Bring it back

At Chris' request, I want to start posting--if nothing else--the weekly park workouts. They have been a lot of fun and have fast become the most fun--and frequently most taxing--session of the week.

First off, a couple of things that I've learned in the past 8 months:

1.) The right research job with a good supervisor can actually be a good experience.
2.) I don't like travel for Business. Dad, I don't know how you do what you do.
3.) My disposition improved when I was no longer a graduate student.
4.) My disposition further improved when I stopped trying to take bicycling seriously.

Sometimes it's good to just let things go in lieu of becoming so one dimensional that your hobby is actually kind of a drag.

On one hand, not much has changed since my last post. I still live in the same efficiency. I still drink a lot of coffee. I still train religiously. On the other, there has been a job change and a multitude of subtle changes in my perspective.

Hopefully this all goes somewhere good.

One of the best additions to the week has been the aforementioned park workout. Pretty simple concept. I email a few interested people. Several of them show up at a park. We do a few exercises. Focus is mostly on conditioning, movement, and core strength. Complexes and sprinting are popular.

This week's workout:

We had 6 people show up for the start. I've been impressed with how quickly people have become adept at squatting with med balls or body weight. Most are better than I am already. I'm going to guess they have better hips and ankles.

We spent 5 - 10 minutes doing dynamic warm ups

Leg Swings
Split Squats/hip flexor stretches
Lateral Squats
etc.

Then moved onto Complexes or circuits. Whatever you like. We had 6 people for the circuits, so we did 6 exercises in a circle with each station having a designated exercise. I set my watch for 35 seconds, and we switch stations every time it beeps.

Circuit 1: Flexibility/Stability

Forward Bend/Toe Touch
Downward Dog
Deep split squat stretch (Leg 1)
Glute Bridge
Some derivative of an eagle pose (arms portion) to stretch shoulders and back
Deep split squat stretch (Leg 2)

Circuit 2: Conditioning

We did a modified version of the Chad Waterbury complex posted in this article. Since we had 6 people and were working out with whatever people could bring along, the weights weren't really dialed for any one person.

Reverse Lunges (a db that weighed about 6 lbs in each hand)
Romanian Deadlifts (a db that weighed about 20 lbs in each hand)
Good Mornings (a 12lb medicing ball held at your chest)*
Front Squats (a 6lb med ball held at your chest or potato sack style)
Military Presses (a maybe 12 - 15lb db in each hand)
Push Ups

We subbed Push Ups for floor presses due to a lack of any other available weight sources and scrapped the rows for the same reason. We did these on 35 second timers and alternated stations w/o rest. One trip through the cycle earned 90 seconds rest. Then we repeated 2 more times.

A good complex. I did this the other day at Ford's with a pair of 25lb kettlebells. Limiter was the good mornings loaded in the front. Those are hard with 50lbs of kbs in front of you and I had to go down to 1 25lb kb. GMs aren't my best exercise and the load in front only made it worse. I should probably do them more.

Main Course came courtesy of John Brooks and was conceptually simple:

Pick something up off of the ground and lift it over your head 20 times or for 3 minutes whatever came first.

We have 2 sandbags. One is in the 30 - 40 lb range. The other in the 70 - 80 lb range. Don threw the smaller bag up overhead probably 25 times in 90 seconds. Zack did the same. I tried my luck with the bigger sandbag. Bitch was heavy. I probably got it fully overhead from the ground 12 - 14 times (I lost count) and it took me all of 3 minutes.

Thanks JB!

Walked over to the chains and did some suspended planks/pikes until we couldn't breathe. We did a few bodyweight rows on the jungle gym straps. I like those a lot.

Then we finished it up with the local favorite: Indian runs w/ a basketball

We had 4 people by this point. Simple concept, thanks to Finnin and Katie for pitching it.

Get in a line, each person separated by 10 feet or so. First person has the ball. They pass it to the 2nd person. As soon as they pass they sprint the distance required to be about 10 feet in front of the 1st person. Repeat until you've traveled the length of whatever field you are on. Repeat several times.

We managed 4 x about ~100 yards w/90 seconds rest between runs.

I was completely gassed by the mid way of set 3.

They had to peel me off of the bed this morning with a spatula.