The Fixie Allure and, A Weekend’s Worth of HIIT

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you’ve hung around the ol’ TTP blog for long, you’ve inevitably heard me drone-on (and on and on…) about my beloved fixie.  What’s the allure, you ask — I mean, Chrissakes, it’s just a friggin’ bicycle, right?

Au contraire, my good friend; the fixie is to cycling, as Vibrams are to running.  You don’t so much ride a fixie as you tango with it; jockey, machine, and environment all inextricably connected in the dance.  And as an added bonus, the fixie, by it’s very nature, screams of mixed-intensity bursts of exertion — commonly referred to in the parlance of physical culture as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).   Looking for a primal cycling experience?  Look no further than the fixed-speed bicycle.  Short, intermittent bursts of high power output interspersed with longer bursts of moderate-level power output, starts, stops; all chaos, all fractal in nature.  Very primal.

So that’s an experienced rider’s take.  Want a newbie’s impression of the fixie experience?  Here’s an informative fixie article, from Mary Buckheit, of ESPN.com.

“…for those keeping score at home, that’s one bike, one gear, one brake (if any)…”
– Mary Buckheit, ESPN.com

And hey, check this out — it’s so much fun, even Lance Armstrong loves a fixie  🙂  Saddle one up, and you’ll be forever changed.

Nothing can really impart to you the unique fixie feel, short of actually climbing on board and taking one for a spin.  The following clip, though, does a good job of portraying the essence and fun-loving spirit of the fixie experience.  Notice the plug near the end (beneath the bill of one of the rider’s cap) for Mellow Johnny’s — is it safe yet to call Mellow Johnny’s an Austin institution?  Well, how ’bout we just say that it’s my favorite Austin bike shop, and leave it at that?

Oh yeah, and one of my favorite fixie porn sites, here.

A Weekend’s Worth of HIIT

Fixie, Vibrams, a sled and an open field; this is gonna be good!

So the theme for this past weekend was many, many, many short HIIT bursts, from Friday evening until Sunday night.  Friday after work I sprinted (fixie, that is — Vibram sprints came later in the weekend) to the coffee shop, read for a while (Einstein’s God — fantastic read, by the way), then from there to a friend’s house for dinner (low country boil!), then from there, back home again (night time riding!).  Saturday and Sunday was much the same — I dare say I racked-up a good 15 rides (15 to 30 minutes or so a pop).  I also performed plenty of barefooted sprints and variety of of sled pulls and drags over the weekend as well.  I can’t really quantify any of this other than to say, again, it was all done in short bursts of high-intensity effort, followed by full recovery.  It was a weekend full of high-intensity, active play.

The one thing I can quantify was a Saturday gym session (following a barefooted sprint session) that shaped-up like this:

behind the neck (barbell) push-press: 135 x 5; 165 x 4; 185 x 3; 195 x 1, 1, 1, 1
straight bar muscle-ups: x 3, each of 7 total rounds

Couple of notes: all that lower body work really put the hurt on my push-press numbers.  Think the push-press is a shoulder dominant exercise?  Think again.  See what your push-press (jerks, too) numbers look like following a hip-dominant blitz.  It’ll feel like you’re pushing/jerking out of loose-packed sand.  Also, if you’re planning a bike-to-sprint (running) combo, remember to properly transition by doing some hip mobility and glute-activating movements prior to running.  Get that posterior chain revved-up or you’ll end-up running like a drunk initially — or worse yet, pull a ham string.  Biking is a highly quad-dominant endeavor and in no way prepares one for PC dominant work.  Biking will rev your core temperature, no doubt — so in that respect, it is a good “warm-up” activity — biking does nothing, however, to prime the PC for running sprints.

Today is most definitely a rest day 🙂

…ok, maybe a little bit of riding 🙂  Gotta feed the fixie jones.  Be forewarned, fixie riding is a serious addiction.

