Are you kidding me?!?

That is what I was thinking this morning when I started the push-ups on a Swiss ball. Oh my! After a set or two, I got the hang of it. but, at first, I thought there was no way I was going to be able to do all 55 on the ball. I would definitely not recommend trying these without all the lead-up of other push-up practice.

I subbed 7x40/20 kettlebell swings with my 16kg bell for the jump rope. I'm glad, because there was so much other jumping in this workout. (Body of Fire, Phase 3, Workout 2, by the way.) I also subbed high knees for the sprinting. Great workout!

Yesterday was the first workout of this phase. I had to cut off about half the sets to fit it into my time slot.  I still managed to come away with a sore glute. I'm not sure why it's just on one side, though!

Mental Strength

Phase 2 of Body of Fire is complete! One more Phase left before I have to decide if I'll do the "Bonus" Phase.  Right now, sources say that is unlikely. I've had to shorten some of the workouts and I've modified others, but in general, I've stuck to the plan pretty well. The results have been great, too.

I did all of today's workout. I did sub KB swings for the the jumprope and high knees for the sprints. Otherwise, it was as written. There is one section Chad calls  "Cardio Strength".  Today, this was a 1-13 ladder of wideout drops and judo push-ups. I really think this should be called the "Mental Strength" section. The first 9 sets go by fairly quickly.  Then I get to the sets of 10 and more and I realize that I'm not even half done. I'm glad I have a log because I mark off every set of wideout drops and every set of pushups. Between sets, I'm not supposed to rest, but I find myself getting severely distracted. Then I think about myself getting distracted. Then I think about myself thinking about getting distracted, etc. After all that, I have to look back at my log to check where I am. I don't think these space-outs last very long, but they are annoying.

I had to cut yesterday's BOF in half due to time constraints. It was still a great workout. I probably won't be doing the dips on the bench again, though. I'll go back to the hands-together pushups.

Right on time

Yesterday I mentioned I wanted to limit my workouts to an hour. Guess how long today's workout was? An hour! Without modification, too.  (Well, I did modify a tad by replacing the jumproping with kettlebell swings and the sprinting with high knees, but both of those were timed sections. Actually, it would have been longer with sprints because I would have had to get ready to go outside.) After the workout, I did foam roll, which I haven't been doing as much since it isn't written into the program. My muscles are rather sore, so I think tomorrow might be a yoga day.  The high knees are working out very well. I can go all out without fearing falling flat on my face. I really feel my core bracing. One of these days, I'll go outside and see how well they carry over to actual sprinting.

BOF Ph2/Wk7/WO4 (mod)
1:00
Warm up: Golf ball roll, cat/camel, wall squats
KB swings: 6 alt sets of L/R swing 12kg and 2h swing 16kg timed 40s/20s
Cardio I: Split jack 4x22, squat thrust with jump 4x12
Cardio Strength: pyramid 1-12 of wideout drops and judo push-ups (first half of movement)
Cardio II: high knees 9x 20s/40s
Stretching

Cutting it short

Today was another Body of Fire workout. I limited the workout to an hour, though. It probably would have ended at almost an hour and a half otherwise. Still, it was a good workout. I subbed 6 rounds of 40/20 kettlebell swings for the jumprope. Also, I did that after the other warm-up work. Why, you may ask? Partly because I suck at jumproping, but mostly because I signed up to do a HKC kettlebell certification in the spring. I need a lot more time with the kettlebell before then.

I also recently did a kettlebell TGU workout recently that I didn't report. I worked on some clean&press drills along with some snatch drills for that.

BOF Phase 2/Week 7/ Workout 3
1:05
Warm up: golf ball roll, cat/camel, wall squats, 6x40/20 kb swings (alt. 12kg and 16kg for rounds)
Cardio: 5 sets of 14 jumping jacks, 7 squat thrusts, 14 mountain climbers
Strength:
hands together pushups (6,4,4,4)
upright row w/ ext rotation (16.25# 8,8,8,8)
deadlift (140# 8,8,8,8)
side plank (40s/side 4x)
Cardio strength: 1 set of 15 (squat thrust, core row, shoulder press)
Stretches

A bit of an ego check

Today I completed Phase 2/ Week 6 / Workout 3 from Body of Fire.
I didn't have a dip station or any parallel bars this time, so I did pushups with my hands touching. Those are hard! I knocked the deadlift weight down to #140 because last time I did this workout, I felt like I overdid it. I did #155 DLs that time.  Also, this time, the combo goes up to 3 rounds.  So, I dropped to #10 DBs. Still plenty hard.  I checked the manual and the combo goes up to 5 rounds by the end of this phase.  Holy cow! That is going to be tough, even with 10# DBs!!