Updated: 2 Posts in One Week?!

Update

The stretching has actually had a noticeable effect on the knee. I ran for the third time in a week and actually experienced no pain!

Yes, two. I've recently been on a kick of posting my workouts, so here are two more...after another lovely introduction and maybe some color commentary from Steve (there is no Steve, it's just a name I find funny and can't figure out why). This week, I've shared a bit about that pesky IT band that's been causing me problems for a while now. I'm on day 6 of stretching that thing twice a day, and I really can't tell a difference yet. Qué será, será. I wasn't expecting overnight success with it, and haven't noticed any regression or anything, so I'll stay the course with the stretching for the next several weeks. Also this week, I'm now under 3 pounds from my goal! Barely. 2.75 to be precise. The weight loss has slowed way down so close to the end. Slacking a bit with my workouts has been a problem that I'm attempting to solve this week. Enough rambling, on with the workouts.

The first is a full body workout that is just cruel in its construction. Starting with 10 reps of each exercise, and increasing by 10 each round, do 5 rounds of Pushups, Situps, and Body Squats for time. But wait, we're not done!. Separate each round with a 1/4 mile run. This work out is so deceptive because you can practically coast through the first 3 rounds like you've done nothing. Then, out of nowhere (not really), round 4 hits. 40 pushups sucks, 40 situps is a nice break, 40 body squats takes away any remaining breath, then the running. Ugh! And there's one more round after that. If the grammar police in your head hates the sentence with the 40s in it, I'm referring to the act of doing 40 of that exercise. Feel free to reread that sentence, placing "The act of doing" before each if it helps you.

Exercise demos:

1. Overhead Squat
2. Back Extensions
3. One-armed Russian Kettlebell Swing*

* - Links to a tutorial series about using kettlebells. Number 7 is the one-armed tutorial.

Next, we have the killer core workout. For a quick reference, your core is not just your abs, but rather all the muscles that hold up and stabilize your torso. This one is an AMRAP in 20 minutes workout. Each round consists of 5 Overhead Squat, 12 situps, 10 Back Extensions, 5 One-armed Russian kettlebell swings per arm. This one was brutal in two spots: the overhead squat and the back extensions. Situps and kettlebell swings are nothing compared to those two. I only made it through 5 rounds of this before it was suggested that I stop. The concern was that I wouldn't be able to move the next day (today actually). Fear not, for I can move! But seriously, you'll feel this in your lower back real quick.

That's all I have this time. These two workouts were good ones, the first as a whole-body, sweat-inducing sessions, the second as a targeted wear-out session. Enjoy.

Possible Solution to Knee Pain While Running

Ok, so we know flexibility is vitally important for over strength and fitness. It helps prevent injury, reduces stress on joints, all kinds of nice things. It may even buy you that pony you've been asking for since you were 4. But I found out this week that flexibility, poor flexibility at that, may be the source of my knee pain while running.

Let me set the stage with a little background into the problem. When I'm running or walking a long way, eventually I'll get an annoying pain along the outside of my knee. This will usually go away after I stop for a while and there's never any swelling or inflammation that I can see. Browsing the interwebs like I do pointed to a few sites that finally were able to clear it up. The problem is not in my knee, it's my Iliotibial Band, aka the IT Band.

Fitting, I know, for the IT guy at work to have IT Band issues, right? Sheesh. So this particular piece of you runs along the side of you from your hip to your knee. When, as in my case, the band is too tight, the friction of rubbing back and forth along the side of the knee causes pain after a while. Through a clever use of foreshadowing, you do, in fact, rightly know that flexibility is the answer to fixing this problem...provided you'd rather not have surgery.

IT Band Stretch

Sitting on the floor, legs straight out in front of you, cross the injured/annoying leg over the other, and pull your knee as close as you can to the opposite armpit

If you are currently among those that experience this kind of pain, you've got a stretching regimen ahead of you. Running Times has a lovely article on many stretches to help this problem. I've highlighted the stretch I use in the tip box. Plan on warming up and stretching at least 2 times per day, especially before and after running or walking. This won't be a quick fix--and I'm only on day 3 of it so I can't tell you just how long to expect--but barring an actual doctor's advice or intervention, this could help.

