Sunday 23-12-07 – Gunz in the Cold

“Screw it!” I told myself.  I hadn’t done a workout in 10 days, and I knew I had to do one sooner or later.  I got off my ass and ventured out into the cold.

During the school holidays, I always find I feel like doing absolutely nothing, and it sucks.  I normally end up getting bored, and wasting time no the computer, gaming, talking, surfing the web or doing other pointless tasks, half of which I don’t even enjoy.  So why do I keep doing them?  I really don’t know.  Laziness I suppose.  In the holidays so far I’ve slept, watched TV, been on the computer, and not much else.  I have learnt a lot about PC building and overclocking and learnt a bit about the medieval ages (thanks to Total War ), but apart from that it seems as though I haven’t done anything beneficial, or at least nothing I can remember.  Sure, I’ve had some fun playing games, so I don’t call that wasted time, but it still feels fairly pointless.  I realised yesterday that my diet had started getting very bad – I still was eating fairly well at meals, but I was snacking on chocolate biscuits, not eating as much fruit or meat as I should be and generally not thinking about it at all.  I’ve started cleaning it back up, and I’m going to limit myself to one ~150kcals worth of chocolate biscuit a day (yeah, probably too much, but that’s one biscuit bar or two digestives!).  I’m going to try and substitute them with eggs, nuts, fruit, veg etc, which shouldn’t be too hard.

Anyway, onto the workout.  I didn’t feel like doing too much, and the weakness in my arms is really starting to annoy me.  My legs are, and always have been, fairly big and muscled, yet my arms are pathetic.  So I decided to do a dedicated arm strength session.

It was freezing outside.  Actually, probably not quite 0°C, but f*cking cold none-the-less.  Once I had warmed up it was fine, apart from one thing.  Arm workouts require pullups and chinups, which require a bar.  The bar I have to use is a long metal one in the parlour, which has holes in the walls rather than windows.  The bar was very, very cold.  Add to the cold it was an old one I found, it wasn’t smooth (although luckily not rusted).  Tight grip + cold bar + rough bar = pain.  A lot of pain.

I started off in my typical way – Sprinting, 3 rounds of 2min work/1min rest rope jumping, the stretching.  As I was doing arms, I added on 20 pushups just to get my arms used to moving.  Post warmup I went onto pullups.  I can’t do unassisted ones, so I used my Iron Woody bands to allow me to do them.  I can count the amount of times I’ve done pullups (and chinups) on my hands, so my arms really aren’t used to doing them, which makes them especially hard.  First set I did 5 full range of motion ones (dead hang to chin over bar).  It was relatively hard to get my chin over the bar in the last one.  After 60 seconds rest, I did the same, but this time including static holds.  I did four statics of 3 seconds for each of the 5 reps – One at the top of the motion, one 1/4 down, one 2/4 down and one 3/4 down.  To get my chin over the bar in the last two or three was pretty damn hard, I’ll tell you.  As already mentioned, the bar is truly evil, and by now my hands were hurting quite a bit.

I rested for 2 minutes, then went onto pushups.  I did 20 with a wide stance (so at the midway point my forearms were perpendicular to my upper arm), rested for 30 seconds, then 10 raised ones.  The raised ones were done using stone builds to each side, about 18″ high each.  I went down as far as I physically could, then all the way up.  I didn’t realise how hard these were either!

Another 2 minute rest and I was onto chinups.  My hands were hurting slightly less, although the second I grabbed the bar the started hurting again!  I used the same principle with chinups as I did with the pullups – 5 reps normal, 60 second rest, then 5 static-hold reps.  My the end of this my hands were really hurting – Damn that bar!

Next I was onto body rows.  I do body rows using a raised stone platform (like the pushups), and with some rings I made using chains and PVC pipe (to hold on to).  Cost about £5 to make, and very useful.  Because my feet were raised, the range of motion of these body rows was pretty high.  At fully hanging I was below horizontal (my head closer to the ground than my feet), which made them harder.  I was hoping to knock out 15 to 20 rows, but I barely did 10.  I attempted 10, but the last 4 were pathetic, and the last one I couldn’t rise more than an inch or two, however hard I tried.  My painful hands probably didn’t help.  I was planning on finishing with a hang for time from the pull/chinup bar, but I could tell my arms would dead and I would do terribly (if I could even hold on!).

And that was that, my arm workout finished.  What annoyed me was that although my hands hurt, my arms felt fine, or at least slightly tired.  I keep thinking they should be really aching, even though I know (from Ross Enamait and other people) that idea is wrong.  It just feels as though I could’ve done more, even though my body rows proved otherwise.  The first thing I did when I got inside was run my hands under warm water, to warm them up and help with the pain.  It felt like bliss!  Even as I’m typing this, about half an hour later, I can still feel pain in my hands though, although it hasn’t stopped my writing…OVER 1000 WORDS!!  OK, that was a bit on an excessive post.  Congrats if you’ve read this far!  If you have, comment to tell me!

Sunday 23-12-07 – Gunz in the Cold

• Sprinting
• Rope Jumping
• Stretching
• 20 Pushups
  • 2 minutes rest
• 5 assisted pullups (dead hand to chin over bar)
  • 1 minute rest
• 5 assisted pullups with 4 static holds each (dead hang to chin over bar)
  • 2 minutes rest
• 20 90° pushups
  • 30 seconds rest
• 10 raised pushups
  • 2 minutes rest
• 5 assisted chinups (dead hand to chin over bar)
  • 1 minute rest
• 5 assisted chinups with 4 static holds each (dead hang to chin over bar)
  • 2 minutes rest
• 10 body rows

Not sure when I’m going to workout next.  Christmas is tomorrow’s tomorrow, so not long now!  I was hoping to get some new trainers for Christmas, although my mum informed me today that I’m not.  I found out today that I think my feet must have grown, as my current ones hurt the sides of my feet, especially when skipping/rope jumping.  I’ll probably order them myself today, but might not work out until I have them (which actually probably wouldn’t be too long).

As always please comment!!  I’ve spent ages writing this, make me feel it was worthwhile!