Monday, January 21, 2008

Feeling Like a (Clean and) Jerk


This is what I looked like earlier this afternoon (so I did a little too much stress eating last week). Okay, not really. Try inserting a broom stick where the 500 pound weights are and you'll be a lot closer. However, since I moved into a new phase of training this week, my strength workouts also started a new phase. Instead of the gentle bodyweight/core work, I will now be doing a routine of plyometrics and Olympic lifts (clean and jerk) on Monday and Friday. I will probably still keep up the push-ups and chin-ups three days a week, since my upper body needs all the strength and endurance it can get by April.

The idea is to try and revive some of the fast twitch muscle that I killed during my former life as distance runner. We're working on power, baby! It's all kind of funny to me that I am doing "sprinter things" now, as pretty much any time I try to perform a fast twitch muscle activity it's a site to be seen. I have to say it's actually pretty fun, though, except for knowing how sore I will be tomorrow.

The rest of the day was wonderful as I had the whole day off from work and only one hour of training to do. I spent the morning pattering around the house alternating between watching Cold Mountain (what a depressing movie with so much violence towards animals), doing laundry, and surfing the internet. I had a bit of a short attention span, so it took me four hours to get through a 2.5 hour movie. I even made it through all of the free time without eating any junk food. It was just the morale boost I've been needing and I feel great!

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