Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Yet More Fitness... "Junk"

After reading the Staley article a few posts ago... I went in search yet again for additional options in the realm of aerobic \ cardio training. For a while I was being quite religious with the walking routine. I thought that I'd posted some blogs during that training time but I'm not finding them now. I seem to recall now that I was actually doing this routine while I was on my break-in-service. It would have been last September or October... & I intentionally deleted that entire collection of posts. Stupid. I read one or two... decided it was mostly bullcrap... & deleted all of them. Hooray!

The object of those sessions was to build up to the "magical" 10k steps per session. I'll check the software but I think I surpassed that & was up around 12k within about a month. The only issue I had was that my arse & hips were killing me because of teh muscle tightness. I was not stretching enough. Anyway, now that the decent weather is back, I can start doing that again. At some point it will go from a walking routine ot the Couch-to-5k program. From there it will become a Fartlek 5k program. Below are some links to additional information on the Fartlek system:



Wikipedia's Fartlek Page

Sports Fitness Advisor

Time To Run




I'd like to incorporate hill-running... but as with many portions of my training, the ideal environment is not convenient. Seattle has plenty of hills... & several of those are located in the urban parks. Here in the south end however, the hills are where the connector roads are to the major traffic thoroughfares. So we have no shoulders... & traffic moving in excess of 40 MPH. The local schools are gangsta-wannabee hang outs (and I cannot legally CCW on school grounds) so those are out as far as decent running territory. That's unfortunate because there are several excellent tracks at the local junior & senior high schools.

So I'll need to rely on the local pedestrian bicycle trails for a while. I suppose I can check out some locations like Flaming Geyser or East Green River & see what the trails there are like. I just don't want to be tripping over families & displaced jocks... especially displaced jocks. I can deal with kids & dogs more easily that bucket heads.


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This isn't going to be some phenomenal life change from strength training to spindly running guy... I'm just recognizing two important things; I need to lose weight... & factoring in that, the weight training will be ehanced by the aerobic development & recovery. Lastly, the effects of the strength training sessions will show sooner!

I'm not blowing off the P90X training either! That CrossFit type of regimine will likely be the primary focus. The P90X program is looking to be more of a one time scenario though. I need to prepare for it... & once I hit that plateau I plan on building something that's more advanced & allows for a more significant strength training component. The P90X doesn't have the level of lower-body mass building that I want.

With a schedule that's going to include Krav Maga two days per week, weight lifting two days per week... & something else two days per week... spending five to six days on that singel program isn't looking practical for more than the 90-day focus. Besides, who wants to train in front of a television when it's 80-degrees outside?!

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