Partner Workouts

I love training with Mike. We both have similar goals and we're both really driven and competetive.. In a good friendly way! I thought I would share some of the workouts we like to do with each other so you can try them with your partners, or friends, or anyone you might coerce into a challenge!

Teamwork
We have a number of exercises and a numeric goal for each exercise and work together to accomplish the goal. Click the link for a more detailed account. The best thing about this is the faster you do it the more benefits you get and the faster you're free to get on with other things!

Isometric holds
One person performs an isometric hold whilst the other completes a certain number of exercises. If the person holding the isometric hold drops it the person doing the exercises has to start from scratch. Examples;
Person 1 holds plank whilst person 2 performs * crunches
Person 1 holds wall sit whilst person 2 performs * squats
Person 1 holds bear hold whilst person 2 performs * push-ups
Person 1 does isometric punches whilst person 2 performs bag work or shadow boxing
Then swap person 2 moves to holds and person 1 performs the exercises!
* choose a number suitably challenging for your personal ability.
Add any of your own isometric holds into the mix and pair them with a related exercise. The possibilities are endless! Include yoga maybe? Anything you like really!

Intervals
We go to the track or a field and run our intervals together but at our own pace.

Race to...

• 100 burpee challenge (Mike does burpees with the push-up and I do them without, then we're fairly even in speed and can be quite competetive.. plus burpees with a push-up would be more of a strength exercise for me than conditioning..)
  
• Magic 50 Here's one account of me doing the magic 50.. I didn't write Mike's time down but we're always racing each other!!
  
• Workout Capacity 101 I've got two blog posts about workout capacity 101, note my variation is slightly different to the one on Rosstraining so be sure to check out the first link for the original workout. Here is another of my workout capacity 101 experiences.
  

Padwork
We put on the pads for each other and shout out combinations. One person starts holding the pads for a few rounds and then we'll swap so we both get time working the pads. To get hold of a set of pads, boxing gloves and hand wraps isn't too expensive and it's a really good workout even if you don't know too much about boxing, it's good stress relief too... Just try not to hit your pad holder in the face... I've come very close to that a few times when my glove has slipped off the pad!!

So, there you have it! Those are the main workouts we do together. I hope this inspires you to get your partner into a joint workout :-)

Workout Capacity 101 Before Breakfast...!

Remember the Natural Balance bars I reviewed, the Nakd and Trek bars? Well the lovely people at Natural Balance have put me on the news part of their website, how exciting :-) go check it out here!

Yesterday I ran intervals (no HR data as Mike was wearing his garmin.. I so want my own!!)

Warm up 1 mile @9.45
1600m (7.53) 7.31
400m RI
1600m (7.53) 7.44
400m RI
800m (3.49) 3.45
Cool Down 400m

Those intervals were tough! My legs felt so heavy in the last 800m, I think it's my own fault, I paced myself too fast for all the repeats, though I got closer each time (the time I was supposed to run is in brackets)! I couldn't believe how much harder they were than my last interval workout when I did 400m repeats. I cut the cool down short as I'm trying to save my legs so I can do all my planned workouts this week. My knees were ok but they felt a bit sore and stiff afterwards. I iced them as planned after the run but they still felt a bit stiff last night, hopefully they will be ok tomorrow for my tempo, I don't think they're injured I think they're just a bit sensitive.

When I got home from my run I had a package from pulsin with a few discs to try. It was too late to try the pre-workout snacks but I had half the protein disc after my lunch. Unfortunately all the discs contained soy so Mike couldn't try any. This was the biggest downside to them, especially as it was just soy lecithin so they could have used sunflower lecithin to allow people with soy allergies to enjoy them too, one of the discs had both in! I noticed cause I got excited thinking Mike could try it but then we saw the dreaded soya! Other than the soy the discs had good ingredients. The protein sport disc had a nice chocolatey taste and a nice texture with protein crispies similar to the trek bars. The disc had 15g of protein and just over 200 calories, not bad!

The discs they sent

We did some bodyweight strength before tea, we did core, push-ups, pull-ups and chin-ups. We did our core moves in our rest periods for the push-ups and pull-ups. I did tempo push-ups, 3 seconds going down and 2 seconds going up. For the pull-ups and chin-ups I did the 3 second hold at the top, middle and bottom. In the rest for the push-ups we did 60s isometric holds which is going to make up the core challenge sample workout 3!
10 wide hand push-ups
ab wheel hold 60s
5 normal hand push-ups
plank 60s
2 diamond push-ups
crunch hold 60s
3 knuckle push-ups
leg raise 60s
7 wide hand push-ups
L side plank 60s
4 normal hand push-ups
R side plank 60s

Then on to the pull-up/chin-up sets

normal grip chin-up
30 crunches
normal grip pull-up
30 crunches
close grip chin-up
30 crunches
close grip pull-up
30 crunches
wide grip chin-up
30 crunches
wide grip pull-up
30 crunches

And done for the day!

