Burpees are hard when you're heavy. No getting away from it. Jump up - Squat Down - Press down (nose to floor) - Press up- Pull your feet under you - Jump up. Repeat.
Callisthenics full body workouts, while pretty short (30 mins) are pretty tough to begin with. Basically 4x 9 minute long supersets moving from one exercise to the next. Jumping split lunges - into full nose-to-ground wide arm press up - into full body fold - into chin ups - into burpees. Repeat Twice. Then, alternating side lunges - into close grip decline press up - into crunches - into superman static holds. Repeat twice again, and there you have Tuesday. It feels awkward, cumbersome, and so much harder than you think it's going to be. But you also feel great afterwards.
As I suspected my body is starting to respond very positively to this type of workout (oh, there are way more exercises than these that i do). It's fresh, it's interesting and you can feel benefits very quickly.
My dreaded achilles tendon feels much better than it usually has been. My hips feel better. I feel 'springier', my quads and glutes feel punchier and my posture has already changed noticeably.
I feel like I'm getting my frame back, and it's a nice feeling. Each workout is feeling more natural than the last. I'm getting plenty of rest between workouts (usually 1-2 days) and the weight is starting to move.
Diet has played a part in this. After just two weeks of cleaning that up as I mentioned in my last post I'm down from 106Kg to 103Kg. This week I've started to add in just a little running, but the running I've done has been very easy effort (to keep the aerobic engine going without diminishing the returns from the Callisthenics) and it has felt comfortable and easy from a movement perspective. Something I've not felt for quite some time.
This type of training took me back to my martial arts competitive training days. Push ups, burpees, crunches, scissors, one hand plank switches. Back 30 years ago when I was in fantastic shape and it was less en-vogue to lift heavy weights. Back then it was about form and function styles of training. Body movement and control. Mobility and strength.
It's looking like my hunch about working to my body's natural inclinations is (and it's still very early of course) starting to pay off. There is a long way to go, but after doing this for the last 30 days, I already FEEL better than I have in quite a while. The inflammation I've been living with has calmed right-the-fuck-down and I'm coming back to that place of feeling stronger in any movement I put myself through. From getting out of a chair, to coming down the stairs, I'm able to move this heavy frame noticeably easier.
Granted, a part of that is not monstering myself with large numbers of miles at the moment (and still committed to this decision not to do any higher volume of running until next year). That makes a big difference. But being stronger, springier, more mobile will make these challenges feel so much better when I return to training for them next year.
My buddy G, tempted me with a 50K in October, but it was a very easy 'no' for me. This is the next step for me for now. It's an important one, which I didn't fully realise how much so until the last week.
Despite the misery of burpees in the middle of supersets for many, this took me back to years in the dojo and at my fighting club where I felt sharp, strong and indestructible.
I wasn't of course. But at 50 and fat, it's a really nice feeling to feel some of that coming back into my body so quickly. It's like it was what my body was made for and all these years I've been denying and resisting it... and that's quite a feeling when most of the time you feel simply tired, sore, stressed, drained and hurting.
So now I am leaning in. Playing to the attributes I have and the fast-twitch frame I've been lucky enough to have (even if it is still buried under a few layers and a spare tyre, for now)
I love going really f*cking far on my feet. I love the challenge, the adventure and the lessons it teaches you. There will be more challenges, and at least another epic one or two in me. But I want to now get myself in a place where it feels so much better during it, rather than simply after it.
A part of this ultramarathon journey has been about proving it can be done by someone like me in relatively little time to get ready and from a near-bottom starting place. Now it feels like that is shifting slightly. Now I want to see what more might be possible for me if I inject more of my own physical makeup into the journey. What happens when I don't simply fight against gravity and my nature, but deliberately work with it. I want to live an active, mobile, strong, fit and healthy middle age and find out what I can do with that.
I want to do more than just endure ultra-endurance. I want to play with it.
It means getting there first, of course. But these last few weeks have been an eye opening step; and if that means making full burpees, jump lunges, decline pressups, one arm side and plank switches a foundation of training, then I'm game. Thanks for reading...
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