mikschu’s BodyBlog

Hilly trail running today.  Last week I broke the whole run (about 5 miles) up into intervals and did a sort of hybrid long-distance / high intensity interval workout.  Instead of doing really short sprints though I would just find a good upbeat song (generally between 3 and 4 minutes long) and just run as fast as I could for the whole song, then slow down for a minute or so to rest (sometimes had to walk).  It felt awesome and I’m going to do it again today.  I’m probably running about as fast as I would if I were doing a mile as fast as I could, but by taking more frequent breaks I’m keeping it up for several miles.  Last time it felt great, should be able to go faster and not require as much downtime this time around.  I’ll probably jump in the pool for 5 or 10 laps just to relax my body after the run…  Go time!

I started a little swimming the other day, I did it after a pretty intense HIIT workout around the neighboorhood.  I had to idea how fast I would get out of breath from swimming!  I was doing breast stroke, and I was kind of trying to go fast, so that’s probably why I got winded so easily…  But still, I expected to go longer before I had to slow down or stop and take a break.  I jumped in again later on towards the evening and did some more laps, this time I was able to pace myself just a little bit better, plus I had some time to eat and rest from the morning’s sprint workout.  I was able to last longer but after a while I could definitely feel a burn in my arms.  Getting ready now for the gym; it’s going to be overhead squats, torso twists, decline bench, and chinups.  Then I’ll finish off with some meat-head movements (a couple sets of curls and tricep extensions).

Adios!

Day 1 of this "starting fresh" idea that I created…  Not a new program, but new workout log and new blog area to keep track of everything…  As my last blog recorded, I’m cleaning out all the old crap that’s basically useless to me new and starting over.  Getting ready to head down to the gym for a killer workout in a little bit; I’m planning on doing some squats, hanging leg raises, bench press, and pullups (a small selection of the dozen or so bread-winners).

This week I’m doing 6 sets of 4 reps, going real heavy, then that will finish off this cycle and I’ll start some new rep scheme…  Not really sure what I’m going to do, but I’m thinking about doing an undulating periodization (sort of) idea.  I tried it before but made some tweaks to personalize it and make it feel right to me.  Basically the way I do it involves alternating the setxrep every workout in the week, but never doing the same scheme for one workout more than once in 3 weeks, so when you look at every individual workout over the course of three weeks, the rep/set range changes every week.  Some workouts start at the beginning of the cycle with high reps and end with low, some go the opposite, some jump all around from medium, to high, to low, or the other way, depending on how I plan it out…  Did that for a while during the school year and I was pleased with the results.

Anyway, almost done with the coffee, time to get geared up and head out.

I deleted all my old blogs, had a little over 100…  Kind of a lot but not as much as a lot of people.  Anyway, I was looking through some of them and there was a lot of insecurity in them so I just deleted them…  A lot of them were just to get some feelings off my chest and so they represent the way I felt when I wrote them, and in most cases that was due to stress.  I don’t want that crap in here, so I’m giving this a new start.  I think I’ll just throw my old workout logs away too and start fresh there because I’ve been inconsistent lately and haven’t actually recorded anything in a couple of weeks.  Same goes for eating too, gotta start over with a solid meal plan and record everything.  Planning, organizing, and recording/taking notes is the only way to succeed at this.  The brain has to see tangible progression on paper in order to stay motivated and continue to achieve results.