John’s Ramblings

It feels like I’ve lost a couple of weeks of training.  Mostly because I have.  I laid off almost an entire week before last weekend’s RAPsody bike ride, and then took a day to recover.  Over the many hours I spend pedaling my ass around Puget Sound last weekend, the following thoughts came to mind:

• I’m riding pretty well for a guy that hasn’t ridden much in the past couple of months.
• Training the core and posterior chain have real benefits to cyclists.
• The sleeves of my bike jersey are tight, and it’s not because my arms are fat.
• Riding a bike for long distances takes a really long time.
• If I was trying to burn this many calories swinging kettlebells, I would have been done hours ago.
• This looks just like the road on… (fill in the name of a bike event/ride in the northwest here).
• I used to schedule all my days and weekends around rides like this.  Now, I don’t think I will.

The bottom line is that, with the seasons soon to change and my time still very limited, I shall turn my attention back to my work in the gym, and setting some new goals.  Goal #1 will be to lose another 20 pounds.  I know I’ve got abs under there, I just need to “lift the curtain” so to speak.

Tuesday was another Luka workout at Hocevar Performance Gym, now featuring 4 aspiring/aging athletes fighting years of computer-and-bike hunch.  Luka does well orchestrating the 4 of us, although keeping track of 30 second intervals for 4 folks seemed to translate to extra reps for John.  It’s for my own good, right?

Wednesday I was still in recovery mode from the weekend AND Tuesday’s session so I stuck with my stretching warmup moves (lunges, etc.), then did some lighter kettlebell swings, cleans, presses, and snatches while the dogs did their midday wander.

Today I got back on the scheduled workout routine in full.  It was hard to get my momentum up, but I managed to get through it despite feeling weak due to the layoff.  I even managed and extra uphill sprint at the end.  I think I’m going to have to do some kind of swings & work on snatch form daily ahead of the Kenneth Jay workshop on 9/12.

Today’s workout:

4 sets:

• Single Leg KB Deadlift, 2 x 20kg kettlebells, 6 reps R & L
• KB High Pull  12 reps R & L, 16kg

3 sets:

• Blast Strap Single Leg Squats (Pistols) 10 reps/each leg
• Stability Ball Push Up + Tuck In  10 reps

3 sets:

• Dumbell Squat Jump (10 lbs dumbells)  12 reps
• Blast Strap Scarecrows 12 reps

10 x Uphill Sprint Intervals (my street is a 6-7% grade):

• Sprint up 50 yards, jog/walk fast down*

*I know at least one neighbor was watching, because he came out to chat when I was done.  I’m sure there must be others that stare in amusement at the old guy running up the hill.

Tags: exercise, hocevar performance, kettlebell, workout

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