Did 75 burpees where the “jump” was into a pull-up. That was it.

Was about six hours fasted at the time. Goal in this workout was glycogen depletion as I’m fasting until dinner tomorrow. Deplete glycogen loads, release fatty stores, burn the fat.

Question is: do I repeat this workout today prior to breaking the fast? Hmm …

Two-mile sidewalk/asphalt run in VFFs: 17:00

10x10:
Push-ups
Alternating 53 lb. kettlebell rows

You should see my trying to type right now. Arms are bowed out like I’m a bird.

Ran the .3 miles to the Frazer Center woods. Ran through the wooded trails for about 10 minutes. Ran another .2 miles to the Lake Claire Park. Total run time was about 17 minutes. Rested maybe five minutes.

Ran a (guessing) 10 second all-out sprint. Maybe 50 yards? Rested one minute. Repeat for eight sprints.

Did a pole-climb up one of the angled poles on a swingset. Climbed up from about four feet from the ground to the top (maybe 12 feet up?) and then climbed back down. Did 10 dips on the nearby playground. Rest one to two minutes between sets.

Repeat for three sets.

Held a knees-tucked-in lever on a pull-up bar for 30 seconds.

Held a knees-in planche on the same bars I did dips on for 15 seconds.

Walk/Ran the .25 miles home.

Total workout time was probably forty minutes. Felt like I was about to pass out towards the end. And it’s fairly cool today in Atlanta – around 90 right now.

Water and shower time.

Warm-up borrowed from CrossFit:

.3 mile run (This loop)
10 pull-ups (using the back of a deck stairway)
20 push-ups
10 overhead air squats
5/5 35 lb. kettlebell cleans (5 per arm)
10 bar shoulder rotation stretches (is there a name for these?)
20 second indigenous people’s squat
REPEAT 1X

Helen (for time):

.3 mile run*
21 53 lb. (1.5 pood) kettlebell swings
12 pull-ups
REPEAT for 3 rounds

Time: 19:35

(Ten seconds better than my modified Helen from a year ago!)

It kicked my ass. And yeah, all was done in my 5 fingers.

* Google Maps doesn’t go to a second significant digit, so my loop says .3 miles. I’m assuming this is closer to the truth than .25 (which is Rx Helen) as my first and second loops took 3 minutes each, which even though I’m a slow runner, is a bit too slow even for me (meaning I think it was closer to .3 than .25).

Today’s workout was done about 20 hours fasted. Gear used: Vibram Five Fingers (KSO); GymBoss timer.

Jog to the Lake Claire park approximately a quarter mile away.

Tabata Sprints (What these are)

Followed up with a mishmash of:

Ten dips on a couple parallel bars on the playground.
Two-armed climb up the support beams of the swing set (Swing set has three bars going from the top to the ground, I climbed up two of these whereby I ratcheted myself up to the top)
A few attempts at handstands
Repeat once.

Finished up with about five pull-ups and then a couple of holds off the playground’s pull-up bar doing a front tuck lever.

Workout thoughts: Not sure if it’s just being out of a workout routine or if it was the 20 hour fast, but the Tabata sprints were absolutely brutal. The first two sprints (there are eight total - 20 seconds sprint, 10 seconds rest) were pretty solid sprints. It deterioriated rapidly from there. I also apparently need a longer park to sprint for 20 seconds.

Will have to do that more.

It was also somewhat awkward working out in a public park. I like the variability that is forced on you by working out in a park with a plaground, but you start feeling a bit out of place when dogwalkers and others come to the park and you’re there doing an intense workout.

Ah whatever.

Went ahead and broke the fast with a half avocado and some homemade yogurt. Dinner is burgundy beef with mushrooms, onions, parsley and a salad. The beef has been on the slow cooker since around 2:00 pm. Mmm …

Just did the C8B300 in 18:32. Marks the first time I’ve done this workout in over two months! The last time I did it was on February 19, when I did it in 16:30.

It was rough, which means that I really needed to do it.

Note: was about 19 hours fasted.

Today’s workout started out this morning with 5x20 push-ups superset with 5x20 prisoner squats.

This afternoon, I’m doing supersets of 2x53 lb. kettlebell floor presses and 2x53 lb. kettlebell bentover rows.

10x5 press
8x5 row

The above was just enough to break a light sweat, but clearly not up to my standards for a real “workout.” This past week has been a bit off due to various “excuses,” poor planning (on my part), and some big news.

I’ve been having a good diet week though, which I suddenly wonder if that has anything to do with reduced workouts. Certainly possible.

Hope to get back on track the next few days and weeks! I’m still working on finding my abs, after all!

Did a repeat of the Thrustwingprees 300 workout (TSB300) from February 12^th:

- 100 Single-arm Thrusters, 35 lb. kettlebell (50 per arm, broken down into sets of 20 with a minute rest between each set)

- 100 70 lb. Kettlebell Swings (broken down into sets of 10 with a minute of rest in between)

Elapsed time at this point — 25 minutes on the nose (that includes the jumping jacks).

