7/19 Still fasting. Swimming I did freestyle, breast stroke, back stroke, breast stroke. I could tell I wasn't really breathing hard, but I didn't have a display with me for my HR... I may need to go to only 1x breast stroke in there. 12 kicks with each leg (back to full strength on the right leg, bruise is healed), 10 teeps to floating block. Grip Workout (prohands/CoC) Crush 10 xx-hvy Hook 10x x-hvy Finger play 10x each finger, medium tripod skipped (bothers thumb) trigger 10x xx-hvy thumb press 10x x-hvy, 2 buttons power pinch 10x heavy, 2 buttons crush 10x xx-heavy coc trainer 8x, 8x coc #0.5 4x (left a bit of trouble), 4x (left about same amount of trouble) coc #1 5 sec hold, left had a gap but really small finger extension 15x white, 14x green, 12x yellow
7/20 I had a migraine in the morning & felt a bit off all day, so I took the day off exercise. I broke my fast with plain whole milk yogurt, raspberries, blueberries, and almonds after 42 hours. I had a berry RX bar a few hours later. No stomach issues. 7/21 Strength Training; Tempo Rolling/Chiro exercises Lying KB leg raises (16kg, 8 raises), 10 ankle circles. 2 sets on each leg Switched around some of the exercises I had chosen after talking to my trainer. Trapbar deadlift 165 lb x 8 wamup Tenpo (2 sec concentric, 2 sec eccentric, no pause between reps) 215 lb x 8 (killed me) 165 lb x 8 (killed me more) Long, long rest as I got a huge spiking headache when trying to start the 3rd set. Pulldowns: 120 lb x 10 (warmup) Tenpo: 140 x 10 160 x 10 180 x 10 (Weight on each side, so really 240, 280, etc but the weight is lower than displayed on plates due to the pulley) Push-ups assisted with cook band hung from a squat rack (pulling up at hips) Tempo: 8 with burgundy band assist 5 with orange band (more assistance, fatigued at 5 reps) 2 but tendon on right arm near wrist got some shooting pain in it so I stopped. Everything was quite hard except pulldowns which I think I started too light on after the deadlifts really got me. I plan to repeat this first week of the block and push everything else back a week. I have a better idea of what weights work for my current level of conditioning when doing tempo. Walking Hills (cardiac output) I had to go relatively slow uphill to keep in the green zone. My left leg felt a bit stiff/off during the walk, same area that has been troublesome the past week and a half. Self Care Softball & vibrating peanut on hamstrings/lateral quads. Med ball for triggerpoint on my adductors.
7/22 Self Care Trigger point and rolling everywhere for a little over 30 minutes. I am fairly sore from yesterday in many areas. Shadow boxing & heavy bag (cardiac output) I did about 15 minutes of shadow boxing, then switched to heavy bag with just my bag gloves on, throwing fairly light for the most part. I worked on bringing my punches back swiftly during shadow boxing. On the heavy bag I worked on throwing punches from high guard directly without dropping at all first. It is hard but when I do it correctly it feels different and I can tell it is going the same time my hip is instead of on a slight delay. It is almost surprising how fast it hits the bag, and often I wasn't quite ready with my fist fully clenched/turned over. After about 30 minutes I did my 12 kicks and 11 teeps to floating blocks on each side (extra teep cause I was working on not hitting with the whole foot but the ball, and hadn't done it right on the 10th one).
