H
ave you ever paid attention to how you work? I mean the process of how you get something done; the way you naturally go about it? Some people really like structure. Start at the same time; end at the same time; use a checklist. For years, I thought that was me. If you ask Elle, she'll probably tell you that I want to know what's going on; what's the plan. And, that's true but it's not something I like (and I can tell you about that some other time - the source of that is sort of interesting). I prefer variety, flow, an easy going, follow my mind type of thing. My mind knows nothing of time and place when ideas come, thoughts, connections. It just happens. And, often it happens when I'm asleep (which is why some days I'm worn out - I've been working all night). I may spend days thinking about a particular subject and not write one word then, while I'm walking with Spencer or Cirque, listening to music, I might hear something in a song - it could be lyrics or just the texture of the music - and the thing I've been thinking about or wrestling with comes into focus like the lenses an eye doctor uses in an eye exam. Click, click - I can see! It just all clicks into view and if I don't write it down or speak it into a recorder, I lose it. Gone. That drives me nuts.
To change your body, to change your physical abilities, you have to have some type of structure though. You can't be a completely free spirit and follow a path of insight and inspiration training two days one week then skip three weeks and then come back and train five days in a row and expect improvements. Your body is too smart. Or, perhaps, too lazy. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish. It seeks the easiest path and resists change until it must change.
Yet, here's the paradox of the body. If you train consistently without inserting inconsistency in the actual design of the regimen, you won't improve much either. So in other words, doing the same things, the same drills, week after week, doesn't help you much even if you increase the loads or speeds. You need variety within your structure.
A new routine (routine = structure) today with some familiar drills (but a new one and a new sequence = variety). The focus was core endurance (focus = structure). Here's what I did:
- 15 minutes speed intervals.
- Found rounds of:
- 20 push ups
- 15 sky highs
- 15 suitcase crunches
- 15 sky high catches
- 10 minutes speed intervals
- 15 minutes speed intervals
The whole session took 86 minutes and 26 seconds.
The sky high catch is a sky high (lying on your back, knees bent, holding a medicine ball, press the ball to the sky and curl up only until your shoulder blades come up off the floor, hold for a second, and return to the starting position) but once you reach the up position, you throw the ball up, catch it while still in the curled up position and then lower to the floor. The catch of the ball gives your abdominal muscles a small eccentric load. Eccentric loads are not what the word sounds like - bizarre: conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual. An eccentric load is one that causes your muscle to contract very quickly to decelerate motion. So, landing from a jump is a good example of eccentric loads. Learning how to manage this type of loading is important because this is where injuries most often occur: during the eccentric phase of movement.
Tomorrow, the 11th, is a rest day.
DK
P.S. - For those Sports Center Hall of Fame members, mark your calendar for 2/26/09 to attend the Annual Hall of Fame Party. It's a lot of fun; meet some new people; connect with some you haven't seen in a while; meet our team. And, Elle and I will be there if you want to chat with us as well!
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