In health,
Keith

Uneven Ground, and More on Explosiveness and Elasticity

First off, let me bore you with today’s workout.  Again, we here in eastern NC were blessed with a beautiful spring day, and again I took advantage of it with a good bit of fixie huckin’ about town, and the following workout.  Come Monday, I’ll be back to being sequestered within my sunless, work-a-day “cave”.  Ugh…anyway, here we go:

7-second sprints for distance. Hit my predetermined drop-off (2 misses) on the 14th sprint (i.e., the 13th and 14th sprints were near-misses).  A little bit on drop-offs here.
Followed that up with some slosh tube lunges. About 30 total reps each leg, broken-up in sets of 6 or so.  Kinda hard to quantify these in a “sets” and “reps” way; I did 6 or so, short break, another 6, break, etc.  Kept the pauses to a minimum — just long enough to recoup to the point at which I thought I could get the next 6.  Remember, primal doesn’t ascribe to a fixed sets and reps schemes — be creative!

The field I’m sprinting on now is rather uneven — plenty of rises, falls and divots — and this adds a whole other element to the barefooted sprint; a whole other level of required proprioception.

Then, I went inside for some Creds and straight bar muscle-ups.  More muscle-ups?  Sure, exercise such as this (explosive, limited time-under-tension, low volume) can be done at a much greater frequency without fear over overtraing — either in that particular movement, or in a holistic sense.

3 Creds + 2 single-arm push-presses + 1 single-arm jerk (each arm): 70, 80, 85, 85, 85
straight bar muscle-ups: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Performed this workout at 15-hours fasted.  Post workout meal (about 2 hours later, i.e., 17-hours+ fasted) was a grilled rib-eye and some boiled, organic beets.  Poured some Tropical Traditions coconut vinegar over the beets after chilling them.  Fabulous!

More on Explosiveness and Elasticity
A quick dissection of Usain Bolt’s 100 meter gold medal performance reveals some interesting facts vis-a-vis explosiveness and elasticity.

First up, young Mr. Bolt was second to last out of the blocks.  Now this probably has some to do with the fact that he was (at that time) relatively inexperienced at the 100 meter (and shorter distance) start; longer distance starts being more forgiving — but, too, I think this is telling of just how much more explosive his competitors were.  Of course, we’re dealing with relatives here — a comparison of freaks to freaks — and I’m using this solely as a dramatic example, and am in no way implying that Bolt is not an explosive athlete as well.  He’s just not as explosive as those other 10 freaks-of-nature he’s running against.   It is interesting to note here that the first two sprinters out of the blocks — Richard Thomson (Trinidad and Tobago) and Walter Dix (USA) — came in 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in this race.   Also of note here is that on top of a “slow” burst from the blocks, Bolt also drags his trail-leg foot over the track in his initial stride recovery, and it so happens that that shoe is untied.  Could Bolt have done anything more wrong at the start of this race?  Probably not — but hell, it just didn’t matter in the end.

Now, at 2.4 seconds into the race — deep into the “drive” phase — Bolt is in 4th place.  At 4 seconds into the race — now into the “acceleration” phase — Bolt’s superior elasticity (and, to be sure, stride length) begins to showcase.  At 50 meters he has caught up with Thomson; at sixty meters he has clearly pulled away, and beyond that we enter the the realm of super-human.

I’m throwing out rough numbers here, but somewhere close to the 60 meter mark, most elite athletes have reached their full acceleration and top-end speed — the name of the game from here on out is who can decelerate the least.  I believe, though, that Bolt was still accelerating at this point and, having realized that he wasn’t going to be challenged by lane 7’s Asafa Powell (he’d tapped Powell earlier as his only true competition), never reached his full accelerative potential.  Scary.   This coupling of stride length with superior elasticity it truly an amazing thing to behold.