7/23 12 kicks, 10 teeps to floating block with each leg this morning. At the end of the kicks I got a spiking headache like I did on the 21st from trying tempo squats with too much weight. I opted to skip class and go for a lower intensity & shorter cardiac output workout. Shadow Boxing & Heavy Bag (cardiac output) I started with 5 minutes of shadow boxing, then switched to the heavy bag (which is much more fun). I had skinned a small circle off of the knuckle of my 3rd metacarpal on my left hand yesterday. I was trying to work around it, but kept failing and trying again, which is why I kept dropping into blue. I started with a small square of athletic tape, but after a while it got scrunched up inside the glove and stopped working. I then tried more and more tape in various configurations, finally wrapping it around my hand fully a few times, which broke when I clenched my fist too hard. I just switched to open hand stuff for the last 5 minutes or so. I need to stay slow & light doing this I think; I often end up not focusing on that and starting to strike heavier and heavier, then stopping for a bit to let my HR come down, and repeating. Self care Core exercises for SI joint/hip issue 60 second plank; got a spiking headache at the last 3 seconds or so that slowly went away over about 10 minutes... I skipped the side planks & glute exercise. I should talk to my doctor about that if it continues to happen. Tomorrow is a rest day so I'll see how things go on the 25th. Rotator cuff exercise for shoulder injury prevention External rotation at neutral, 3x12x20lb External rotation at 90 degree abduction, 3x12x30lb
7/24 Rest day 7/25, 7/26 Not feeling well, didn't exercise 7/27 Didn't exercise, but was feeling better, so this was just being lazy. 7/28 Strength Training Chiro exercises Lying KB (16kg) leg lifts (8), ankle circles (10), 2 sets per leg Sandbag pull apart with resistance band step outside (8 per leg) Trapbar deadlift, tempo pattern (4 sec reps, 40 sec rest between sets, 3 min rest between exercises) 8 x 95 lb 3x8x135 lb Lat pulldown, tempo pattern 4x8x180 lb (each plate, though pulley so not that heavy) Yellow cook band push-ups, tempo pattern 3x8 Lying glute medius exercise with green resistance band internal hip rotation 2 sets of 15 per leg Shadow boxing/Heavy bag (Cardiac Output) I did about 3 minutes of shadow boxing then switched to the heavy bag. I did this close to when I got home from strength training and found it fairly easy to overshoot my training target; I had to stop and take breaks a lot to let my HR drop from 145+. I think I forgot to keep my chin down a lot of the time. I did a 45 second plank and a 20-second side-plank on each side at the end.
7/29 I've been fasting since around 6pm on the 28th. I plan to fast until the morning of the 30th. Walking Hills (Cardiac output) Grip Workout (prohands/CoC) Crush 10 xx-hvy Hook 10x x-hvy Finger play 10x each finger, medium tripod 10x, light (left thumb mildly bothered by this, but I think its better enough to do this with the light one) trigger 10x xx-hvy thumb press 10x x-hvy, 2 buttons power pinch 10x heavy, 2 buttons crush 10x xx-heavy coc trainer 8x, 8x coc #0.5 5x (left couldn't close last rep), 5x (left almost closed on all but last, last bigger gap) coc #1 5 sec hold (left not closed) finger extension 15x white, 14x green, 12x yellow
7/30 I broke my fast earlier than planned (around 24 hours, on 7/29), with greasy Chinese food. 12 kicks, 10 teeps to floating blocks on each leg. I was finally going to get back to class but my stomach had other ideas today. I'll either just have today as an extra rest day, or I'll go to class tomorrow instead.
7/31 I am fasting again--from sometime in the evening on the 30th, maybe around 7 pm. I plan to break it tomorrow morning. I didn't end up going to class, but I did do some exercise. My left hamstring is still a bit off. I got some fascial scraping done on both legs (hamstrings & calves) today, which will hopefully help it some. Walking Hills (Cardiac Output)
8/1 12 kicks, 10 teeps to floating blocks on each leg. Broke my fast around 9 am, so a bit more than 36 hours. Muay Thai, beginners class I did my chiro stretches/exercises, wrapped up, shadow boxed a bit, got some water, shadow boxed a bit more (the 2 green bits before 20 min), then waited for class to start. We started with two rounds of jump-rope (the green into yellow after 20 min), followed by a round of shadow boxing (the hump before 40 min). Then we did some footwork drills with a rope ladder for a while that got me pretty tired... those 3 spikes into red. That left me pretty tired during drilling; I felt like my leg muscles were heavy, slow, and fatigued really fast. I ate a lot of (light) kicks instead of checking them because I was just too slow. We drilled defense today with a partner & gloves/shin guards/mouth guard. Blocking & returning kicks, added teeps with deflection or catching followed by a counter kick after throwing them off their center, then added jabs which the defender blocks, sways, or slips. Self care Rotator cuff exercise for shoulder injury prevention External rotation at neutral, 3x12x20lb External rotation at 90 degree abduction, 3x12x30lb
