Ceejbot

Another boring workout record.

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:27:29 -0800

Heavy weights day yesterday. The pattern was 4 sets of 10 reps, for each of the exercises. The weights chosen were at the hard end for everything, so that I was struggling through the last few. And to make things more interesting, my additional task was to complete 100 for-real full-body-length pushups in the hour, splitting them up any way I wanted.

lower chest press (Hammer machine), 90#
lat pulls (Hammer machine) inclined bench press, 65#
stiff-legged deadlifts, 95# (115# for the last set)
abductors/adductors on machines, 195-ish plate settings
bicep curls, 40#
skullcrushers for triceps, 40#

After the inclined bench press, my chest muscles were dead and I had absolutely nothing to put into the pushups. Fortunately I had only 20 left by that time, and the stiff-legged deadlifts gave me time to recover.

Guess how sore I am today. Just guess!

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-3)

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:38:11 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-3):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Angie take 4.

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:48:58 -0800

The Crossfit Angie: the number 100. 100x pullups, pushups, situps, and squats. My time last time: 20:30. My time this time, with the same modifications: 16:55. I like that improvement!

Also today: kettlebell snatches, 12kg bell, alternating arms with the exchange performed between the legs, at the bottom of the swing, instead of at the top of the swing. Nice variation.

More squats.

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:34:57 -0800

Oh, god, more squats today. We returned to a Crossfit-like exercise that my trainer invented for me a long time ago, when I was still working up to the intensity level of Crossfit.

15 squats
10 leg lifts
5 pushups
10min, AMRAP

I did 7 rounds whenever it was I first did this, and 10 rounds today. If I’d had 10 more seconds, I’d have completed 11 rounds. That improvement is 100% cardio, I imagine.

The rest of the session was kettlebells and jump-rope, with a few wall-balls in there just to torture me. Swings + side-steps with a 16kg bell. Figure-eights with an 8kg bell. Cleans + presses with a 16kg bell, and you better believe those were push-presses, omg my shoulders.

I did Turkish get-ups with an 8kg bell, but not straight. My trainer had me pause in the bridge position and swing my leg back and forth 10 times before I completed the get-up. This is to improve my strength in that position and shake out any lurking weaknesses in my technique. Oof.

I link to that particular get-up video often because I think it’s the best I’ve seen on Youtube for explaining the Turkish get-up and how to practice it. There are some bad ones out there, showing versions of the exercise that are corrupted to the point of uselessness. The TGU is a truly excellent exercise.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-27)

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:29:46 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-27):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Tabata This!

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:05:37 -0800

I’ve done this twice before, but I can never manage to remember my numbers for it. Here’s the Crossfit Tabata This:

pullups
pushups
situps
squats
20 seconds on, 10 seconds resting
for 8 rounds total
count reps for each round, record total & round with the lowest reps

As per usual: jumping pull-ups, kneeling pushups because I am a wuss. Everything improved this time. Everything: lowest rep count, total rep count, for every exercise. Also, better consistency. For most of them, I improved by a count of 1 rep per round, and for some of them 2 reps per round. Biggest improvement was in the squats, which have always been my strongest exercise of these.

I always feel like cardio is my worst fitness problem. It’s always holding me back. But I guess it’s still getting better every time even though it never feels like it.

Also in today’s workout: stretching and kettlebells. I did windmills with the 12kg bell. And then I did a rather nasty interval workout with the 20kg bell:

do one good hard-style swing
swing and shift grip to hold the bell at chest level
squat with the weight held in front
repeat for 10 secs, then rest for 10 secs
repeat for 20 sec on, 20 sec rest
then again for 30 sec on/off
repeat the 20 second round
then repeat the 10 second round
then collapse and rest and do it again

I managed to get in 2 reps of swing/swing/squat in each 10 second round. This was shockingly cardio-riffic, thanks to that heavy heavy bell. (But the squat would have been boring with a lighter kettlebell, alas.)

Crossfit Barbara, take 3.

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:53:09 -0800

See my writeups of previous attempts for my usual mods to scale down the exercise to my level of wimpiness. This time, kneeling pushups, so the benchmark time to use was 19:22. Today’s time? 14:45. Oh yeah!

I love to think about the totals for Barbara:
60 body rows
90 pushups
120 situps
150 squats

Also today:

Lunges while holding 2 12kg bells in the rack position. Fast walking on a 16deg inclined treadmill, which let my heart rate recover after those lunges, which were nasty.

12kg Turkish get-ups, this time just straight get-ups with no breakdowns of the moves. And I did the best TGUs I’ve ever done. Oh yeah! They’ll get even better before I’m done.

Tabata intervals swinging a 16kg bell.

Plank variants, with my hands braced on a pair of really heavy bells so I could move my feet around.

Top five tech fails of the year.

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:06:31 -0800

Top five tech fails of the year.:

Woohoo! I like the word “incomprehensible”. It’s perfect.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-20)

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:21:18 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-20):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Bench press.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:22:23 -0800

I almost forgot to record the truly important thing from last week: in addition to the new personal best of 205# on the deadlift, I also set a new benchpress mark for myself! I successfully pressed 115#. Yay! I’d been stuck at 105# for a while.

It’s kinda funny to pound out 10 quick reps with the bare bar (which is 45# by itself) and remember when pressing just that was a difficult thing. No wonder pushups were impossible when I got started.

