January 27th, 2010 Workout – HIIT
I didn’t get home in time to get to Muay Thai yesterday – blargh. I am going on Monday come hell or high water. Anyway – I got home and did 20 minutes of HIIT on the recumbent bike which is always tough, then did a few sets of push ups.
Going snowboarding tonight… going to work on my fear of hopping onto park features. I’m not bringing the camera, because I fully expect to be bailing hard onto rails and boxes.
January 11th, 2010 Workout – HIIT
20 minutes of HIIT on the recumbent bike. Left me sweating and crazy out of breath. Tomorrow I’m going to do some carpetboarding… gotta practice presses and jumps/spins!
December 5th, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Did a ton of running around today, but I still managed to fit in some cardio. Did 40 minutes on the recumbant bike – most of it on the second resistance level instead of just the first one like I’ve previously done. It was definitely a lot tougher, but I finished it off.
I’ve really gotten back in the habit of cooking big healthy meals again. It takes longer up front, but then I’m covered for at least a couple of days. If I have something healthy and ready to eat, it eliminates the excuse of grabbing some fast food. It’s impossible to do this on will power alone, so if I keep myself from having to resort to that very often then I’ll do much better.
November 30th, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Did 20 minutes of HIIT on my recumbant bike. Was tough… but I wasn’t absolutely wrecked and soaked afterwards, which means I need to up it a level next time I do it.
Quick HIIT reference:
http://www.intervaltraining.net/hiit.html
I’ve been finding it pretty easy to keep on my nutrition plan lately too – starting to go in auto-pilot mode which is awesome because once I’m fully into that it will be tough to break!
November 23rd, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Did 40 minutes of cardio on the recumbant bike – up from 30 minutes last week. I think I prefer HIIT style cardio so I’ll be mixing it up more in the future. In general, I’ve got that old feeling back and I come home from work looking forward to being more active. I’m going to step up the intensity this week and really get going now.
Tomorrow is core / stability – lots of ab work and stuff on the swiss ball and balance board!
November 20th, 2009 Workout – Plyometrics
Today my workout was Plyometrics, which is another name for jump training. It’s a type of exercise that is designed to be really sport-specific and to help your functional strength – in other words, it helps your body respond better at the type of explosive movements required by various sports. I’m doing it for snowboarding to help me out with various jump tricks.
I followed the routine in the P90X Plyometric video and was only able to do the first 30 minutes out of 60 before my legs were on fire and I needed to stop. Today’s lesson: jumping is a bitch when you’re overweight. On the bright side, every single time I do this workout I’ll weigh a little less and I’ll be a little stronger, so with some consistency I’ll finish this routine in no time. Next time I do it, I’ll do 35 minutes.
November 18th, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Working on my endurance – so part of my routine is cardio. I got my old recumbant bike setup in my room and I did 30 minutes at difficulty 2 at an average speed of 24 (not sure what exactly, probably km/hr?) I’m going to track this so that I always keep increasing these amounts. Next time I ride the bike, I’ll do 35 minutes.
The side handles on the bike have been broken forever and I never got arund to getting them fixed. Today I finally went out and found bolts that were roughly the same size and got the handles fixed up.
Afterward I made up a giant pot of arhar dal (lentils) and a bunch of chicken breasts. I love lentils… yet I haven’t made them in months! They’re an excellent side dish – high in protein and fibre and they cost pennies per serving. Going to make them more often for sure.
November 17th, 2009 Workout Log – Misc
Did a set of general bodyweight exercises today:
- squats
- wall squats
- laying chin ups
- laying pull ups
- push ups
- swiss ball push ups
- planks
It was a quick overall workout to get my body in motion again. I went into today without any kind of a set routine really and I am going to have a set routine for my next workout tomorrow. I’m happy with my strength power-wise, but I’d like to improve my explosiveness, endurance and flexibility so my workouts will be focused on those with separate days devoted to each.
I’ve got some work to finish, but I will get my outline and goals for my workout routine done tonight.
Day 21/63 – Workout Log – Mountain Biking
This is only a week late, ha. Give me a break – I’ve been home pretty much all week miserably sick. I was really looking forward to training this week too.
Anyway – I think part of the reason I got sick was because I went mountain biking last Sunday for the first time and over-exerted myself. I’ve been riding my bike around my area a bit. Nothing serious at all and I think the longest ride I went for was a measely 12km. On Sunday I drove up to Albion Hills Conservation Area with some of the Slip n Slide crew that I snowboard with. I’ve wanted to try trail riding for a while so I decided to just go for it and give it a shot.
Albion Hills Trails
Knowing that it was my first time mountain biking, they decided to take me on a 15km ride of mostly single track trails. Not exactly a gentle introduction eh? I had no idea what I was doing with my gearing and ended up having to walk my bike up some of the steep parts, but I started to figure it out by the end of the day. We rode for just over 4 hours and I found it really tough. I had a really good time though and I am definitely going to do a lot more riding from now on.
The feeling of riding through the woods was really peaceful. The scenery was great and the adrenaline rushes I got while shooting downhill on a twisty trail and dodging trees and stumps was almost as good as snowboarding. The first few km were the hardest I think – getting used to how the gears work on less than gradual uphill/downhill changes and how much effort needs to be put in to pedaling. Towards the end I really started to run out of energy but knowing we were so close to finishing I was able to keep it going.
Nice Scenery at Albion Hills
I can’t wait to go again. I’ll be better prepared next time too. I’m going to get some gloves to save my hands from being blistered and bring along some snacks to keep my energy up. My bike is a $99 piece of crap with no suspension but I’m going to ride it until it breaks to make sure I’m really into this before I think about upgrading.
Day 9/63 – Workout Log – Conditioning / Biking
Today’s workout was Konditioning class at Kombat Arts. Linda runs this and it’s pretty much an hour of really tough boot-camp style drills. In other words, torture, ha. Here’s a list of what we did today – many of these were repeated a number of times and I missed a bunch, but you’ll get an idea of how the class goes:
- jogging
- sideways strides
- cariocas
- jogging
- crunches
- sprints
- backwards sprints
- wheelbarrows
- wheelbarrows with pushups
- backwards wheelbarrows
- jumping jacks
- ladder jumps
- sprints
- long jumps
- squat thrusts
- pull ups
- wide squats
- over / unders
- leg raises
- stretching
I had to stop a few times to catch my breath but I made it and I’ll be back every Tuesday now. I got home and hopped on the bike for a quick 3 km with Ozzy. He’s laying next to me passed out as I type this. I was pretty beat when I got back but I love taking him out for a bike ride. The big goofy grin on his face as he runs next to me makes it all worth it.
Ozzy - exhausted after his bike ride.