The Most Often Neglected Portion Of Your Workout
One of the most often neglected portions of a workout is the cool down. I often find myself paying a lot of attention during the warm-up, the slow start, the building to my maximum output for the day, and the slide down the other side. But, the cool down is often just filled with huffing and puffing and looking forward to it being over.
Not good.
The cool down is how you get your body back into a reduced rhythm after a strenuous bout of exercise without a shock to the system. It’s just as important as any other portion of your routine, and deserves the same level of respect and mindfulness.
A great workout is not measured by the crescendo alone, nor by numbers on a tally sheet, but by the effectiveness of all parts of the workout.
A good cool down should leave you smiling and energized, ready to walk out into the rest of your day.
During the cool down portion of my workout I try to remain mindful of how my body is feeling. Feeling my heart beat, checking in with the richness of my breath, listening for the blood flow in my ears. I consciously slow down to a nice easy stop. Just like braking a car, the goal is not to screech to a halt, but to come to a nice gentle place of rest.
When I properly manage my cool down I find myself less mentally out of it post workout, I can feel all the happiness I’ve let my body experience and I can more easily jump into the rest of my day. Best of all, my muscles are not as tore up the next day and I can more easily stack on another workout.
What are some of your tricks for a successful cool down?
100 Push Ups Week 3
Getting back on track with the 100 Push Ups Challenge. This week starts with a test to see how many pushups you can do in one set to failure. When I started the challenge I tested at 36. Today I did 47. Not bad progress if I do say so myself, especially considering the week I took off due to being sick.
Regular updates will resume shortly!
Aikido – Engaging The Beginner’s Mind
First off I am out of whack on my 100 Push Ups challenge. I got a wicked head cold over the weekend, and yesterday (and today) was no day for working out. I hope to be back on track tomorrow.
It’s no mystery that I love Aikido. It’s a great passion of mine. This weekend our dojo hosted Kato Hiroshi Sensei, our teacher from Japan. He’s and 8th degree black belt and studied with the founder (O’Sensei Morihei Ueshiba) starting in 1952. Kato Sensei’s Aikido is nothing short of magical.
We host Kato Sensei once, or twice a year as his first branch dojo. I think I actually managed to learn a few things this time, which is not always the case. Sometimes I am just there training and adding my energy to the event. This time I had a couple of “Ah-hah!” moments. We will see in the next few weeks if that works out to having had any actual insights into Aikido.
This year we also did a demonstration at Notre Dame de Namur university, for the founding of Suginami SF’s first branch dojo. The demo was well received, and there were a number of sign-ups on the day of.
On the mat I had a small epiphany concerning why I love Aikido. In a nutshell – I don’t get it. After 13 years of training I can honestly say I don’t get it. I understand some of the principles, a good number of angles, the basics of technique and falling. I am confident that “wearing” my Yondan (4th degree black belt) is justified. But, still I don’t get it. Every class I see something that puzzles me, something new, something to learn. This is not a case of “return to beginner’s mind.” Rather, it’s a case of “never left beginner’s mind!” I am always learning in, and about, Aikido.
To me that is a very important point, and why it has kept me so engaged over the years. That not knowing, not getting it, is what keeps me coming back for more, especially on the days when I am not really up to it. In my thinking that is a key to a successful fitness path: Find something that keeps you engaged.
So, what do you do for fitness that keeps you in “beginner’s mind”?
100 Push Ups Week 2, Day 3
Week 2, Day 2:
Instructed -
- Set 1: 16 reps
- Set 2: 17 reps
- Set 3: 14 reps
- Set 4: 14 resp
- Set 5: 20 reps minimum (to failure)
120 seconds rest between sets.
Achieved-
- Set 1: 16 reps
- Set 2: 17 rep
- Set 3: 14 reps
- Set 4: 14 reps
- Set 5: 40 reps
Awesome! Still showing good improvement. Feels nice to take an exercise to failure.
