kentcowgill.org/blog

August 18:

Push ups: 30 then 22 then 22 then 20 then maxed out at 29. Wow. Rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 123 in about 11 minutes. I somehow had it in me to squeeze out the 29 max out set. Boy am I tired. But not too tired to do...

Chin ups: 10 then 8 then 8 then 5 then maxed out at 7, I think. Rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 38 in about 10 minutes. Again, these were from the shorter door, so I think I was cheating a little. I recall counting to 8 on the last one, but I think I only got halfway up on 8, so that's why I've got it as 7.

The chart for this week:

August 19:

Three kettlebell circuits. I'm thinking I really need to start thinking about buying a heavier kettlebell. But then I think that I'm certainly sweating, huffing, and puffing by the time I'm done with this one. Do I really need to push myself that much harder? Also, I've only done this (3 circuits) about once a week. I really think I should let me body get used to this increased activity gradually, because I really think I touched on overtraining there for a bit while I had split the chin ups and push ups onto their own days.

August 20:

I finally got myself to a physical therapist. Turns out that in addition to my previously diagnosed sciatica (compression of the sciatic nerve which causes some hip/pelvis/low back pain on my left side and an occasional shooting sensation down my shin - go figure) I also have a hip deflection. Or rotation. Or something. I don't recall. Also, some of my core muscles are a lot weaker than perhaps they ought to be. Like the gluteal meads, transverse abdominals, mid and rear deltoids, and who knows what else. So the therapist put me through some torture, er I mean strength, tests, and had me do some simple exercises which left me a little sore afterwards, and a little tired. Also the fact that Lisa and I took Matthew to the doctor in the morning, which meant that I had to wake up early. And of course the night before I had to stay up late doing all the normal evening things. So I didn't have much sleep. So I was pretty tired by the time the evening rolled around, so I completely skipped my push ups and chin ups. Which makes me sad.

August 6:
Push ups: 27 then 20 (wow these seem tougher than last time, but) then 16 (wow, that's a step back, right? but I'll keep going and) then (oh crap I realized I was doing the wrong week, so I'll skip back down to) 15 then (so now I'm 4 ahead of where I should be, assuming my math is right, so the max out target number should really just be 21 for me but I ended up and) maxed out at 14. Hard to compare directly, but I will anyhow. Last time I did 84, this time (resting about 60 seconds between sets) was 92 in about 7 minutes. Not bad. Better than last time, sort of, even though I did 5 too many in the first two sets. At least Friday should be OK.

Chin ups: 7 then 7 then 5 then 4 then maxed out at 4 and two halves. Resting about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 27 in about 6 minutes. Obviously, I missed the target for the max-out set. We'll see how the rest of the "week" goes. I just took a peek - good thing I'll have 2 days rest before the herculean effort of doing 41 in about 11 minutes.

Also, I replaced my bike tires today. Strangely enough, the first one was again difficult, and the second one not so much. I didn't think I'd get rusty after not having done it in a week or so. I was fairly sure I had managed to damage one of the innertubes putting the super tight brand new tires onto the rims, but they seemed to hold 80 psi for a couple of days.

As far as a physical update, my triceps and pectorals are definitely looking better, and I'm noticing more vascularity, which to means translates to less subcutaneous body fat. Again I'm kicking myself for not taking measurements beforehand, but such is life. I have a record of at least my weight, though that doesn't always tell the whole story.

I'm really sore from the kettlebell workout yesterday. I really threw my hips, hamstrings, and gluteals into it - literally - and I'm definitely feeling it. And I felt it right through Thursday, so I took the day off. Also, Lisa had her wisdom teeth removed earlier in the day, and I had extra Daddy duties (in addition to loving and caring husband duties), so honestly I was a little pooped. But I had decided to skip everything on Thursday ahead of time, so I don't feel like I'm copping a major excuse.

August 4:

I'm really glad I took the opportunity to rest over the weekend. I feel like due to the bike riding, I could possibly use a little extra rest for my triceps since they seem to take a lot of the abuse of supporting the weight of my torso on these multi-hour bike rides I've been taking, but I guess it won't hurt too bad if I just start in to the push ups tonight. No sense in putting it off any more. And if I stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine, then I get two whole days of rest on the weekend. Well, resting as well as I can supposing I ride my bike over the weekend. Which supposes I'll find time to get it to a bike shop and have my tires replaced. I wonder... is it like a car where if you replace one, it's safer to go ahead and replace them both? I think with the distinct lack of crumple zones on my bike, I'll opt for playing it safer and replace them both.

