Yet another BB Training Blog

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Training and Health
21

Thurs Jan 6

Alright, so yesterday afterwork I thought I was gonna drop out.
I could barely keep my eyes open and I was tired as I don’t know what.
The allure of the gym kept me goin though; along with wanting to show off the new timer.
So i went down there, hooked up the new timer, and decided to take my time loosening up.
Did a nice, slow boxing/kickboxing warm up for like 10 or 15 min.
I started feeling a lot better.
So next it was on to weights.
Didn’t break any records on the weights; but put in some time at the office:
Couple Hammer strength chest machines, 2 plates each side, 10 reps, 3 sets altogether
Assisted pull/chinups, 85 pound assist, 1 set of 10, 2 sets of 8
Squats 185, 3 sets of 5 reps

After that I was feeling pretty good; so I did a good skills workout:
3 rounds of jump rope
3 rounds of shadow
3 rounds of heavybag
2 rounds of calisthenics death (20 jumping jacks - 10 pushups - 20 jumping jacks - 10 jumping squats - 20 jumping jacks - 5 squat thrusts rinse & repeat)
3 rounds of speed ball (2 rounds on the double ended peanut, 1 round on the normal double ended speed bag)

That burned me pretty good; but i wasn’t finished yet.

Started out with cardio for about 5 min before I realized I had to take a little bio break.

Jumped back on the elliptical crosstrainer after I washed my hands and hit the “aerobic crosstrainer” (interval) setting for 30 minutes on 17 or 18; racking up a good 640 calories.

But wait! There’s more…

So I did a few minutes of cool down walking.
Went through 20 minutes or so of stretching.
Ran through a form twice.
THEN I hobbled home.

Gotta love pulling out a 3 hour workout when you thought you weren’t going to be able to hit the gym anyway.

diet went okay yesterday- big breakfast, sandwich for lunch, got ambushed as I got home about dinner- ended up eating some pan fried dumplings as I drank my post-workout protein shake.

Passed out once the bloat from the post-workout shake went down, at around 1 or 2 and was completely dead to the world till 10 this morning.
Glad it’s hard to get fired at this job. LOL

Originally I’d planned to take Thursdays off, but I’m thinking about hitting up the gym for a kung fu workout for an hour or so.

eating some general tso’s without the rice today. hey, at least I’m getting some broccolli.

22

D@MN dude! You’re putting in some serious gym time. NICE WORK!

23

Waaaay too kind there Chief Fox, but thanx. :slight_smile:

I will never be able to run what you run on a daily basis.
one thing i was good at was swimming.

If the ironman is a 5km swim; the only way I know to prepare for that is becoming comfortable with straight 1 and 2km swims.

One year I was working as a lifeguard, had been out of swimming shape for a while; but had to swim 2km per week where I was working.
This ended up being a really good thing when the semesterly 5k swim came along; coz even a out of shape, and a little sick, I finished top 5 in the 5k.

I’d swim 1k sets, planning for it taking 20 min, until you can do 2k intervals. You should try to work for 1k under 15 min and 2k under 30.
Working on long, gliding strokes will really help you keep up a good average time without tiring yourself out; like trying to make it the length of the pool in as few strokes as possible.

Hope u don’t mind the input, thanks again.

24

I don’t mind the input at all. Thanks. Swimming is my worst event in the triathlon and by worst I mean terrible. 1k in 15 min is the short term goal for me. Right now I’m at 800 in 20min. so I’ve got a little ways to go. Probably another month or so and I’ll see my time improving. I try to work on long gliding strokes and I always count my strokes. Most times I get 18 strokes per length (25 yrd. pool). A good count for me would be 16 or maybe even 14. I’ve read a bunch of article by Terry Laughlin, the Total Immersion guy and long gliding strokes is one thing that he mentions a lot.

Thanks again for the input, and keep up the good work.:slight_smile:

25

happy b-day bb!

26

rtb- errr tnx, but my birfday’s not till June 19…

Okay so Thursday I took the day off- my throat was sore, it was my planned rest day anyway. Was gonna do some kung fu stances but the throat made me play it cautious.

Friday.

Strange day. at the gym, did my 10 min warm up then on to weights.

Started off on lat pull down, went 3 sets of 6, 85, 70, 55lb assist… at least i think, mighta been 15lb lower. Finished up with a respectable 10 second negative.
Did 3 sets of 6 squats at 205. going bootie to the floor on these. frustrating coz most of the set will be good form and then one rep i’ll get all funky, for seemingly no reason (fatigue doesn’t feel that serious). Taking it slow and working on it, could probably be doing 3 sets of 6 reps with over 225, but gonna play it safe.
I can press 90 pound dumbells 3 times now; so it’s nice to see the improvement, the other 2 sets were 80 pounders for like 6 reps.