Sample Core Workout 3

This is a challenging workout just using isometric holds, I think all the moves are on the core work page except the ab wheel hold which is just a hold as you would be in the lower position of the ab wheel move. Choose how long you hold the exercises for, just under your max so you can finish the workout.

ab wheel hold
rest 30s
plank
rest 30s
crunch hold
rest 30s
leg raise
rest 30s
L side plank
rest 30s
R side plank
rest 2 minutes and repeat the circuit.

How is everyone's core challenge going? Let me know how you're doing :-)

I was going to publish this post last night but I was experiencing some technical difficulties with my photo editor, as in, we had to reformat the computer and lost the program and I couldn't for the life of me get it to reinstall! I asked Mike to try to make sure I wasn't doing something daft but he couldn't get it to work either so I've downloaded picasa now. I've just used it and it seems pretty good, Mike had to help me a bit, I'm pretty rubbish when it comes to figuring out technology!

Oh yeah, check out our set up to get the CD player to work on the laptop... It's not going to last much longer!


We had a mega busy day today so we got up early to get our workout in before breakfast. Let me tell you, workout capacity 101 before breakfast is very unpleasant! I felt so sick and I was a bit dizzy afterwards, tough workouts on a totally empty stomach are not good! The workout went like this (this is a modified version);

5 chair dips
10 band slams
15 burpees
20 star jumps

x 10 rounds

I finished in 16.35 - tough stuff! In hindsight I wish I'd worn the heart rate monitor to see what my heart rate actually was, it felt high!

We were busy today as we were volunteering at the university, we had to get two buses each way so it's almost 2 hours of travel even though it would be about 15-20 minutes in a car... I wish one of us drove! We experienced two bad bus drivers today, we ran for a bus and just as we got there he pulled away not letting us on and leaving us in the cold and rain to get drenched waiting 30 minutes for another bus, they are supposed to be every 10 minutes but that's English public transport for you... Another bus driver wouldn't let a man on because he'd started the engine going, he then proceeded to stay there with the engine going not moving because he couldn't back out of the bay. It would have been no problem at all to let that man get on, the mind boggles, people can be so selfish!

Whew what a long post! Hope everyone's had a great day!

21/02/10

AM
Today I did a variation of workout capacity 101 from Ross Enamait's book infinite intensity for a video (not of me I'm afraid!) and more info from the man himself, see here. My variation is really the same except it swaps chair dips for pull-ups, for two reasons, 1) I usually do this workout with Mike and we'd both be fighting for the pull-up bar if we both did pull-ups and 2) if I had to do 5 pull-ups each round it would take me all day!! Also my medicine ball slams were more like swings as our floorboards would probably not cope with medicine ball slams! Anyway the workout is...

• 5 Chair dips
• 10 Medicine ball slams (12kg)
• 15 Burpees
• 20 Jumping jacks

x 10 rounds in 18.55

This workout might look easy on paper but I promise you it is absolute HELL! My entire body hurt afterwards!!

I've blogged a few times about the caramel apple spice cupcakes from veganomicon, I wasn't sure about posting the recipe but I've seen it posted elsewhere on the web so I'm going to share it here too. The frosting makes these cupcakes really good, it's definately worth making.

Caramel Apple Spice Cupcakes
2 apples
2 tablespoons brown sugar (I use xylitol)
1 tablespoon margerine
1 cup of milk (non-dairy for vegan version)
1 tablespoon of lemon juick
1/3 cup of canola oil (I use applesauce)
3/4 cup sugar (I use xylitol and slightly less than 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon of grated lemon zest (I leave out)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour (I use plain wholemeal)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Caramel Penuche Frosting
1/2 cup sugar (I use xylitol)
3 tablespoons margerine
1 tablespoon molasses
2 tablespoons powdered milk (I use soy protein powder)
1/3 cup milk (non dairy for vegan version)
pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar (I make my own with xylitol and use less than 2.5 cups)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 cup toasted nuts to top (I use cashews)

Directions
Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350f or 177c
2. Chop apples into 1/4 inch pieces (leave skin on)
3. Heat sugar and marg in a heavy skillet over medium heat until bubbling
4. Add apples and cook until all liquid has evapourated about 12 minutes
5. In a large bowl mix milk and lemon juice allow to sit for a minute or so
6. Add oil, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla, stir
7. Sift in flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg mix until flour is moistened, don't overmix
8. Fold in apples
9. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full
10. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean

Frosting

1. Combine sugar, margerine, molasses, powdered milk, milk and salt in a pan over medium heat, stir constantly.
2. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly
3. Add vanilla and gradually add confectioners' sugar
4. It should end up thick and fudge like
5. Top cupcakes while the frosting is still hot
6. Top with nuts
7. Enjoy!!

PM
10 Chin-ups
Neck exercises