Push ups: 30 then 22 then 22 (the last few are getting tough, and) then 20 (wow, I don't think I can pull off the max-out set, but I'll try and) then maxed out at 20. Trying for 21 had me collapse. Rested about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 114 in about 11 minutes. 114. That's getting up there. I missed the max-out targets for all three of the days in week 3, so I think I'll just repeat it. Days 1 of week 3 is only 99 pushups in about 6 minutes. I'll keep a positive outlook for Wednesday, AKA week 3 day 1 redux. Hopefully with this slight step back, the max-out targets are more within reach.

Chin ups: Exhaustion test. I did 9. Not too shabby. 300% of my original in about 3 weeks. I can live with that, assuming I don't think too much about how far I seem to be from what I used to be able to do, much less the current goal of being able to do 100. Doing 9 consecutive chin ups qualifies me to start from column 2 in week 1. Column 2 of week one looks fairly tougher than column 1 of week 2. I hope the rest between sets allows for enough short term recovery to hit all the targets. I'm not fond of repeating weeks.

August 5:

Kettlebell. 3 circuits from Kettlebells the Iron Core Way. No ab stuff. It's important to note that I'm not skipping the ab work because I can't do it. I just don't want to. Not only have I done enough ab work in the past, but I really, really don't want to smear my sweaty self all over the floor. Once again I forgot to find a towel beforehand. Also, even as recent as a month before Matthew was born, when I was doing my boxing workouts, I used to do several minutes straight of crunches. I first aimed for 3 minutes, but after a while that wasn't a challenge any more and so I tried to see how many minutes of crunches I could do. I think I lost count after 5 minutes.

On a side note, it's too bad that every other week or so there's an exhaustion test. It's also too bad that I need to rest for at least a day after the exhaustion test. Why? Because for the rest of the program, I'll have no way to know what the heck day of stuff I'm supposed to be doing on any given Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. This is due to the fact that I've decided that those are the only days I'll be doing this stuff, and the exhaustion test will get a day of its own. Which will throw the schedule a little out of whack each time the exhaustion test comes up.

It used to be easy - Monday? Sure! Day 1 of whatever week. Friday? You bet! That's obviously day 3. Now I have to search backwards through my training log to figure out what I did the last time, and then cross reference it with the website to see what's supposed to come next. So that's an unexpected benefit of keeping this log - some degree of organization and a reminder (if not at least a way to figure out) what's coming next. But it's a pain.

July 31st:
Push ups: 27 then 19 then 19 (the last 5 of which were really tough, but I'll keep going and) then 15 (oh crap those last 5 were really hard, how can I possibly do the max and) then maxed out at 13. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 93 in about 8 minutes. Supposed to have been 105, but I ran out of steam for the last 12. The good part is that this was a full 9 more than I did two days ago. The bad part is that it looks like I'm going to have to repeat week 3. That's OK - missing the max-out targets for week 3 looks like it ought to adequately prepare me for ... week 3.

No kettlebell today. I want to make sure I don't get in danger of overtraining. Which I very well might be dangerously close to doing at this point - I've started an awful lot of activity lately, some of it quite intense. Because 93 pushups are a lot harder than about 24 chin ups, I'm thinking of moving my next kettlebell workout to Friday, right after my chin ups. Saturday will be pushups only, with maybe some biking. Sunday should be a day of rest. But maybe some biking. Due to scheduling (i.e. when I get home from work, it's usually my job to take over with Matthew), there's pretty much no opportunity to get on my bike and go somewhere throughout the week. Sure I can throw the bike on the stationary trainer, but it's just so much more motivating to get out and accomplish something.

August 1:
Chin ups: 5 then 5 then 4 then 4 then ... are you ready? maxed out at 8! Sure, the last two were just barely countable, but I'm pretty sure I got my nose up to the bar at least. And everything before, I had my chin well above the bar, whereas previously I only got my chin to the level of the bar. Rested about 2 minutes between sets maybe just 1 minutes between the third and fourth sets - I honestly lost count - for a total of 26 in about 10-11 minutes. Give or take. These really felt good. I'm noticing in the last few days that push ups actually seem to hit my biceps a little, because I could feel them after my push ups yesterday, and I think they were a little sore today. I honestly didn't think that would be the case, but I can't argue with the way I feel.

I just realized that since I'm done with week 2 for chin ups, I need to take an exhaustion test. I'm fairly confident I won't be able to hit the minimum to get into week 3 (16 consecutive chin ups!) - I may have to start in the 6-10 push ups column of week 1, which will only be a little tougher than today was. And now I'm envisioning working my way through 2 weeks - the first two weeks - of column 2, and then only exhausting myself into column 3 of week 1. Now I'm thinking I might have to go through all three columns of all 6 weeks, which might mean I'll be through this in 19 weeks. Why not 18? I had to repeat column 1 for week 1 already. This is much further out of reach than 6 or possibly 12 weeks.

But maybe I'm being too pessimistic, and I'll actually be able to move through some of these levels a little faster. Time will tell.

