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Geek Fit Friday – Intervals

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geek-fit-fridayIf you aren’t doing interval training as a part of your training – you should be. If you aren’t familiar with the idea, it’s push it super-hard for a short period of time, rest briefly, repeat.

Tabata intervals are one of the most popular protocols out there (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off for 8 rounds – which is 4 minutes). One set of Tabata kettlebell swings – if you are working at proper intensity – is enough for most people.

While Tabata is popular, other interval timing works just as well. As long as the work period is hard and the rest period is short, it remains effective.

Some of my favorite options are:

  • Jumprope: One minute on, one minute off for a total of 20 minutes.
  • Swings: One minute on, 30 seconds off for 6 or 7 rounds.
  • Tabatas: Swings, squats, or burpees.

Having a good timer for this makes interval training much easier. My personal favorite is the GymBoss. It’s $20, and a tiny little device (about the size of a clip-on pedometer). You can set either one or two times (e.g. 1 minute rounds or 1 minute on, 30 seconds off). To let you know your time is up, it will vibrate or beep at one of two noise levels. The loudest level is loud enough that I can use it for my small group classes. It then counts the total number of rounds so you know how much work you have done. Other than actually doing the work for you, it pretty much does it all!

Of course, if you are an iPhone user, there is an app for that! If you search the App Store on interval timer, you will get about a dozen results. Since none of them are free and I love my Gymboss, I haven’t checked any of them out, but if you have, let me know!

Filed Under: Fitness

Move It Monday – Planning

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As the seasons change, do you need to change up your training routine to accommodate the shorter days and/or the colder weather?

Do you have a plan? If not, spend an hour this week and make one. By taking the time to plan and prep now, making the transition will be fun, easy, and something you look forward to, not dread.

Once you have completed your planning, do you have the tools you need to make that happen?

  • If you plan to take up a new activity, have you found the books, classes, or instructor to get you started?  (Seattle Resources)
  • If you are going to run outside in the dark and cold, do you have reflective gear and the warm clothes that you need?
  • If you ski or snowboard, take them in now for waxing and sharpening. Not only will you have faster turnaround and likely lower prices, but when the first snow hits, you’ll be the first on the slopes.

P.S. If you had been planning on taking up a new activity this summer and just never got around to it, this is a great time of year to shop for end-of-season closeouts so you are all set for next summer!

Filed Under: Lifestyle

Hotel room training

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This past week didn’t go anything like I had planned. Sunday I flew to San Jose to attend VizThink, planned to be home Wednesday night, train clients, and hold a Z workshop yesterday. Instead, I ended up re-routing my travel, missing almost all of the conference, and heading to southern Texas for a memorial service for my grandfather and clean out his house. So, instead of three days of travel, with a business trip on the back end, it means I won’t be home for almost three weeks. Yikes!

My training schedule had been erratic at best BEFORE the travel, which I already knew wasn’t acceptable. So, time to use this break in my everyday life to rechunk a few things and create some new habits. As Kathy said to me today, motivation is simply the choice between two possible outcomes. And, of course, she was right.

So, I’m in a hotel for the next 10 days with NO training equipment (and the hotel gym is unusable). What options does a girl have? Turns out — TONS!

For reps and sets, I’m just doing the number that I can do with perfect form (no point in getting good at doing something wrong).

  1. Pistols. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it’s basically a one-legged squat (extend the other leg out in front of you). I can’t do a bodyweight pistol, so I put one hand on the nightstand for balance and to assist. Be sure to keep your head up and maintain long spine.
  2. Push-ups.  Long spine, head in neutral, hands under your shoulders with the upper arms along your ribcage as you go down. I don’t care if you are on your toes or knees (or even up against a wall) as long as you maintain your form.
  3. Leg raises. Lie on your back,
  4. Cross crawls. This a parkour training move — think crawling on hands and feet (instead of hands and knees). Left hand/right foot then right hand/left foot. Forward and backward across the hotel room floor. It’s the backward that always kills me!
  5. Squats. Find a nice, wide comfortable stance. Long spine, maintain the small arch in the low back.
  6. Tabata. In this case, tabata squats. The tabata protocol is just 4 minutes long, but those 4 minutes are deceptively hard. 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off (so 8 rounds). If you are using bodyweight, I prefer squats, but burpees can work as well.
  7. Burpees. As long as we are on the subject, another great bodyweight exercise that my clients HATE. Again, deceptively hard.

