Thursday, February 17, 2011

All Ass Workout

I'll explain the All Ass Workout title of this post in a minute.

So I mentioned earlier this week that I have been bored with my training. Well, that hit an all new level of boredom yesterday. It was getting to the point that I wasn't just bored with my workouts, but I was dreading the next one. That is not a good thing.

Part of it is because I spent every day of last week skiboarding. We went all day long, and even into the night flying down a mountain. I know my body is a little fatigued, but I know I'm also bored with my current program.

Today was supposed to be my squat day, but the last thing I felt like doing was putting a heavy barbell on my back. Yes, there is a time for shutting up, sucking it up, and lifting. However, today I was in desperate need of something different.

I walked out the garage knowing one thing - I did not want to put a barbell on my back. So here's what I just did:

1a) Walking lunges w/ weight vest - 4 x 12 each leg
1b) Barbell glute bridge - 115 x 4 x 12
1c) Band Pull-in - 4 x 15

That workout was a good change of pace, and I actually enjoyed it. It ended up being an "all ass workout" because after the second set, my butt was cramping.

One thing is for sure - next week I am changing things up. I'm still not sure of the details, but I'm going to go back to total body workouts for a while, and I'm only going to lift three days a week, instead of four like I've been doing the past several months.

I'll give you the details as I figure them out.

Check this out => Why Do You Train?

4 comments:

Gordon Wayne Watts said...

your plan to lift 3 days a week instead of 4 will force you to have longer recuperation time -by stretching out the workout into I would guess 9 or 10 day cycles (since you must fully rotate between all 4 main exercises called for in Jim Wendler's 5/3/1).

This appears to have been successful in the past -both for you and others - I myself sometimes need extra time to recover.

Nia Shanks said...

Right now I'm just looking to changes things up and make training fun again. I do this from time to time to give my body, and mind, a change of pace.

Plus, 3 total body workouts/week will be a nice new training stimulus.

Gordon Wayne Watts said...

What coincidence -- after my unplanned 'arm wrestling contest' at a recent high school reunion, I was sore for 2 weeks following --and that put a cramp in my plans to do any upper-body workouts following!

Also, I unexpectedly got funding assistance for some minor, but much-needed surgery to restore my eyesight from a cataract. (That sucked! Why would I get a cataract this 'young?')

So, doctor's orders is now forcing me to take 'time off' of any heavy physical activity (e.g., weightlifting / powerlifting) another week off.

I was sure surprised I was so slow to recover from arm wrestling (I was always good at that, often beating guys much larger than myself), but the owner of the gym -and her son (both very experienced powerlifters) say that arm wrestling is *not* a "natural" movement -and this was to be expected. (They might have expected it, but I was surprised.)

So, I needed all kinds of time off for the unexpected. Maybe tomorrow will be brighter.

Gordon Wayne Watts said...

I just realised:

When you skipped a workout, you skipped squats, and of all the lifts, that would be the one that you could probably work on more without overtraining.

The reason I got this impression was that in the 'Smolov' squat routine (you can google it), you squat like 3-4 days a week:

For example: http://www.verkhoshansky.com/Forum/tabid/84/forumid/15/postid/525/scope/posts/Default.aspx has Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday squat cycles.

EVERY day's 'squat' day!

Sorry I was slow to remember this, but better late than never.

In any case, my point is that you could probably train squat twice a week once in a while and not overtrain --so, that, in combination with your feeling you want to increase your squat, might be more motivation to skip something else if you were going to skip.