2014-04-28

Fitness Experiments #1.1?

I was able to get up this morning and go for a run first-thing, as I mentioned I wanted to. This is a huge win for personal motivation. Sometimes just taking the first step to prove you can do something ends up being the biggest hurdle in front of you. I say that now because I am still stoked about my success this morning. If I can continue to wake up early for morning workouts, then I really will be able to call it a success.

Here's a brief tangent: In order to pull this off, I really had to make it impossible to fail. I shaved at night so that I wouldn't have to do it in the morning. I packed a week's worth of lunches for myself on Sunday afternoon, so that I wouldn't have to do it in the morning. I laid out my running clothes so that all I had to do was roll out of bed, put my shorts on, and head out the door. It all worked like a charm. It's amazing what a little organizing will do. While some may feel that this was "a lot of work to do on the weekend," it really wasn't. I made my lunches at the same time I made lunch on Sunday, and I scaled the operation so that I just had to put the food in boxes. I take a shower after every workout, so shaving was just another couple of minutes on top of my evening shower. It all really came together.

But I didn't do all that work just so that I could swap-out my afternoon workout for a morning workout. My intention was to workout twice. Now that I have some cardio out of the way, thanks to a fabulous morning run, I can focus on my afternoon strength training.

Last Monday's "fitness experiment" was a good one. To eliminate all the guess-work here, I could easily just repeat it every Monday until I've mastered it. I did end up over-reaching last Monday, which means shooting for the same number of sets and reps this week would still result in an excellent workout.

But it's always nice to do things a little differently. So today, I'm going to try doing the same workout in reverse, starting with the tricep dips and ending with the standard push-ups. If I still have energy left-over by the final couple of sets, I'll turn them into clapping push-ups for an added plyometric boost.

And I ran this morning, which means I can skip the afternoon cardio, right?

Wrong.

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