Start of week 40 is today, we'll see how the weight looks tonight.

New kinds of tired

I'm thinking there must be some part of me that enjoys being "that" kind of tired. You know, the kind where you can't quite justify all the effort required to sit up straight. Or put another way, the kind where the personal trainer manager commends the trainer on a job well done. It sucks, as it should, but man was it a good workout.

Exercise demo

Power Snatch

The workout is as follows, as many rounds in 15 minutes of: 10 box jumps, 10 power snatch, 10 situps. I'd never done box jumps, literally jumping up on a box, so I was rather excited to try it out as an exercise. In general, I enjoy jumping and find it relatively easy to even repeatedly. The problem is that these easy things get you winded, then the power snatch goes from hard to worse. Of course, the 10 situps at the end of the round were a nice break before hitting up box jumps again.

I was doing the box jump onto a 20" box. I never really had a close call on the jumps. It was just a test of how quickly and safely I could jump on and off the box. Then the 65 lbs I was using for the power snatch started rather heavy. In fact, that's the heaviest I've ever used in any snatch. Adding the deadlift before the actual snatch move makes the lift a little easier because the weight is not stationary at the start. After three or four rounds, though, my favorite part of it was simply dropping the bar and watching it bounce away comically. It should be noted I was using rubber bumper weights designed such a thing.

I nearly finished 5 full rounds of this in the 15 minutes. Nearly means I'd just finished the 8th sit up. I finished the round outside the alloted time though because I wasn't about to stop with 2 to go. After that, my butt was successfully and sufficiently kicked.

It's a good workout for those days where you have very little time but want to barely walk out of the gym under your own power. I look forward to incorporating it into the rotation.

Speaking of that, it's now the middle of week 39 and I'm 3 pounds from my goal. Looks like I'm going to miss it by a few weeks. These last few pounds have really been crawling off slowly. It's likely a very similar rate that they started creeping on. 3 more pounds, just 3 more pounds.

The fastest way yet to get completely exhausted

Yesterday's workout had all the makings of not being too terrible. Or maybe I built it up in my head that way because I had to go cut the grass afterwards. Regardless, I was quite mistaken, but happy about it. I'd been meaning to do more of a full body workout for a while now, and I was not disappointed. I was sucking wind, dripping sweat off my glasses, and so thoroughly exhausted at the end of it I just stayed on the floor for about 5 minutes before doing anything else.

Over-the-bar Burpee

Burpee Demo. The over-the-bar part comes in by simply jumping over the bar you used for power cleans.

The workout itself is rather basic, but this is just a front, don't let that pretty face fool you. It involves rounds of Power Clean (which is the combination of deadlift to hang clean) plus Over-the-bar Burpees. 5 rounds, for time, and a {15, 12, 9, 6, 3} rep scheme for the rounds. I happen to be fairly bad at both exercises, so it was especially fun.

I learned a few things during this adventure. The primary lesson is that the more fatigued you are, the better your power clean form becomes because most of the muscles you could use for cheating the move are tired. Next, the proper starting position for a burpee is not a locked-out pushup position. Rather, start in a crouch with your arms locked and knees bent and pulled up next to your elbows. You essentially imitate a dog's sitting position but with your butt off the floor. From there, kick your feet out while simultaneously dropping your chest to the floor. Oddly enough, this uses a lot less energy that slowly lowering yourself from the pushup position. Oh, the things we learn out of necessity.

Even after learning such lessons, Rounds 1 through 4 were brutal. By Round 5, I was so thoroughly ready for it all to be over, I did a full Power Clean and Jerk to end the Power Clean round, and finished the last burpee with a nice half twist...so I could land facing the conquered bar.