The Anatomy of an Impromptu Workout

“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

– Louis Brandeis

The View from College Hill

I started out on my trusted fixie Saturday, 14-hours into an intermittent fast, with the idea of doing a quick barefooted sprint session at the ECU athletic complex before coming home and setting in to watch Lance defend his 3rd-place position in the TdF.  As I approached Dowdy-Ficklen stadium however, I thought I might rather hit some stadium sprints instead.

As luck would have it, the stadium was in fact open; lots of action going on, with football recruits moving in and out of the training complex.  August is fast approaching, which means the kick-off of football season is a mere 5 weeks or so away.  Damn I miss that game.  But anyway, I digress…

I eased on through the gates, circled around through the concourse to the ramps, and had

Decisions, Decisions. In the end, I took the easy way out.

just begun my ascent when I spied a new stash of tractor tires and bumper plates staged for a little outdoor fun for the football recruits.  Change number two to the day’s plan came about when I decided that performing overhead lunges up the entire stadium ramp complex, with a 20kg bumper plate,seemed like a fabulous idea.

Now there are 20 ramp segments from the Dowdy-Ficklen concourse to the stadium’s upper deck, and I managed between 11 and 15 lunges per segment…so let’s see, that’s — I dunno, a whole hell of a lot of damn lunges.  Performed on a steep incline.  And with 20kgs straight-armed overhead.

Madness, right?  Well, I did rest approximately 20 seconds between ramp segments; does that count for anything?

Eventually, I stumbled out onto the upper deck, recomposed myself, then hit a few rounds of step sprints while holding the bumper plate in front of me in a position somewhat similar to say, performing curls with an EZ curl bar.  On each descent, I again straight-armed the plate overhead.

On the way back down the ramps (walking, not lunging), I did a combination of single-arm presses (as if I were “shot putting” the plate) and straight-arm overhead lockouts.

You’re gonna do what?…Where?

A tad heavier, and more cumbersome, too, than the Travelocity gnome.

Again, the gnome would’ve been more manageable…

Now I’ve had sketchier fixie rides on the way home after a tough workout, but I think this one won the “endeavor to persevere with toasted legs” prize.  Not to mention that holding my head up with fried traps took a bit of doing.

So as many of you are undoubtedly aware, a tough workout in the middle of a fast will put the squelch on your appetite for a good while following.  I rode this wave for all it was worth (about 4 hours, post workout), and finally ate about 6 PM that evening — eggs, ham, raw milk and a smattering of fruit and berries — purposely holding the carbs to a minimum.  I grazed the rest of the evening on raw cheese, salami (a poor choice, I know — it was situational), pork roast and a little bit of sweet potato with raw butter.  And I made sure to down plenty of fish oil as well.

Hey, if Lance can dust it up with the youngsters in the TdF, I can give the football recruits at ECU a little something to talk about.  “Yo, you see that crazy  mo’ fo’ over at the stadium…?

In health,

Keith

A Post-Travel, Impromptu Workout

“There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want,
and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the
second.”
~ Logan Pearsall Smith

What follows is a quick run-down of the crazy schedule I’ve kept for the last few days, and how I was able to squeeze-in a quick (though, highly effective) workout in the midst of it all.

New Year’s eve day started off well enough, with the morning workout I wrote about here.  I was pretty taxed by 8AM, but like I mentioned in that post, I knew I was going to be gym-less for the better part of a week and have plenty of time to recover.  So far, so good; but then the workday hit full-on.  I won’t get into all the sordid details, but suffice to say it was “one of those days” (way to ring-out the old, huh?), the result of which being that I didn’t get home until well after 10 PM (no ringing the new year, either).  I wound-up skipping dinner; no real hunger pangs, so why bother? (something that would never have occurred in my high-carb, former life).  A 12-hour hibernation followed and somewhere around 5 PM on Thursday (the days and times are sorta melding together) I ate a meal of leftover ham steak, rib eye and Brussels sprouts.  Then it was on the road to Atlanta, where Meesus TTP had an interview with a modeling agency on Friday afternoon (keep your fingers crossed, please!).

