Gym regimen - July 2010

Tuesday: 30 mins:
Jumping jacks, Jump rope, ab work
(Just some calisthenics to work out some soreness and keep my mind in the game, knowing I will back "on" next week.)

Wednesday: mins: 60 mins:
Jump rope, ski machine, erg, bench press
(This was just an excuse to use my 7-day trial pass at World's Gym, but I had a lot of fun with the jump rope. I have been hunting down clips and tutorials of jump rope technique and tips. (The "three-step breakdown" movie clip near the middle of the webpage I just cited in tips really opened my eyes to running in place with the jump rope!) During this workout, I focused on the "run in place" jump. My first few times I only made 5–10 revolutions before getting tripped up. Then I took a water break, came back, and my brain had seemed to adjust. I did 68 skips, then 96, then 120 or so. I mixed it up with what I call "drop kickers," which is just an alternating jump where one foot extends forward past the midline while the other skips, then switch and switch, etc.

Of note is the fact that I also used an erg after nearly a year away from one. Oh, how I love crew. About which more soon….)

Thursday: 180 mins:
Jumping jacks, jump rope, erg, bench press, ab/oblique leg raises, shrugs, lat pulldowns, grip flexes
(I was just messing around again in the gym. A lot of time today went to chatting with Pac Man and his friend, James, which was fine. I figure I might as well enjoy my trial period at World's. I saw yet more improvement with my jump rope.

Then I moseyed over to the erg for some… erg work… and, lo and behold, I went for a 2000m erg piece! I pulled a 7'32" raw (adjusted 7'00".) I haven't pulled a 2000m erg in… at least a year, so I admit I was pleased by my time, and it's encouraging, in a way, that my weight still gives me a better adjusted time, since I figured I only pulled a semi-decent time due to the fact that I am 30–40 pounds heavier than in high school, when I pulled around 6'30" raw. But, it seems, I still managed to pull with relative power versus just sheer, brute inertia, so, thumbs up for weightlifting and jump rope!

This was followed by a ten-minute coaching session in which I taught James how to row. It really is an art, and it was nice to know I have internalized such a beautiful sport. James has way better pecs and quads than I do, but I can do a sprint at 42 strokes per minute gyar-ha-harrghh!

Then I continued my mosey over to the free weights just to work on my bench press technique and some grip strength and ab training: 4 sets of 30 reps of leg raises and three sets of barbell wrist curls at 27kg (to failure).

The novelty of this workout is that Pac Man gave me some power straps. These allow you to train muscles beyond what your grip strength tolerates. As I mentioned in an earlier post, grip strength limits some muscle training, since if you can't hold on to it, you can't lift/pull it, à la "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link." To really develop my lats and traps, I need to be able to "hold on" to more weight for more reps than my wrists can handle. Today, for example, I did 12 reps of shrugs at 160kg, whereas last week, for my trap workout, I did 6 reps at 120kg. For my lats, I did two sets of 12 reps at––I think!––80kg. Needless to say, the straps will help as I go.

Stay tuned. I've got posts on memes, Freud, logic and free will, and linguistic relativism lined up.)