Wed 5-15-13: Yard Work
All it takes is a day out in the yard to make you appreciate the amount of work that goes into gardening and landscaping. Chopping, cutting, lifting, carrying, hauling, dumping, throwing and more. Not a single muscle left out and every little movement meant something. Functional fitness at its core. Not only a nice departure from structured exercise but also outdoors in the sun. Doing work to maintain your residence/habitat is about as natural, traditional, primal and universal as you get.
The Workout Is The Warmup
One of my favorite workouts is to go through this extended warmup…
Warmup Workout
Overhead squat
Jumping jacks
Arm circles
Arm scissors
Lateral bend
Turkish get up
Breakdancers
Kneehug quad stretch
Shadowboxing
Side kicks alternating
Kicks front back alternating
Handstand
Pushup
Pullup
Muscleup
Lunge with reach rotation
Back lunge with overhead raise
Kneeling lunge out
Switching 90/90 stretch
Elbow to instep
Step back to rotated bar raise
Jumprope/Rope swing
Med ball corkscrew press
Staff twirling
Kayakers
Two foot lateral hops
Zig zags
Ice skaters forward/backward
Supine knee twister
Burpees
Wide stance windmills
Alternating T
Plank
Side plank
Grok squat
Hang
Tipping bird stiffleg deadlift
SL toe touch and reach
SL bent airplane
SL balance eyes closed
Archer
Fencer
Ball work ts ys ws or bent over
Bridge marching
Boat to superman
Overhead squat
Tues 4-23-13: Park Day
Today was a park day.
Swinging on the swings.
Swing Jumps.
Playground Transversing.
Jumping and hanging from basketball hoops.
And the most fun…
Base running. Went to the little league field at the park and did some running around the bases. Home runs, doubles, singles, triples, 1st to 3rd, bunt singles, scoring from second, stealing bases. Simply, I just pretended I was playing a baseball game. It was pretty fun and a great conditioning workout. Hopefully no one was watching and wondering why the old guy was playing a pretend game of baseball on the kids’ field, all the way down to giving the third base coach a high five after I hit a walk off homer. 
Sat 4-13-13: Upper Body Randomness
Took a page from Art Devany’s book: Complex Task Exercise.
Upper Body
Walked into my local Crunch Fitness and just did whatever upper body exercise that was before me. Used the randomness of Devany’s nature, using whatever weight was on the machine, barbell or dumbbell and pumped out reps, with no real number or outcome in mind. Just like a kid, did the exercise until it got hard or I got tired of it and them moved on to something else. Refreshing approach that I do every once in a while for a nice change of pace. Great workout that almost always leaves me sore as well…
Fri 4-5-13: Full Body
Full Body
Alternating DB Curl & Press
One Arm DB Bench (half off bench)
Overhead Squat
Cable Push Pull 2 sets (video)
One Arm Cable Press 5 sets (video)
Uneven Depth Push-up to Balance (video)
Giant set of:
20 Overhead Squats
25 Overhead Presses
30 Hang Cleans
35 Back Squats
40 Push-ups
45 Cable Reverse Flys
50 Jump Squats
Thur 4-4-13: Park & Trees
Today was a day at the park, literally. Spent some time climbing, swinging, jumping, sliding, running and just being a kid. Playgrounds are for kids of all ages.
Of course added in some tree work along the way…
Mon 4-1-13: Trees
Climbed trees for about 15 minutes. Found a street with some good trees and climbed up and down each one. Did some other miscellaneous jumping, swinging and hanging, putting together a nice little outdoor workout. Only gathered a few staring spectators in the process…
And only a few scrapes too…
Sun 3-31-13: Bouncehouse Play
Happy Easter!
Today was play day- chasing nearly 10 kids, ranging from 2-12 years old, up, over, around and through a bounce house. I was a monster/wolf and chased little kids/cats around almost endlessly. So cool! I think I had as much fun as they did. Great full body workout and tons of good old fashioned fun play all around.
Mon 3-25-13: Pullups
Pullups
10 sets of 10 scattered throughout the day.
Whenever, wherever, whatever apparatus I was around.
Thur 3-21-13: Leg Challenge
Lower Body
2 mile hike down and back up a local gully trail.
Leg Challenge: 10 reps of each in a row, 50 reps total.
Step Up (10 each leg)
Lunge (same)
Squat
Set 1: Bodyweight
Set 2: +25% of BW (45 lbs for me)
Set 3: +50% of BW (90 lbs)
Set 4: +75% of BW (135 lbs)
This is where I stopped…
BONUS for the freaks:
Set 5: +100% of BW
Or
BONUS for the gluttons for punishment:
Work your way back down- 50%, 25%, BW.
You can use any apparatus to add the weight, I chose a barbell for convenience. You can also modify it for different percentages of BW (10%, 20%, 30%, etc.).
10 Ten Minute Full Body Workouts
Came across a great article at Marks Daily Apple called 10 Full Body Workouts You Can Do In 10 Minutes Flat. Some great stuff in here, bookmark this if you ever need quick and effective ways to move a challenge your body, including some gym workouts but mostly outdoor natural movement challenges.
Mon 3-18-13: Sprints & Glutes
Sprints and Hips/Glutes
Sprints
5 @ 90% 120 yards ~45 rest
Incline Treadmill Sprint
10 sec @ 12 mph, 15 degrees
10 sec @ 12 mph, 19.5 degrees
10 sec @ 10 mph, 30 degrees
Hip Thrust From Floor
10 reps @ 65,155,245,265,265,265, 15 @ 155
RDL
1 cool down set of 15 @ 155
Thur 3-14-13: Kettlebell Challenge
Got another unexpected hour so took four minutes out of it to do a 150 rep kettlebell challenge.