It is commonly known that Olympic-level Oly lifters are as explosive out of the blocks (if not more so) — and, in some cases, exhibit better vertical jumps — than elite sprinters.  What the Oly lifters lack, though, is the elasticity — the ability to absorb, store, and subsequently release energy.  Some discussion on that, here.

We know that explosiveness (instantaneous power production) is a highly neurological dependent function, having little to do with muscle mass.  This is why enlightened athletes don’t train like bodybuilders, but rather, train explosive attributes (speed-strength and strength-speed).

But what is elasticity, exactly?  Essentially (and in the context of sprinting), it’s the ability of the Achilles tendon complex to absorb, store and release energy.  No small thing, either, since any energy lost must be manufactured by the supporting musculature.  Not only that, but the elastic release of energy occurs much more quickly than the same amount of energy that must be produced, and then released. Check out this graphic representation of elasticity from Wired magazine.

Points to ponder: notice how elastic types posses higher/smaller calves (and, therefore, a longer Achilles tendon) than their more explosive, thick-calved brethren?  More later.

Observations
Fresh from the “what a friggin’ great idea” file — TTP reader Beck Anstee has started a Chicago-land sprinter’s meet-up group.  Sprinting is the most primal of fitness activities, and Beck has put social media to work in a way that will enable all you Chicago-land primals out there to get your “sprint on” in the company of like-minded paleo peeps.  Dang, makes me want to transfer to Chicago.  Is it really true that Chicago only has two seasons — winter, and 4th of July?  Hmmm, if only it were a bit warmer….  🙂

You’ll notice that I’ve added Diana Hsieh  Modern Paleo blog to the TTP blogroll.  Objectivist-leaning, Paleo lifestyle — Ayn Rand meets the hunter-gatherer.  Bring your A-intellect to this one, folks — Objectivists don’t suffer fools easily; I for one can appreciate that sentiment.  I’ll be spending quite a bit of time here, to be sure.

In health,
Keith

3/10/10; Barefooted Sprints, and Strength-Speed Endurance Iron Work

After an extended warm-up this morning, I performed a round of 8 x 70 yard sprints at approximately 90% effort, approximately 1 minute rest between sprints.  It’s been a couple of months since I’ve done any significant sprinting, and that, coupled with the fact that I’ve been hitting the single-leg work pretty hard, prompted my taking the rather cautious “re-introduction” route today.  Also, I’ve been hitting fixie sprints pretty hard lately without mixing in much in the way of running/sprinting.  I know from past experience that biking and running/sprinting aren’t exactly synergistic endeavors — emphasis on one naturally degrades performance in the other, with biking being a quad-dominant affair, versus sprinting’s required PC-dominance.  We’ve also got a completely different set of neurological firing patterns to contend with in each of the two endeavors.  Now, since I’m not competing in either, this is no big deal; actually, I rather prefer being multi-dimensional at this point in my life vs being a “specific-endeavor” athlete.  If I were competing in one of these disciplines, though, I’d have to let the other discipline go (at least during the competitive season/phase).  This is the eternal juggle of, and between, overall health, functional physical ability (think Greg Glassman’s 10 attributes of physical fitness), and sporting specificity.  Much as we’d like — and much as we trick ourselves into believing — we can’t have it all/be a master of all.  An increase in sport specificity will necessitate a decrease in overall functionality.  It’s just the way of the world.  It’s also why multi-sport athletes are so uncommon these days, even at the high school level.  It’s just tough for a great all-round athlete to compete against even a good single/sport-specific athlete.

After the sprint session, I headed into the gym to toss a little iron, and did the following complex in superset fashion:

Jump Squats + BTN Jerk*: 135 x 5; 155 x 5, 5, 5

Straight Bar Muscle-Ups: 3, 3, 3, 3

Couldn’t ask for a better start to the day.

Head’s-up on a fantastic series of posts over at Speed-Endurance.com.  A 3-part series covering the ins, outs and nuances of the relationship of strength and speed.  Some seriously good work by Jim Hiserman, author of the books Program Design Method for Sprints & Hurdle Training and Strength and Power for Maximum Speed.