8/2 My HRV was low in the morning, and morpheus app reported I'm at 38% recovery, the first time its gone below 80%. (I started using it on the 19th) Skipped kicks in the morning. I fasted today (last meal was dinner last night, finished around 10 pm). I plan to break the fast tomorrow morning, ~35 hours. Shadow boxing/Heavy bag (Cardiac Output) ~2 minutes of shadow boxing, then heavy bag. I did a lot of kicking, both legs felt a bit banged up by the end. Grip Workout (prohands, CoC) Crush 10 xx-hvy Hook 10x x-hvy Finger play 10x each finger, medium tripod 10x, light (thumb not bothered if I don't over-squeeze at the end of the rep) trigger 10x xx-hvy thumb press 10x x-hvy, 2 buttons power pinch 10x heavy, 2 buttons crush 10x xx-heavy coc trainer 8x coc #0.5 6x (left closed all or very close, right was much easier though) coc #1 4x, 4x (left closed or slight gap on first set, slight gap for all on 2nd, right hand easy on all) coc #1.5 5 sec hold (left not closed, right closed and held with very mild challenge) finger extension 15x white, 14x green, 12x yellow, 8x blue (could barely move it)
8/3 Recovery score from Morpheus app is 58%. I slept terribly, waking many times during the night and being unable to fall back asleep for 30-60 minutes. I will likely skip exercise today. Fasted til 1:20 pm.
8/4 Migraine this morning, skipped exercise. I will try to do tempo on my own tomorrow with push-ups and goblet squats (my trainer doesn't schedule on Sundays).
I've been feeling rough the past week. I don't know what is wrong with me not sick or anything, just really tired and no motivation at all. I did a maybe 30 minute walk today (no HR monitor), but that is it since 8/2. I was going to go to class today but felt so exhausted I skipped it and just did the walk. I will try to get good sleep tonight & get some conditioning work in tomorrow, and try to get to class on Friday. I also just need to force myself to do more. As I keep hearing, motivation is never going to be there all the time, discipline is needed to train consistently. Something I need to work on.
8/9 No exercise after all--got a migraine in the afternoon that persisted. 8/10 Migraine in the morning but managed to clear it up... I hit the heavy bag for 30-40 minutes, but my HR monitor was being very erratic so who knows if I stayed in the 130-140ish range I aim for with the cardiac output method. Not sure exactly how long I exercised; I was there for about 50 minutes but spent a lot of time messing with the HR monitor. Hopefully the issue was that the strap on my monitor was not clean; I read the cleaning instructions and I haven't been following them it turns out. I've only been rinsing the strap with water, it says you need to wash it with soap regularly. I'll try again tomorrow before strength training (I'm busy after for the rest of the day, so gotta get conditioning in before strength). Hopefully cleaning it well fixed the issue. (I checked the battery and it says the battery is full, so not sure what else it could be.) Heavy Bag, 30-40 min.
8/11 More migraine this morning... took excedrin. I think the weather is messing with pressure a lot, tends to trigger my headaches. Heavy Bag, cardiac output I got the HR monitor working again, looks like cleaning it helped. Strength Training I couldn't get the HR monitor working at strength training... I think the metal connection portion still was a bit watery from rinsing it after doing heavy bag. It showed low battery on the app... I tried it after it was drier (after I got home from strength training) and it works again, so I'm guessing that was it. It shows full battery again. Warm-ups: 18 kg lying KB press with 8 leg raises, 10 ankle circles each direction, 2 sets per leg Sandbag pull apart with black resistance band step outs (10 per leg). Trapbar deadlift (tempo) 5x95 lb (warmup) 5x8x115 lb Lat pulldown (tempo) 5x8x200 lb per plate (2 plates, pulley system so not actually 400 lbs). Cook band assisted push-ups (tempo) Yellow band: 8x, 7x (couldn't get 8th) Yellow + maroon bands: 6 (fatigued), 8, 8 (last 2 reps of those last 2 sets I got extra assistance from trainer on top of the assistance from the cook bands) Lying glute medius exercise with blue resistance band. 2 sets of 10 per leg Self care Rotator cuff exercise for shoulder injury prevention External rotation at neutral, 3x12x20lb External rotation at 90 degree abduction, 3x12x30lb Rolled calves with vibrating peanut & softball.
