2/18/2014

Started out with the fugly barbell and weighted vest on the field-house floor.  Did a 15 minute fun-with-weights style warm-up.

Grabbed a second weighted vest and a couple of 35lbs dumbbells for stairwell farmers walk.  I did that for 10 minutes.

3 rounds

inverted bosu ball squats, 8
box ups left and right sides, 4 per side
push-up burpees with a jumping pull up, 4
hyper-extensions, 5

Some punk stole my box in the middle of  my circuit so I had to very pronouncedly go get myself another with lots of exasperated sighing and glowering, can you say, "curmudgeon".

Over head squats with bar and chains, 3 sets of 8

@r.a.m sorry if I sounded like I was writing you a prescription or harshing on your mellow.  I think that yoga has a huge place in mens fitness particularly as we age.  This last time I re-started in the gym I started with 4-5 yoga sessions per week from 4-6 weeks.  And yes if the instructor and the class is up for it a vigorous flow is well worth the time.  In my limited experience most yoga practitioners are middle aged or older and women.  Those classes just never get to that level of intensity, or as you observed the karma in the room goes dark.  Rather, my point was to think about frequency, intensity, and duration and to optimize ones training for life and for favorite activities.  In truth I'm struggling a lot with that since I've resigned myself to give up on martial arts.  Why exactly is it that I'm flogging myself in the gym?

I think we have some real rubbish from both popular culture and our over dependence upon medical doctors that clouds our thinking about movement.  The whole bodybuilding workout schema is first driven by the use of supplements and second by extreme calorie consumption and third gets all micro-managey and fiddly about isolating muscles.  I have a friend who swears that 20 minutes of "aerobic" activity 3 times a week is optimal and this because some doctor in the 1970's told him so.   "Aerobic" vs "anaerobic" is another stupid notion that just clouds our thinking.  Once I shit-canned these notions I was able to really make some headway on getting fit.  We have a shared cousin-in-law who is between us in age and yet regularly competes in Iron Man events.  Those folks train each activity twice-per-week.  On one hand I have nothing but respect for their work capacity yet on the other I'm not convinced that many of them could translate that into any heavy lifting.  Hence, my own variation of 3 swims, 2 resistance days, and 1-2 days of yoga, trying to optimize a number of variables rather than maximize any single one.   Of course those are goals and I'm still probably closer to 2 swims, 2 resistance days and something on the weekend -- and yes naps in the evening after dinner.