This will be a good resource for me to monitor how much/little I need to do to maintain a good level of fitness. Body comp and health are the important things for me now that I don't compete in anything. I'm 38 and 83 kg and mainly interested in remaining injury free. I might search out a 5 k race some time next year, with a view to running a decent time with an emphasis on quality work-10 x 400 m intervals with 1 min rest inbetween intervals etc. rather than endless cardio. I spent the 1990s running 10ks and half-marathons and there is no way on earth I'd ever jog again. I was always weak, ill and injured. Then I went weights crazy 2000-2005 and since then it's been more a bit of everything: lots of boxing, little bits of grappling, loads of football etc. Starting from now I'm going to do lots of non-impact stuff (got loads of lakes and sun round here so can get out on the kayak a few times a week and up in the mountains hunting/hiking with the dogs and other active but not intense stuff like that). In addition I'll do a couple of short, intense workouts a week. Talking of which I did my favourite burpees workout a few days back, so that'll be my first entry: At the beginning of a minute bang out 10 burpees and then rest for the remainder of the minute...and repeat...and repeat...keep going until you can't anymore. I love this workout because it's not about hitting a time or a number of reps, rather it's about not giving in. True mental resolve. When I started doing them last year I usually was dying at the ten minute mark, now I'm up to 25 mins(250 burpees in total) although I just did 21 mins the other day as I wasn't wanting to kill myself. I find the approx 35 secs of recovery in each minute means I don't suffer DOMS at all and I've never injured myself with this protocol. So, Day 1: Above burpees session: 21 mins. Since then I've done some leisurely cycling and walked the dogs between 1-2 hours everyday. Yesterday was another burpees day, this time Tabatas: my reps were 10, 10, 9,9,9,9,9,9. It wasn't a true Tabata really because beginning in the 3rd set I was content to just make 9 reps rather than going hell-for-leather to get the 10th rep. Still, it was a **** of a session ( 3 mins of hell because from the 3rd set onwards it's not pleasant). Total time training: 25 minutes this week.
Today I headed out to do some mountain running. After a warm-up of a few mins jogging I did 1 minute of hard-running (it's a legit. mountain not a gentle hill) followed by 1 min of walking recovery. I did it 6 times, then got my breath back and did 4 x 30 secs sprints, also with 1 min recovery. That's all, but it was intense enough. After many years without running/jogging I'm going to measure a 5km flat course out and try to cover it soon so I have an idea of what kind of time I could realistically run it in. I used to be a very comfortable 6 min-miler but that was up until 2000 and I haven't run a distance event since then. It will be interesting to see if my sprint/quality work will enable me to run a half-decent 5 k time.
Another short session. Just did 4 sets of 15 hindu press-ups with 15kg of sand in a backpack. Had already hiked up in the mountains for an hour earlier.
Was going to go hunting with the mutts up in the mountains but my mate cancelled, so I did my first little 20 min run. I'm trying to get a rough estimate of how long it'll take me to run a 5km. Probably trotted along at 7 min mile pace. Don't want to overdo it.
Spent the whole weekend hunting up in the mountains. It wasn't exactly training but it wasn't easy either. Today: 22 mins of the burpees protocol outlined in post 1 above i.e. do 10 burpees and rest for the remainder of the minute, and keep on doing this until you collapse. Although I'm not doing much training the lard is just falling off me as I'm eating so clean; no sugar, wheat or vegetable oils has made the biggest difference.
Just picked up a 20 kg dumbbell and did a race to 100 snatches, changing hands every 5 reps. Intense but very brief. The recovery takes longer than the challenge.
Lower back still aching from the 100 snatches 2 days ago so couldn't do what I had planned: DB complex comprising swings, high pulls, snatches, clean and press, squats, 1 leg deadlifts. Instead I just did burpees: 13 reps, rest for the remainder of the minute. Repeated 10 times for a total of 130 reps. It was a killer cos I had been on the rum and cokes the night before and I didn't have any breakfast before doing them. At the moment I just have a 20 kg dumbbell which I find adequate for my high intensity conditioning work but my missus wants to buy me a kettlebell for christmas. I remember reading about them back in the late 90s/early 2000s. They just seem like a marketing scam to me. Anyone got anything to say, good or bad?
I'm interested to know more about kettlebells myself. A quick question - How do your energy levels and fitness compare to when you were in your twenties?