Heavy upper body work

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:09:13 -0800

Friday was heavy leg day. The sled on the leg press thingie weighs 60#, I learned, which meant I was pressing 290# total. Sumo squats (which means very wide stance) holding a 75# weight were easy in comparison. Overhead squats were harder work. Calf stuff, abductors, adductors, other leg stuff, blah blah blah. I forget what I did. I don’t think I even hurt the next day despite the heavy weights.

I will not be so lucky after today’s workout. Today was an upper body day, and a nice traditional weight-lifting day.

inclined chest press, 2 x 20# dumbbells
single arm rows, 45#
skull crushers, 45#
shoulder press, 2 x 15# dumbbells
bicep curls, 2 x 15# dumbbells
narrow grip chest press, 25# barbell
cable face pulls, 30#
cable tricep extensions, 25#
narrow grip lat pull-downs, 45# (I think)

As usual, done in 3-exercise groups, 3 sets of each, then stretching before moving to the next 3 exercises. By the end of this I could barely lift my arms. Most of these exercises were to the point of failure at the end; that is, I needed my trainer to help me through the last few forced reps. My chest is going to be so sore tomorrow.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-13)

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:56:55 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-13):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

What's even more fun.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:01:21 -0800

Rocket-jumping in bear form before, during, and after the airship battle.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-6)

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:11:32 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-6):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Crossfit Helen, take 2.

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:18:00 -0800

Helen
3 rounds for time
400m run
21 kettlebell swings @ 24kg
12 pull-ups

Last time I did this in 17:23. This time, slower, gah! 17:40. I was completely surprised, since I did a lot of running at 5.5mph, including most of the last round. I wonder if it was transit across the gym floor to the place where I did the jumping pullups. I felt strong. Oh well. (Note that the kettlebell swings in the video I linked to display some very bad form. You should not be using your arms and shoulders to lift the bell like that. Ugh.)

I will find consolation in reflecting on the heavy weightlifting I did in the rest of the session.

deadlifts @ 205#, new personal best
back squats @ 135#, new personal best
bench press @ 105#, repeat of existing personal best, 3 reps this time!

I also did lat pulldowns on a cable machine. Some day. Some day. A bodyweight pullup. I dream.

Crossfit Kelly, take 2.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:49:00 -0800

Kelly as specced:
5 rounds for time
400m run
30 box jumps
30 wall balls, 20#

The box jump height isn’t specified; I did a 12” jump. Also, a 14# ball. And three rounds.Yes, I am a wuss, and these are the same mods as on my first try back in June. (I ran a quarter mile each time, though, and that’s very slightly longer than 400m!) On the first try my time was 26 minutes something or other. I shaved off a minute today, for a time of 25:15. All of my improvements were in the running portion: I maintained 5.5mph for a while on the run! This is so vastly much better than before that I’m boggled.

Wall balls still slaughter me, though. The whole thing was one huge cardio burn. My heart rate was at 180 when I got onto the treadmill for the last round.

The rest of the hour was TRX stuff that was hard enough that my hands are still shaking an hour later.

Crossfit Annie, take 2

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:13:03 -0800

Crossfit Annie is one of the simplest Crossfit workouts there is. To recap:

50/40/30/20/10 reps, done for time
double-under rope jumps
situps

My substitution was to do twice the number of regular rope jumps instead of double unders. (I still can’t do them reliably enough. Woes.) So in total, 300 rope jumps and 150 situps.

My time on my first attempt was 14:53. This time I did it in 12:51. Two minutes faster, woot! And really, it was all about cardio fitness, because my muscles did not fail until the very last round of situps.

The rest of the hour was spent doing two reps of a 9-exercise circuit. Each exercise is repeated continously for 1 minute.

single leg hamstring curls, 30 secs per leg
kneeling pushups, hands on dumbbells for instability and depth
ab crunches on a balance ball
bicep curls, 20# bar (or something really light like that)
single leg box squats, 30 secs per leg
Smith machine body row
stiff-legged deadlifts with 2 30# dumbbells
Arnold shoulder press, 10# per hand
extended plank, sort of, with arms stretched overhead gripping the bar used for the rows

My abs were toast, and those crunches were hard. Welcome back to work after a week off, oh muscles of mine.

Resolutions for the month of December.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:56:19 -0800

I shall go back to the climbing gym at least once a week! My toes still aren’t quite right, but they’re good enough to climb with again. I miss the fun of climbing.

I shall make at least one visit to the gym for self-directed fitness-related program activities, sans trainer. In other words, I’m gonna show myself I can drive myself hard and get a great workout on my own.

I shall not drink too much heavily spiked eggnog, no matter how delicious it is.

I shall drive my ridiculous sportscar somewhere ridiculous on a sunny day, at least once.

I shall finish building my first model airplane, the lovely Supermarine Spitfire, no matter how frustrating it is.

I shall get out of the house for some brand-new experience, exactly what I don’t know yet.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-29)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:12:57 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-29):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Mountain Athlete exercises

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:18:42 -0800

Mountain Athlete exercises:

Crossfit-like exercises using kettlebells and traditional weights, for general fitness and climbing fitness. Each exercise is shown in a video with explanations. Nice complicated hard stuff.