Everyday Systems

Good day everybody!

My name is Gabriel, from Croydon, England.

I'm not exactly new to exercise in general - I have been training with free weights for a few years now, strength training specifically (3 times a week, whole body compounds), and in the last 6 months I have been training with bodyweight exercises, complimented by kettlebells and gymnastic rings.

Just last week I heard about Shovelglove and decided to check out the website and I have to say I found it extremely appealing. So, I decided to get my trusty old sledgehammer from the garage and start SG'ing!

Today I did shoveling (10 reps each side), butter churning (10 reps each side), wood chopping (10 each side) and flip curl thingies (8 each side). I stuck to a conservative number of reps because SG'ing is way harder than I imagined. (And here I am, thinking I had more stamina... )

I just have one question: I'm not exactly a fitness expert, so I'd like to know if it's fine for me to continue to do my M-W-F strength training routine, along with SG five times a week? SG would fit into my daily routine as endurance/"cardio", I suppose.

Thanks.

Welcome, Gabriel -- and sorry it's taken me forever to post here. Vacation + digging myself out of accumulated work emails.

It terms of fitting SG into your current routine, I'd recommend focusing on a fixed time every N-day to do some kind of exercise, and then filling in those slots with whatever you prefer. So maybe M-F pure strength traing, Tu-Th pure shovelglove, W a hybrid routine of both. I'm fond of 14 minutes as the fixed amount of time, but if your strength routine takes longer, I don't think that should be a problem (seems like a habit you already have pretty well in place). I do think trying to do BOTH N-daily shovelglove AND another intensive routine (so 8 workouts in 5 days) sounds unsustainable, both time and muscle-wise.

Reinhard

Hi Reinhard,

Thanks for the reply.

I think I found the answer to my question already!

I've been exchanging a couple of emails with Timothy of Urban Primalist. He suggested I split my routine into the following protocol: Shugging and upper body (pull ups, dips, press ups, etc) on M, W & F, focusing on muscle-building explosive movements (as outlined in his website), 30-40 minutes; and lower body (squats, lunges and walks with a heavy backpack, pistols and/or kettlebell swings) on T, Th & Sat. I would take Sunday off.

I will be trying this protocol from Monday and will be posting any updates, etc as soon as I completed the week.

Gabriel.