8/12 Heavy Bag (cardiac output) Had some issues with the HR monitor again; it would drop from 135+ to 110ish, and also jump from 110ish up to 140+ sometimes. Not sure what the issue is... Grip Workout (prohands/CoC) Crush 10 xx-hvy Hook 10x x-hvy Finger play 10x each finger, medium tripod 2x10, light trigger 10x xx-hvy thumb press 10x x-hvy, 2 buttons power pinch 10x heavy, 2 buttons crush 10x xx-heavy coc trainer 8x coc #0.5 6x (left closed all or very close, right was much easier though) coc #1 4x, 4x (left not quite closed on last several) coc #1.5 5 sec hold (left not closed, right closed and held) finger extension 15x white, 14x green, 12x yellow, 8x blue (could barely move it) Self care Core exercises for SI joint/hip issue 50 second plank 30 sec side plank on each side Did a little foam rolling (tiny amount), I should do more later.
8/13 Another migraine... I have had a ton of them so far in August, I think due to the crazy weather (high pressure systems do tend to trigger them for me). So no training. 8/14 Rested even though I didn't exercise Monday... 8/15 I've kind of stopped doing my daily kicks/teeps as I have been doing a lot of them during conditioning sessions on the heavy bag. Muay Thai, beginners class Rolled my quads, used roller to stretch upper back in a way the chiropractor showed me. Chiropractor exercises, wrapped up, hit a heavy bag for a short bit, then grabbed my jump-rope for class. We started with 2 rounds of jump-rope (at about 17 minutes into the HR graph above). I am kind of surprised I didn't go into the yellow zone--I usually always go into the yellow zone with jump-rope. I guess the cardiac output conditioning is helping (and maybe the lower training volume recently). Then we partnered up with a kick shield and did partner's choice kicking (low/body, rear/front, also teeps) for a round (I kicked first). Then we put on full gear & did drills with a partner. Jabs, kicks (parry/block, check), same but with catching some of the kicks (and then return kick or throw partner), a punching combo where you slip a partner jab in the middle & come back with a cross/overhand + rear kick, more jab & kick drills where teep is also an option instead of the kick (defender tries to read & defend accordingly). We finished with a round of light sparring. I have no idea why my HR started to go back up at the end there--that was after class. It is odd that HR dropped and then went back up without further exercise, unless maybe the monitor wasn't reading it well. Also this new training load thing is interesting... I'll have to see how the polar recovery status matches up with Morpheus (Joel Jamieson's recovery app) over time. Self care Rotator cuff exercise for shoulder injury prevention External rotation at neutral, 3x12x20lb External rotation at 90 degree abduction, 3x12x30lb
8/16 I had an exertion headache last night, ibuprofen helped some. Still have a headache in the morning, took some excedrin. Morpheus says I'm fairly recovered (89%); I think it takes into account just HRV & daily activity, but I don't think it takes into account the workouts I've done (it could import from Google Fit, but it only imports daily steps taken I think). I'm fasting today (since ~10 pm on the 15th). I expect to continue fasting until breakfast tomorrow, roughly 35 hours total. I also fasted 18 hours earlier this week. I did a ~30 minute walk on a working treadmill (working on laptop while walking), for .7 miles (a bit over 1.1 km), so fairly slow. I may start doing this more often. Heavy Bag + Shadow Boxing (cardiac output) I mostly stuck to the heavy bag. When my HR went over 140 or so I walked around a bit & did some light shadow boxing (emphasizing uppercuts since I can't throw them properly against the heavy bag) until I was back around 130-135. The HR monitor did get a bit wonky a few times, especially that drop down below 112 BPM before 40 min; readjusting the strap had it come back up while just standing around. I record cardiac output on the heavy bag under 'aerobics' so I can tell it apart from when I'm training Muay Thai at the gym. It appears this puts distance in place of training load on the summary. I can see training load in the expansion though--'reasonable' load for today, offsetting about 1/3rd of the recovery polar estimates (so putting me 1/3 of the way back towards where I was yesterday after the 'extreme' load). I feel ok though (aside from the headache which did go away with medicine). The polar graph of my recovery looks like this: Grip Workout (prohands/CoC) Crush 10 xx-hvy Hook 10x x-hvy Finger play 10x each finger, medium tripod 2x10, light trigger 10x xx-hvy thumb press 10x x-hvy, 2 buttons power pinch 10x heavy, 2 buttons crush 10x xx-heavy coc trainer 8x coc #0.5 6x (left closed all, had longer break was doing planks between CoC exercises) coc #1 4x (left close but not closed despite longer break), 4x (left close on all but last rep) coc #1.5 5 sec hold (left not closed, right closed and held) finger extension 15x white, 14x green, 12x yellow, 8x blue (could barely move it) Self Care Exercise for right SI joint issue: 60 sec plank 40 sec side plank each side 2x12x5lb glute medius exercise The planks were fairly hard during the last 10 sec. I interspersed the core & glute exercises with the CoC exercises in the grip workout to have longer rests between grip sets; I feel like that had me closing the gripper or getting pretty close more consistently with the left hand.
