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Exercise & Fitness


Greywolf2375

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I can jog a 5k no problem... My 3 mile time is under 25 minutes if I really hustle. That's all at one medium pace though. Really what I want to work on is my recovery time after short bursts of strenuous exercise.

I do SCA armored combat and I'm hoping these intervals will simulate the type of conditions I have to deal with when I am in armor and fighting. Basically, a bout lasts about 30-60 seconds tops before someone gets hit. Most of that time is maneuvering and footwork type stuff; testing the waters. But once range is established and we really get to wailing on each other it's seriously hard work. Either someone gets hit and we reset the fight and go at it again, or no one gets hit and we do another pass until someone wins...

What I am saying is that the pace of the fight is not set at one speed. I figure training intervals is a good simulation of the types of stress I am putting on my cardiovascular and respiratory systems...

I feel like my endurance is pretty good. If I wanted to I could train up to a 5 or 10 mile race in a few months... but really, I don't think that type of steady pace running is a good analogue for what I am training for. Does that make things more clear?

How heavy is your armor and weapon? If you are wearing full plate/plate mail, I can't imagine running will help that much unless you are doing intervals in your armor. Best thing would probably be strapping on your armor and sparring with someone on a regular basis, but I'd imagine that would be inconvenient or difficult to arrange. Next best thing would be to strap on your armor and do some exercise, intervals, windsprints, shadow box, whatever that will tire you out in under a minute. But I guess that's inconvenient because of the armor. Probably any exercise that works your entire body will be good. Crossfit probably would work. Grappling type martials arts like judo, jujitsu or wrestling might work too. I did judo in highschool and the rounds were only about 2 or 3 minutes long, but were very intense. Good for developing your anaerobic capacity.

Sounds like a fun way to get some exercise! I always enjoy hearing about the more unusual ways people get their exercise.

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crossfit

Yeah, I've been doing some of their WotD stuff. I don't really have time or money to hit a gym during the week so I do body-weight exercises like pull-ups, push-ups, crunches, air-squats, burpees, etc before work most every week day. I've been trying to add different exercises as well as trying different variations on the standards (towel over the bar pull-ups, close-hands or raised-feet push-ups, etc).

I have some hand weights but I've never been a huge fan of lifting. I guess I just have never gotten proper instruction besides the fact that I don't want to feel chained to a gym just to get a decent workout.

How heavy is your armor and weapon?

My whole kit not including shield and weapon is about 35-40 pounds. Lately I have been wearing a stainless maille hauberk over a padded linen gambeson, a 14 gauge steel helmet, thick leather arm armor and padded/quilted thigh armor. My sword simulator is 2-3#, shield is less than 10#.

Best thing would probably be strapping on your armor and sparring with someone on a regular basis, but I'd imagine that would be inconvenient or difficult to arrange.

Fighter practice is every Thursday from 6-8. About 5-10 other fighters show up every week, so I get plenty of opportunity to be in armor fighting. Been going most every week for the last 2-3 years. In addition, I hit about one weekend event a month. Twice a year I go for week+ camping trips with fighting most every day.

There is another practice about 90 minutes from my house on Tueday nights, but logistically getting to that every week would be a nightmare.

Next best thing would be to strap on your armor and do some exercise, intervals, windsprints, shadow box, whatever that will tire you out in under a minute.

I've actually been thinking about doing this... my neighbors already think I'm weird so it probably wouldn't surprise them to see me running down the road in my gambeson and maille.

Really though, how beneficial would it be to wear my kit while I am running intervals or doing strength-training? Obviously I'm not going to be able to run as fast or as far with my kit on. So is the trade off of doing a shorter/harder workout in my kit going to balance out the amount of conditioning I am getting by just wearing my shorts and sneakers for a longer period of time?

A friend of mine was telling me about tabata... 20 seconds of a particular exercise as fast and hard as possible with a 10 second rest. Repeat for 8 sets (four total minutes). He says he'll alternate 2 or 3 exercises during the 4 minutes. Anyone have any information or pointers on this type of workout?

As far as running intervals though, is the 30/30/30-walk/jog/run the best way to go about that? Should I drop the walk and just do 30/30 jog/run?

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Do not wear ankle weights to run. Just don't. If you want more strength, lift more, run in your armor that you're going to be using, but don't create little fake imbalances.

If it were my intervals, I would alternate the jog/run at an aerobic pace with run/walk at full recovery.

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One day would be more aerobic- alternating jogging and running- you could do 30 second intervals or any distance intervals you liked. The run wouldn't be so hard that you couldn't keep jogging after the interval, and the jog wouldnt be so easy that your heart rate went all the way back down.