If you are worried about the floor cleanliness, use a towel or two and skip the cross-crawls.

Let me know what your travel training protocol is!!!

Filed Under: Fitness

A roll of the dice

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Right now I’m busier than ever, so fitting in any sort of training is a challenge. But, I’m committed to getting in at least a half hour a day. So, depending upon the weather and how I feel both mentally and physically, I change things up. Right now I have a handful of things I’m rotating between:

  • Walking the dog – ~45 minutes. It’s my active recovery on those rare Seattle winter days when it’s not raining.
  • Z-Health S-Phase. Stances, arm swing, and transition steps. Tough to do indoors, but can be done — outside is MUCH better, because then I can cover some distance. Nearby tennis courts make the perfect venue
  • Jumprope. This is for the days when I have to be indoors and really don’t feel like thinking. 1 minute on, 1 minute off for 20 minutes. During the rest periods I work on visual drills.
  • Tennis/basketball/soccer. Definitely requires the great outdoors, and we can go to the nearby elementary school and use their courts for practice.
  • Z-Health mobility and weighted mobility
  • Kettlebell “Roll the Dice” workout. Assign a drill to a number (1-6), assign reps to a number or a multiplier thereof. Roll twice (one to assign the drill, the second to figure out how many reps). Do drill. Repeat for 30 minutes.

What I like about this right now is that I have a set repertoire that covers a wide variety of activities and levels of effort. This means that I can tailor each day to how I feel. I’ll likely keep this activity set through the end of the year.

Tonight was Roll the Dice. The program, as I have it designed is:

  1. Snatch. # rolled +10.
  2. Press. # rolled.
  3. Swing/Catch/Squat. # rolled +10.
  4. Halo. # rolled.
  5. Overhead Lunge. # rolled +10.
  6. 1/2/1 swing combo. # rolled x10.

Tonight, that resulted in: 55/55 snatches, 13/13 presses, 71 swing/catch/squat, 22 halo, 19/19 overhead lunge, 50 1/2/1 swing combo. About halfway through we stopped to rest for 2 minutes and do some visual drills. We each pick our favorite drills to reduce the threat and get in some bonus visual work.

Filed Under: Fitness

How the body works cracks me up

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This morning I was getting a training session in before I heading off for a private session with a client. Pressing was on the agenda, and a good lockout at the top is key to any good press.

I discovered this past spring that my right elbow does not lock out – at least not happily. It’s not terribly obvious to most people, but I can feel it and a highly-trained eye can see it. This morning I decided to take some extra time to work on my lockout, to see if I could find the key. Shoulder circles and camshafts in a ton of different directions revealed that I cannot maintain lockout with the arm overhead on shoulder circles (every other position is fine) and straight-arm camshafts are simply not possible. Tactile cueing at the elbow does fix it, but it’s not a great long-term solution. Tactile cueing at the shoulder is also helpful, but not as good as at the elbow.

I already knew that I have problems with external rotation with abduction on the opposite hip. It’s one of the only places in my body, where moving it just plain causes sharp pain. Because of the concept of opposing joints (hip to shoulder), I decided to see if playing with that would help. I went in to external rotation, applied some medium pressure where the pain flares up, and then did some abduction. I was careful to keep the range of motion relatively small, and I never moved in to pain. It actually felt great.

OK, back to the shoulder/elbow. Elbow lockout much better. Shoulder circles much better. Camshafts much better. So, presses much better!

“All the body all the time” is both really powerful and really annoying. Before Z-Health, I never would have thought to look at the opposing hip. The beauty of a principle-based system.

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Filed Under: Neurology
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