The Upcoming Month

My most recent dialogue with Mr. Shady aka Ryan has gotten me thinking about my overall game plan.  I was in a mental state previously where the bigger picture wasn’t as important as the moment I was living.  It was more important to just do, do as much as I could for as long as I could, and ride the momentum for as long as I could. 

The recent frequent burnouts I’m experiencing is telling me that I have to look at the overall picture, and start formulating a plan that looks at the scope of my work over the course of a month.  I feel it necessary to start cycling my workouts, I have no prior education in anything that will assist me in trying to make this paradigm shift, it is entirely intuitive and based on many hours of mentally and physically taxing workouts. 

The more often I attempt to perform high intensity workouts I am seeing that my approach is moving farther away from the center of a very wide spectrum of physical effort, in moving so far away from this center, the actual output level is becoming more important the number of workouts.  In order to sustain this level of output over the long haul, I am reducing the number and types of my workouts based on how I think I will feel after periods of heavy work. 

Ultimately this may not be the be all end all, but this approach I think will eventually lead to a scaling down of the actual number of workouts, and focus on a weekly basis, the overall caloric burn, or energy output.  If I can expel an equivalent number of calories in an hour that I can over a two hour period, based on the intensity level then I can really start budgeting my time based more on efficiency, and not frequency, which will allow my planning over the course of a month will become significantly easier because I will already know the style of work I am going to be involved at the start of a month. 

I also will be able to dictate the terms of my work, and take control over the style, and start planning my workouts on my own.  When I do work with a trainer I can dictate to them the type of work I would like to do during that week.

I have no idea whether this plan will work, it may get revised as the month goes on based on how I feel, but looking at the whole month has already changed how I feel about the work ahead of me.  I plan on taking a look at this tomorrow night a bit more in depth, but the footprint is a good starting point.

08/31/2011 Daily Recap

My morning workout with Ian started off slow, but rapidly gained intensity, so much so I forgot most of the workout, I asked him to e-mail me the details.
Here’s what he wrote:

“Today’s workout consisted of a simple set of complexes followed by 3-4 work sets of explosive movements and some injury proofing exercises ending with some isometric /static ab work. Sprinkled throughout the workout we had intermittent bursts of moderate cardio to keep heart rate elevated.
——————
Complex 1:
Seated DB Shoulder press
Seated DB bicep curl
Standard grip Lat pull down
Incline Neutral grip chest press (machine)
Jump rope 50x

Complex 2: increase weights / decrease reps
Standing DB shoulder press
Standing DB Curl
Narrow grip Lat Pulldown
Incline narrow grip chest press (machine)
Jump rope 70x

Complex 3: increase weight /decrease reps / partial autoregulation
DB hang clean / highpull
DB half hip-snap/ curl (half depth deadlift to generate momentum for heavy curl)
Slow tempo wide lat pulldown – leaning back
Single arm incline chest press (machine)
Sprint 1 minute at 8.0 /1.0 incline – time starting at 8.0

DB pullover to warmup shoulder complex and to concentrate upper body motor units (auto regulated at 25)

Power complexes. Moderate to heavy load / Deceasing reps / Minimal rest per set (breath regulation – no more than 3-5 deep breaths between sets. 1 min between exercises.
1. DB power high pull 12-10-8
2. DB DB clean to curl (rack position) 10-8-6
3. Single arm DB high pull – may have skipped this due to observed work output but can’t remember – (apologies)
4. Bodybuilder DB slop raise 10-8-6

Sprint 1 minute 8.5 / 1.0 incline –time starting at 8.5
Vertical bosu explosive -> negative pushup (single pump)
Vertical bosu explosive -> negative pushup (double pump)
Seated alternating leg lift (ass to corner)
Swiss ball Russian twist seated with feet on/off floor
Swiss ball plank (modified to bench plank with alternating spider man/donkey kicks)”

In the evening I went to Washington Sports Club to get a session of Cardio in, initially I planned to used the Arc Trainer to do a treading workout but when I got there the rowing machine looked more interesting. 

I set the damper on the rower to 6, and decided to get right into it.  You can’t change the resistance on the damper while rowing, so I decided I would set the intensity based on my rows per minute, and the pace I was going to complete 500 meters. 

Treading is the workout which starts with a five minute blast of high intensity followed by a five minute period of active recovery, then a progression downward until you reach one minute of each.  At the top of my treading workout I set a pace of rowing 35-38 strides per minute, and tried to keep my 500 meter time just below two mintues.  I was able to keep up this post for most of the high intensity periods.  During the three minute cycle I had to work extra hard to keep it above 35 strides per minute.

When I was involved in active recovery I lowered my rowing speed in the range of the high twenties, never dropping below 26 rows per minute.  I also was trying to keep my 500 meter time above 2.5 minutes.  I found this workout challenging, and it was fun having several numbers to focus on during my work.    

At the end of the 30 minutes of treading I rowed for 5 minutes to fully recover, and then got right into rowing Tabata.  20 seconds of high output followed by 10 seconds of no work, for 10 cycles.  This added an additional 5 minutes to my workout load.  When I finished the Tabata rowing, I rowed for another 5 minutes to cool down.  I stretched for 15 minutes and then went home.

For what it’s worth, I think I got my money’s worth today, in the morning with Ian, and then in the evening with the rowing.  Tomorrow I have a session with Liz in the morning, and I may skip the cardio tomorrow and do it on Friday.