Category: 100 pushups

Posted on

The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 2

This was the day we would make the trip from Frankfurt to Berlin.  While my wife and I packed, my brother took Shark Boy outside.  The next thing I knew, he’s asking me: “You know your son can ride a bike, right?”


To rewind a bit, Shark Boy does a great job on his glider bike and can balance and steer no problem.  Still when we’ve tried to move him up to a regular bike, he’s stayed fixated on the idea that he needs training wheels.  He even threw a fit when he saw me remove them from his new Ultimate Spider Man bike.  Getting him to ride it has been semi-successful, but he still didn’t seem that close to being able to go it alone.  A couple of days watching his older cousin ride a bike, and away we go!  Swimming … biking … can Kids Of Steel be far away?


Before our train departure, we walked around downtown Frankfurt for a bit, which I recommend for those that like modern architecture and/or high-end clothing stores and had some lunch.



Sandcastles in downtown Frankfurt.


The Inter City Express is a world famous fast train – I was excited to show it to Shark Boy after he’d read about it in books; although we were on it last year he didn’t notice much – a stomach bug had turned him into a near-zombie.


We had a cabin “reserved” – the 8 Euro extra charge didn’t make much of a difference as we had company the entire 4 hour trip.  I guess the train was too full – I’d have thought two small children would have been more of a deterrent to solo travellers. It turns out, you can only reserve the seats you sit it, which makes a certain amount of sense, I guess.


I spent most of the train ride carrying the Lightning Kid through the cars of the train (including ones that were identified as ‘QUIET’) from one end to the other.  Someday I’m going to write a post about all the calories I burn on the kids that I don’t get to count…Both boys fell asleep with all of 45 minutes left on the train ride.  Still we arrived in Berlin (Spandau Station) excited to start the next phase in our adventure.


A little too excited in the boys’ case! The new environment seemed to be an over-stimulation which combined with their over-tiredness to make for a very late, tedious bedtime routine – bad news for their jet lag adjustment.


DAY 6:


Thanks to our hosts taking the boys on first thing in the morning, I had a bit of a sleep-in .  We took them into Tegel for some shopping – riding a double-decker bus is a big draw for Shark By and the Lightning Kid seemed to like it too.  The effects of the night before were felt heavily as the kids seemed to need lunch and their nap times an hour or two earlier than expected and hopes for getting a run in while they napped in tandem were dashed.  I took the Lighting Kid to my favourite playground in the stroller.  I hadn’t changed out of my jeans but my plan B was successful – he fell asleep on the way there.  I used the park benches and playground for

  • Incline Push-ups
  • Tricep Dips
  • Negative Phase Pull-ups
  • Squats
  • Single-leg lunges on the swings
  • Inch worms (on the train set – plank across two ‘cars’, then bring feet forward to the car your hands are on, move your hands forward into another plank, etc.)
  • Planks
  • Side Planks
Tricep dips on one of the ‘train’ cars



I was doing a side plank on a park bench, looking at a (rare) blue sky, listening to the birds chirp and thinking about how peaceful it all was when I heard “WAAAAAAH!” – the Lightning Kid woke up.   Still, everybody had gotten what they needed: fresh air and exercise for me, sleep for everyone else.  We had a very pleasant rest of the afternoon as a family.


DAY 7:


I don’t really want to write about this day.  The only undertaking was a trip into town for a few things and the promise of ice cream.  It was a nightmare as the kids’ nap and eating schedules were still off, so there were a lot of tantrums and screaming.  AND THE ICE CREAM CAFE’S MACHINE BROKE DOWN SO I COULDN’T GET SPAGHETTI ICE CREAM!


Side note 1: If you don’t know spaghetti ice cream, it’s soft ice cream pushed through a press to come out in noodles, coated in strawberry sauce and either grated coconut or white chocolate and the whole pile hides a little mound of whipped cream.


Side note 2: I might as well take the opportunity here to talk about one of my favourite things here in Germany.  When a house uses radiators for heat, it’s hard to stay warm if you’re in the wrong spot and we’ve had unseasonably cold (and wet) weather here this trip.  The plus side is these incredibly practical radiators in the bathrooms (and sometimes in a front hall).  Back home, between swims, gym workouts and showers not to mention regular hygiene I go through a lot of towels so I’d love it if I had one of these that could not only quick dry a used towel, but warm it too.