No kettlebell. I was exhausted.

July 29th: The push ups day I'm dreading. I'm feeling mostly OK, but a little tired and sore.

Push ups: 25 then 17 then 17 then 15, which were tough - I don't think I can do the last max out set, but then I tried anyhow, and - I maxed out at 10. Rested a little too long between the first two sets, but then about a minute between the rest of the sets, for a total of 84 in about 8 minutes. Supposed to have been 99 in about 7. I can go for the 105 in about 8 minutes on week 3 day 2, but I suspect I'll end early on the max out set again. Hopefully I'll at least be able to hit everything before the max out set, and maybe hit the same 10 on the max out set, so maybe I'll hit 90ish or so. Week 3 day 3 is a bit too far away for me to be able to speculate on how I'll do, so I won't. Later on I recalled that earlier in the day I had demonstrated one use of a swiss ball to some coworkers - push ups! Resting my feet on the ball. I did about 3. Maybe that's what kept me from hitting the 25. Hrm. No.

Kettlebells: That's right - I didn't do any kettlebell training Monday, so that means I get to do at least two circuits today. I'll maybe go for the third. And I did. And the third circuit was a little tougher than the second, and was topped off by some abdominal work - most of which I skipped due to excessive sweat of the back area, and my desire to not get too much sweat on the carpet, and the lack of a nearby towel. Also, I was pretty tired at the time. I did the rolling situps - new to me - since it looked like I didn't have to recline all the way to the floor.

July 30th:
Chin ups: 6 then 5 then 5 then 3 then maxed out at 6. What's that? More than the minimum on the 3rd set? Yes. I didn't write it down on the way upstairs and couldn't remember if it was 6-5-3-3-6 or 6-5-5-3-6. So I opted for the latter, to play it safe. Rested about a minute and a half between sets, for a total of 25 within about 8 minutes. The very last one was a struggle - I almost gave up at the half way point - but I hung in there, and gave it a final kick to get my chin very near the bar, and feel good enough about it to call it a solid 6. Friday should be a breeze. But what's the big upside to today? The first set was 6, and I'm pretty sure I could've done at least one more after the 6. Even discounting the potential 7th, that means I can already do twice the number of consecutive chin ups as I could do just two weeks ago. That's 200%! Granted, I need to be able to do about 3,300% of my original to meet the goal. Or rather just 3,100% now :)

So I ended up buying a kettlebell and getting back on my bike.

Saturday (July 26) I bought a 25 pound kettlebell, and could hardly wait to start swinging it around. I went through circuit 1 of the Kettlebells the Iron Core Way DVD, which was a basic warmup followed by two three (I found out later) circuits of some basic kettlebell exercises. Even the warmup had me sweating and huffing. And I was running short on time, so I just did 1 circuit. All I can say is this: it's very difficult. I'm glad I didn't buy the lighter 20 pound kettlebell, because I didn't want to sell myself short. Also glad (at least for now) I didn't buy a heavier one, either. I'd like to make sure I've got the techniques down pretty solid before going heavier. Oh, and maybe get the initial full body soreness out of the way, too :) Because I was fairly sore the following day. But it didn't stop me from doing it again.

Sunday I did the circuit twice. And then Lisa wanted me to do the first part with her. So I did. But the second circuit on the DVD was a little bait and switch - they added exercises to the second circuit! So the second "circuit" was longer than the first, and with more stuff! How dare they! Just kidding, of course, the added exercises just really sent my sweat glands into overdrive. I got a really good workout, and I don't think I'll be ready to do this again Monday. I noticed the backs of my forearms are a little sore from frequent hard contact with the kettlebell. Either my technique is off, or this is just one of those things I'm just going to have to get used to.

(I found out later that this is primarily technique - I need to learn to flip the kettlebell (and my wrist) around a vertical axis and bring my wrist to the kettlebell - not bring the kettlebell to my wrist. Which causes impact. Which causes soreness.)

I also rounded up my bike shoes and helmet, filled my bike tires with about 95 psi of air, and took off. Lisa had taken Matthew and Spike out for a walk, so first thing I wanted to do was to catch up to them. I made a loop around the park a block away, then swung back towards the house - but no sign of them. So I took off to this bike trail bridge (going over W Peterson Ave in the map) I finally figured out how to get to. I have no idea how many miles I ended up doing, but I was out about an hour. But then I remembered I could plot arbitrary routes with Google Maps, so here's the actual route:

View Larger Map

Turns out it was about 6.5 miles.

About a third of the way back, I noticed my rear tire getting lower, so I slowed down and kept most of my weight over the front tire. Two thirds of the way back, I was riding on the rim. So I had to walk it the rest of the way home from W Foster Ave. Bummer.