Friday, February 25, 2011

"That was me, Tommy Lasorda..."

TRAINING REPORT:

Wednesday is Kettlebell day, therefore Wednesdays are good days.  By the time the marathon rolls around, you'll be sick of hearing me yammer about Kettlebells.  As I've mentioned, I typically blog a day behind and I can comfortably say that I am still store from Wednesday's KB class.  AWESOME!  It's been a while since I've been sore from a workout.  Soreness is the feeling of progress!

I took my own advice from my last Kettlebell post and went heavier than I usually do.  I also went for simple.  Instead of swapping around 4 or more weights, I pulled only the 24kg (~50lb) and 16kg (~35lb) weights.  The workout was triple-sets -- 3 different exercises done back-to-back, repeated 3 times with ~30 seconds of rest in between.  An example would be 25 KB swings, 15 squats, and 10 push-ups.  Lather, Rest, Repeat.

Over the course of the workout, I ended up doing 75 swings, 10 snatches to each side, 3 Turkish get-ups on each side, 45 squats, 36 deadlifts, and 45 step-back lunges on each side all with the 24kg weight.  I did 45 Mason (aka Russian) Twists to each side and somewhere around a dozen overhead presses with the 16kg weight.  I had to drop down to a neighbor's 8 or 12 kg weight to finish out the overhead presses.

I had tried the snatches & get-ups with the 24kg KB before, but never as part of the actual workout (and I have done some workouts where I used the 32kg for lower body work and some sets of swings).  Having to maintain control of the larger weight as it moves around was definitely a good challenge to grip strength.  It also made the workout more rewarding to push outside of my comfort zone and have success.  

I'm still a long ways from my 2011 goal of being able to do a getup with the 32kg kettlebell, but I'm making progress.  Being able to hoist the 24kg weight from the floor to an overhead position in the getup 3x in a row was something I wasn't expecting I would be able to do when class started this week, but I knew I that I had to give it a whirl and I'm glad I did!

2011-FEB-23 Diet Log

MUSINGS:
It was a year ago this week that I started my two-week trial at Synergy Fitness.  That first group class was a slap-in-the-face reality check of how out of shape I really was.  I have been genetically blessed with a fairly active metabolism and a lousy, high fat, high carb diet combined with zero physical activity put me at a starting point where I was literally in the worst shape of my life and going the wrong way.  With twin infant girls, there were certainly realities of parenthood that would inevitably necessitate both more physical strength and certain more stamina than I possessed.

I threw myself at that first class.  It's similar to the BodyPump classes that involve moderate cardio with weights and a total body workout.  I learned that I couldn't do 10 normal pushups and that I apparently don't have any use for triceps on a day-to-day basis.  By the end of the class, I almost couldn't do the exercises with only arm-weight.  It wasn't that I was in pain (I was) or that I was gassed (I was), but I was at a point where my brain would send an instruction to perform a motion and the muscle was not capable of a response.

I lived on Ben Gay and Aleve for several days.  Everything hurt.  I could barely lift my arms to bathe or eat.  There were times where I resorted to using my left hand under my right elbow to help move the fork toward my mouth.  All major muscle groups were insanely sore to the touch.  That Monday and the aftermath was singularly the worst physical experience of my life.

On Tuesday, I went back and gutted it out through a Spinning class.  Lesson learned: cardio helps sore muscles.  The best my body felt for about 72 hours after Monday's class was the few hours after that spinning class on Tuesday.  Wednesday was a bit of time on the elliptical machine and Thursday, just barely starting to feel human again, was my first intro to Kettlebells.  I *may* have used something as heavy as the 8kg weight, but I know I stuck with the smaller KBs. Friday through Sunday I rested and then started all over again on Monday.  

In some ways, I miss that time.  The growth and progress was measurable.  Being sore the next day from a workout feels good in the sort of way that you feel like you accomplished something.  It is so much harder to get to that point today and the gains in terms of strength and the overall changes in physique that come with adding muscle and losing fat are much more incremental now. Setting big goals is my way of keeping motivation toward building a better me.  Declaring them "out loud" to anyone who will listen provides a level of accountability to stick with it and ensure I do what I said I was going to do.

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