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.

Finally got a chance to check out the Lullwater Park trail that I had heard about via Serious Running. I wore Injinjis and KSOs for the run. Not quite sure how far I ran, but it was about 35 minutes of running. Felt nice to run alongside both a pond and a creek and, of course, through the woods. I stopped at one point for about 15 minutes (not counting that in my time) and climbed a couple trees by the pond. One of the trees was this fantastic Magnolia, which I just bounded up 15 feet without even thinking about it. What a good feeling.

On return I was about to head up and decided to do a pull-up on the back of our 2nd story deck stairwell (as in, I’m on the ground underneath the deck, using the stairsteps as a pull-up bar). For no reason at all, I suddenly started “climbing” the stairs with my arms.

Ah nothing like spur of the moment workouts. Working out should be fun – not just reps and punishment.

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.

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?

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’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!).

Did a repeat of a workout I did two weeks ago:

Did the C8B300 in 16:48. Rested two minutes. Then did 100 70 lb. (2 pood) kettlebell swings. Total time was 26:29 (So the 100 kb swings took a shade under 8 minutes).

All rest periods the same (i.e. two minutes between the cardio circuit and the kettlebell swings).

This week’s times:

C8B300 in 16:29
KB Swings in 7:53
Total time: 26:22

So 19 seconds faster on the circuit and 12 seconds slower on the swings.

You win some, you lose some. Hey, I was 20 hours fasted this time around.

My brief warm-up (if you can call it that) was 100 jumping jacks.

After, I did:

- 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). This ended up meaning. 10 / 10 / 10 with a minute rest in between, then 14 sets of 5 with 30 seconds of rest between each set.

Completely destroyed at the end of this routine. Total time was 41:42.

I’d long been wanting to try this three-exercise combination because each exercise has a slightly different focus, but all three require complex, full-body coordination.

Thrusters are a great exercise that hits the quads, hip flexors (I think), and shoulders/triceps, while encouraging core stability. Single-arm thrusters seem to hit the core in a different way than double-arm thrusters, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Kettlebell swings are another exercise, even more ballistic than thrusters, and really work your back, forearms, core (stabilizing) and hamstrings.

Capping it all off with burpees, which almost knock the air out of you by design hit your core, chest, shoulders, back (in the scissoring motion), and legs. They are also require the most coordination to do efficiently.

As recorded above, each exercise warmed me up for the next round as each one is progressively harder, requiring more coordination and working more muscle groups in concert. It’s been about 45 minutes since I finished and I still have that sort of out-of-body feeling. The sign of a workout well done!

I was trying to think of a catchy name for this veritable trifecta of full-body exercises. “Thrustwingprees” is a bit too long, hard to say and goofy. So for now, I’m going to call it the TSB300, obviously for the Thrusters, Swings and Burpees at 300 total repetitions.

Try it out and let me know what you think!