training

All posts tagged training

Cardi-Uh-Oh

Posted by Malc on February 2, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Fitness, Weightloss. Tagged: , , .

Yes indeed, the first snow of the year seemed like the perfect time to dig out my bike for a spot of cardio.

Basically, I wanted to go to Lidl and decided to ride rather than walk. Naturally I ignored the well worn rear tyre, this only produced mild traction issues putting the power down. The bigger issue was the usual one, it’s a 14in jump frame with the world’s most ridiculously long seat post, it’s not really made for destination cycling! It doesn’t look that daft in the pic below, but that’s it at only half height!

Anyways, mission accomplished. Only 4km but 340 calories burned due to intensity, it’s a big climb straight away out of my estate and then a long gradual climb on the way home. Both directions giving you a nice downhill coast to get your lungs back down inside your ribcage.

Feeling a bit more motivated after managing to cross the 1-stone-down mark. Once again, I’ll save the horror of the topless pics for my private consumption…

Month 1: Done

Posted by Malc on January 31, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Fitness. Tagged: , , .

That’s month 1 of the fitness mission complete.

Strength: Improved

Despite not doing that many body area specific workouts, the weights I’m using feel easier. Clearly the fat burn workout using only body weights is helping with this as it targets pretty much all muscle groups.

Stamina: Improved

Now running my warm up and cool down (not really a good down, more of a cardio bookend) at speed 12 on the tread mill rather than 9-9.5 as I was at the start of the month.

Weight: Decreased

Not quite a stone since the start of the month but only 0.1kg away from it.

This is my church, this is where I heal my hurts…

Posted by Malc on January 17, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Fitness. Tagged: , , , .

…and create some new hurts whilst I’m doing it! Giving away my age a bit with that song lyric, but it’s on my gym playlist so I went with it.

2 weeks in, I’m starting to see change and not just on the scales. Belly is gradually being beaten in to submission!

Aside from the shape change, I feel physically better for having done more exercise. In the mornings I feel more alive and alert having done my gym session before work.

Sweating out endless hours of cardio is fine if it is needed for your goals, it’s not needed for mine. So all my workouts have been under 20mins, from warm up to cool down.

Overall body fat percentage has dropped along with weight, down 2%, but that still leaves around 14% left to go.

Weight loss has been steady and I’ve been paying lots of attention to my macros tracked on MyFitnessPal. Again, it’s important to know your goal and if what you are doing supports that goal.

Strength is building nicely, I’m not trying to get big, but I’m already able to do more reps in my circuits.

Being SMARTER About It

Posted by Malc on January 9, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Coaching, Fitness. Tagged: , , , , .

One of the subjects we talk about a lot in coaching is smart goals, or rather SMARTER goals;

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound
  • Evaluate [once time limit reached]
  • Record [Achieved? Further work required? Still relevant?]

 

The goal is where you are going, the actions provide the steps to get there. So January’s actions for me;

  • Create/Find a workout plan for each body area ✅
  • Create/Find a fat burn workout ✅
  • Alternate between a body area workout and fat burn workout, cycling through all body areas, 1 workout per day, Sundays are rest days ✅
  • Bookend workouts with interval training runs on the treadmill ✅

1 week in, 6 workouts down, 1 Sunday of rest. Weight loss is slightly ahead of target for my goal of losing 30lb in 12 weeks, but that’s good because it’ll get harder the further down the road I get!