With my tri season wrapping up, Kurt suggested we begin talking about strength training goals related to my racing goals. We haven't had the talk yet, and he's out of town, so this week I've floundered a bit and had some motivation issues. So today on the way to the gym I decided to use his technique of doing 50 reps of my chosen exercises, in the minimum number of sets required to hit 50. I had one hour to work out while Grant was in Karate. That meant avoiding talking to fit it all in, which is always a challenge for me. I put on my iPod and my "don't talk to me face" (
which clearly needs work) and began.
On this, my chest and arms day, I did:
- 50 x 100 lbs bench press (7 sets - no spotter...a few scary reps)
- 50 x bodyweight parallel bar dips (9 sets - they decrease exponentially)
- 50 x 50 lb ez bar curls (6 sets - dips and curls done as a superset)
- 50 incline twisting situps (2 sets)
- 50 x 20 lb db hammer curls each arm (4 sets - veins were a poppin')
This was a nice change-up. I did about half as many exercises as usual, but nearly as many sets, and I know the quality and effort were there. Plus it got me fired up and excited again!
One good cure for motivation problems is to find a way to make it more like play (like Joel's
book review of the Accidental Athlete that I read today). The effort will follow.
Wonder how I'll feel tomorrow....
