several skill building exercises and  worked up to more freestyle push hands. I finished out the martial arts portion of the day with some push hands form work. Not exactly my finest hour, but I'm getting there.

After martial arts, I did an extra short Crossfit workout. I did 10-7-5 of reverse rows and dips, all on the rings. The work was pretty tough. I definitely need to work on my dips, though. I had a hard time with the dips, but managed to get through it.

Finally, I went on a bike ride for a date. The ride lasted a little over an hour, which was fine with me. I felt pretty good on the ride, although I need to get my "butt" callouses back.

On Sunday, I did normal rest-day activities. This included watching movies, walking the dogs and basically taking it easy. I made sure to stretch a bit, though to keep from being stiff and sore. I'll be all ready for Monday morning's workout.

More Met-Con Workouts

Tonight was a good night at Unity Martial Arts. We have a "Focus Class" on Tuesday evenings, where we work on material outside of 'normal' belt progression material. Tonight we worked on sparring. Sparring in itself can be a tough workout. Sensei Tanner made it a little harder by having us concentrate on kicks. This meant we wore out our legs during the sparring exercises.

For our workout, I concentrated on metabolic conditioning again. Our WOD was:

As Many Rounds As Possible In 7 Minutes of:
Shuttle Runs
10 Burpees

I only managed to finish 5 Rounds and a shuttle run before the 7 minutes was up. My legs were burning, especially during the burpees. I almost used the shuttle runs as recovery efforts for the burpees.

A Jump Rope, a Stop Watch and Some Intensity

For today's workout, the stuff in the title is all we needed, and we really didn't need the jump rope. I usually include some jump rope in the warm up, simply because it's so universal in what it covers. Coordination, aerobic capacity, plyometric movement; all of this stuff is included in the basic jump rope. Add in some cross-overs and double-unders and you're set.

After the warm up, we did today's equipment free WOD :

For Time:
15 Squats, Push Ups, Sit Ups
20 Squats, Push Ups, Sit Ups
25 Squats, Push Ups, Sit Ups
30 Squats, Push Ups, Sit Ups

I managed to finish in about 13:38. The workout started off seemingly too easy. However, the final exercises were much slower. I ended up having to break up the final exercises into groups and 10 and, sometimes, 5.

Wow. It should be interesting to see the improvement when we do this workout again.