Now, Atlanta is an approximate 8-hours drive from our lovely hometown of G-Vegas, NC.  Long story short, here: I wound -up fasting until 6PM on Friday — but again, no big deal.  However, the place where we finally decided to eat was a virtual carb-fest bakery/sandwich shop that reminded me of an upscale Panera Bread.  Sheesh.  Okay, so after some haggling and begging, I ended-up with a roasted chicken salad.  Not too bad, either (Paleo-wise) — and rather tasty, I have to say — even slacking as it was on the chicken part.  So, okay, no blood, no foul, right?  I’m still doing a Paleo-well, good job.  We decide then (another long story omitted) to go ahead and huck it back to G-Vegas that night.  So off we go; the result being that the only other thing I ate that day (night?) was a truck stop cashew and almond mix.  About as Paleo as you can find (except for jerky) in these kinds of places.  Oh yeah, and lots of coffee (make it a red-eye, please!  And black, of course).  Thank goodness for road-side Starbucks.  And even though Meesus TTP is out of work due to their “cost savings/restructuring” cutbacks, I’ve got no hate.  A serious caffeine Jones, yes — but no hate.  Anyhow, I’m finally showered and crashed by about 4:30 AM Saturday morning.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon: In my mind’s eye I have a plan formulated whereby I’ll run sprints the following day (Sunday), as this will give me time to fully recover from the events of the past few days.  A quick check of the weather, though, sidelines this plan — rain is moving in.  It is a gorgious day Saturday, though — 60’s and sunny — so I saddle-up the fixie and head out to ECU (with the 45 lb medicine ball in tow) for some sprints and throws.  Now I still haven’t eaten since the Atlanta chicken salad and truck stop cashews/almonds, but I feel amazingly “on” and, once I get moving, nicely invigorated.  Something else that would have severely affected my performance in my “previous life” was working out without having recently eaten.  This scenario would have resulted in a pretty good bonk and/or at least a substandard performance.  “Weak” would’ve been the best way to describe it.  This does not occur on a Paleo diet; no bonk, no weakness at all.  Anyway, once I reach the university, I see that the Dowdy-Ficklen stadium gates are open.  Winner!  This opportunity doesn’t come around much between the end of football season and the spring, so I jump dead on it. 

Here’s how the session panned-out:

1. Ramp sprint starts
2. Vertical Jump repeats (2-hand stretch, as if blocking a volleyball shot) x 5

8 rounds of that superset, with very little recovery between each exercise.  It just so happens that the height of the concourse between each ramp section allows for me to perform a near max, two-handed vertical jump.  This allows me to do repeat jumps with touching the ceiling (two hands) as a goal/marker.  No reset between jumps (think “pogo stick”, or “hot coals”).  For a look at what I mean by ramp sprint starts, check out this post.

Then it was out to the stadium’s upper deck for this superset:
1. Three-step, dual-leg “bounds”  (x 13 “bounds”)
2. Ballistic decline (feet higher than hands) push-ups x 10.  Max “air” on every rep, stiff catch at a fraction from the “bottom-out”, or chest-impaling-the-deck, position.
3. Dive bomber push-ups (same starting position as above) x 10.  By the way, the guy in the clip is a little over the top, but he does demonstrate good form.

7 rounds of that, with a full recovery between each set of bounds.  Compare/contrast the portion above to this workout.  An additional note: I think of the “three-step bounds” as being performed exactly as a hurdle bound (at the 1:25 mark, in this clip), though with enough horizontal element to propel me up the step run.  I shoot for traversing the total distance (41 steps) “as fast as possible”, here.

Then, to finish off the session, I did lunges on the way down the ramps.  I really exaggerated the downward fall of each lunge step, turning the exercise into a plyometric-like altitude drop/catch at the bottom position of the movement (as demonstrated here, at the :42 mark).  Then I had to tote that friggin’ medicine ball all the way back home  🙂

Next up, I’ll have a post covering a reader’s question concerning the compatibility of endurance athletics and the Paleo lifestyle.  Also on tap, coverage of the slow-go version of an eye-of-round roast.  This little baby is in the oven — and smelling damn good, too — as I write.

Enjoy the last day of the holidays, for tomorrow we head back to the grind in earnest.

In Health,
Keith