Doing this reminds me of the power that journaling exercise can have. When I first began my quest to recover my body, writing things down was one of the two tools I used. The other being writing down what I ate. It’s a solid tool, which I highly recommend!
How are your challenges doing guys? Fitness, or otherwise. 
100 Push Ups Week 2, Day 2
Week 2, Day 2:
Instructed -
- Set 1: 14 reps
- Set 2: 16 reps
- Set 3: 12 reps
- Set 4: 12 resp
- Set 5: 17 reps minimum (to failure)
60 seconds rest between sets.
Achieved-
- Set 1: 14 reps
- Set 2: 16 rep
- Set 3: 12 reps
- Set 4: 12 reps
- Set 5: 36 reps
Feel the progress!! Woot! So far I would say this program rocks it.
100 Push Ups Week 2, Day 1
Week 2, Day 1:
Instructed -
- Set 1: 14 reps
- Set 2: 14 reps
- Set 3: 10 reps
- Set 4: 10 resp
- Set 5: 15 reps minimum (to failure)
60 seconds rest between sets.
Achieved-
- Set 1: 14 reps
- Set 2: 14 rep
- Set 3: 10 reps
- Set 4: 10 reps
- Set 5: 25 reps
Got around to this late in the day, but still felt strong. The rest periods being only 60 seconds sure makes a dent in my endurance. Remembering to stay hydrated before the workout begins, and while it progresses is key!
How’s your push up program going? Let me know in the comments!
Cheers!
100 Push Ups Week 1, Day 3
Week 1, Day 3:
Instructed -
- Set 1: 11 reps
- Set 2: 15 reps
- Set 3: 9 reps
- Set 4: 9 resp
- Set 5: 13 reps minimum (to failure)
120 seconds rest between sets.
Achieved-
- Set 1: 11 reps
- Set 2: 15 rep
- Set 3: 9 reps
- Set 4: 8 reps
- Set 5: 33 reps
Still showing good improvement. Nice! Ended up doing this workout one day late since I yanked my shoulder during Aikido practice yesterday morning. Still within a calendar week though.
Cheers!
Bodyweight Workout
Just got this via the Jamfitness.com newsletter. Thought my readers might enjoy it.
“What builds muscle? Your body builds muscle. Training is a stimulus. Food and rest are the building supplies that make the remodelling, adaptation and replenishing possible.
This will take you about 5 minutes and jack you up so you’re running in high gear for a couple of hours, enjoy. This one’s a mini commando home workout and you should do it non-stop!
- Pushups continuous for one minute, hold the top position if you cannot continue.
- Sit-ups continuous for one minute, hold the top position if you cannot continue.
- Body weight squats 1 min. No resting in the standing position.
- Pushups 20 repetitions (reps)
- Sit-ups 20 reps
- Pushups 15 reps
- Sit-ups 15 reps
- Pushups 12 reps
- Sit-ups 12 reps
- Bodyweight V-ups 30 seconds (sec) This is a sit up where both the lower and upper body come off the ground to meet at a point above your stomach.
- Alternate forward lunges 1 minute (min)
- Bodyweight V-ups 30 sec
- Burpee’s 30 seconds From the standing position, squat down and shoot your legs back so that you are now in the push up position. From there pull your legs back in stand up and jump with your arms overhead.
- Side lunge – hold the bottom position of the lunge and do mini pulses for 30 each leg and do that only once.
Awesome. Now wipe off your forehead and get back to what you were doing 
The cool thing about using only your bodyweight and hitting it at home is that you’re never more than 20 feet from your shower!”
Aiming For The Wrong Look
One of the issues I had to deal with when starting my quest for personal fitness and health was a mistaken idea of what healthy and strong looked like. My body-image was horribly skewed and a source of a great deal of shame and self-loathing. That much was pretty obvious from the start. What I didn’t know was how bent my body-image of healthy people was.
