I began this month recovering from more light dental surgery. More seasonal colds, weather and travel served to doom the month to less than much at all.
More importantly I began this month with a new core workout plan. About a half hour each morning I do five sets of crunches, press-ups, standing dumbbell curls and seated overhead dumbbell presses. Crunches are 25 reps, press-ups are 5, curls and overhead press are both 15. I only have a choice of ten or 30 pound dumbbells at this stage so increasing the reps works. I can just finish that last set of each exercise.
The plan is to work up to the point where I can do this routine twice daily. I’ll increase the reps for crunches and press-ups and increase weight for the curls and overhead press. Those last may include a decrease in reps when the weight goes up. I’m on the lookout for 20 pound dumbbells with that in mind.
The goal of this is core fitness which will help in my cycling but also help a whole lot with learning to surf. My current popping up is not much of a pop or up.
In addition I expect this conditioning will help with motorcycling. Moving that big KTM 990 Adventure around when loaded is a workout. Some additional upper body strength will be a big help.
Anyway, the plan is to perform the core workout once per day, every day until I am feeling fit enough to add a second round in the evening. As I type this I’m through day two and sore, so figuring I’ll slack off on riding until next Tuesday when I’m at seven days in.
Looking back, I should have been doing this when I was training on the indoor trainer. I’d be a good deal ahead today and I know surf camp would have gone a good deal better. Motivation is pretty. easy at this point because I do my workout in the garage where I have my old indoor cycling TV and can fire it up with YouTube videos of motorcycle travels and surf.
Day 5, Core Workout – Changed from 10 pound dumbbells for curls to 20. Changed the routine from 5 sets of 15 reps to 5 sets of 8 reps with the 20 pounders. I should be able to add another 25 crunches at least, maybe 50. Overhead press is still tough with 10 pounds. Likely thanks to the old rotator cuff injuries from my youth. Press-ups are doable at 5/5, but only just. It will be a while before I can raise that bar.
Day Six of the core workout – Changed it up a good bit since day five felt good. Circuit is now, Crunch, Press-up, Crunch, Curl, Crunch, Overhead Press, and repeat. five sets of fifteen for curls and overhead press. Five sets of twenty-five for crunches and still five sets of five press-ups. Curls are at twenty pounds, overhead is still ten. I just managed to finish the whole workout but it pushed me past 45 minutes. I think this will do for a while until I can increase the press-ups and up the weight for overhead press.
Day Seven of the core workout – More of the same. I was about ten minutes faster today on the workout. Likely that was thanks to not having to figure out where I was in the circuit. I feel like I’ll be able to up the weight for my overhead press in a day or two. Going to the twenty pounders will force me to drop the reps back to maybe five, but, I’m hoping for eight. So far though no injuries, only a few spasms at night. Oddly in my hands and feet. The muscle aches are gone now, so I guess my body is used to this. I also figure I’ll add shrugs with the thirty pound dumbbells in a few days or maybe the end of the second week. That will give me a chance to add another set of crunches to the cycle and up the count to 500 a day for that.
Day Eight of my core workout – Raised the crunch bar to 500. Ouch! 5 sets of 34 and ten of 33. That made for a hundred each lap.
Day Nine of my core workout – Raised the weight for overhead press to twenty pound dumbbells. That was hard. I managed five sets of eight reps. The workout left me with noodle arms and jittery fingers almost an hour after I finished. A good workout. I had woke in the night with a sore throat that slowly got worse then seems to have leveled off now. With my wife and daughter planning to be away on a road trip this weekend, I’d figured on hitting the bicycle, but with. this sore throat and predicted rain I’ll wait and see how it goes. I’m hoping to be able to ride a century this summer on my own. I’ll need plenty of saddle time to make that work,
Day Ten got killed. As did all the way through Day Eighteen. Colds suck. By day 18, We took a walk and I was clear enough not to fill my pockets with used tissues after and didn’t do a bunch of coughing. So, the workout will resume on the 19th. A little bit of a set back, but I expect to be cycling by Friday thanks to predicted rain for first half of the week. Later in April I’ll be getting back to surfing. The water should be warm enough and I should have enough core work in to be in pretty good shape.
Back on track – Day one all over again. Sunday was a shortened routine, just press-ups and crunches. But, a lot of each. 300 crunches and 50 press-ups. Felt it too.
BoT – Day Two. The beatings continue. Press-ups and crunches day again. My cold is still with me so I’ll take it a little easier for a few days. 50/250 in five sets.
BoT – Day. Three. Did it. I’ve found I have to let my hr drop back down around 78 bpm or so before each set. Ends up taking about a half hour at this point.
BoT. – Day Four. One more time. Got a little quicker today. I figure eventually to add sets until I’m back to a half hour or so, but probably I’ll be adding weight training back into the mix by then.
And that ended the workouts for the month. The serial toddler colds arrived again with vengeance. Two days of searing throat pain transitioning to coughing and stuffy head. Then clogged feeling lungs for a week and ending the month just beginning to feel better. Three straight nights of good sleep thanks to cough medicine may have contributed to feeling better, but also the sinus drain has staunched. I can cancel the Costco order for another pallet of tissue.
Here’s hoping April is a good month of cycling. March certainly was not.
Along The Way 