Bog Cleaner, all my fitness markers/energy etc. are much better now as I train judiciously rather than just clueless volume. Also, something very interesting happened just over a year ago. I became a ****ing big fat **** very quickly even though I was doing brutal Ross Training stuff daily. I couldn't fathom it. I was eating well (according to conventional wisdom) and I wasn't boozing, I was resting well etc. Basically after 20+ years of high carb wheats, fructose, breads etc. my body seems to have become insulin resistant. It was the 40 degree summer here in Andalucia and I was eating a lot of watermelon (yep, that was the only change to my normal diet) and I blew up. I'm talking about people being open-mouthed upon seeing the fat ******* I had become (maybe a stone and a half of pure blubber). Anyway, my response was 2 hours of brutal boxing training 5 times a week. I shifted the weight but I was living in the gym and getting injured all the time. That's what prompted me to look into changing my life/diet etc. completely. The best thing I have done was stumble across some websites that explained why I had shot up in weight, why I had loads of inflammation issues etc (I always attributed my chronic injuries to a lifetime of training rather than the inflammatory foods I'd been shovelling into my body for years thinking they were healthy) and, long story short, pushing 40 I'm stronger and more robust than ever. I need a belt on 32 inch waist jeans for the first time in years and all this is through eating clean, minimal (but quality)training and sleeping well. Haha, bit of an essay in response for you but I can't believe how well I'm feeling with this regimen. As for the kettlebells I reckon I could get more or less the same benefit from a dumbbell complex to be honest.
I have virtually eliminated sugar, grains and vegetable oils. I eat loads of good, fatty meats, fish, vegetables, cheese, butter and full fat yoghurt. 85% minimum dark chocolate if I want something sweet and red wine or whiskey if I fancy alcohol (once in a blue moon I'll have rum and coke or some poison like that but I suffer massively afterwards as I no longer deal with stuff like that very well). I did a lot of research before embarking on this change of diet as I used to believe the lipid hypothesis about saturated fat-cholesterol-heart disease, just like everyone else. Now, after seeing my HDL go up, triglycerides go down, and that my LDL is mainly the fluffy type, (not to mention all the other health improvements eg inflammation issues gone, alcohol cravings disappeared, blood sugar stable and, therefore, not being constantly ravenous for the first time in my life, body composition that gets strangers stopping me on the street to find out my secret lol etc)I firmly believe that sugar, grain and vegetable oils were ****ing wrecking me. My wife eats the same way and she's dropped 3 dress sizes in 9 weeks now and her health markers are similarly improved. Honestly, I'm never really hungry and I've always got enough energy to do my training (almost always in a fasted state that is something I could never do during my days of guzzling carbs). Because of being satiated with fat/protein I often only eat once a day(as opposed to the "keep your metabolism stoked with 6 meals a day" mantra) which means I have loads of time for other things and I never even think of snacking. Here's a short vid about saturated fat that explains why we shouldn't fear it (or in my and my wife's case, why it can be your saviour) http://thehealthyskeptic.org/i-have-high-cholesterol-and-i-dont-care
Dumbbell complex 20 kg: 5 swings, 5 high pulls, 5 snatches, 5 clean and press, 5 1- legged deadlifts. Repeat with other hand. Rest 1 min. Repeat x2 more, for a total of 3 rounds. An assortment of hindu press-ups and bear-squat push-ups(as they are called on you tube-look like power yoga moves but can be brutal). Total time: 20 mins
Started off with 10 x 3 sets of controlled bear-squat push-ups and 10 x 3 sets of strict divebombers. Thrusters 20 reps x 3 sets with sandbag (maybe 20 kgs, so very light). Overhead presses with sandbag, followed by hindu press-ups and OHP superset, dips with 20 kg backpack on. Bollocks, didn't write down reps for the latter exercises but seeing as I'm not being super scientific about it all, suppose it doesn't matter too much. Pretty hard session all in all. Will be concentrating on these sort of circuit-based things in future cos my achilles aren't feeling too clever when I try to run. Going to have to forget about the 5 km road race I'd been thinking of. Also thinking of looking into some form of power yoga to minimize impact on my joints in my training. I know it reeks of arsebanditry but some of my mates swear by it.
15 minutes of: 20 hindu pressups, 20 thrusters with sandbag, 10 burpees. Rest 1 minute. 15 hindu pressups, 15 thrusters, 10 burpees. Rest 1 minute. 10 hindu pressups, 10 thrusters, 10 burpees- rest 30 secs. 10 reps on pressups and thrusters again(no more burpees cos my achilles is a bit gammy) x 3 with 30 secs rest. Good fast, 100 mph workout over in less than 15 minutes.
