Specialization is for Insects

I finished my push up & pull up program. 1000 pull ups & 2000 push ups in 23 days. In the middle of the second week I also started adding 150 bodyweight squats a day.

The jury is still out on whether this program significantly improved my ability to do pull ups. I’m not going to do anything until next Monday; that ought to give my body time to recover. Then I’ll start a new program to get me through December and into January.

We’re headed off to Missouri in a few hours for a much needed break. As soon as the girls get home from school we are loading up and will be on the road.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

One week down on my pull up / push up program. Best I can say is: I’m on schedule. I typically do 5 sessions throughout the day, each session being 4, 3, 2 and then 1 pull up (for a total of 10) followed by two sets of 10 push ups.

I tell you though, I had no idea how mentally draining this program would be. Doing these sessions of push ups & pull ups has taken an astounding amount of mental energy. I haven’t had the motivation to work out at all outside of this program, except for one jog on Tuesday. None of the planned lower body weight sessions happened.

And my wrist hurts. Same one I broke when I was nine (and the same arm I broke again a few years back). I’m pretty sure the solution is to start doing my pushups on bars or my fists instead of flat palms.

Actually, while researching wrist pain and push ups today I read that doing push ups with your weight on the heel of your hand is bad form… it puts too much strain on the wrist. They recommend imagining that there is a marble under your palm, so that you cup your palm and put the weight across your five fingers. This transfers the weight from the wrist joint to the muscles of the forearm. Maybe I’ll try that in week 3. For now, I’m going to try the more “neutral” position to give my wrist a break.

I guess most frustrating is that I’m really not sure I’m getting stronger doing this. Logically I must be; there is no way all these pull ups & push ups aren’t going to have at least some positive effect. But I don’t see it yet.

Ah well. Two weeks and two days to go.

Annie went to her first TaeKwonDo Tournament today. She competed in both “poomsae” and board breaking, earning bronze and silver metals.

Poomsae.

Ready to break the boards.

Crack!

Annie with her medals.

Okay, so it’s been a little while. But I have been exercising!

Two weeks ago I set out a 6 day workout schedule for the next week. That almost worked.
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This past week I lifted weights once and went jogging twice. Not exactly the training volume I was hoping for.
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My Uncle Dave recently posted the following query on Facebook:
“Why was gambling illegal in the United States (except in Nevada) until the 1970s? When I was growing up all forms of gambling were illegal (except in Nevada) and had been for as long anyone then alive could remember. How did that situation come about? I need some guesses and assumptions about that to quote in a blog entry I am writing. Don’t do any research, just answer off the top of your head.”

What an interesting question. Sorry, but the idea that I’m not going to do research before talking about an issue like this is just crazy talk.

Also, I hope writing a blog post about this isn’t somehow stealing my uncle’s thunder. I’m quite sure that his blog post will have a completely different take on this issue.
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I’ve put in 3 workouts since my last fitness update.
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Yesterday at the fire station we watched a one hour show on the Science Channel called “Built from Disaster – Tunnels”. It was mostly about how the Mont Blanc Tunnel fire in 1999 has affected tunnel design. And we couldn’t believe one of the lessons they missed.
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I just did a repeat of my big 55 workout from September 25. I knocked over a minute off my time, finishing in 14:08. Gotta feel good about that. Maybe next time I can bump the weight up.

Of course, while I’m glad to see the improvement, I’ve still got a ways to go before I will be sufficiently impressed with myself.