Monthly Archives: January 2009

Burpee Workout

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Last night, the weather was a bit bad so I decided to stay home and find some alterative workouts.  I decided to give a modified version of the ‘burpee‘ a try.Basically, instead of jumping at the end of the burpee, I did a calf raise instead.  One thing I noticed right away is that while I could easily go for 20 mins on an elliptical machine in the gym, I was pretty torn up after about 30 seconds of burpee action!

I had spoken to my buddy about this and he did not find it strange at all since the burpee involved a lot more muscle groups working together resulting in a more intense experience. I have to agree with him as I was engaging all parts of my body in maintaining good posture and form throughout the burpee exercise. To mix things up a bit, I intermingled burpees with a wushu kick punch drill I used to do. Basically, this is like doing squats but during the rise, one foot kicks while the opposite hand punches and ends with going back down into a squat. Repeat, but switch sides.  My instructor used to have us do 100 of these things during our training session that we could split up into whatever segments we wished.  Last night, I did them in segments of 25.

Reaching back even more into my wushu training, when I wanted to rest or take a breather, I would do a wall-sit. This is basically leaning against the wall and pretending like you’re sitting in a chair, quite the leg workout if you’re not used to it. This was how we rested back in wushu days.  If you wanted to drink water, wall sit, if you wanted to take a breather, wall sit.  If you’re not moving, you’re wall sitting.

I actually pulled quite a bit of exercises from my wushu training days and have incorporated them into a small cross-training interval timed training regime. It’s was actually very fun and the idea of moving from one exercise to the next with little to no rest in between was very challenging.  I am actually planning on not continuing the gym subscription come this April, so hopefully I will have some exercises to fill the gap.

Sun Salutation

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Yesterday morning, I incorporated Yoga’s Sun Salutation (surya namaskar) into my morning routine. My goal is to do 2 sets of the sun salutation every morning as a way to increase overall flexibility and strength.

A couple of years back, I took some Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga classes at the local community college. Basically, it’s like Yoga except it incorporates flow with breath, almost qigong like.  Instead of holding fixed postures for long durations of time, postures are held for a certain number of breaths.

I have to admit, after doing a couple of sets in the morning, I felt very energized and ready to begin the day.

Here’s youtube video showing the Sun Salutation

iSerenity for Relaxation and Solitude

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Do you ever get that feeling that you need a little help in relaxing? I was feeling like I needed a bit of assistance last night and I didn’t want to put on any music.  So, I opted for a bit of white noise and tuned my computer to iSerenity: ambient sound environments at your desktop for relaxation and solitude.  I would recommend checking out the ‘rain’ environment as that is what I used last night.

Taiji, Meditation, Health and Fitness

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Just noting an interesting change in my own training regime. Basically, I now do VERY little form work, if anything, I might do the first section of the Yang long form, but other than that, I may train the first 5 movements of the form (up to single whip) and repeat, repeat.

However, most of my training has been focused on meditation and I have been doing a LOT more standing and sitting meditation. I never really did much sitting meditation in the past, but over time, I am starting to enjoy it. While I don’t do the whole lotus posture thing, I am quite content at sitting on the edge of my chair and sitting for a while before I proceed to standing postures. This is a nice happy medium as my hips and ankles are not very flexible to where I could hold the posture for more than say 5 minutes.

But one of the major changes in my overall training is hitting the local gym. So far, I have been hitting the gym 2-3 times a week.  While there, I usually do roughly 30 minutes of cardio work (elliptical and most recently a bit of treadmill) and then I lift weights. Yes, I lift weights.

Does lifting weights conflict with being an internal martial artist? I don’t think so, even if it does, I don’t really mind nor care as it makes me feel healthier.  I don’t consider myself a serious iron pumper, as I mostly do the nautical machine stuff and focus on tone, that is at least 10-12 reps of whatever weight I am working on as opposed to a grueling 4-5 repetitions.  Additionally, right now I only do 2 sets of each exercise.

With the change in my training and diet (cut out soda and snacking as much as possible, though I did slide a bit over the holiday), I have lost about 15 lbs from my heaviest weight last year. That’s pretty good and I would like to lose at least 15 more pounds.

Also, one of my other fitness goals is to be able to easily lift my own body weight. This means, more push ups, more pull ups and other type of exercises with my own body as the resistance. I think it’s quite shameful that I can’t do more than a couple of pull-ups, what if I was hanging on the edge of a cliff somewhere grasping on to dear life by 3 fingers. Would I be able to save myself? Probably not … but then again, the situation is highly unlikely in my lifestyle of modern comforts.  In fact, a couple of months back while doing a U-turn in a parking lot, I went a bit into the grass just so I could say I have been “off-road” in my SUV… yeah, I know…

Anyhoo, I have been looking more into exercises that involve the stability ball and dumb bells. Also, I have been thinking about picking up some kettle bells to tinker with, especially after the hat tip from Dave of Formosa Neijia regarding metcon/crossfit.  Currently, I am playing around with some exercises that start from the plank position, and yes, looks can be deceiving.

Dream of MMA Submission

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I just woke up remembering a dream that I attended a mixed martial arts workshop with Randy Couture. I had ended up sparring twice, once against another attendee that I submitted quite easily. Then I volunteered to spar against the man himself and came in fast with a double leg take down and then quickly scrambled to initiate a bare naked rear choke to submit him.

After the submission, he lay on the mat for a bit and I helped him up and bowed to him stating that I appreciate the opportunity and not to worry as in the game of mixed martial arts, anyone can be tapped out, that’s just the nature of submissions. He smiled and commented on my quickness and speed.

After the workshop, I was heading to my car, and I ended up walking through Disney World. I recall seeing the train and a couple of people walking behind me eating cotton candy smiling at me.

Weird..