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The Turkish get-up torture.

Today I did Turkish get-ups with a 12kg kettlebell. Only I didn’t just do get-ups; I did them in stages just like in this training video. Three reps of each motion, working on getting the form right at each stage. This was an excellent thing to do, because my left-side get-up got better. Also, it was a great workout. TGUs are not easy for me. On the third set of this, my left arm started failed. This, of course, is because bad form exhausts the arm muscles.

It’s also amazing to me how much harder the exercise got when I moved from an 8kg bell to a 12kg bell.

What else? Lots of flexibility work on the TRX and a stepping stool. And a fiendish plank variation that had me moving from elbow to hand with one arm, then with the other, then back down again. That is, start in a standard on-elbows plank, move to a pushup position, then go back down. Ferocious. And in the category of exercise I call “pushup-related program activities”. As were the bench presses. 3 sets of 8 reps at 75#, with strict attention to hand position to make sure I’m working on the muscles that get activated during a proper pushup.

One more fiendish thing today: V-sits combined with bicep curls, with 12.5# dumbbells. Oof. I have observed that my trainer has moved me along to more complicated exercises. I never do plain things any more. Like crunches. I didn’t just do crunches today, oh no. I did crunches with an 8kg kettlebell held overhead.

Death by kettlebell.

Today’s exercises were a variety pack. Kettlebells, TRX for the trendy (yet difficult) stuff. My quadriceps were on fire when I arrived at the gym, thanks to Wednesday’s Crossfit Fran. TRX squats did not help matters. Neither did this kettlebell exercise:

2 snatches
on 2nd snatch, lower bell to rack position
squat
10 reps each arm, repeat for 3 sets.

I did it with a 12kg bell. Feel free to use a heavier bell if you’re beastlier than I am. My shoulder muscles failed on the last few reps of this. Really an awesome, well-rounded exercise. Cardio, abs, legs, shoulders all get engaged.

Also fun today: 40 second planks with a 25# plate resting on my back. Because regular planks are no longer hard enough, or something like that. 3 repetitions of that, alternating with 2 minutes on a treadmill at the steepest setting, and I was definitely wiped.

I’m also working on improving my pushup form by doing deep chest presses on the TRX. Some day I’ll do a good pushup…

Crossfit Fran, take 5, I think.

Today I did Crossfit nasty girl workout Fran, which, as you know, Bob, consists of
thrusters (65# women, 95# men)
pull-ups
21 - 15 - 9 reps each

My mods: 45# thrusters, jumping pull-ups.
My time this attempt: 8:04.

Last attempt my time was 10:31, with the same modifications. So! I do continue to improve! And I definitely consider Fran to be a reasonable fitness benchmark. My heartrate peaked at 178 and never dipped below 163 while doing this.

I gots shoulders.

I’m not sure I had shoulders before. I definitely have shoulders now. And I don’t just mean “my shoulders are wider”, though they probably are visibly wider than they were. I mean that I, as a person with a body, am conscious of having shoulders in a way I’ve never been before.

There’s muscle in them. Bulk that I can feel moving. Muscles in my back, making me stand up straighter than I ever have before. Muscles I can flex as I sit here in my chair.

Muscles that are sore after yesterday’s kettlebell extravaganza.

Heavy kettlebells.

Today’s theme was “kettlebell exercises I have done before, but heavier this time!”

3 sets of:
15 back extensions
planks, one arm and opposite leg raised, 15 secs each pair
2 minutes on stationary bicycle set to a very high level of resistance

3 sets of:
15 figure 8s, 16kg
30 swings, 24kg

Turkish get-ups with a 16kg bell (One solid get-up on each side, yay!)
clean and press, 20kg then 16kg (20 was too heavy for the press)
snatches with 20kg bell, 4 or 5 each side (ran out of time)

It’s amazing how swinging a heavy kettlebell hits my heartrate. I’m going, going, going, swinging just fine, then wham! Hello max heart rate! I did some figure-8s with a 20kg bell, just to learn what it felt like to handle that weight. Interesting. You really need to use your glutes to fire everything, or the weight just doesn’t move. Big muscles are powering the motions, and big muscles burn lots of oxygen.

Boxing.

Wednesday’s workout was nearly all boxing. I was in a bad mood because my former employer had laid off more of my former colleagues, so hitting something was a nice distraction. I stood on a high stool while Trainer Jeff lifted the sandbag up to me. Hooks in place, big hook into the eyelet on the support beam. Then he wrapped up my hands. That was interesting, and I can’t imagine boxing without wrapped hands ever again. Except that it’s a big time commitment; you can’t just leap into a bit of boxing-for-fitness if you stop to wrap.

So there I was, hands wrapped, gloves on, staring at 150 pounds of sand in a body-sized cylinder. It’s amazing how different it feels to punch that instead of punching at the gloved hands of my trainer. When I punch at him, I aim for his hands, which are away from his body. When I punch at the bag, I need to aim directly into it, at a point a few inches inside the bag. Aim anywhere else and I could hurt myself. But I can’t hurt anybody else. I’m punching at a thing, not a person, and wow, this frees me to punch. I was finally doing what I was supposed to do and getting my whole body into it. Hips, shoulder, legs. Fist into bag.

