Bike rollers

First session on cycle rollers.
Been slacking for a while using a sore knee as an excuse, but really feeling the need to get something done I finally built the bike rollers I bought in summer for winter training - easy as pie.

First thing that struck me was how much higher the bike sits of the ground when up on the rollers. Still, I gingerly climbed aboard and using the kitchen benches for support got going (I've wedged myself and the bike into a galley kitchen till I learn how to ride these things).
No freewheeling at all...
Pedal stroke completely erratic...
No balance...
Tyres were flat...
Pumped them up...
Bit better...
Got riding with hands on the handle bars for short bursts, but nothing like these guys who post internet videos claiming to have just opened the box and can ride no problem... Suspect they might be exaggerating their capabilities somewhat.

Was quickly sweating like the proverbial. Maybe due to the need for total focus, maybe due to cycling with no ventilation - although I don't sweat like that in spin classes until we really get going, so suspect it's the hidden effort of trying to stay upright.

Overall, I'm quite pleased. I can see exactly how poor and lacking in smoothness my pedal stroke is and how little I engage my core when riding. Time for some new skills and this looks like exactly the machine to help me develop those techniques!

Monday Strength training

Found a colleague at work willing to join me for a strength training Monday session. We seem to have settled on a wee pyramid session doing some old school exercises and it's great! So we've been progressing with a sets of 8/5/3/5/8 as we add weight. The idea is to quickly progress up towards what should be our maximal weight for the exercise, hopefully without getting injured or over-stressing ourselves on the way. We'll base the starting weight next week on what we attained as heaviest weight this week. after a 10 minute warm up on the trainers, we're pushing big weights on Deadlifts & Bench Press then using Clean & press as an almost aerobic allover body 'finisher'. Throw in a couple of sets of pullups & dips using body weight to remind ourselves where we are in terms of actual power to weight ratios and finally give the show ponies a wee pump doing a spot of Ezy bar curling - mainly for aesthetics, but perhaps in deference to the old school naivety of our program ;-)

Weigh-in 85 Kg; Still a bit heavy and mildly surprised that I'm not shifting any weight, as I definitely feel much better going about my business. Trousers fitting much better this week too!

10 mins warm up - elliptical trainer

Exercise	Max Weight (kg)
Deadlift	90.0
BenchPress	87.5 kg

3 sets of 10 pull ups - failed miserably, attaining 5 on the first set then pretty much falling of the bars somewhere between 3 & 4 on the next 2 sets.

Did manage 1 set of 10 dips, before embarrassing myself on the next 2 sets also.

3 sets of 10 Clean & Press with a 30kg BarBell - aiming to really get the heart going and get some power through speed into each movement.

2 sets of 10 with 20kg on the Ezy bar.

Felt a lot better at the end of the session than I did going into it. Old school chucking rocks about rocks!!!

Rowing challenge - update

So, a few more detail have emerged on this rowing challenge, which my mate's evil personal trainer has decided is a suitable end of session 'metabolic booster' (He sounds pretty evil if you ask me!) (Just for the record, the task is to perform x6 250m spints on the rowing machine (ergometer) at a pace faster than 1:30/500m - it's a bloody tough challenge in it's own right, never mind one that follows a fast paced, personal training circuit with weights). My first few attempts have been miserable failures, but Ian posted a picture of the stats for him completing 1 set in 41 seconds... and I'm nowehere near that pace. The picture led to some interesting comments on facebook. An interesting development on the thread was this bit:

1.25/500m is FAST. For people who don't know - the 2000m WR is a 1.22/500 pace. (Albeit for 4x longer). And that guy is obviously a professional rower. So for Ian to be close to that pace, even for a 250m is fantastic.

1:24.6/500 average for a 5:38 2000m is the record (Rob Waddell from NZ back in 1999 n the man was a monster.) My PB is 5:48 - about 20 years ago (christ I am getting old!) Full respect for an amatur 1:25/500 split!

And for reference on the age thing, Rob in 2008 broke the 30-39 age record age 32 in 5:38.6, only 0.3 seconds slower than his row 9 years prior.

I bloody knew it was a difficult challenge! Anyway! Resistance (drag) set to ten. Loins girded, strategy decided (High stroke rate at expense of length), position assumed... and they're off.

Predicted Finish time....	Elapsed time
41 sec	5 sec	... ya beauty!
43 sec	10 sec	... keep it together Jimmy, keep it together.
45 sec	15 sec	... awwwww feck!!!!!
45 sec	20 sec	...Yes! Yes!...

"This is the engine room Cap'n... she cannae take it anymore!!!"

Predicted Finish time....	Elapsed time
48 sec	48 sec	...och well, getting better...

just need to shave 3 seconds off my best time, repeat it 5 more times then slip in a heavy weights session before hand, but I'm getting there.

Different approach - same result...

Instead of aiming to do 250m as quickly as I could, I thought this week I'd try rowing as fast as I could for the 45sec that the challenge should take... Best effort 215m... I honestly don't feel that I can row any faster than this... How can it be possible?

Getting the (not so) Good news - you are what you eat!

Despite a fairly active last few months with a regular commitment to serious circuit training on Thursdays, spin class on Tuesdays & strength sessions on a Monday my Nuffield Health MOT didn't go too well today. Nearly 2kg up from where I thought I should be and with an increased belly-hip ratio, we know exactly where that extra weight is - and unfortunately it's not in the old 'muscle is heavier than fat' story. The sad truth is I've been eating a lot and a lot of what I've been eating has been rubbish... I guess it's time to really start paying attention to the re-fuelling strategy, as I don't think I can afford to spend any more time training at the moment. You should probably sell your Dorito shares about now...

Tuesday Spin Class stats

Spin Class by jim.macfarlane at Garmin Connect - Details

uh oh!

So, 6 x 250m on the ergometer @ 1:30/500m pace.... You should have taken that bet!

I gave it a wee bash today at lunch time, with a fairly easy warm-up, some upper body moves (pull-ups & dips if you must know) and some stretching.

1. Set the erg up for 250m and row at a quickish pace, but still breathing... 1 min 06 sec with an end pace of 2:13 / 500m.

ok, so that means that 1:30 / 500m is quite a bit quicker than my normal pace.

Let's go balls out to see how far away...

2. Perform 3 sets @ maximum pace whilst maintaining some semblance of form...

Time	Pace / 500m
52.8	1:45.6
53.8	1:47.6
54.1	1:48.2

It's not getting any quicker as we practice and it's a long way from 1:30 / 500m and that's not at the end of a hard PT workout and it's only half the challenge... uh oh!