Planks, Suicides and Monster Ropes

Tuesdays and Thursdays were normally just my swimming days, but for the past two weeks, I start the day off meeting with a trainer and we work...with weights and stuff. Now it has been ages since I have been in a weight room lifting weights and yelling at myself in the mirrors, and I am glad to say that this is not even close to the type of stuff we have been doing.

As it states in the title, you can see that we are focusing on the core alot. I remember last year at the beginning of 2013, I was on a crunch kick, where I was doing thousands of crunches each month. I will not say that I did not get a benefit from those crunches, but I was not getting the maximum core workout like I should have been getting. So it is great to be working with someone that knows what hey are doing, and what I should be doing. So basically here is a list of some of the things we have done:

 Planks- I am finding out that there are many versions of planks that can be done. I did my max plank test at 2:01 this morning, and our goal is to get to 3:00. I do bows and toes for my planks (elbows and toes) casue my wrists hurt doing them the regular way. We have also integrated the stability ball into these planks, which then led to scorpion planks.

 Bridges and stuff- with a leg extension on the stability ball. These are tough. The hardest thing for me is to not roll right off the ball. Mtn Climbers, V twists, toe downs and butt kickers all get my heart rate going hard.

We add in some cardio in the form of running stairs or "suicides", which remind of high school basketball practice where you run and touch a line, then run to the baseline, then you run to a further line, then back to baseline and repeat. In high school, we called them triple nickels cause we had to do 5 in :55. Tough workout!

 TRX exercises: Since my wrists hurt when doing push ups and such, she has me doing TRX exercises for chest, biceps, back and triceps. This takes alot of pressure of my wrists and still gives me a good workout using my body weight. I can make it hard by increasing the angle of my body and it still works the core a lot, because it is about balance and holding that core tight.

 I have enjoyed doing all these exercises, but the one thing I think I like the most are the Monster ropes. You have seen them I am sure, some guy with big thick ropes and it appears he is shaking the crap out of them??? The first time I did them I got winded, but I thought to myself, I could do these all day, didn;t seem to hard, until later that night and the next morning. I felt the effect of those ropes from my gut to my neck!

We did the shaky ropes, the slam them down hard ropes, the side to side, the figure 8, the shaky squat ropes, the kneel down and get up while shaking the ropes and then we did jumping jacks with the ropes. (Yes, these are all the technical terms and we I say "we" I mean me) Man, what a workout!!! The best part is that I have been very strict on my diet, the added strength training to my S/R/B training has dropped me 4 lbs already!

This Time is For Real! I Mean it!

I am serious this time. I have started mentoring a group on BeginnerTriathlete.com with Bradleyd3 from Brad's Ironman Journey. The group has been really cool and we have all levels of triathletes that have joined, so it will be great encouraging, answering questions and watching them hit their goals for the race season. So we decided as a group to have a group challenge for February. Several ideas were kicked around, but we came up with a core/ab challenge for February.

So what does that mean? It means that I (along with the others member of the group) will be selecting either a number of crunches we will commit do doing in the month of February, or we will commit to a certain numbers of minutes spent planking! Simple enough right? Well the hard part is coming up with that number or that time goal! So that is my struggle right now.

This idea came to me when my bride said her trainer challenged her to do 1000 crunches by their next session, which will be Monday. That works out to 250 crunches a day. That's a lot of crunches, but my bride can totally do it, so that has definitely influenced my choice between the two options.

Another blog I read always talks about doing core work. The author is a marathon runner, fast marathon runner that also does a huge focus on core work. I know that a strong core will really help me when I S/B/R. According to their blog, they do a ton of planking and crunches to strengthen their core and help them run better. So I have been really thinking over my goal for February in regards to the group, and based on the challenge my bride accepted, I think know I can get her to join me, so I really have some accountability going on up here! So with all that, I say this:

My goal is going to be 7,000 crunches in the month of February. That breaks out to 250 a day (which will have to be split up, I can't do all that in one session), or 1750 a week. My plan involves doing 250 in the morning and 250 in the evening, alternating every other day. I have no idea if this is doable or not, but in my head I am totally going to rock this. Regular crunches, side crunches, crunches with a stability ball will all count.

I am also going to photograph my before and after shots to see if I can see any difference! (and I better after 7,000 crunches!) So, I know what you are thinking, but to afraid to ask... I do not know if I will post them on the blog or not. Maybe is all I am ready to commit to at this time.

So throw the cokes out the window, start drinking tons of water, getting plenty of sleep, eating smartly and continuing on my training plan, and I "should" be ready by the time May gets here!