Firstly, good luck to everyone participating in my school’s play of The Magic Flute (by Mozart)! It’s unlikely any of them will read this, but I thought I should put it in just in case.
Normally I would have had boxing training tonight, but one of the senior fighters had a proper match, so there was no training. I nearly didn’t train at all today!
I’m in the Army section of the Combined Cadet Forces in my school, which meant for about 1:30hours at the end of school I was outside, talking about attacking and defending in urban environments. This wouldn’t be too bad…Except the weather was freezing! The temperature was low single-digit degrees celcius, and although I was wearing combat trousers, jacket and t-shirt, I was really, really cold. My toes especially were cold – I could barely feel them. When I did get home, it took my quite a while to cool up, taking in mind outside the house it was 0°C and inside it didn’t feel that much warmer, even with more clothes, socks, a hat and gloves on. Add to this the fact I was really tired (I nearly fell asleep on the car journey home), I really wasn’t in the mood to work out straight away.
After my supper I went on the computer and did my normal stuff – emails, MSN, forums (RossTraining forums), Facebook, RSS feeds, etc. I also checked on this blog, just out of interest. I was tempted to give up and let it rot in the dead-blog-pile, to never post again, but when I saw I already had 45 visits in only a couple days – Including ones from search engines! – I decided I had to carry on. And if I was going to carry on I didn’t want it to be empty and not updated, so I knew I had to do some kind of workout to post about.
Due to the below-freezing temperatures outside, I didn’t go to my home gym (an old barn outside with no heating and no form of heat retention). Instead, I decided to do a workout inside the house, in my bedroom. Space is limited, so I stuck to a few bodyweight exercises. My plan was originally to do twenty minutes of pushups, squats and chinnies, alternating with one minute per exercise. But after the first round of pushups and squats, I was dead. This was really unmotivating for me, making me feel crap and useless. Back to the computer I went! But after a while, I realised how pathetic that was. I’m not in the best shape ATM, and quitting definitely wont help! I don’t want to be stuck this way for my entire life!
So, I scaled down the exercises. Twenty seconds each of the above exercises, rather than sixty. I turned on some Rammstein and started working. My target was to go for ten minutes, but after four my throat was completely dry and my heart was pounding. I was stupid enough to only drink 300ml of water before the workout, and being as cold as it was my throat soon dried up. I pushed on for another 2 minutes, but after six minutes my throat was really paining me and I was finding it hard to breathe, so I stopped. When I got up my legs felt like jelly, but it’s not surprising taking in mind I haven’t done anything like that in ages, especially not in the cold. I immediately went and drink a litre of water, which made me feel a lot better.
I actually learnt a lot from this workout:
- Firstly, I’m not in great shape! Although this sounds bad, now I can set myself goals and it’s motivation to work harder, so it’s actually a positive realisation.
- Secondly, don’t quit! Even if you feel crap, try anyway. If it’s too hard, there is nothing at all wrong with toning it down. Anything is better than nothing. And if you feel crap before you’ve completed your planned workout, try as hard as you can to finish but if you can’t don’t worry too much.
- Thirdly, make sure you drink enough!
- Fourthly, working out in the cold is great, as it really does warm you up and get the blood pumping.
- Fifthly, listening to Rammstein and looking at a picture of a hot, topless babe really does help!
I’m still planning on going for a run tomorrow, as long as it’s not too cold or rainy!
Here was my actual workout:
- 50 jumping jacks (warmup)
- 20secs pushups
- 20secs squats
- 20secs chinnies
- REPEAT 6 times
As always, if you have any comments at all don’t hesitate about posting.
Posted by jgibbins92 
