Vacation
I got back from a short excursion today. Originally, we planned to go to the beach for this weekend, along with the following week. At least, that was the plan when Mom was alive. Dad said it would be too hard to make this annual trip without her, so instead we went to visit some family out in the sticks close to my first college.
I’m glad that I went, but I went more so to be with family than to enjoy the country. We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s farm. They have a pool with an adjacent pool house, which they use as a gym. Granted, it’s got only a few pieces of equipment for my 60+-year-old uncle and his wife (i.e., a treadmill and a bench press). Not that it mattered to me since my routine consists of calisthenics and yoga stretches. I mention all this only to say it was really nice to go through my normal exercise regimen out alone in the pool house with all the doors open and the crickets chirping late Friday night.
Speaking of working out, I started a new regimen today. A while ago, I started looking through this website (www.trainforstrength.com), and I finally decided to give it a shot. What I had been doing had been getting stale; a person can only do so many hundreds of body weight squats and hindu push-ups until it gets boring. The main problem was that I had gotten too good at it. I had gotten to the point where I was doing 900 squats every other day. It can be very mentally discouraging when you’re on, say, rep 3 of 900. Under the Train for Strength system, you do a high volume of reps, but you change the exercise frequently and alternate body parts. It’s a boot camp style of work out. I haven’t actually used any of the workouts on that website per se, but I’m applying its principles. I was surprised at how well it worked. I was beat after less than 30 minutes. I actually was tired to the point of nausea, and it’s been a long time since I worked out so hard I was sick to my stomach. When I tried some of my katas at the very end, one of my legs almost collapsed from fatigue. It was really cool; I’m going to do that again tomorrow.
I’m glad that I went, but I went more so to be with family than to enjoy the country. We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s farm. They have a pool with an adjacent pool house, which they use as a gym. Granted, it’s got only a few pieces of equipment for my 60+-year-old uncle and his wife (i.e., a treadmill and a bench press). Not that it mattered to me since my routine consists of calisthenics and yoga stretches. I mention all this only to say it was really nice to go through my normal exercise regimen out alone in the pool house with all the doors open and the crickets chirping late Friday night.
Speaking of working out, I started a new regimen today. A while ago, I started looking through this website (www.trainforstrength.com), and I finally decided to give it a shot. What I had been doing had been getting stale; a person can only do so many hundreds of body weight squats and hindu push-ups until it gets boring. The main problem was that I had gotten too good at it. I had gotten to the point where I was doing 900 squats every other day. It can be very mentally discouraging when you’re on, say, rep 3 of 900. Under the Train for Strength system, you do a high volume of reps, but you change the exercise frequently and alternate body parts. It’s a boot camp style of work out. I haven’t actually used any of the workouts on that website per se, but I’m applying its principles. I was surprised at how well it worked. I was beat after less than 30 minutes. I actually was tired to the point of nausea, and it’s been a long time since I worked out so hard I was sick to my stomach. When I tried some of my katas at the very end, one of my legs almost collapsed from fatigue. It was really cool; I’m going to do that again tomorrow.