Fit36.com

We just got back from vacation, and boy was it hard to maintain any sort of healthy routine while we were on the road. As I noted previously, just about the only workout “equipment” that I had at my disposal was the floor and the great outdoors. Given that rowing is the centerpiece of my fitness routine, this made it tough to stay in the groove.

I actually anticipated problems with maintaining my exercise regime while we were away. While I went to the trouble of finding a local club that had Concept2 rowers, I knew in the back of my mind that I’d wind up slacking off while we were gone, and I never seriously considered trying to talk my way in to the club to squeeze in a row.

My recent addition of pushups to my workout repertoire did, however, give me a small amount of consistency since pushups can be done pretty much anywhere. But aside from that, all bets were off. My workouts ended up consisting of some hill running one day, a short (flat) run another day, and a couple of brisk three mile walks. I also did my pushups as dictated by the Hundred Pushup Challenge.

Making healthy food choices was also a challenge while we were no the road. We wound up dining out relatively often, and not always at the healthiest restaurants. Moreover, we spent most of the week in a group setting, such that the cooking (and menu planning) duties rotated with other members of our extended family. Thus, our food choices were often dictated by others.

The End Result

While I’m not explicitly trying to lose weight, I do try to keep an eye on the scale. Upon our return, I was pleased to learn that my weight had held steady, and maybe even decreased a bit. I also made reasonable progress in term of pushups, though I had hoped to emerge from the week with a few more reps under my belt.

It remains to be seen what effect the layoff had on my rowing, but I suspect that it will actually be somewhat beneficial. Though I was experiencing a bit of lower back fatigue before we left, I feel pretty good right now. Of course, I’ve fallen back in terms of meters rowed, but my distance goals are really rather arbitrary and not particularly meaningful.

Perhaps the biggest lesson that I learned from all of this is the importance of just doing something to stay on track while you’re on the road. While I gave myself a break, I didn’t throw in the towel entirely. I still tried to eat healthy (most of the time), I kept an eye on my alcohol intake, and I also made sure that I got a bit of exercise.

In the end, I may not have progressed, but I didn’t really slide back, either.

Since we’re still on vacation, I’m not going to do much more today than put together a quick workout update.

Here’s the executive summary:

Short run on Sunday, pushups on Monday and Wednesday, and a three mile walk on Tuesday.

As for the 100 pushup goal, things are still going well. Monday’s schedule called for 9-8-6-4-Max (at least seven). I completed all sets with a 60-70 second break between each, and manage 10 reps on my max set. Wednesday’s schedule called for 11-9-7-7-Max (at least ten). Things were a bit more difficult on Wednesday, and I didn’t track my break as closely. The prescribed break was 90 seconds per set, and I’m pretty sure that I went well over that. In the end, I managed 11 reps on my max set.

So… Assuming that I succeed on my next workout, I’ll re-test after this week is done and then press on with Week 3.

In other news, I managed to develop a blister on the back of my right heel earlier this week thanks to a new pair of shoes. Nothing major but, combined with the fact that we’re on vacation, it’s given me a good excuse to slack off this week.

Since we’re out of town on vacation, I don’t have access to my usual workout gear. Thus, I have to make do with what’s available. In this case, I have the floor and the great outdoors.

I started out by flopping down and doing Week 1, Day 3 of the One Hundred Pushups training program. The numbers for the day were 10-8-8-5-Max (at least 10). I did this much earlier in the day than normal, and wasn’t really in the groove. Nonetheless, I powered through (including 12 in the “max” round vs. the required 10) for a grand total of 43 pushups.

For the week, I did 110 pushups and completed all three workouts without any problems. My back is definitely feeling better, so… Given these results, it looks like I’ll be advancing to Week 2 come Monday.

Next up, cardio. Like I said, I pretty much have just the floor and the great outdoors at my disposal right now. Unfortunately, I hate running (that’s a topic for another post entirely) but I wanted to do something a bit more intensive than walking. Thus, I opted for running hills. Yes, it’s running, but it’s a lot more challenging than plain old running, so I can get more intense workout in less time. Plus, the increased challenge makes it more mentally tolerable.

There’s a reasonably steep (albeit not terribly long) hill near here, so I headed over and proceeded to run up it (and walk back down) sixteen times. I didn’t push it too hard, as it’s been a long time since I’ve run hills, and I didn’t want to hurt myself. That said, I succeeded in getting my heart pumping and my legs burning.

That’s it for now. I’ll press on with the pushups in the coming week and will squeeze in whatever else I can. Since we’re on vacation, posting will probably be a bit sporadic until the end of June.

I’ve spent the better part of today running around trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends before we leave for vacation. Thus, my workout plans largely got squashed. However, I did manage to set aside a few minutes this evening for my pushups. Today’s workout was 9-8-6-5-Max (at least 7) and it went quite well — a good bit easier than Day #1.

