Ran in the rain yesterday 1.3 miles in my new VFF Sprints (found a cheap pair to test at travelcountry.com). I was going for 2, but right after my third loop (out of 5) I felt an irritation on the top of my foot, and figured I’d better quit before I got a blister. Turns out something had either gotten under the fabric of the sprints at the top or it was the seam - not sure which. Run time: 10:50

Today I ran a slightly different route for one mile (intention was one mile) – time was 7:15!

I was (am still) fasted, so I did 10 pull-ups and 5 2x53 lb. kettlebell presses and called it quits.

Days are busy right now in anticipation of our new baby meeting the world.

Just did this route:

Loop around Lake Claire ‘hood.

Like a total noob, I took off running and hit the wrong button on my stopwatch. I realized this about a quarter mile in, so I successfully started my stopwatch about .4 miles in. My last .6 mile was done in 4 min 47 seconds, so I assume that I’m doing a sub-10 minute mile. I know, that is very slow, but that’s why I’m trying to interject regular runs into my workout routine — I’ve been a self-proclaimed hater of jogging and long-distance running* since I went through the chubby stage in middle school.

I felt pretty good and totally failed to have any of the “ugh this absolutely sucks and I want to stop” feeling. Plus, my knees didn’t bother me *at all.* So I’m encouraged by these factors.

Now, with my birthday shoes / vibram five fingers and a bit more “know how” as far as how to run properly**, maybe I won’t dread running so much. We’ll see.

* I actually loved running as a kid, particularly in kid track competitions. I even won a few times! Too bad I was only around 5 - 8 years old!

** Anyone know how to run down a hill using a midfoot strike? I’m doing it but I constantly feel like I’m about to fall over.

So today marked a rare day of cardio-only exercise:

5 minute warm-up on treadmill
10 minute mile
20 minutes on stationary (reclined) bike average 150 bpm pulse.

Sweat broken, heartrate ramped.

I do not enjoy running at all, which is why the back of my head keeps whispering, “You need to practice running.” I have no desire to get to running every day for long runs (say four plus miles per day). I don’t even want to get into two miles a day running. All I’d like to do is get to the point where I have some confidence in being able to run a mile or two in a decent time - say 16 minutes. And to get to that point, I’ve got a lot of training to do (if I really want to go for it).

We’ll see.

As an extension of yesterday’s departure from my regular workout norms (See Active Day, 500 Swings, M.E.G., and Positive Addiction 3/4/09), today’s workout was simple, different, fun, and worth working into my more regular workout repertoire.

So what did I do? — I set my watch at 30 minutes, grabbed my wife’s 18 lb kettlebell and just started doing kettlebell drills (i.e. Jeff Martone). The idea was never to let the kettlebell come to rest and to try and not think about the exercises too much. I made it a point not to count repetitions. I stayed as fluid as possible (not always easy to transition between certain kettlebell drills). I made up stuff to do with the bell. More typical drills I incorporated throughout were ATB, Figure-8s, Figure-8 uppercuts, swings, presses, flipping the bell (and pass flips), swinging the bell like a bat, swinging the bell laterally, hot potatoes, etc.

I only dropped the bell twice.

The workout was fun, different, and required little active thought. The concept driving this workout is, like yesterday’s 500 kettlebell swings, to achieve a transcendental or meditative state (a la Glasser’s Positive Addiction) via intense, fundamentally mindless, repetitive, and non-competitive exercise.

Something like today’s haphazard or random kettlebell drills just might accomplish the objective. I definitely managed to “lose myself” intermittently in today’s thirty minute session and the workout felt fast.

Further testing is required.

I followed up the above with 60 seconds (In total, 20/9/11/9/8/3) of frog stands in line with Christopher Sommer’s planche training).

Be active!

Today was a mix of things, to say the least. This morning, I did Tabata Thrusters with a 35 lb. kettlebell whereby I alternated arms on each set. I managed 10 reps per set for all 8 sets (So 10 reps in 20 seconds, 10 seconds of rest, switch arms, repeat).

Much later, I did 10x10 full body weights with dumbbells:

10x10 of:

35 lb. dumbbell front squats
35 lb. dumbbell bench press
35 lb. dummbell bent over row
Rest 1 minute

And 10x10 of:

10 lb. dumbbell lateral raises
15 lb. dumbbell curls
40 lb. single dumbbell overhead tricep extension
2x50lb. calf raises

Finished up with low intensity (avg. 115 bpm heart rate) stationary biking while I watched the full-length “Imaginationland” South Park from Season 11. That’s about an hour, eight minutes of low intensity cardio.

So yeah, today was a little over the top, but I had a lot of energy to burn, so it sort of evens out. Was an interesting experiment in excess, as well.