Embedded in part 3 of the series are some good lifting demonstrations of some of the more common strength-speed oriented exercises. *In particular, watch the fine jump squat form exhibited by lilledritt (I’ve embedded it below as well, by way of Speed-Endurance.com).  Immediately following the final jump squat, you’ll see a nicely-performed btn jerk.   I performed each of my btn jerks, however, immediately following each jump squat (jump squat, jerk; jump squat, jerk; etc…)

And then I ran across this today, from Voice of America News video.  Good stuff for the masses to see, to be sure.  Though I’m still not convinced that saturated fat from free range/grass-fed animals is bad in any way.

3/6/10; A Nice MetCon Combo,and…Diet Nimrods Abound?

“The one common experience of all humanity is the challenge of problems.”

– R. Buckminster Fuller

2 miles from my house to the gym offers a perfect opportunity for a short fixie huck/warm-up prior to throwing around a little iron.  An odd combination, I know.  I was asked recently if I was the only fixie enthusiast/Paleo-proponent/physical culturalist that I know of.  Well, I don’t know about that, but it sure does feel at times as though I were deposited here from an alien ship.

…let’s just say I’m a member of a very, very small subset  🙂

Today’s Workout –
My focus is still primarilly on unilateral, lower-body work, and today’s MetCon session did not deviate from that theme.  The reps in each exercise are still fairly low, with the emphasis being placed on the explosiveness of every rep of each exercise vs attempting to reach some predetermined rep number.  I moved smartly between exercises, but I did not allow much, if any, degradation in my form.  Here’s how it shaped-up:

Post warm-up “bridge”: whip snatch to OHS, 3 sets of 5 at 95 lbs

The day’s combo:
whip snatch x 5
single-leg clean* x 1 (left)
high box step-ups (front squat bar position) x 5 (left)
single-leg clean* x 1 (right)
high box step-ups (front squat bar position) x 5 (right)
muscle-up + L-dip combo (1 mu  + 2 L-dips = 1 rep) x 3
rear foot elevated “elastic verts” x 6 each leg
~ all weighted exercises @ 135 lbs.  4 total rounds ~

The single-leg clean is simply, and in the end, a regular power clean — however, the pull phase is done with a single-leg emphasis; the catch is a normal, i.e., bilateral, catch.  I do allow a “balance touch” with the off leg when needed (i.e., as fatigue set in).  From the catch, I moved directly into the step-ups.  The box height here is just below knee level.  Notice that today’s step-ups were done with a front squat bar position; this translates to a bit more of a quad-dominant movement vs the normal back squat bar position.

Moving on to nimrods in the news…

The following quote is all you really need to see of this recent NYTimes article on obesity to realize we’re dealing, once more, with a blindered, simpleton take on diet.

“…The answer lies in biology. A person’s weight remains stable as long as the number of calories consumed doesn’t exceed the amount of calories the body spends, both on exercise and to maintain basic body functions. As the balance between calories going in and calories going out changes, we gain or lose weight.”

Ugh!  To be fair, the author did interview a couple of dietary “bright stars” — and then conveniently dumbed-down their message.  How is it that the sane voices in pieces such as this become so marginalized?  I suppose it boils down to sound-bite journalism, and the general public’s reluctance to spend the time required to delve further into subjects that may lay outside their fields of specialization; a destructive, symbiotic relationship, of sorts.

I believe it was Dr. Richard Feinman (he of the Metabolism Society)  who so eloquently equated the “calorie-in/calorie-out” theory of weight managaement to (and I’ll use my own wording here):

“…considering the affect of gravity upon an object, absent of friction.”

A nice corollary, I think.  Real people and real metabolisms must operate in the real world.  No consideration of how a type of calorie affects metabolic response is as ludicrous as the aforementioned consideration of gravity absent friction.  A nice thought experiment, maybe; any real-world application, though, is not to be found.