Then it was on to skills work out.
Set the timer to 3 min round with 30 seconds rest.
3 rounds jump rope
3 rounds shadow with weights
3 rounds 300lb bag w/weight vest
3 rounds various thai bags
3 rounds uppercut bag
Did some laps around the bag area doing some various drills as a sort of cool down.
ran through my form twice.

i was dead by the end of the uppercut bag; which i’d spend the last 30 seconds on throwing nonstop knees. So I ended up just heading out

Got home and drank my shake.
Felt like i had heart burn over my whole body.
Almost like my internal organs were fizucked up.
kinda scared me, hurt pretty good.
Slept from a lil after midnight till like 3 this afternoon.

Today (Saturday)

Mostly just chilled.
Headed to the gym for a skills workout.
Went back down to 2 min rounds coz I’m achin a bit, not only from yesterday, but from the whole week- achilles on my left ankle not feeling nice, tendonitis back in both knees.
Kept it simple:
laps around the gym doing various drills
3 painful rounds of jumprope
3 rounds of shadow with weights (really started feeling it in my shoulders)
3 rounds on the banana bags
3 sets of 10 reps each side for torso twists, holding a 45 pound weight.
3 sets of 10 reps of this plyometric type punching drill with the 45 pounder.
a lap back and forth across the heavybag area doing penetration stepping.
After that I was pretty much burnt. Kind of a lite day; at about an hour, but i was pretty warn out from everything else I’d done.

Tomorrow I’m planning to go to philly to do some kung fu, so I guess this marks the end of my first week at the new gym.
Hit that place up 5 times this week; for between 2 and 3 hours per session until the last one. Decent start I’d say… just gotta try to make next week better.

Dietwise-
thursday leftover chinese and then a subway sandwich.

friday had a 6inch turkey sandwich for lunch and a chicken cheese steak with breaded mushrooms for dinner (yah, i know, bad).

saturday had some dim sum and sushi at this new buffet near my house (it r0x0rz). may eat a lil more before bed.

27

Okay so sunday my kung fu training session fell through; so I stayed home and vegged. I think I needed it coz Saturday I felt hellaburnt.
Ate a DiGiorno sicillian pizza, a slice or two of thin crust - brick oven style, and a roast beef sandwich… Throughout the day, not one meal.
I know I ate bad, it was kind of a cheat day… but I woke up this morning 5 freakin pounds heavier. wtf!?
I mean, I know I"m stronger, but this still stinks.
Worked out over 10 hours this past week and am actually heavier.
D@mn I hate my body.
Of course the only way i lost weight last time was to work out upwards of 3 hours a day, 6 days a week; and consume around 600 calories a day.

At least I feel pretty decent to hit it tonite.
Looking at 7 to at least 9, probably closer to 10.

Just gotta keep focusing on performance, eat for performance…
More fruit; less red meat, and (after seeing the nutritional content of the average breakfast sandwich) no more egg mcmuffins.

28

Those DiGiorno pizzas are tastey but they have tons of sodium in them. So you’re probably retaining some water. Do some cardio and drink a bunch of water and I bet you see your weight come down.

29

Workin on it. :slight_smile:
Got into a bag of apricots today.
Not necessarily as a crash diet, but just coz they taste pretty cool and change how i feel when i eat 'em.

My eating habits need a lot of work.

Finding out i’m much more comfortable not eating anything for a long time before bed- including post workout shakes; not only for putting on weight overnight, but I can’t get to sleep if any food in my stomach, and when I wake up I’ve been feeling all yucky.

My goal is to figure out how to eat without getting any stomach aches throughout the day as well as having more energy. I am the master of indigestion. :smiley: I don’t take any heartburn meds tho and only have a vague idea what it’s supposed to feel like; but seems like my stomach’s always hurting unless i just don’t eat.

30

When i remember to bring, instead of making a sandwich for lunch, I’ll snack on turkey through the day, and some wholegrain bread. Then around 3 (I usually leave work between 4 and 5:30) I’ll try to have some fruit…

My diet needs to tighten up again too.. I’ve been a slacker.:frowning:

31

ooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

let’s see… last night:

cardio warm up- 10 min on the ellptical xtrainer

assisted pullup: 3 sets of 6 with 55lb assist; 1 negative
squat: 3 sets of 6 with 205 - pretty easy, but my upper back was a lil sore, so my form probably still needs some work
chest: 1 set of 6 with 165 barbell bench; 2 sets of 6 with 185 barbell; jumped on 90lb dumbells, got a rep out, then let it down real far on second rep and just pushed it up a lil, holding it there to make up for not going down enough on my second set at 185. Barbell is definitely a TON easier than dumbells; i could probably bench 205 barbell with a spot.

beginners boxing class was going on; so no access to round timer, or a ton of open space. Skipped to shadow with weights; which i did for at least 3 rounds of 3 minutes.

after 2nd round of shadow i was able to turn on the timer.