When I got the rhythm right, the bag didn’t swing much at all. I found it disconcerting when it did, because that’s a pretty big pendulum with a lot of inertia. Left right, left right, try to keep my feet in the right places, try to keep my hands in front of my face. Man, there’s a lot to learn for boxing. I know nothing!

There’s a huge power difference between left and right punches. Even when I set up a left with a right, the left foot is forward and it changes things. Fascinating. Also, I completely don’t get how to do uppercuts yet, not really.

Two days later my shoulder muscles are still sore from this. I find that fascinating as well. It’s aerobically intense, and I knew that from before, but I guess I hadn’t ever really put muscle into it before. And I was not conscious of having done so at the time.

Ouch.

Today was all with the core exercises and the planks on posture balls and the intensive short-duration cardio misery, blah blah blah. What I want to know is this: Why do wall sits hurt so much? And today’s wall sits involved going deeper and deeper as time went on, until I lost it and slid all the way to the floor.

But on the plus side, it’s for real and staying there: I’ve lost 10% of my body weight, without even for a second attempting calorie restriction. Woot for muscles!

Body image check time.

There’s been another drastic (well, drastic to me, anyway) shift in how my body looks. I doubled my weight loss, pretty much, in the months since I quit my job. I have much better control over what I eat now; no snacks and candy sitting everywhere. My only indulgence is the weekly dinner out with David, when I let myself eat too much sushi. And my body seems to have muscled up even more, so even though the weight isn’t gone, the composition has changed.

I was reading in the bath earlier today, and noticing that it took forever to fill the tub with hot water. (BPAL Gula bath oil, by the way. Yum.) And then when the tub was full, I was rattling around in it. I am smaller. There’s no overlooking it any more. I don’t think of myself as athletic but when I look down at my legs I have to reconsider that. They look so different from any way they’ve looked before in my life. Yeah, there’s pudge still, but there’s also muscle definition. Wild.

It’s taking a long time and it’s a lot of hard work. I enjoy the work, at least, and I really love how good I feel these days. I feel bouncy and energetic. I run up stairs like they’re not there. My posture is fabulous. But I guess it took me ten years to gain this weight, so it shouldn’t shock me if it takes five years to get it off again. This time I hope it comes off in a way that stays off.

Remind me to try climbing again this week. I think my toes can take it.

Grunt!

Chest muscle extravaganza day! Bench press! Dumbbell chest flies! Pushups against a bar! I definitely pressed 105# several times, then failed to press 115#. So for 115# and 125# we did eccentric work, which is to say, Trainer Jeff lifted and I lowered very very slowly. We also really worked on good bench press form, with my shoulders doing the right things and my entire body solidified. All of this is in service of some day doing a proper, excellent, perfect pushup.

I could press the bare 45# bar all day, I think.

Then, tons of leg stuff. Leg press with 90# plus whatever the press sledge itself weighs. Lunges. And squats. I stood on wooden blocks and did sumo (aka wide stance) squats with 85#, 95#, and 110# dumbbells. The heaviest was work just to hold onto, though of course I was turning the dumbbell on end and holding one of the weight clusters.

Also, hip abduction and adduction, and I can never remember which is which because I always do them in pairs anyway.

The usual workout.

Upper body today, with the usual intense cardio breaking up the muscle exercises. No gimmicks. 3 rounds of each of these groupings:

15x chest fly, cable machine
15x kneeling pushups on BOSU balance thingie, as deep as possible
1 min jumprope

15x 35# overhead cable tricep extension
15x 25# cable bicep curl
3x 100m rowing sprints, 30 sec rest between

12x each arm 15# dumbbell bicep curl
15x dips on the side of a bench
1 min side toe-tapping on the BOSU balance thingie, bouncy side up

I was pleased to notice no trouble from my formerly-broken toes on any of this. The rope-jumping was just fine.

Kettlebells!

Today was a core workout day, mostly using kettlebells.

Today’s workout started with a repeat of a kettlebell snatch test. There are lots of variations on the snatch test. The one we use is “how many times can I snatch a 12kg kettlebell in 3 minutes?” I can switch arms and rest at will. The first time I did it, I managed 60 reps exactly. I switched off arms every 10 reps, and was in a rest phase when time ran out. This time I was much more aggressive, and went for 20 reps per arm before swapping. I was at 50 reps when I took a short breather for the first time.

Total: 76 snatches in 3 minutes.

Windmills with bicep curls, which Trainer Jeff thinks will be the next big thing at the gym. Windmills are already nice and hard, and I like the balance shifting complexity added by the curl and press. The video doesn’t show exactly what he had me do, which was to alternate arms: curl to rack and press up with one arm, while the other is lowering the bell all the way.

Also, the infamous Turkish get-up! I did good get-ups on each side at 8kg, so Trainer Jeff decided to make me do 5 more reps on each side at 12kg. Right side good, left side ragged but much better than before.

Lunges. 12kg bell in each hand, swing ‘em up to rack position, then do 16 lunges, alternating legs.

Deep pushups, using two bells as handrests. Kneeling, because I cannot manage any depth at all with my full weight.

I was pretty wiped out by all this. The lunges killed me.