And then there was this, uh…free-verse, anti-paleo ramble?  Not sure what Ms. King’s “Problem with Paleo” is, exactly — maybe she thinks animals are shouldering the load and/or bearing the brunt of abuse so as to satisfy the faddish whims of hipster caveman wannabes?  I dunno.  My thought is, fine, be a detractor — I rather enjoy having my convictions rattled — but please come to the fray with a grounded, plausible argument for Chrissakes.  Sheesh…

I refuse to end on a negative, though, and here to save me from that is a fabulous and recent TED talk given by chef Jamie Oliver.  I’m quite sure everyone with a diet/physical culture bent has seen this by now, but I wanted to “store” it on TTP because I believe in Jamie’s message — and in his dire warning.  Please show this to someone in your life who may not be as diet-centric as you — and for God’s sake, if you have kids, please, PLEASE pay attention.  This really is a matter of life and death.

In health,
Keith

2/26/10, An Explosive AM Workout — Creds, Jerks and Muscle-Ups

No better way to kick-off a Friday, and what looks to be (fingers crossed!) a work-free weekend, than with some high-voltage, explosive movements, first thing in the morning.

As a bridge between my dynamic stretching/Oly-like warm-up and the meat of the workout, I did a 200 yard farmer’s “sprint” (ok, it was a fast-as-possible walk) with a pair of 120 lb DBs.  Try these as warm-up finisher sometime, and see if you’re not better primed for the main-attraction portion of your workout.

A quick aside: I stumbled upon what has now become my favorite, at-home coffee — Trader Joe’s Bay Blend. It’s absolutely fabulous.  Now I haven’t yet had a bad (or even lackluster) variety of Trader Joe’s coffee, but this is, in my opinion – and I do consider myself somewhat of a coffee snob/connoisseur – the best “affordable” coffee beans that I’ve come across.  Sure Jamaiccan Blue Mountain is to die for, but who can afford to drink that on a daily basis?  And if you can afford a Blue Mountain habit, hey call me up! – let’s work out a training deal!

Back to the workout: so after the 200 yard farmer’s walk, it was on to the Cred + single-arm jerk/straight bar muscle-up superset.  Just lettin’ ‘er rip this morning, in a semi-unilateral way.

The Cred + Jerk (each arm): 70 x 3; 80 x 3; 90 x 2; 100 x 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

Straight bar Muscle-Up: 2s across the board

I started and finished the 9 rounds with muscle-ups, so actually that worked-out to 10 rounds of M/Us and 9 rounds of Creds/jerks.  Felt jacked and kept the wonderful CNS “buzz” for many hours following.  What more can you ask for from a simple-in-design, early morning workout?

2/8/10: An Early Morning Explosive Combo, “The Who” and Cory Everson

Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?

I guess I’ll probably alienate a sizable portion of my readership by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s game.  It’s not so much that I’m a Saints fan per se (Actually, I’m a Cowboys fan – so there goes the rest of my readership 🙂  ), but that I am a huge underdog fan.  Anyway, aside from the game itself, I usually pay very little attention to the commercial hoopla and halftime show – and so it was last night – until I heard The Whos’ mid-montage version of Baba O’Riley (Teenage Wasteland).  My ears perked, as every time I hear this tune I can’t help but to think of Cory Everson’s 1988 Ms. Olympia posing routine.  This was in the day prior to women’s bodybuiling (on the professional level, at least) having become the freak show that it is currently.  Cory displayed a physique on that evening that was (and still is, in my opinion) the epitome of feminine beauty.  Athletically muscular, lean and graceful at 5′-9″ and 150-ish lbs (a weight most women of that height would totally freak-out about today), she brought down the house that evening with a posing routine set to The Whos’ now classic tune.  If you ever get a chance to see this routine (and/or the pre judging), by all means, do so.  I googled around a bit, but couldn’t run anything down (maybe it’s never been digitized?) – and that’s too bad.  What a role model she was (and still is) for young, athletic women.  And as always, I wonder: how would her physique have been affected for the better, had she been a full-on Paleo practitioner?  I guess it’s up to someone of Corey’s genetic mold to pick up the torch and find out.  Any female heptathaletes out there ready to give it a whirl and go full-on Paleo?