3 rounds of 3 min on 300lb bag, first one with weight vest.

3 more rounds of shadow, no weights.

wrists were hurting a bit so I did 2 rounds of kicking on a banana bag.
then I did a round of knees on the uppercut bag- which absolutely killed me.

then it was 3 rounds on the double ended speed bag/balls

finished with some kung fu stance work and a full lap of penetration stepping footwork (think walking bow and arrow stance, but lower).

Was pretty shot after that workout eventho on paper doesn’t look that hard. The kicking took a lot out of me; the beginner’s class kinda threw me off my rhythm; and I’ve got some leftover pain from abusing my body last week- not general soreness indicative of overtraining, but sore joints from the constant impact. Skipping jump rope mighta been a blessing in disguise.

Went home and didn’t even drink postworkout shake, just a little gatorade to rehydrate and got to bed. Got to sleep quite a bit earlier than I had been so i think i"ve figured it out.

This morning I had my “postworkout shake”. I’m kinda wondering if it’s the flaxseed oil, or the cheapo creatine, but something in the shake’s giving me the achy heartburn feeling. It’s mostly gone now, but this morning it was kickin my bootie. Right now i’m a bit sore from the workout; but this morning it was bad- even kind of a tightness in the chest.

Planning on cardio and calisthenics tonite; to give myself more rest from impact training. Tendonitis in my knees is a little worse than I’d like it be- still getting back into jumping rope more than once a week.

Tenative focus schedule:
Monday - weights & skills - focus on kicking
Tuesday - cardio & calisthenics
Wednesday - weights & skills - footwork drills
Thursday - rest (or field trip)
Friday - weights & skills - focus on boxing
Saturday - cardio & skills - kicking & takedown drills
Sunday - rest (or field trip)

Field trips will either be traveling to work mostly kung fu with friends; or traveling to other gyms with a kickboing focus- sparring or some help with skills.

I’ll see how that works, it may need to change: some things i’ll have to do a bit of everyday, but other things need a lot more dedicated focus.
Saturday should be kind of a light day (depending on how i’m feeling); but skills oriented.

32

Last night after work I was hungry, real hungry…
Knowing that I wasn’t going to eat after work, I decided to head home for a quick dinner before working out.
This might’ve been a mistake.
Felt sluggish as HECK after getting home, and for a while after eating.
Was considering skipping the gym altogether.
Finally kicked my own bootie around 8 and was on the road a little after.
Got to the gym by 8:20, thinking I’d just do some cardio and then go home.

Busted out 30 min of cardio… first 10 min was trying to maintain a certain speed on the elliptical cross trainer… second 10 min I did a few 1 and 2 min sprint sessions… the third 10 min I was sprinting the last 20 seconds of any given minute…

Altogether I burned like 660 calories and my heart rate was over 180 a large portion of the time (that’s gotta mean something to those guys that say the elliptical overestimates calorie expenditure).

After that I found myself interested in doing some supplementary weights for certain areas I don’t spend a ton of time on- namely the shoulders and back.

Busted out with seated rows (3 sets); machine pullovers (3 sets); standing military press (3 sets); and seated shrugs (3 sets).

That work made me want to focus on other exercises that might supplement my weak areas.

So I did hip rotations holding a 45 pound weight, 3 sets of 10 each direction.

Did ab work, with the routine I got from owings mills boxing:
50 crunches, 50 left sideways crunches, 50 right sideways crunches, 50 leg lifts, 50 knees to chest kickouts

Did 10 pushups from a wrestler’s bridge (with the hands).
Got into a wrestling bridge on my head & rocked back and forth 10 times to work my neck.
Flipped over and did a bridge on my forehead, holding my hands, and rocked back n forth by bending my knees 10 more times.

Busted out 10 squat thrusts just cause my love-hate relationship with that exercise has me wanting to make sure I always punish myself with them.

Finished up with 30 hindu squats- which weren’t so bad on my legs, but i was just real tired by then, so doing them really wore me out.

All in all around an hour and a half… not bad considering i wasn’t even gonna go.
Think I’m learning that the big challenge is in making it to the gym.

Man am I sore today…Not enough sleep last night.
Quickly polishing off my supplements from the beginning of last summer. My empty wallet & maxed out credit cards tell me that I’ll have to wait to finish all of it before I can thinka bout buying more.

33

Had a meeting yesterday so had to get to work early; as a result i got to go home early.

