Same old, same old…

I’ve been a bit negligent in maintaining my blog/training log in the past few days. There’s no real reason for that, other than being lazy, really. But in fairness, there’s not much to report.

Tuesday evening I went for a short run (4km) and managed to knock about 1”30’ off the last time I did that run. However, it is still far from what I used to run “back in the days” when I ran 10km at a pace 15”/km faster than what I’m doing now, that was after about 6 months of dedicated training though.
I’m just glad I did go out for a run after what must have been about a month, where all I did for cardio training was cycling. I recon once I’ve completed the 60km bike ride on the 22nd March (i.e. a week from Sunday), I’ll go back to running/jogging.

Yesterday I did my routine (I guess I can call it that now) at the gym. I must admit I do notice some improvement, as it seems to get easier as I go along. I’m now contemplating to increase the weights for some of the exercises. I can give that a go on the weekend.
I’ve also been good regarding my stretching. I’m now working on my flexibility for about 20 minutes every time I go to the gym, which is really quite a lot considering that prior to starting TKD I never used to stretch at all. Even when I first started TKD, the only stretching I did was during training sessions. How stupid that was! I really feel like I’m making good progress. Not that I would call myself flexible, but I’m definitely more flexible than I was a few months ago. So hopefully if I keep it up, I’ll some day be flexible enough to actually look like I know what I’m doing during our warm-up.

One final thing, my balance board arrived yesterday (I ordered it last week), however I wasn’t at home, so I need to pick it up today. Now I can start getting serious about working on my balance as well. I just need to work it into my routine and I’ll be all set up for becoming the next best thing in TKD (hahaha, just kidding); I’m training for strength/power (gym), flexibility (gym), endurance (cycling/running), balance (balance board) and of course technique (regular training sessions, next one tonight! Yeah baby! I’ve really been missing it over the past couple of weeks).

Nothing out of the ordinary

Yesterday was a routine strength and flexibility day. The same procedure as last week's sessions, so there’s nothing big to report.

However, I have set myself a goal in terms of flexibility; I want to be able to rest my hands flat on the floor, while keeping my knees straight. I can manage to get down to the thumb, so I’ve got about 5-7cm left to go.

Taken that I struggled to get my fingertips on the floor a few months ago, I’d be interested to see how long I’ll take to achieve my goal. Let’s see how far I can get by the end of the month, I recon it might take a bit longer than that though, maybe the end of April is more realistic.

The next thing after that will be the full splits, but that is something that will take at least till the end of the year

An active weekend...

Since I did skip my planned run on Friday (I was way too tired, I actually went to bed at 10pm...on a Friday!!!), I wanted to get as much out of the weekend as I could.

Yesterday I did a session in the gym doing the same routine as the other days this week (this time including the legs again), before heading out for a nice sailing trip :-)

This morning then I did a 40km bike ride in the hills with some mates. Really good workout for the legs and, since a few of the guys are pretty decent cyclists, I got a really good cardio training out of it as well.

I can’t wait for training on Thursday though; I’ve not been very good about training for TKD these past couple of weeks.

Getting into a routine?

I didn’t have time to write something yesterday, because we were meeting up with a colleague who’s in town for a couple of weeks (he’s transferred to our Houston office recently).

I did use my free-time to put in a session at the gym though. I basically repeated my program from earlier this week; however I left out the squats. My leg muscles were in more pain than I’d like to admit, let’s just say today is the first day I can get up form my seat without looking like I’ve injured myself.

Tonight the plan is to do a bit of running; I was thinking about 10km, more a jog than a run though. I haven’t done anything that far for a while now, so I don’t want to push myself too hard (have I mentioned I became really unfit while I was at Uni and haven’t recovered from that yet…4 years later).
I’m really looking forward to Thursday when we finally recommence training. I’ve really missed our sessions this week.

Another day on the bike

Today I went for yet another bike ride, surprising myself, as the muscles in my bum are extremely sore from the squats I did yesterday.

I did about 25km. I was joined by one of my mates, who is a much better (i.e. faster) cyclist than I am and he was setting the pace. It’s enough to say that compared to today, my excursion on Sunday felt like a cruise, despite being twice as long.

I think I may just give my legs a rest tomorrow...

Building Strength and Flexibility

After my bike ride yesterday I didn’t feel like cardio exercise again, so I decided to focus on some of the other physical requirements of TKD; in this case strength and flexibility. Both of these I lack, so it’s probably a good idea to work on them.
Increasing flexibility isn’t actually difficult, as all it really requires is stretching of the muscles you might think. That statement is very wrong indeed. I find proper stretching quite challenging, because there is a high potential for injury if done incorrectly. I’ve made that experience firsthand when I pulled a muscle while stretching. The reason was of course improper warm-up and trying just that bit too hard. I’m actually always fascinated how many people start stretching without a decent warm-up, maybe having experienced where this can lead has made me more aware of this.
Anyway, I started with a slow paced 2km jog to get my blood flowing and my muscles warmed up before I started to stretch all major muscle groups (at least those I could think of, which means I probably forgot a good few of them), starting from top to bottom (i.e. my feet, not actually my bottom) I tried holding each stretch for about 30 seconds on one side before stretching the opposite side, 2 sets each side.
I should really start measuring the extents of my stretches on a regular basis to monitor my progress. That’s something to do for next week...

In terms of strength exercise I repeated the exercises from Tuesday, but with slightly lower weights and 4 sets of 12 repetitions for each exercise. I prefer switching the frequency of my exercises, even though I know it’s not the most efficient way of building strength, but otherwise I get bored too quickly and stop doing it.
Today I included some squats with added weight on my shoulders to work the legs a bit as well. I usually don’t work on my legs when I do strength exercise, but today showed me that I really should. I shall include regular leg work in my strength program from now on.

Easy Rider

Today was a fairly relaxed Sunday. Unfortunately my instructor is not in town at the moment, so there was no training this morning. I decided to take the opportunity to sleep in and catch up on some well deserved rest.

Not wanting to be an absolute sloth I went for an easy 2-hours-and-a-bit bike ride. On the way I managed to fall off my bike (not such a pleasant experience with your feet strapped to the pedals, but there’s not too much damage) and get lost (twice!), I had a good time though and I’m sure I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.