I’m still dealing with some fatigue in my lower back from rowing, but skipping out on my rowing session for today definitely made things easier. I blew through the first four sets with roughly 90 seconds between each, and then knocked out ten more for my “max” round vs. the required seven. That’s a grand total of 38 pushups. Not a ton, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.

We’ll have to wait and see how Friday goes, but I’m fairly confident that I won’t be repeating Week #1.

I have two primary rules when it comes to working out:

1. Never skip more than one day in a row, and

2. Finish any workout that I start (barring injury)

I’ve broken rule #1 exactly twice since re-committing myself to working out (roughly three months ago). Both instances happened when I was traveling, and I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Over the next ten days, I will likely break this rule again (except for the pushups), as we will be taking a 10 day family vacation, and I’ll probably cut myself a bit of slack.

As for rule #2, I haven’t broken it at all since getting back into the swing of things, though I’ve been sorely tempted. For example, this morning… I decided to squeeze in a 30 minute row before I left for work. After setting the monitor and getting started, I quickly realized that I was lacking a bit in the motivation department. But since I had set the workout monitor for 30 minutes, I was committed.

In the end, my performance was actually pretty solid, though I felt like puking at the end. That being said, I’m now looking forward to my next session, as I often pull off a fairly strong workout after I struggle through a rough one.

Just a quick update to say that I’ve officially completed day #1 of the One Hundred Pushups training program. My plan has been to mix these workouts in with my rowing regimen rowing, so I did my initial pushup test shortly after an 8km row, and only managed to do ten before my form started to break down.

Given my initial performance, the first workout was supposed to be 7-7-5-4-Max (at least 5) with a 60 second break between sets. While it was a pretty easy workout overall, my lower back is a bit fried right now from all of the rowing. Thus, as with the initial test, I could really feel it in my abs worked to hold my body straight.

I’m assuming that the back thing will work itself out over time, especially because we’ll be traveling next week and I probably won’t be able to row while we’re away.

I wrote about this briefly elsewhere, but wanted to pull it in over here since I now have a dedicated fitness site. Last week I decided that I was to start working toward 100 pushups (see here for details). I actually first heard about it from Blaine Moore, and it sounded like an interesting challenge.

Unfortunately, I got sidetracked last week almost immediately… I took the initial test Monday evening shortly after rowing 8km. On Tuesday, I then did a hard 10km row (the longest I’ve ever done in my short history of rowing) and I woke up sore enough on Wednesday that I couldn’t manage the prescribed pushup workout, even though it was short and relatively easy.

Rather than giving up, I simply readjusted… I decided to push through the remainder of the week with regular rowing and a bit of dumbbell work, and then set out on my quest for 100 pushups on Monday (tomorrow).

So that’s where I’m at. In the mean time, I wanted to give a shout out to Jim and JD who have both taken up the challenge after I mentioned it to them last week.

Interestingly, it seems that the One Hundred Pushups idea is picking up steam, with the following individuals (among many others, I’m sure) having written about it:

Andrew
Chelsey
Diet Girl
The Happy Rock
Karen Sugarpants
Mac
Run Momma Run
Say What?
Weight Ladder
Workout Mommy

Welcome to Fit36, a new weblog devoted to the world of health, fitness, and exercise. While I’ve lived a fairly active lifestyle in the past, the combination of four kids, a full time job, and running a side business tends to get in the way. But that all changed this spring…

The backstory:

As cheesy as this sounds, we went on a a Disney Cruise, and we had a fantastic time. They had tons of niceties on board the ship, including an excellent little fitness center looking out over the bow of the ship. My wife and I went up there to workout nearly every day. And guess what? I loved it.

For whatever reason, working out was no longer a drag. Sure, we were on vacation staring out over the Caribbean, but something had clicked. While my normal response to vacation has been to let my guard down even further than normal, and slack off like there’s no tomorrow, I was actually looking forward to hitting the fitness center to work up a sweat each day. And once we returned home, I didn’t miss a beat.

I’ve actually thought about launching a site like this in the past, but I didn’t want to wind up talking the talk without walking the walk. While writing about personal change can be a great motivational tool, it won’t work if you’re not actually ready to make a change. And so I decided to wait until I had gotten into the swing of things, and was sure that this wasn’t just a passing fancy, before going public.

I’ve been at this for roughly three months now, I’m still going strong, so…

Here we are.

I’m still not sure what sort of rhythm I’ll develop here, but my current plan is to post personal things like goals and workout updates as well as more generally useful tidbits on health and fitness.

What’s in a name?

Some of you may be wondering where the name “Fit36” came from. It’s quite simple, really… The name comes from that fact that I re-committed myself to living a healthier, more active lifestyle at the tender age of 36 years old. It’s short, has a nice ring to it, and (most importantly) it was available. Have you ever tried to find a concise, descriptive domain name that hasn’t already been snapped up? It’s pretty bleak, especially if you’re intent on finding one in the .com top-level domain.