Sat 16/2 – Nightly Workout Mk2 1: #3

And here it is, the start of the new nightly workouts. I rolled a 3:

• 5 Diamond Pushups
• 5 Partial One-Legged Squats (Per Leg)
• 6 Sets

Tonight’s workout is slightly more strength-based than before, as it includes diamond pushups and pistols, both of which I’m not good at. However, I’m going to do them fairly fast, without much rest, so to gain conditioning benefits from it.

For those unfamiliar with the moves, the diamond pushup is like a normal pushup except your hands are together under our body, your thumbs and forefingers making a diamond shape. These are much harder than normal pushups and require much more tricep strength and balance. One-legged squats, or pistols, are like normal squats except you use (surprise, surprise), only one leg, whilst holding the other out in front of you, parallel to the ground. These require much more strength, flexibility and balance than normal squats. The one-legged squats I’m not great at, due to lack of strength, balance and flexibility, but I can go down fairly far – I’m going to go as far down as possible before coming up. I can get my knees to have an under 90° bend, which isn’t too bad, and my right I can go pretty far down indeed.

I decided not to time this one as, to be honest, it’s not all about how fast you can do it but how well you do it. Doing deeper squats, and more controlled ones, take more time. I don’t want to get myself into rushing and not getting as many benefits out as I hope to. However, some of my nightly workouts will be timed, and be about speed, so don’t worry.

By the end I didn’t feel too bad actually, although I wanted to keep it fairly short but with difficult exercises. For all of them I tried to go as low as possible, which was quite difficult. What I found was during the actual reps it was hard to do, as my body found it hard to go further, but afterwards I wasn’t very fatigued, which was actually a nice change. As I had guessed, balance was my main problem with the pistols, but as with all things that comes with practise. A couple times I found myself losing balance, especially near the bottom, but I managed to get balanced each time before I fell over, trying as hard as possible not to put my other foot down or use my hands to touch something. As for the diamond pushups, the hardest part was pushing up from low positions. I could go so far down and push up, but go 1/2″ lower and it was very hard to push back up. Again, it will come with practise. The very last rep of the diamonds I actual lost balance and fell onto my side.

Until tomorrow!

Sat 16/2 – Sledgehammering Time!

I decided to do some sledgehammering today, as I had said yesterday.  When I sledgehammered last, I used an old pick-up truck we had.  However, when I went back to it this time it was completely trashed.  From what I heard, some of the guys with tractors had decided to have a bit of fun with it. Doesn’t matter though.  The problem was, it was now all twisted and buckled and generally fucked up.  I could still hit it, although the main bare parts were the solid metal chassis, which was, to say the least, hard.  That wasn’t the main problem though – the main problem was that there were jagged bits of rusted metal in most directions, meaning I didn’t want to go all out incase I slipped (or the hammer slipped, which is highly likely), and I went crashing into some rusty metal.  I warmed up with a brief run, some stretches and some jumping jacks, then I did about 200 swings, half left handed half right handed, from various directions (vertical, diagonal, horizontal etc).

What I really want to do sometime is hang a tree trunk up and treat it like a heavy bag, but instead of punching it use weapons on it.  In many ways, much like the Romans etc did (or so the movies say ).  I could use anything as weapons really: the sledgehammer as a warhamer, an axe as a waraxe, a long metal pole as a pike/spear, a shorter metal pipe as a sword etc.  The possibilities literally are endless.  However, this whole setup wouldn’t be easy.  I mean, I’d have to get a tree trunk, and then I’d have to find a way to hang it up.  If I remember correctly, in Gladiator the movie they had hung up tree trunks, but I can’t find any pictures for ideas.  Probably some kind of wooden frame with chains.  As for the tree trunk, I could buy one or try and find an old one.  I went into a cops we have, which is full of old trees and stuff, and did find a fell tree.  It was, however, fairly rotten.

Anyone have Gladiator the movie and mind sending me some pics?  Or anyone have any general ideas for what I should do?  Comment!

After the pick-up I decided to attack the aforementioned fell tree.  It was horizontal, about waist height.  Although the first inch or so was fairly rotten, underneath was solid!  Not as solid as the pick-up frame though.  The sledgehammer I was using had a flat head on one side and an axe on the other.  I tried both, in different places.

First, 100 strikes with the axe-head, 10 per arm then swapping over.  The axe head cut through pretty easily, although it still was fairly hard work.

Next I tried 100 strikes with the flat head, again 10 per arm then swapping.  This was MUCH harder.  I got through the inch of rot before hitting the solid wood beneath, and every strike felt as though it went all the way through my body!

I finished with another 100 strikes with the axe head (10 per arm then swap), in the same place as last time.  My target is to cut completely through the trunk.  Should take some time, my guess is it’s over 2 feet wide.  Fun though!

There is one thing I don’t like about sledgehammering, and it’s really annoying.  Put simply, my hands and fingers get tired much much faster than any other part of my body.  After the 500 swings, by fingers really hurt due to having to hold onto the hammer and absorb the impacts, yet my arms and every other part of my body still felt fine.

Is this due to lack of grip strength, and will this go the more I practise?  I hope so.

And that’s all for now.  New nightly workout tonight!

Sat 16/2 – Sledgehammering Time!

• 200 sledgehammer swings, 100 per arm, on pick-up (metal)
• 300 sledgehammer swings, 150 per arm, on fell tree trunk