Has anyone heard of Plyometrics ? No nor had I. I thought it was something to do with maths. I wish it had been now, not that I’m any good at maths but my God, who thought up these exercises ? So much for an easy time, I don’t think there is such a thing.
But I do need to be honest, as soon as you say that you know the next words are going to be a lie. But really, this past month has been very hard work and yes I’ve been sore and getting out of bed at times has been groan, moan and Oh my God, putting my boots on was another story and getting up from the dinner table was pathetic but much enjoyment was had by all.
Now for the honesty bit, I’ve had a great time, all the exercises we have been doing have been varied, with different degrees of difficulty. We’ve been working Chest and Back, Bi’s Tri’s and Shoulders, Kettle Bell Full Body and Ab Screamer, Leg Strength and of course the Plyometric session. They have all been great fun and I’ve really enjoyed myself.
I can’t see any change in myself and I’m not expecting to, even I know it’s too early for that but I keep looking anyway. What I have noticed is my tolerance levels. My fitness has started to improve very slowly. I’m still working for about 45 minutes and I’m making it to the end now. My heart rate is maxing at around 180-190 depending on what I am doing. My cardio has improved no end, which means I can train for longer and recover quickly.
My warm up sessions are great, I stretch off and I work my ankles until I feel lose and ready for my work out. It’s all done in slow time and as part of the warm up, if I’m about to try a new exercise for the first time I put that in as a warm up and it prepares me for what is coming.
It doesn’t always work as I’m still having trouble counting and anything past 10 is a guess. It’s amazing how the brain can’t work at the same time as doing an exercise. Maybe it’s just me but you try skipping, counting and breathing very heavily at the same time. My excuse is I skip so fast I can’t keep up.......I wish !!
The problem now of course is I understand the exercise and I know how to do them correctly. My fitness has improved along with my strength but it’s the neural pathways that have been woken up. It’s like driving a car to a new destination for the first time. You don’t know the route and it takes you longer than normally. Once you have travelled it a couple of times it becomes second nature. Well that’s muscle memory or as coach puts it “Greasing the Groove”. Like me a beginner will make the most gains in their first 6 weeks. You are going to get fitter and you will gain strength but the gains are coming from knowing the exercise and opening up new or old neural pathways. You can really see the problem areas now. As soon as my core is fatigued I can’t do a basic press up and because I’m so weak between the shoulder blades my press ups are suffering. I don’t have the strength to push up from the bottom of the press and my core is allowing me to wave or dip in the middle.
Because my shoulders are weak it has a knock on affect on all my other exercises such as dips. For some reason I don’t dip I lean forward and my legs stick out behind me. I can’t come out of the dip and so I have to put my feet down. Coach says I’m only doing ips and he’s never seen anything quite so feeble. Having said that he’s only going to allow me to try and get it right over the next few days. If I can’t grasp the correct technique he’s going to move me onto something else. Because I have a lack of strength in my shoulders it’s putting too much pressure on my rotator cuffs. I dread to think what he’s got up his sleeve.
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