Jan 28th Workout

Circuit Training.

10 -15 mins of running by the time it got to my go.

1 min rounds of:

• Rowing
• Jumping Pullups
• Box Jumps (12″ box)
• Kettlebell Clean and Press (12kg bell)
• Kettlebell swings in harness (12kg)
• Bosu Ball Squats
• Man Makers (10lb db’s)
• Sandbag squats (50lbs)
• Airdyne

Much better than last week. Exhausting but not crippling.  The harness is new. Basically a length of elasticated rope attached to the wall at one end and you in a harness at the other. Move out until you have the rope under some decent tension and then perform the swings. Fun, since when you get to the top of the swing your center of balance is such that you have to do some serious work so as not to get pulled backwards onto your butt by the rope Glad to say I would get dragged back a step or so but I did successfully avoid landing on my butt

Bosu ball squats are just evil, I managed a few but was very wobbly. Everything else was challanging but good

Jan 27th Workout

Adult class tonight – 90 minutes.

Jo-Ellen was there which was cool, we are about the same level so work well together. We did a repeat of the choke and guard escapes that we did on Monday which was also cool as it helps reinforce it  

Rolled twice afterwards 10 minutes total. Tapped Jo out with an armlock first time round woot

Jan 26th Workout

Ladies Class tonight, with Mitch. I was still sore from last wednesday (more on that in another post) but I managed to get through it. Classic warmup and stretching followed by burpee progressions. Did struggle with those.

Technique was 3 types of headlock escapes. and finally we rolled for 2 x 5 minute sessions. Exhausting but great fun.

Jan 21st Workout

Circuit training. 

wow, talk about brutal, John called it ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. No running to start this time, just straight into the workouts. 

Squats —— 80, 64, 48, 32, 24, 16

KB Swings – 40, 32, 24, 16, 12, 6

Pullups —- 20, 16, 12, 8, 6, 3

Basically first set was 80 squats, 40 kettlebell swings then 20 pullups. (my pullups were jumping pullups, I might have figured how to pull myself off the ground in a rope but it aint happening with the bar yet.)

I knew I was in trouble before I started but I did complete it, *cheer* was a fair bit slower than my partner and sadly this was her first workout back after a car wreck left her with a couple broken ribs and a seriously messed up leg/knee. Not sure if she broke it or not. 

Still she is a fitness trainer already, in amazing shape and has considerably less weight to squat so I’m not beating myself up but I was at least hoping to keep up with her. 

I didn’t think to time it this time but I am gonna use this as a benchmark workout. Repeat it every couple weeks/once a month maybe and see how I improve.

Jan 20th Workout

Adult class tonight, pretty good, did our usual warmup, including a whole bunch of burpees – bleugh, although I have to say I did a lot more this time than last week. I might have lost some fitness over the holidays but thankfully not all of it.

Technique went okay, was working out with Mike (purple belt) and we did some guard work and self defense. Rolled with him afterwards too. 

Not much else to say

3 day weekend’s ftw

No workout  Thursday night. School was having a seminar with Allen Hopkins. Normally I would have gone but having been gone so long I knew there was no chance of a stripe and I am still feeling a wee bit  sensitive about weight etc, there is very little working out in the seminar’s its all technique so while good learning not so much good calorie burn. 

Friday night is traditionally grocery shopping night so is one of my day’s off. I behaved at the store and didn’t buy anything I shouldn’t have. I did raid the vegetarian Amy’s brand sections for some nice veggie soups and enchiladas. Of course I view these as sides or base’s to add meat to cause I can’t see me giving up my meat any time soon. Don’t panic Pa, I’m never gonna go veggie

I wandered through Sams club on thursday night as well, amazingly managed to get out without spending a fortune. With all my recent reading I am now firmly convinced that being afraid of carbs is a no no. It’s all down to the calories. Funny how we tend to go in circles in nutrition. That said I am looking at the quality of my calories. Quinoa and steel cut oats instead of caramel coloured white bread (what americans call ‘wheat bread’) etc. Good healthy whole foods, not processed junk.

That said I picked up some parmesan encrusted tilapia which was pretty good and even Koby liked, I am always on the lookout for something I can easily bake while I’m in the shower and serve for dinner as opposed to making us different meals. I also found some cod with a cracker based coating. Oh and my sams club finally started carrying the chicken and asaigo sausages a few people have told me are heavenly. They had some cooked up in the store for you to try and wow, talk about yummy. So we have a variety of grub to keep us going for a while. 

Saturday didn’t quite work out for workouts. We ended up playing Rockband till 2am so a 9am workout class wasn’t happening. I planned to go to my ladies class at 11 instead but managed to sleep to late. Ho hum.. I did get to my guitar lesson though. 

That was awesome. I decided to go with the actual guitar instead of bass in the end. I love my bass but I can apply a lot of what I learn from the guitar to the bass while not so much vice versa. I also gravitated to the bass cause I found it a lot easier to play with the thicker wider spaced strings. Now I have a proper teacher to show me stuff I think I will find it easier. 