And I feel good – yay for endorphins!

Similar to yesterday, I did a cardio circuit – this time the standard C8B300. Took me a whopping 18 minutes to complete … I’m guessing b/c I had pigged out about 30 minutes prior to working out.

Rested about an hour.

Then, I made up my own cardio circuit – one that requires kettlebells. Here’s what I did:

Jog in place for 60 reps whereby both knees go up per rep
20 alternating kettlebell swings, flipping at each switch, 35 lb. kettlebell
20 split squats (10 per leg whereby one leg is bent back, resting on the bed while the other leg handles the squat)
10 ATB uppercuts (w/a flip) – 35 lb. kettlebell
60 second plank
20 air squats
10 35 lb. kettlebell swing/flip/press/flip/swing
10 70 lb. kettlebell swings
Rest 1 minute

Repeat for three total iterations.

Time: 18:01. Sweating hard. Good cardio circuit (And a nice change/use of existing equipment).

About 26 hours fasted, I did one hour of low intensity (about 120 bpm heartrate on average) stationary biking while watching the first episode of season three of Dexter.

Dexter aside, it was pretty boring, but I bet you could have guessed as much. Goal today was to take advantage of fasted-state free fatty acid oxidation while minimizing protein catabolism, thus the low-intensity cardio. Who knows if it was actually worth it (probably not).

On another note, I bought a road bike off eBay that should be arriving by UPS this evening. It’s a brand new Felt F80 (circa 2006/7 model). Woot!

Too bad 1) I almost certainly don’t have all the tools to assemble it 2) it’s 28 degrees outside here in Atlanta and it’s probably going to stay cold for the next couple weeks. At least I can look at it!

Today I wanted to mix-it-up a bit from my regular routines, but I wasn’t fully interested in lifting weights (probably save that for tomorrow).

So here’s what I did:

Tabata intervals (8 sets of 20 seconds work / 10 seconds rest) of two 20 lb. dumbbell thrusters. Managed to do 10/10/10/10/9/9/8/8 (something like that anyway).

Then I did 22 minutes of cycling on a stationary bike (L7). Average heartrate was around 130 bpm.

Back to Tabatas, this time I used a 35 lb. dumbbell to do swings. I managed 12 swings for all 8 sets.

Back to the bike, did another 22 minutes, L7. 130 bpm average heartrate.

Finished this workout with Tabata intervals on burpees! Did 5/5/4.5/4/5/4.5/5/5 (38 total in four minutes).

Lunchtime!

About 27 hours fasted, did the C8B300 in 16:39. Rested maybe four minutes or so and did about 23 minutes of “interval” stationary bike cardio, Level 10. This amounted to putting my heart rate around 140 bpm on average (I think peak was upper 150s). Total workout time was approximately 45 minutes.

I get to take advantage of a small gym for a couple months via this condo complex we’re temporarily living in. It’s got dumbbells up to 50 lbs., a bench, and two stationary bikes and a treadmill. Enough to mix up my workout routines a bit.

So today, I tried out a workout suggested by Lyle McDonald for glycogen depletion (Calling this workout “LMGD” for future reference). The gist of the workout is to do high sets and reps across the entire body. This works to deplete glycogen stores, which keys the body for fat loss. That’s a gross simplification (I’ve blogged about this here) and if you really want to learn about this, I suggest you go over to bodyrecomposition.com and pick up Lyle’s Ultimate Diet 2.0.

Anyway, here was my workout:

6x15 of:

2x35 lb dumbbell front squats
Stability ball leg curls (Video search)
2x50 lb calf raises
30 lb dumbbell press
30 lb dumbbell row
Rest one minute between sets (approximately, anyway)

Then, 6x15 of:

10 lb dumbbell lateral raise (first 3 sets – side, second 3 were front)
15 lb dumbbell hammer curls
30 lb (single for both arms) overhead tricep extensions

Total workout time: a bit over 53 minutes.

This workout was the anti-fun, which Lyle warns about in advance. I feel really beat up. Theoretically, I’m supposed to do the entire workout again tomorrow; however, as I’m fasting until dinner tomorrow night, I’ll probably do something else tomorrow and maybe repeat the LMGD on Wednesday.

High-rep, high-set workouts are supposed to be good for building mass (that’s the word on the street anyway). They are also supposed to increase mitochondrial density in the cells. As mitochondria are the furnaces in the cell, this would seem to lead to greater fat burn, but that’s a pretty unscientific conclusion on my part.

Afterwards, I did a bit over 20 minutes of light intensity cardio on the stationary bike (heart rate was about 135 on average) while watching a South Park episode on my Cowon A2.