Today’s workout, done in a combo, “MetCon for Sprinters” fashion:

Barbell Muscle -ups –
95 x 5, 135 x 4, 145 x 3, 155 x 2, 2, 2

Straight-Bar (Pull-up bar) Muscle-Ups –
All sets of 3s

Ab wheel Roll-outs –
All sets of 6

So six total rounds here this morning – again done more so as a transition back into the gym.  Each rep of each exercise was done in an explosive manner, with no grind reps.  An ab wheel?  You gotta be kidding me, right?  Actually an ab wheel, used correctly, is a fantastic piece of equipment.  You say you want to strengthen your “core”?  A full ab wheel roll-out (allowing the knees to touch only as necessary to “self spot”) is a fabulous core stability exercise.  Think “praying man” plank to the nth power.  And make no mistake – strengthening the core is all about stability, not flexation (i.e., crunches, et al).

Still not sure yet where my emphasis will be over the next few weeks.  Still feeling things out, waiting for something to emerge.

12/28/09, Transitioning Out of Hibernation Mode

I’ve been on an intense bout of rest and relaxation since the evening of the 22nd, so I approached this workout as a transition back into the swing of things.  Just wanted to get out and move; get the ol’ blood pumping a bit.  Once I get back into the gym (tomorrow morning), I’ll be shifting my focus slightly toward the strength end of the modality continuum.  The loading will be a bit heavier, the rep speed – though still pretty crisp – won’t have the explosiveness indicative of a max power emphasis workout.  The mentality, though – as always – will be to move the weight as fast as possible.  More on the method as I progress through the block.

Today’s workout began with a good dose of fixie sprints around the beautiful town of G-Vegas, NC.  I appreciate having returned to a point just far enough south so as to have access to snow and slush-free streets.  Good ride, and good to be back in the saddle.  Then:

• 50 shoulder dislocates x 2 sets
• 150 push-ups/50 yd. sprint combo*
• straight bar muscle-ups, reverse grip/regular grip power pull-ups combo ( 1 “set” = 4 rev. grip power pull-ups, transition in air, 2 regular grip power pull-ups, transition….until miss or failure) x “a bunch” of sets – didn’t keep track, just kept at it until form degenerated so as to be deemed atrocious.

*An old GPP standby, and a nod to the folks at CrossFit; something my firefighter trainees will learn to loathe come February (do your homework boys and girls!): with a running clock, perform 150 quality push-ups with a fifty yard sprint at each break.  In other words, (for example) 30 push-ups, sprint, 25 push-ups, sprint…until a total of 150 push-ups have been completed.  No pause in the push-up reps allowed; if the slightest of pauses is necessitated, a sprint must ensue.  And this is a quality, all-out sprint – not a stride, lope, or half-assed effort performed as a “recovery” cycle.  If a rest is required (and you can bet your ass there will be), it must come after the sprint and before the next “set” of push-ups.  The number of push-ups within each set does not matter, so long as they are quality reps.  The shoulder dislocates did me no favors in the push-up department here, so I wound up performing plenty of sprints –  especially in the last 50 or so reps.  8:35 total time.  I don’t know what my last outing of this timed-out at, but I’d have to say it was a hell of a lot faster than that.  There’s always something to work on, something to improve.