DAY 8:


In spite of continuing cold and rainy weather we braved a trip to the forest playground – Shark Boy rode his bike the entire way there while my wife chased him and I pushed the Lightning Kid in the stroller through the drizzle.  He fell asleep again before we got there and while Shark Boy played with his mother I snuck in a few push-ups, step-ups and tricep dips.  The playground is somewhat sheltered by the trees but when the Lightning Kid woke up and the rain worsened we opted to return home.  After an early lunch we got the kids down for a tandem nap and instead of the run I wanted to do, I did a living room workout instead.
  • Push Ups (100 Push Up workout 5 sets – 20, 30, 18, 18, 34)
  • Negative Phase Pull-ups
  • Lunges with 3 kg dumbbells overhead
  • Side Planks

I also developed and exercise with
  • no weights/equipment
  • functional compound movement
  • whole-body muscle recruitment


My idea is to create an alternative burpee (my wife dubbed my creation “burpees for engineers” finding them somewhat complex).  I’ll share it in a future post, but for now let’s stay on topic.


We had arranged for an afternoon playdate for Shark Boy with a friend of my wife’s and her 4 year-old son that afternoon at the same time that my father-in-law was having visitors who came by boat.  What ended up happening was that he was effectively kidnapped (I’m sure there’s a term for nautical abductions) for a few hours and our poor 4 year-old visitor had to split his time between the 19 month-old Lightning Kid and the grown-ups. Yuck!

Luckily Shark Boy came back in time for them to spend a good hour or two torturing me with silly faces.  We watched the all-important Champions League (soccer) final between two German teams: Bayern Muenchen versus Borussia Dortmund being cheered on by my wife and I respectively.  What can I say? She sure can pick a winner – she married me didn’t she?

Posted on

Swim Workout Hack: Swim with 100 Pushups

Introduction

I started doing Burbathlon as a way to cheat on time, and hybridize two workouts: strength training and running.  The end result has a cardiovascular profile similar to interval work, yet I get a better variety of muscular challenges than I’d get from either the gym or the trail alone. I thought about extending the concept to other triathlon disciplines: thus was born the #WorkoutHack.


Swim Workout Hack

I’ve been using the 100 Push-ups app for Android lately, and I’ve been a lot more consistent about getting the workouts in 3 times a week than when I first wrote about 100 Push-ups.  This past Tuesday, I was running really late and the situation was made worse by the fact that I (temporarily thankfully) lost my wallet.  By the time I got to the pool, I knew a full length workout wasn’t in the cards.  That was OK, because the idea of doing a more high-intensity interval type workout had been kicking around in my brain for a while.  These kinds of workouts are all the range, since they promise great caloric burn and metabolic boosting in little time, as long as you’re willing to put up with some painful intensity.  Before I describe the intervals part, let me just fill you in on how I worked up to it:

  • 250m warm-up
  • 100m set concentrating on good form especially on the follow-through of my stroke.
  • 100m fist swim; swim with fists closed, the idea being that after doing this, you get a better ‘feel’ for the water.
  • 100m with open hands again – the ‘follow-up’


The idea was that I would then do my 100 push-ups workout for the day.  These workouts give you a set of prescribed push-ups reps to do, then either a 60 or 90 second rest, depending on what part of the program you are in.  I wanted to swim an interval during the rest period; if they gave me 60 seconds, I’d do 50m, if they gave me 90 seconds I’d try for 100m – which is a little fast for me.