20 swings & 10 deadlifts with each KB, work up from lightest to heaviest with no rest between.
16k, 20k, 24k, 32k, 40k
Total time ~ 4:00
Wed 3-13-13: Full Body Randomness
Got a chance to exercise which doesn’t happen much on Wednesdays and given two workouts this week already I didn’t want to do much so I literally just did whatever random exercise/activity/movement/stretch came to mind.
Randomness
Too difficult to log everything I did but it included planking variations, TRX stretching, core work, hip mobility, research and development (testing out/creating/experiencing) on different exercises with a device called the Land Mine (seen below), bending, twisting, squatting, extending, stretching, flexing and 100 jumping jacks. Just moved my body however it felt like it need
Plank Push-up Countdown
Thought of this a month or two ago on a whim when I wanted a little quick bodyweight workout. Ended up being really challenging. Forgot to post it when I did it but here it is:
Plank Push-up Countdown
This is simply a push-up countdown with 15 seconds of planking between each round of push-ups without resting.
Start in a plank- hold for 15 seconds, then do 10 push-ups and go back to a 15 sec plank, followed by 9 push-ups, another 15 sec plank, 8 push-ups… etc. until down to 1 push-up and finish with a 30 second plank. Total for the set is 3:00 of planking and 55 push-ups and should take around 4:30 minutes from start to finish.
Here’s a video clip of the first couple rounds for reference:
Mon 3-11-13: Glutes, Jumps & Sprints
Hip/Glutes, Jumping & Sprinting
Hip Thrust from Floor (video)
7 sets of 10:
BW,65,115,165,235,255,255
Deadlift
5 sets of 5 at 255
Sprint & Jump
10 40 yard sprints:
Regular x 2, burpee jump & sprint x 4 (video), sprint with hurdle jumps x 2 & handspring, sprint and hurdle jump x 2.
Mon 2-25-13: Lower Body Power
Lower Body/Power
Hip Thrust
3 sets of 10: 65,115,155
4 sets of 8: 225
Hang Clean
4 sets of 10: 95
**lighter weight to work on form**
Superset of:
Squat 95×15 reps
Squat Jump 95×10 reps, BWx10
Mon 2-18-13: Glutes & Abs
Glutes & Abs
Hip Thrust (video)
3 sets of 10 reps: BW, 65, 135
4 sets of 8: 205
Squat
3 sets of 8: 245
3 Supersets of:
Leg Drop to Hip Raise (with Iso Bench Press Extension) 10 reps
Vertical BB Crunch 10 reps
Leg Drop (with Iso Bench Press Extension) 10 reps
Fri 2-15-13: Hips & Glutes
Hips and Glutes
Hip Thrust sets of 10
BW,65,85,135,185,185
3 Circuits of:
Luger 1 minute
Plank Flex 10 seconds
Lying Leg Raise 10 reps
Glute Medius Band Work
Misc exercises, 4-5 sets til burn/failure
The Last Few Months
What a busy four months it’s been! Culminating six weeks ago with the birth of my third son and every day since, life has been keeping me on my toes.
In mid September my goal was simple: to rest, recover and regenerate the two months before the baby arrived. Happily I am able to report I was able to accomplish just that.
Month 1 was very light, with next to no exercise, just some light activity, walking and stretching. I felt great after this month of rest and found that i was itching to move around a bit so I decided to do a very limited exercise program in Month 2, which I called “Exercise Minimus”. The goal was to return to some exercise but keep it very short and simple. No more than an hour a week and 10 minutes of actual exertion. I finished the month with a bit under 3 hours total and about 35 minutes of exertion.
Month 3 was also limited but I allowed a bit more volume, upping the total time allocated to about 5 1/2 hours with 1 1/2 hours of it exerting for the month.
Month 4 was a bit more back to normal but still limited. Some exercise minimus but also a few full workouts sprinkled in for the first time since early/mid September.
I feel great so at this point my plan is to continue this approach. Sleep is at a premium these days thanks to the little one so I still need to be smart about the stress I put on my body. So the plan is to stick with what’s working.
I was also able to maintain or improve upon many strength or fitness tests and body composition also maintained itself.
For the specifics, you can check out my detailed records of both Exercise Minimus and Exercise Sebatacle Measurements.
Working In
Working In.
A concept I explored on a Bare 5 blog post a few months back. Recapturing energy through restorative and regenerative activities. Recharging our metaphorical battery.
In preparation for baby number three I am going to take a break from working out and focus more on resting, recovering and working in. I’ll still be active and post a few things here and there the next few months but nothing too structured.
As always, if I come across any cool workouts I’ll share them for anyone interested.
Tues 5-29-12: Rocks Workout
Today I worked out with rocks, check it out over on Bare 5.
Tues 5-22-12: Jumping
A little jumping around today…
Some functional glute and hip work, simple, one set each of a few things like bridging, lunging, abduction, hip hinges, balancing and bodyweight squats.
Some jumping, took it easy though…
Box Jumps 2 sets of 5 (Video, Video)
Box Jumps with 1/4 Turn (Video)
Depth Jump Set of 5
Sprints 4 100 yard runs
Fri 5-11-12
Worked out with a client and ended up adjusting our lower body workout to address some hip weakness on his part. It was good for me as well to go though the exercises too.
Lower Body
Box Squat 4 sets of 10
BB Back Lunge 4 sets of 10
A collection of hip and glute work for 20 minutes, followed by a little core work to finish out.