My teacher is awesome, he has way too much energy but it definitely helps inspire you First lessons are always a bit awkward but he showed me how to read tab which I already knew to some extent and showed me some chord changes and scales to work on. I am also learning Frera Jacka, woot! Thankfully we will be working up to the rock and metal He is gonna tab out Money by Pink Floyd for me which is pretty cool

My fingers are already sore and I barely played anything during the lesson, gonna start with 10 mins practice a night, hopefully that will let the callouses develop without shredding them completely.

Jan 14th Workout

Woot, circuit training tonight. Always one of my favourite classes . Started off running and as I am at the back of the line I am always the last to go through the circuit so I get to run the longest. Yay, I think lol. Wasn’t too many people so was 25 mins of running, 15 mins to go through the circuit.

1 min rounds, 30 sec rest.

• Rowing
• Front Squat (12kg kettlebell)
• Rope Climb
• 12″ Box Jump
• Guard Ups
• Thrusters (45lb barbell)
• Ball Slams (35lb medicine ball)
• Sandbag Squats (50lb sandbag – swing up and over head onto shoulders, squat, put sandbag back to floor)
• Man Makers (12lb db’s)
• Wall Burpees

The running did kinda suck, my ankles were cramping up badly I got some wraps for them tuesday night but of course forgot to bring them with me for when I needed them most. Hoping it is just something that will improve in time.

The rope climb was enlightening, I was sure I would fail miserably and while I didn’t exactly climb much I was able to actually pull myself off the ground. Pretty good start in my mind If I can figure out the footwork to grip the rope I think I might actually be able to do it. Everything else went well and I was suitably exhausted afterwards

Jan 13th Workout

Adult class tonight, 90 minutes. Not sure on time splits but a good solid warmup, running, matt drills, stretching and then floor work (ab work, burpees etc). Floor work sucked, I could feel every single extra pound I put on making stuff harder. That and just losing my conditioning. Oh well, ’tis motivation to stick to it and stay clean on the food which I have been. Time will tell.

We did guard pass work tonight, I rolled with Mitch and picked up some good stuff on where I was going wrong. He’s a great teacher. Just wish I didn’t feel so clumsy.

Jan 12 Workout

I definitely don’t recommend taking a month off. .. sigh. Going back did remind me how much frickin fun jiu-jitsu is

Ladies class tonight, 1 hour, 20 mins warmup – running, mat drills and stretching, no burpees. 30 mins technique on a few head lock escapes and counters and 10 mins rolling. I have forgotten almost everything… sigh.

I did decide to finally get the white to blue belt dvd set from Pedro Sauer as my christmas present to myself. It should really help me as I’ll be able to watch and rewatch it regulary without forgetting stuff in between. Hopefully Koby will let me practice on him, I’m not holding my breath on that though I’ve been putting it off as its $140. Mitch (teacher) said it was definitely worth it though.

Good start :)

1 week down and I can happily report a 5lb weight loss to start off the new years goals. I did touch down at 6lbs lost but I was a lb up this morning but I am not worried, I ate kinda late last night so its probably just extra in my system.

I ended up fasting on Sunday instead of Friday as I had a vendor in town so ate lunch with him both Thursday and Friday. Thankfully he was as interested in getting healthy lunches as I was so we had some great choices. Thursday was this awesome citrus grilled tuna salad that one of the local restaurants makes. The pineapple-cilantro dressing is probably a bit dangerous so I got forkfuls of salad and just dipped my knife in the dressing and applied a little bit. I ended up using a fraction of what was provided

Friday we went to another local restuarant and bless louisiana the weather was so nice we sat out on the deck, ate grilled tuna (yes again, I love the stuff) with steamed veggies and fed all the croutons and bread that came with the meal to the ducks In January.. lol. Gotta love it.

Had one cheat meal on Saturday which was at a bbq place, I had a brisket sandwich with no bbq sauce and some baked beans (probably a ton of sugar in those). I don’t think that can be called remotely healthy but we didn’t stuff our selves. In fact that was around 3 and my stomach was grumbling around 8pm so I made an avocado salad for supper. yum Breakfast could be called cheat meal but it was a bowl of oatmeal after my gorilla fitness class. I threw some rasins in there so in the grand scheme of things it was earned and nutritionally healthy, just not technically on my plan.

I only worked out twice last week due to working late and feeling bad about slacking for so long but the two workouts were the circuit training classes so they were awesome workouts. I can’t remember the circuit details properly now but I still am sore all over so that’s a good start

I am going to start listing my workouts in posts of their own just so I can search back for them later easier and compare sessions so I can see improvements. Also means those of you who use RSS feeds to get my blog don’t have to read my boring training sessions if you don’t want to I’ll title them appropriately.

Apart from that life is wandering along as normal, Koby had his XM radio installed this weekend and is bouncing like a kid about it, while we were waiting we wandered nto the music store next door to pass the time and ended up signing up for guitar lessons. Hubby is learning guitar and I am learning bass. Should be fun. We’ve had them kicking around for a while but due to our high procrastination levels we lack the discipline to sit down and teach ourselves. A weekly lesson should fix that My first one is on Saturday. I’ll keep you updated on progress there