On Sunday, I had performed the ‘exhaustion test’ for the end of Week 4: you simply perform as many consecutive push-ups as you can.  The test should be performed within 48 hours of the last workout of the week, yet still rested from that workout.  I scored 42 push-ups.  Which, for Week 5, Day 1, put me here:


Set
Reps
Rest
1
36
60 seconds
2
40
60 seconds
3
30
60 seconds
4
24
60 seconds
5
>40
60 seconds

That was… a little tough for me.  What’s worse, is that I had also been playing around with swimming unfueled; I don’t eat breakfast before my swims.  The idea is exercise in a carbohydrate-depleted state might increase the capacity of the muscle cells to burn fuels aerobically.  I only do this on my swims, and so far it’s been OK as long as I eat right after the workout (and a bit of a time saver in the mornings).  It was not a good idea on this day however, and I ended up doing this:


Set
Reps
Rest
1
30
50m swim
2
23
50m swim
3
20
50m swim
4
19
50m swim
5
16
50m swim

That’s still 108 push-ups, so I’m not ashamed, but my advice to you if you try it (or to myself for future attempts):

  1. Pick a workout that you think you can do, don’t try this when you’re at a new horizon in the program

  2. Fuel beforehand.

That`s about a 30 minute, 750m workout that left me tired (the warm-up was omitted from my Garmin tracking by mistake). Workouts where you are tired (but still going) are the bread and butter of the triathlete`s regimen, after all.



Posted on

Half-Marathon Training: Week 2


I haven’t made weight loss an explicit goal, but I figured if I followed a regular training plan (with a higher volume of exercise than I’d been doing previously) and I watched what I ate (mostly avoiding sweets and booze, with better portion control too), some weight should come off.

Oh well…


That’s pretty much what I peaked at during the full holiday craze. I was active during the holidays (relatively speaking), and I felt like I didn’t sin too much, but still I have nothing to show for week 1. Like I said, I didn’t make it an explicit goal, so I won’t get stressed out about it, but I think I’ll try to monitor it in the weekly training posts for posterity’s sake. Having a few less pounds to drag across the finish line should make me faster come race season though…


I actually ran my long (12.2km) run on Saturday rather than Sunday, because on Sunday, I tried Crossfit (see my review here).  It was clearly a beginner session, because we also took the kids tobogganing that afternoon and I was able to pull them along and up the hill.

After 7 straight training days, I took Monday off.  This was more difficult than I thought, because I was feeling really good and strong and able to take on the world – everyone was posting motivation messages for ‘Motivation Monday’ (including me!).  Still, the rest day should be observed; it’s just that the rest day is usually forced upon me by life interfering with my plans…

I moved Monday’s 5.6km run to Tuesday, and I found the missing Blackberry!  Incredibly, it still worked, which means I’ll be able to recover my contacts and other info.  Since it was Trifecta Tuesday, I also did 47 pushups from the 100 push-ups app and a Yoga workout before bed.

On Wednesday I did a 7.4km run on pavement.  I was pretty pleased with my pace.  I could almost feel myself getting faster and stronger.

Due to some early morning toddler wake-up problems and a re-scheduled meeting, Thursday ended up being a rest day, unless you count air-guitar and dancing in the living room with the kids before dinner…

I did my tempo run on the treadmill on Friday; I used an incline of 1.5 and it felt fine. A mile warm-up at 5mph, the tempo run of 1.5 miles at 6.8mph and a mile cool-down (again at 5mph).



Though I’m pleased with my running and mileage this week, I am a little disappointed with strength and cross-training. Cross-fit was tough and a great workout, and the re-structuring of the week was probably what threw everything else into disarray. I should try to figure this out since this weekend will probably also involve a Saturday long run and Sunday Crossfit.

Posted on

100 Pushups

Family demands continue to outweigh both training and blogging, but I did find enough time to discover the 100 pushup program.  I’m sure consistency is key, but it looks like several sets of pushups (with 1 minute breaks) 3 times a week.

I did the initial test today and I can do 32 push-ups; that sounds about right.  I’m sure I used to be able to do more than 40, but I’ve been away from exercise for a few weeks, and away from strength and push-up based exercise for longer.  It may not seem triathlon-centric, but Steve Speirs, the program’s creator is a triathlete and ultra-runner (and dad!) so I’m game too.

I’ll log and tweet my progress, and if I get to 100, I’ll be sporting the ‘I did 100’ badge here at Iron Rogue.

UPDATE: Things haven’t been going well, and I’m not keeping up with the workouts.  I’m not going to quit, but I ‘ll have to restart from Week 3 Day 1.