- 100 Burpees. At this point, goal was to be regimented but mainly going for time efficiency (i.e. as quickly as possible, but regimenting rest).

Total time: 37:40 — I thought I was making terrible time, too, but managed to beat out my time from a month ago by almost four minutes. Woot!

The TSB300 is even more brutal than I remember it. This workout destroys me. As I am typing this, I’ve got sweat runners going everywhere. Totally disgusting. Time to go surprise the wife with a hug*!

Off to a happy hour now. It’s the weekend. Be Active!

*Yeah, right. Do you think I’m crazy?

Today’s “workout” was twofold and a bit of a departure from the norm.

First, I work from home at a desk on the computer. It’s a stationary job that is nothing like the hunter-gatherer life that was evolutionarily hardwired into my DNA. Accepting this modern-day incoherence has led me to wonder, “Are there ways to be more active throughout my desk-locked day?”

I’ve yet to come up with a great answer to that question, but today’s “active day” workout is one possible solution.

The workout: I set out to complete 100 repetitions of five different exercises whereby the 100 reps were broken up into smaller sets. These sets were interjected into trips to the kitchen for coffee, lunch, appeasing coworkers (i.e. my cat Zeke), answering phone calls, etc. — my typical work-at-home day.

Completed from about 9 A.M. to 6 P.M.:

100 air squats
100 push-ups
100 lunges (100 per side)
100 2x53 lb. kettlebell floor press (i.e. like a dumbbell press without a bench)
100 53 lb. kettlebell rows (100 per side)

It’s probably not too surprising that the above “workout” didn’t manage to leave me in sweaty ruin. But then again, the exercises were completed over hours instead in a single compact serving. Does a dispersed workout like the above fit more closely to my ancestral roots? Possibly: I doubt cavemen set aside 30 minutes to an hour to lift rocks and stare at their pumped-up reflections in nearby waterholes. Is it reasonable to assert that modern compartmentalization life into neat little sessions isn’t in keeping with our paleolithic ancestry?

Possibly.

Regardless, having energy to spare, I felt like doing more. Around 6:30 I set out to do 1,000 kettlebell swings with a 35 lb. kettlebell. I quickly realized a thousand repetitions was a bit ambitious, so I scaled back to only 500. They were done in single-arm fashion. I completed this second workout in about 28 minutes. I’ll keep the 1,000 repetition challenge as a goal to work towards.

Thoughts on missing exercise guilt and positive addiction — In his recent post on a walking workout, Mark Sisson mentions how he “found [himself] dwelling on the fact that it had been a couple days since [his] last real workout.” This common enough experience needs a name: what seasoned exerciser hasn’t felt guilty for missing a few workouts? So I suggest calling this guilt, “missed exercise guilt” (MEG).

Mark reacted to his MEG by creating a spontaneous workout of branch pull-ups, lunges, trashcan dips, and other exercises while out on an otherwise leisurely walk with his wife. I’m sure “Grok” would approve.

Yesterday evening, I began feeling a lingering uneasiness or angst. It was hard to place, but I soon narrowed it down. Maybe I was feeling out-of-sorts due to having been too lazy (or busy) to complete a workout on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. Three days off is hardly a significant “break” from exercise, but it seemed enough to trigger MEG in me.

MEG is definitely real, so how do we take it? Is it healthy to experience missed workout angst? Or is it a sign of over-training? Obsessing over exercise? Or is MEG, which induces you to exercise, good for you?

I just began reading William Glasser’s Positive Addiction*. In essence Positive Addiction is a book focused on finding activities that induce the mind to “spin free.” What does this mean? Imagine achieving a Zen-like out-of-body experience through meditation or through repetitive physical activities — like running or biking. It’s the state of mind achieved by basketball players when they are “on fire.”

Positive addictions induce a desirable, intensely creative, and fundamentally freed state of mind. Who wouldn’t want to achieve such a positive state of being? One could even imagine such a positive experience being addicting.

I’ll save the rest for a full review, but suffice to say that certain types of physical activity can be addicting — thankfully, in a positive way (For most). Meanwhile, like any addiction, failing to get your “fix” will cause some level of withdrawal. MEG is a symptom of such withdrawal.

More on this topic later.

*William Glasser is the author of recently read and heartily recommended Control Theory

Here’s my made-up Monday “Krazy Kettlebell Cardio Circuit” (The “KKCC” for short):

60 jumping jacks
20 alternating 35 lb. kettlebell swings
20 split squats
20 Figure-8 uppercuts, 35 lb. kettlebell
60 second plank
20 air squats
20 swing and press, 35 lb. kettlebell
20 70 lb. kettlebell swings
Rest 1 minute

Three rounds.

Time: 25:15

For a count of 240 reps/seconds per round, 60 of which are swings and 40 of which are kettlebell drills, this is a majorly tough cardio circuit.

I did it 21 hours fasted, too. Whoo! I am beat and ready for a shower (and some carnitas!).