Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Wednesday's Workout: 50% Off

Believe it or not, I managed to rein in my appetite this morning. It was a "50% off" kind of day.

My back felt okay as I stepped into the gym at 5 a.m., but I reminded myself to fight the usual urge to push myself. My goal over the course of the next month is simple: To recover. I'm going to focus on mobility, and resist the temptation to go heavy on strength work and metcons. Think I can do it?

Strength Skill:
  • Deadlifts (5-3-3-1-1)
Instead of loading up the barbell, I cut my normal weight in half and did bodyweight deadlifts. And instead of five sets, I just did three sets of three. In other words: Super-light, super-short. It was just enough to get me moving a little bit, but not nearly enough to strain anything.


Metcon:

"Half-Cindy" -- in 10 minutes, as many rounds as possible of:
  • 5 pull-ups
  • 10 push-ups
  • 15 squats
I'm a huge fan of bodyweight workouts, and Cindy's the queen of 'em all. We've done a number of different variations on Cindy -- including Murph -- and I've loved all of them. And today, with doctor's orders not to go heavy, a short 10-minute bodyweight metcon couldn't have been more perfect. Before the clock started, I gingerly tested out each of the movements. None of them bothered me in the slightest, so I happily joined the rest of the class.

The workout was fun -- my pull-ups were strong and smooth, and the push-ups felt good and fast, too -- at least for the first five rounds or so. Towards the end, I had to take brief pauses after every 4 or 5 push-ups and squats, but my pull-ups never slowed.

And best of all, my back felt looser afterwards than it has in days.

Result: 11 rounds + 16 reps as RXed.