It’s pretty common knowledge that women, and girls, in the Western world have long had their self esteem and body-image confidence assaulted by depictions of idealized female bodies far out of tune with reality. What is slightly less well known is that obese, and morbidly obese people on both sides of the gender line (and the breadth of possibilities between the two poles) have had their self esteem and body-image confidence eroded in the same way.
Check out the covers of most any fitness magazine and you’ll see what I mean. If you look at the bodybuilding magazines specifically, things get way out of hand.
Frank Zane
Basically I wanted to look something like Frank Zane. Talk about going from o to 60!! No way. Not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it’s incredibly unlikely and far to afield to serve as a useful spur to action. I would have to work for years doing nothing else, and as I later learned do some things along the way which would make the whole thing less than authentic and in no way sustainable. I am fairly positive that Frank Zane never used steroids, but the majority of the hulking figures grinning at me from the magazine stands, encouraging me to work hard and with dedication almost certainly did.
I also, in my naivety thought that these guys just looked like that hanging out for coffee and going shopping. I thought that, that was just how you looked if you worked out hard enough, smart enough, and for long enough. Boy, was I way off base!
Enter the Body for Life contest. Let me say right off the bat that I did the BfL 12 week challenge twice. The first time I had results that made me excited and were, in my opinion, extremely good. The second round began to lose its charm, and I realized that (as a compulsive overeater) the eating style recommended by the program was not a good match for me. Still, I would not hesitate to recommend the program to anyone as something to look at, and try out.
That being said, it was in the Body for Life materials that I began to realize how unrealistic my projected (and hoped for) results were.
To put it bluntly, the after pics in Body for Life, and in every muscle mag cover photo shoot ever, are highly askew from walk-a-day reality. The Body for Life material has a specific plan for getting those hot shots. Basically you starve yourself for a couple of days before the shoot to shave off some extra fat, while doing extra rounds of aerobics. Then, on the day of the shoot you eat a bowl (or 4) of high sugar cereal to pump your blood sugar up (the recommendation used to be Fruit Loops) and drink copious amounts of water while going through a high-intensity weight lifting routine. The lifting pumps your muscles up and sucks the sugar into them, which then binds with the excess water inflating the muscle tissue even more. Basically you pre-starve the muscles and then target a water bloat into the parts that look best when flexed. End result, you look awesome for about an hour.
Not a picture of reality. Once I learned that I went through a bout of mild depression wondering if my years of work were all for nothing. Then I began to seek out alternate sources of healthy inspiration and images of healthy bodies. I also smartened up and started looking for people who were working in my personal area of fitness passion, (martial arts), and who had my basic body structure. I looked for people who looked kind of like me, just with less excess fat.
James Tiberius Kirk!
It was a long slow battle, but now I’ve arrived at an attainable goal. One which (as a completely irrepressible Sci-fi/TV/Gamer geek) is just up my alley. The Mighty (pre-TJ Hooker) Kirk!
Having a realistic, and human, goal in mind has done wonders for my self esteem and results. Now my goal is actually attainable without chemical assistance or momentary (shocking) changes to my body.
In my particular case attaining the body I have today did require some surgical intervention, but that’s another post.
Having an image to shoot for is a great idea, and can be a really dynamic source of inspiration. Just make it a realistic one and your results will vastly improve.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section. Cheers!
PS – Oh, and I do admit it, the martial arts geek in me would not mind ending up looking like ths:
Bruce Lee
100 Push Ups Week 1, Day 2
Below are the totals for today’s workout. Note, this program has three workout days per week. I am doing mine on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Week 1, Day 2:
Instructed -
- Set 1: 10 reps
- Set 2: 12 reps
- Set 3: 8 reps
- Set 4: 8 resp
- Set 5: 12 reps minimum (to failure)
90 seconds rest between sets.
Achieved-
- Set 1: 10 reps
- Set 2: 12 rep
- Set 3: 8 reps
- Set 4: 8 reps
- Set 5: 31 reps
Definite improvement. We like that!
Have you joined the 100 Push Up challenges? If so, let me know in the comments.
Cheers!