8/17 I got another exertion headache or something last night (not a migraine). Ibuprofen helped. I didn't sleep particularly well; I woke up at 4:30 am (usually I get up around 7-7:30 am), couldn't fall back asleep. Got out of bed around 6:15, but didn't really get any additional sleep from when I woke up at 4:30. About 5 hours restful sleep, 6 hours total sleep. I usually get more like 7-8 hours actual and 6 hours restful. I felt ok, just slightly tired. My HRV was slightly high but only by a few points. My Morpheus recovery score isn't accurate right now--I forgot that a gap of 7+ days requires reestablishing a baseline for it and it may show too high a score. I hadn't done it for about 8 days towards the start of August, and have only been using it again for 3 days. It needs 5-7 to calibrate. Also Morpheus doesn't sync workouts from Polar, even through Google Fit (which it syncs other stuff from); I'll start recording with it in addition to Polar from now on. Though sometimes I have to put my stuff in the basement at Muay Thai or farther away at the pool and it could lose connection, guess I'll see how that goes. Unlike the Polar app it doesn't have a way to just download the saved HR activity. I broke my fast around 8:30 am: whole milk unsweeteened yogurt with fruit/nuts/chia seeds. I forgotten about the Morpheus score calibration (remembered after class), and felt ok. Morpheus had given me an 87%, and my trainer is out of town tomorrow so depending on how I feel tomorrow I can just do something light. So I ignored the Polar recovery status. Walked .77 miles/1.24 km on a treadmill while working on my laptop, over 28 minutes. (Not recorded on Polar, but I will be doing so going forward, with a watch sensor.) Muay Thai, beginners class Rolled my quads, stretched upper back on roller, chiro exercises/stretches. Wrapped up, hit the heavy bag for a while; touch only for punches (didn't put on gloves), heavyish on the elbows, light on the kicks/knees--I wanted to conserve my energy before class today. So I went light to prime my aerobic system before jump rope. Though comparing the HR with Weds when I was kicking the bag much harder, going light got my HR higher than going hard on Weds. We started with 3 rounds of jump-rope (a little after 20 min on the graph), with 10 push-ups (quick) after each round, followed by maybe 10-15 seconds rest. Then we drilled several punch & elbow combinations in the air while the Kru watched and made a few corrections. After that we got belly pads & focus mitts and drilled various punching & elbowing combinations with a partner (attacker has just gloves), including some body shots. The last drill included a knee. We swapped pads every 3 drills. After drilling we put our gear away and did 4x25 ab exercises (crunches, v-sits, leg lifts, Russian twists) interleaved with 4x10 push-ups. I had a hard time on the v-sits (I don't think you'd call most of what I did v-sits), the leg lifts were ok, and I couldn't really do the Russian twists. I did try, but my feet ended up being on the floor; my abs were almost completely fatigued at that point I think. I started dipping fairly shallowly on the last 2 sets of push-ups, especially the last set. Same thing--my arms were really fatigued and I was on the verge of gassing out breath-wise. So now Polar says: Self care Rotator cuff exercise for shoulder injury prevention External rotation at neutral, 3x12x20lb External rotation at 90 degree abduction, 3x12x30lb Rolled my calves & feet with the vibrating peanut.
