Workout Recap - Week of February 10, 2019
This was a pretty busy week for me, and it'd been a while since I had a reduced load, so I decided to only do four workouts this week. That's not to say that I took it easy on myself, of course. I still went at it hard when I was exercising; I just had a bit of extra recovery time mixed in. In my mind, that's very distinct from spending the usual amount of time doing easier workouts (something that I try to avoid unless it's to protect myself against an injury). While the endurance capabilities of the human body are a key piece of why we became the dominant species on Earth (intelligent tool use and record-keeping were probably more significant but are tangential to the topic at hand), it still functions best in focused bursts of effort, so as someone who's a casual fitness enthusiast rather than a professional athlete, I prefer to keep my attention on my strengths. I feel that's more likely to produce measurable progress, which makes it easier to stay motivated.
Sunday
Type: Pass/Fail
One-armed Push Ups, feet together - 2 sets of 7, each side (pass)
T&A Pull Ups - 2 sets of 6, each side (pass) Pistol Squats, both hands behind me - 2 sets of 6, each side (pass)
Bonus: 2 sets of 3 two-way suicide jumps, 7 pull ups
Speaking of measurable progress, an additional T&A pull up on each set qualifies as that. All of the pull ups and grip work in the past month have made a big difference, but now it's time to get the raw upper back and arm flexor strength to make the transition to fully unilateral pull ups.
Wednesday
Type: As Fast As Possible
5 sets of:
8 Pull Ups
8 Bridges
10 Plank Jumps
Time = 6:45
Bonus: 8 fingertip push ups
Here we have step two in my burpee breakdown, with plank jumps to follow up on last week's jump squats. Honestly, I didn't realize my time as I was going through the workout, but given the result, I overestimated how tiring they'd be. Ah well, lessons for the future.
Thursday
Type: As Fast As Possible
10 sets of:
5 Pull Ups
10 Push Ups
15 Prisoner Squats
Time = 9:45
Bonus: 20 breath isometric dead hang
This was fantastic. I bumped up the set count from eight to ten, and yet I still managed to average better than one set per minute. Absolutely fantastic.
Saturday
Type: As Fast As Possible
6 sets of:
6 Pull Ups
6 Burpees
6 Bridges
Time = 7:00
Bonus: 20 breath isometric dead hang
Speaking of fantastic results, how about a second straight strong performance on a weekend challenge workout? The only thing that could've made it better (aside from an even better finish time, of course) would've been a more creative bonus, and if that's all I've got to complain about after a workout, that's a great place to be.
