Workout Recap - Week of January 20, 2019
Due in part to the unexpected complications in my life, which I'd touched on briefly in my last recap, I focused on quick workouts for this week. That also meant skimping on the bonus finishers, compared to what I usually try to do. All told, though, I was happy with myself for getting in a full five despite those pressures.
Sunday
Type: Pass/Fail
One-armed Push Ups, feet together - 1 set of 10, each side (pass)
Towel Pull Ups - 1 set of 13 (pass) Pistol Squats, both hands behind me - 1 set of 8, each side (pass)
Bonus: 5 fingertip push ups
This one taught me a few things. First, I can probably stretch out to two sets of eight for the push ups, but there's an argument to be made that I'd be better served to wait just a little longer before doing that. Second, I can certainly move on to different pull ups, because the main merit of the towel (working on my grip) could be had just as well by simply hanging from it as a bonus.
Tuesday
Type: As Fast As Possible
21/15/9 Plyometric Lunges
21/15/9 Diamond Push Ups
21/15/9 Straight Leg Raises
Time = 5:00
Bonus: none
I was particularly crunched for time on this day, so I had to go for something fast and simple if I was going to work out at all. While none of these movements were difficult enough to make any worthwhile strength gains from this routine, just staying in constant aggressive motion for five minutes seemed like a reasonable endurance test.
Wednesday
Type: As Fast As Possible
21/15/9 Burpees
21/15/9 Chin Ups
21/15/9 High Knees
Time = 10:00
Bonus: none
Well, if efficiency is what I was after (and I was), burpees are always a good choice. Chin ups target the main muscle groups that burpees don't, and the high knees were a filler to both give my upper body a small break to recover and keep my legs working. Now, admittedly, the ideal would've been to do those chin ups in single continuous sets (as it was, I broke each round of them into three mini-sets), but I think doing them straight off of a significant number of burpees makes it reasonable that I needed a couple moments to catch my breath in the middle.
Friday
Type: As Fast As Possible
5 sets of:
10 Burpees
5 Pull Ups
5 Lunges
5 Sit Ups
Time = 9:30
Bonus: 10 chin ups
Well, I did about half a hundred burpees in the previous workout, and I was going to be doing likewise in the weekend challenge workout, so why not make that a theme for three in a row? That was about as much thought as I put in to coming up with this routine, but it felt good.
Saturday
Type: As Fast As Possible
7 sets of:
7 Burpees
7 Bridges
Time = 8:30
Bonus: 1 burpee, 1 bridge
While getting this exact same finishing time felt bad in last week's challenge, it felt great here. There's still a bit of a hitch in my burpee motion that I'm struggling to smooth out, but this was a thirty second improvement over my previous time with this challenge, and that's a pretty huge step forward. All in all, this was probably the best I've felt about a week of work outs this year.
