Workout Recap - Week of September 3, 2017

Another week of being silly busy, so it was almost another week of only four workouts, if it wasn't for an impromptu decision to just go for a run on Thursday. That having been said, my most notable achievement was on the side from my workouts. I was just toying around one evening, and I managed to do the beginnings of a one-armed pull up. Okay, to be fair, it was only lifting myself about an inch and holding it for a moment before being overwhelmed by gravity, but that's a start, and continuing to work from there ought to bring further progress.

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Sunday

Type: Pass/Fail

Semiclose Handstand Push Ups - 2 sets of 12 (pass)

1-Armed Standing Pulls - 2 sets of 20, each side (pass)

Shrimp Squats, Both Hands Behind Me - 2 sets of 5, each side (pass)

Bonus: 4 sets of 3 ass clap push ups, 10 close grip pull ups

Continuing to make progress with my leg work felt good, because I'd probably stayed on regular shrimp squats for too long. I did a bit of a better job with the ass clap push ups, too, although I'd still like to get more comfortable with them before trying to do a clap behind my back.

Tuesday

Type: As Fast As Possible

4 sets of:

10 Burpees

15 Diamond Push Ups

20 Tuck Jumps

Time = 9:00

Bonus: 12 pull ups

This is actually a variant of one of the first workouts that I did back in 2014, when I'd started recording my performance. It's pretty cool to see that I've gone from needing 15 minutes to do 3 sets to doing 33% more work in 40% less time. Being able to see that kind of stark evidence of improvement does wonders for maintaining motivation.

Thursday

Type: As Fast As Possible

Running - 1 mile

Time = 8:00

Bonus: 1 mile walk

I wasn't going to do anything this day, but I just decided to go for a run around the block and then measure how long that actually was by walking the distance afterwards. It's not exactly an Olympic qualifying time, but considering that I probably haven't tried running like this in more than a decade, I had no real sense of how to pace myself. Managing to get a time on the faster half of the general 7-10 minute "average" time (per Google) despite not pushing myself hard enough to end up out of breath (I was breathing heavily, but it was always in a controlled manner) is a decent result, I think.

Friday

Type: Pass/Fail

1-Armed Push Ups, Feet Apart - 2 sets of 8, each side (pass)

Stand-to-Stand Bridges (with one touch of a wall on the way up) - 2 sets of 8 (pass)

Hanging V Raises - 2 sets of 9 (pass)

Bonus: 2 sets of 3 two-way suicide jumps

It was probably in part because of going for a run for the first time in years the day before, but my right shin/ankle area was rather sore this day, so I went with a wide stance for my push ups in order to reduce the anti-rotation loading on my lower body.

Saturday

Type: As Fast As Possible

100 Burpees

Time = 10:45

Bonus: 10 pull ups, 10 bridges

Improving on my last time is always welcome, even if I'm still coming up a bit short of my personal best. On the plus side, I started out on pace for a 6:30 finish (first 23 burpees in 1:30), which is pretty remarkable for me since that'd be a good time for doing the quicker sprawl'n'spring style burpees whereas I do full squat'n'push up burpees. I also made it up to 56 burpees by my third breath break and kept doing double-digit mini-sets up until 88, both of which are also personal bests, so even if my final time isn't where I'd like it to be, I'm still seeing improvement.

#fitness