Another Week in Fitness

Sunday, January 1, 2012
1:25pm

As the title suggests, this post is simply about another week in fitness. I did pretty much the same thing this week as last week, except that I am taking my rest day today (although the idea of sitting still all day with nowhere to go and no real physical activity seems a bit overwhelming at the moment, so there is a good possibility of a walk or some yoga) instead of having taken it on Friday.

Monday- 5-8´s: About an 80-minute workout of lifting heavy (for me) weights for 5 sets of 8 for each muscle group. Abs included.
Tuesday- 60 minute run outside. Ran all the way up Río Esgueva to where you can see the big mountain in the background. I ran a little farther this week in my 60 minutes outside than last week, so I can feel myself getting stronger.
Wednesday- 32-minute recovery run. Slow speed. Short distance. Aim was just to bring fresh blood into muscles needing to repair themselves after Monday´s lifting and Tuesday´s long distance run. Did some abs at home afterwards.
Thursday- 3-12´s: About a 70-minute workout coming at each muscle group with 3 sets of 12 repetitions. Slightly easier than the workout on Monday. After resistance, did 4 sets of 2 minutes walking, 1 minute sprinting on the treadmill. Felt stronger than last week, like I could have done those sprints faster, but since I was still adjusting to a new routine, I decided to leave it.
Friday- 60-minute run on treadmill. I was actually thinking about making this just a 20-minute jog and then going to batuka, but then I decided to stay on and finish. So... it wound up being a more intense run than I was planning, because when I was originally planning to do only 20 minutes, I ran really hard to make up for it. Again, feeling stronger with my runs all this week.
Saturday- 35-minute recovery run on treadmill, 5 minutes walking to cool down. Felt tired, but that was due to going to bed at 6am and rising at 12pm. Plus, I drank a fair amount of beer the night before at a party, not enough to make me sick or even drunk, but enough to make me feel a little more groggy than usual the next day. Did abs, traps, and external rotators afterwards.

So I had 5 days that had some type of cardio, 4 that were aimed at aerobic activity, 2 of those aimed at improving it over maintaining it. One day was cardio but no aerobic, aimed at building speed.
I had 2 days aimed at building strength.

So for the most of this week I´ve felt really strong and like I could do more in my workouts. The thing is, I´m focusing on a few different things right now- speed on Thursdays, endurance on Tuesdays and Fridays (or Saturdays), and strength on Mondays and Thursdays. So if I try to make improvements to all of these at once, it´s a recipe for disaster, because there will never be a single day in the week that my body is doing what it already can. Each day will push it beyond it´s limits, and that can just lead to burn out and injury. I have to ask myself, where do I most want to make my gains? Strength, speed, or endurance? I want to say ALL OF THEM! I want to run further on my distance runs, faster on my speed drills, and I want to do more lifting. Maybe I´ll make a compromise and split it between two categories. Strength and endurance. For strength, I will *either* add a pump/burn out set on one of my lift days *or* add some strength training at the end of my recovery run on Saturday. And for endurance, I will make one of my long runs this week 65 minutes instead of 60. Little by little.