12/10/09, Speed-Strength Emphasis

There’s a subtle difference between emphasis being place on Speed-Strength as opposed to Strength-Speed.  Ideally, the power generation produced by a given exercise/movement performed in each modality would be the same, though.  A quick observation of the meatball power equation (really, this is all we need be concerned with) reveals that, assuming the exercise/movement distance remains constant (and we will – the distance of movement in one’s deadlift, for example is, for all practical purposes, always the same), all we have to manipulate is execution speed and external loading.  For any given loading, an increase in execution speed results in an increased power output; that’s speed emphasis in a nutshell.  Now, increase the loading without realizing a reduction in execution speed and,  ah-ha, we’ve further increased power output.  Fine tune this with some auto-regulation with an eye toward maximum power generation in your desired rep range.  Once execution speed begins to falter, pull the plug on the exercise.

Here’s what went down at 6:15 this morning at the Rocky Mount, NC YMCA:

15 minute, sprint/plyo-intensive warm-up with plenty of dynamic stretching, then –

• cns prime: sprint starts, 20 meter/20 meter/40 meter/20 meter, approx. 5 sec pause between each start
• GHR (glute/ham raise): 45 x 5; 60 x 5, 4; 65 x 4, 3
• Barbell Muscle-up: 115 x 5; 135 x 5; 145 x 4, 4, 3
• cns prime: reverse grip to regular grip muscle-up combo (pull-up variety) x 2
• weighted reverse grip pull-ups: 45 x 5; 90 x 3, 3, 3, 2

5 total rounds.  Speed on the concentric portion of every rep was fast as possible.

A couple of questions I hear in person, or field via email:

“Dude, you do a lot of pull-ups…”

I consider pull-ups analogous to sprints for the upper body – the most fundamental of fundamental movements.

“Dude, you do a ton more posterior chain work than you do quad/squat work…”

1. I do a lot of fixie riding, which is mostly quad-intensive work.

2. It is my contention that the body is designed more for “pulling” in this fashion than it is for squatting.  I know well the arguments to the contrary, and I agree that every human being squats while taking a dump.  However, I don’t know of many cultures that take a dump with 500+ balanced upon their backs.  Seriously, though – I personally gauge lower-body performance in terms of sprinting vertical jump ability; in my experience, increasing one’s squat past a certain point (2 x bw is a general rule of thumb) doesn’t do much for an increase in speed or vert height.

11/29/09, A Quick Workout; in Anticipation of a Day’s Worth of Travel

Wow, so thankful to be able to get out and about today prior to spending the balance of the day bottled-up in a vehicle and on the road.  Bright, sunny skies, low 60’s, no humidity…simply stunning!  End of November, and I’m able to get in some sprints – not only barefooted, but shirtless as well!   A little natural vitamin D does a body (and an attitude) some serious good.  Again, nothing mind-blowing here, just a little bit of explosive movement in the glorious sunshine!

• Sprint starts x 30 meters x 5.  Full acceleration to 30 meters, followed by fast as possible deceleration to full stop.
• straight bar muscle-up combo x 3 ==> reverse-grip ballistic pull-up, reverse grip in mid air transition, decelerate/transition to regular grip muscle-up = 1 “rep”
• elevated feet ring flye x 12

4 rounds of this.  I had a little extra time at the conclusion of this, so I hit singles (15 secs rest or so in between each rep) of the m/u combo until I failed.  Quit counting at 7 reps.  Would have stayed outside forever if I didn’t have to get on the road.

11/22/09, More Towards Aggressive Play Than a Workout…

…still, it deserves a post:

Approximately 30 minutes worth of Fixie interval sprints, followed by:

• 200 yard sprint/strides @ 80+% (100 yards, pause, 100 yards) barefooted, artificial turf.
• straight bar muscle-ups x 3
• ballistic ring flyes x 5
• sprint starts x 20 yards x 3
• navel-high box jumps x 3

5 rounds.  This was more to take advantage of the beautiful, crisp day than to pursue a meaningful workout.  Nice to get out and about.  The onset of winter will limit these types of opportunities to few and far between in the coming months.