If you're going to be running every day, I'd throw in some easy running between workouts. Else, I'd do the second run as actual speed - explosive start and full walk recovery. Well you might want to start easy on the explosive start thing and work up. For a man with your 5k time, 30 sec should be about 200 m, maybe a little more. Doing some other intervals between 100-400m would be good too. Don't worry about doing too many of these- 3 miles of 200s is probably too much.

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Do not wear ankle weights to run. Just don't. If you want more strength, lift more, run in your armor that you're going to be using, but don't create little fake imbalances.

If it were my intervals, I would alternate the jog/run at an aerobic pace with run/walk at full recovery.

Could you explain the little imbalances part to me? From my perspective I don't see much of a difference between one weight or another so long as they weigh exactly the same in the same spots. Mostly I see them as ways to increase resistance lightly for every day situations. Kind of like the treadmill desk where you walk slowly and type away at the computer.

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If you were to wear an entire suit of armor, weird as it might look, your whole body would be adjusting to it. Ankle weights just concentrate stress on your knees and hips. I've heard you can use them for jump training and strengthening exercises, where you're very careful about form, but I'm not any kind of expert on that. However, when you're running outside a controlled environment, you're more likely to throw out a knee. They impede your normal running form, they don't help flexibility, and they're really just not in the right place to make you stronger. Lifters don't talk about how they can purposely develop cankles to become stronger. (Actually, that's an assumption I'm willing to make, maybe lifters do talk about developing cankles). Do more squats and run more hills.

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So, last Sunday I went to compete at the BMF Beat the Instructor Final at the Wasps' training ground in London. Good fun was had by all but it was definitely one of the tougher circuit workouts I've done!

First heat was:

20 x hand release press-ups

20 x feet-to-bar

20 x 24" box jump

100m run

15 x hand release press-ups

15 x feet-to-bar

15 x 24" box jump

200m run

10 x hand release press-ups

10 x feet-to-bar

10 x 24" box jump

400m run

I managed a time of 9:31 which was one of the slower times in my heat (4th out of 6) but one of the faster times overall. Which meant I progressed (much to my consternation) to heat 2, consisting of:

Heat 2:

10 x 24" box jump burpees

20 x pull-ups

30 x 24kg kettlebell swings

40 x sit-ups

800m run

40 x sit-ups

30 x 24kg kettlebell swings

20 x pull-ups

10 x 24" box jump burpees

This time I managed a time of 11:36. Still fairly happy with that but not enough to progress to the finals. Frankly, I wasn't too disappointed with that since the final was:

Final, four rounds of:

10 x burpees

10 x pull-ups

10 x hand-release press-ups

10 x 24kg kettlebell swings

10 x 24kg goblet squats

10 x 24" box jumps

400m run.

Like I said, good fun all round. The fact that I could barely move for the next five days is neither here nor there :frown5: . And all of the hard-work was undone with many subsequent drinks! :cheers:

Also here's a phot of me looking all dramatic and focused and shit.

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Holy shit, Liff. That's hardcore. Very nice.

A prowler is one to those thing they use to train linemen in football right? The coach stands on it and has the dude push him around? I can see how that'd be good training.

Re: crossfit. Yeah, it's looking more and more like I just need to suck it up go to a gym. I'm not totally opposed to lifting weights, I just need someone to show me the right way to do it so I'm not breaking myself.

In your experience, are most of the Crossfit trainers well-trained? Am I going to go in there and have some mouth-breather showing me bad form?

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In your experience, are most of the Crossfit trainers well-trained? Am I going to go in there and have some mouth-breather showing me bad form?

I wouldn't want to make any judgement as to whether "most" of them are well-trained. And my experience is entirely within the UK so take that into account. In my experience the quality of crossfit trainers varies massively. I've met some who were very, very good. I've met others who were terrible. In general, the good ones were already experienced or qualified in some way from a source external to crossfit before crossing over. The poor ones seemed to have been entirely trained in-house, as it were. So it's probably worth asking a few questions about your trainer's background.

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If you were to wear an entire suit of armor, weird as it might look, your whole body would be adjusting to it. Ankle weights just concentrate stress on your knees and hips. I've heard you can use them for jump training and strengthening exercises, where you're very careful about form, but I'm not any kind of expert on that. However, when you're running outside a controlled environment, you're more likely to throw out a knee. They impede your normal running form, they don't help flexibility, and they're really just not in the right place to make you stronger. Lifters don't talk about how they can purposely develop cankles to become stronger. (Actually, that's an assumption I'm willing to make, maybe lifters do talk about developing cankles). Do more squats and run more hills.

Makes sense, thank you for the perspective.

I'm putting together a routine with a trainer next Tuesday. If I post it here could you all give me your opinions?

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