Went to the gym right after work; still pretty sore.
10 min cardio warm up on elliptical crosstrainer.

squats: 3 sets of 6 with 205. Finding that at my “sticking point” in the squat, I lose form for a split sec, but am usually able to correct it before anything bad happens. I am not 100% sure that’s ever going to go away. Think it’s time to add more weight.

dumbell bench: 3 sets. 10 with 70s; 6 with 80s; 4 with 90s. I lose it with the 90s if i go down too far- tho it’s not an immediate loss, it just gets stuck there; could probably find some way to push through it, but it usually happens after I’m already fatigued.

hammer strength pulldown: 3 sets. 10 with 100 on each side. 8 with 125 on each. 6 with 125 on each. machine’s on like a 45 degree angle- noticed it hitting more of the whole upper back than just the lats. I think it’s closer to freeweights than a pully, but I know i should be doing some form of pull/chinup instead- just wanted to kind of take it easy after a good amount of pull work on tuesday. Upper back is sore and achy today… lats cramp right away if i flex 'em. guess it was a good day.

Did my footwork drill work after that.
Then I did the beginner’s boxing class for an hour: kinda easy, but i did a lot of shadow and was able to work on my footwork quite a bit.
It had a lot more ab focus than I’d been doing & a nice lil bit of plyo work with medicine ball.
Finished up with penetration stepping & some kung fu work.

Surge in the morning feels like I’m drinking rat poison.
Wonder if it’s an allergy.
My chest starts cramping up sooner than half way through it.
Feel like i’m gonna ralph.

Today’s rest day; but i may go in to work with the boxing coach and get him to take a serious look to see if i’m doing something wrong.

34

Took Thursday off.
Ate 1 bad meal with dessert.
Couldn’t sleep though- laid down before 1, didn’t pass out till almost 3.
Woke up repeatedly, including a bad bloody nose bout an hour before I was to wake up.
Maybe it was my first diet pepsi in a while?
Maybe it was the history and tlc documentaries on exorcisms, satanic cults, serial killers, and ghost stories?
i dunno…
but i imagine my blood pressure’s off the charts.
Someone said it might be the air- as pollution around here is terrible; gives a lot of people asthma like symptoms and chest pain.
whatever it is, it’s got me spooked a lil.
back to the gym tonite.

35

bad/ no sleep soxors.. have fun at the gym.. I’ll be driving 4 1/2 hours to Taos..

36

ok knew the no sleep was gonna come back to haunt me.
been regretting making this post since last night, but here goes.

after work i was STARVING and made the mistake of going home to pick up something to eat instead of just munching on an energy bar & heading straight to the gym.

Got home, gf was asleep, my old buddy Rob called.
Rob just finished sniper school and is going to Iraq soon (sorry if u don’t want me posting your business bro, just trying to give a good description). Rob and i talked while my gf got outta bed. We’re still talking when she grabs her coat and says “let’s go”.
I keep talking with rob til we get to this restaurant.
At the restaurant i had some pan fried dumplings & some sushi.
Afterwards I went home to rest a lil bit before going to the gym- to let my food digest.

Unfortunately I passed out for a couple hours instead of 1.
Instead of going back to the gym I called up rob just to talk with him some more. There’s been a lot going on with both our families and our friends over the last year, so we had lots to talk about.

went back to bed around 2.
woke up at 12:45- too late to hit up work before the gym.
I fix myself some breakfast and while I’m figuring out why the toaster won’t turn on, somehow i manage to pull a muscle in my upper back. I pulled the muscle that runs from the right shoulderblad to the spine. It hurts to sit up, it hurts to walk.
I finish my breakfast and pop some alieve.
As soon as i’m able I make my way out the door, holding back tears. hehe

I got to the gym and tried my warmup on the eliptical. I had to take it real easy and got 12 min by going very slow.
Somehow managed to break a little sweat, so i decided to do some high rep stuff to loosen up. Did sets of 20 reps on seated row with almost no weight. Survived it. Then went on to do 3 sets of 10 reps on bench with 135- wasn’t used to that many reps i guess, so i got a nice little bit of a burn on the last set. Then I went to the hammer machine leg press (each leg moves independently). Again, 3 sets of 10 reps, not sure how much weight, decent burn by the end.
My back still hadn’t loosened up so i called it a day.

Pathetic, I know, but i guess sometimes you gotta learn to make-do. Laying down as i write this coz it still hurts. hope it’s gone by tomorrow.

37

take it easy man, if you did actually damage yourself you should let it heal.

good luck to your friend going to Iraq. I’ve had both of my best friends at different times of my life go over. One’s back but the other is still there.

38

appreciate it :slight_smile:

hope yer other bud makes it back too.

the back’s weird… the pain’s going away sloooooowly over time.
just got back from “white noise” and as i was leaving the theater, the pain was a fraction of what it had been.

I’ll try to take it easy and not push it too hard; but my tolerance for setbacks isn’t too high right now. lol

39

I have a heating pad. It works great on stuff like this.

40

I’m terrible about being lazy on stuff like icing and heating…
As I get older, i may need to learn to change that habit…

Kung fu workout fell through again.

Monday will be the start of a new week at least. :slight_smile: