Strength Training

Now that I am fully recovered from my surgery, I am now working to get back into shape and setup my fitness for hard training. I have decided to start with a Strength focussed month to establish a good strength base.

Basically I started last night with crunches and scissor kicks for core, and calf raises, lunges and pushups for strength. This is a light routine for the first week and will buildup over the next few weeks. One indicator though that I direly need this, is that the Lunges truly hurt. I had to pull back on these or risk injury.

I made sure to stretch afterwards because I felt incredibly tight after the workout.

This workout felt good and I feel I will enjoy these workouts due to the short amount of time required.

So why was I grovelling?

So it was maybe two weeks ago that I embarked on my first 100 miler of the season. I had spent time on the trainer and time riding outdoors, but This ride with Phil, was hard. It was the first of many to come and I am still not in top shape. In particular this ride was HILLY! At one point I was at about mile 75 looking at possibly the hundredth hill to climb and I know that inside I was grovelling saying in a small voice "no not another one" (maybe it was a low end whine). Whatever it was it was ...sad

Anyhow I none the less sucked it up and pushed up the hill and the next one and next....

What was kinda interesting was what it was that made me so exhausted. It wasn't my legs. It was actually my shoulders and arms. As you climb hills you tend to rock the bike side to side, which involves almost your whole body working. My legs were fine and strong enough, my body as whole was not. I was feeling my core, shoulders, arms all were beat.

Since my operation on my collarbone late last year, I have layed off upper body work to let the shoulder heal. But now that is past and its time to focus and rebuild the shoulder strength. THUS on twitter I started 100 pushup Fridays. Its just a game in order to get some inspiration to do some core and strength work. Last year at Race with Purpose that crew was doing it on Wendsdays.

Also I figure I will be getting back on the 100 pushup challenge again. My pal HolisticGuru is also doing the 200 situp challenge which I think is probably another thing I may have to take on.

My first race is a Half marathon in April 29! Time to get serious.