WinstonWolf's regular routine (Jan 08)

Which movements do you do? How many reps? In what order? When? Do you mix in other non-shovelglove moves? Post here or browse to get ideas.
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WinstonWolf
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Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:11 pm

WinstonWolf's regular routine (Jan 08)

Post by WinstonWolf » Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:24 pm

Figured I'd contribute...

I'll start with what I usually do in addition to SG:

I. I need to start always doing a warmup of 5-10 minutes of stuff, a few pushups, squats, jumping jacks, etc to get the body moving. I haven't been doing that much but it really helps when I do it. After that...

II. Usually, I take 5-10 minutes to do 100 pushups, of various types regular, incline, decline, wide, close-grip, diamond, "spiderman", shoulder, off-set, one-leg...), generally in sets of 20 and 10.

III. Then, ~15 minutes of pilates matwork moves for some core work/active stretching. It's not the full sequence (I wish!) but about half of it. I definitely feel more limber after SG if I include the pilates that day.

IV. Then SG.

Hammers: I have an 8, 10, 12, and now a 16... the 16 is for days I'm really feeling up to it, the 12 is probably my current "main" hammer in terms of ability and comfort while doing the moves. The 8, which was hard back in August of last year... is now dead easy and good for speed work.

I usually pick a rep count for the day: 7x, 14x, or 21x (per side for some,
or total for 2 handed exercises), entirely depending on how I feel that
morning.

If it's a 7 or 14 rep day, I add whatever other moves (ab killers, rows,
cleans, one-leg deadlift, whatever) feel good within the time limit. 21
rep days usually take the whole time, particularly with the 16 lber.

1) Drive fence post (variant) - feet parallel (R, L)

2) Churn butter (2 handed with heaviest current hammer; 1 handed and
two-handed with lighter ones)

3) Hoist Sack (same as churn butter)

4) "windshield wipers" (off a video posted recently in the SG forum) (R,L)

5) (sometimes, depending on how my legs feel) lunge or walking lunge holding hammer

6) (sometimes) squat with "shovel to the side" / stoke the engine, I guess
(R,L)

7) squat to tuck bales (R,L)

8) (sometimes) flip switch (usually no more than 7 per arm - don't want to push it too hard, and have some tendinitis-like stuff going on) (R,L)

9) shovel (R,L)

10) side chop / chop tree (R,L)

11) More like 'classic' drive fence post, I guess. Feet offset, I really
emphasize the weight change from back to front to back, and bring the
hammer back to the side, then over the shoulder, then down. Feels a bit
more complicated than the video Reinhard has, but maybe it's about the same thing.


Another fun thing, though, is about once per week, I'll do what one might
call "ladders". I might only get through 3-6 moves, but I'll do 7 (per arm
or with both arms, depending on the move) per hammer.

So, 7x fence post (r,l) on the 8, then on the 10, then the 12, and now the
16. Shakes things up.

Could be done similarly by running through a truncated workout with one
hammer, then the next, then the next, etc.


V. Then, I do about 5-10 minutes of static stretching once I'm done.

On a good week, I'll be on Sun-Tues, rest Weds, on Thurs/Fri, rest Sat. I
like doing a workout on Sunday, and feel like Wednesday makes a good rest day.

Like Reinhard has said, it's maintenance. I do some other things to
actually build muscle/lose fat, but these help get me going and work out on a daily basis. Plus, I enjoy these which is why I do them fairly
consistently.

My weight, on the other hand, still sucks - currently ~210, about 27% body fat according to the tanita scale... went from 195 to 165 ... six years ago, for a year or so ... then 165 --> 195 --> 205 --> 220 over a few years ... hopefully, this is more sustainable. Goal weight?

Well, I'm 5'7", but (really) I'm "big boned" and have very large legs, so while BMI says I should be 150 (and I was, in college) ... I figure 170 is probably sustainable as long as body fat % is below, say, 20 or 15%.

I do feel vastly stronger than when I started in August, though.

If I'm being efficient, all told takes about an hour. I'm not always that
efficient, though.

I also do the occasional yoga workout (not enough), some of Scott Sonnen's stuff, and Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training, as well as kettlebell workouts here and there, and I'm getting set up to do more barbell lifting (bought a squat rack, had gotten a hand-me-down weight set and bench from wife's parents) and other odds and ends.

I strive to workout a couple times a day, but just getting in the "regular"
stuff 5 days a week is sometimes challenging enough...

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:30 pm

WinstonWolf,

Thank you for posting your routine and keeping me company here!

It's interesting to see how people incorporate shovelglove into larger routines... yours sounds VERY hard core.

I guess even I do some non-shovelglove moves like pushups and squats, but it's just a little sprinkling and I essentially just treat them as sledgehammerless shovelglove moves in terms of the routine.

I'm sort of amazed that I've never felt the need to do stretches. I keep waiting to feel stiff or something but it never comes, so I just skip it. I hope this isn't the sort of thing where I suddenly wake up a cripple 5 years from now :-)

Regarding the weight, are you still doing no-s? (or something). Shovelglove+no-s tends to be a very effective combination (not to mention all that other exercise you're doing).

Reinhard

WinstonWolf
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:11 pm

Post by WinstonWolf » Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:13 pm

Eh shrug. I don't know about the routine being hardcore, really, it just seems to work for me. This and that I've picked up over the years.

Well, regarding stretching... a few years ago, I got into very good shape over the course of a year or so. "Boot Camp" by The Sarge (Patrick Avon) helped with that, got me into jogging and stretching and light bodyweight exercises. I worked up to (over a few months!) jogging a mile or so five days a week, warming up by climbing up and down the stairs in my building (12 flights)... my wife (a lifelong distance runner) tells me that was pretty impressive as a warmup. Shrug. It took a while to get there but it worked at the time.

I also did freeweights (dumbbells) three times a week, and pilates/yoga a few times a week, and some swing dancing. I was in very good shape, but when I was exercising the most, I was also post-ex-gf and pre-current-wife. Funny how much free time you have as a single guy...

Then I got tired of running in cold, and stopped. 195 --> 165 --> 195. Funny that, you gain weight when you don't exercise (or I do) .... anyway.

So, why stretching?

Well, my hamstrings and calves and so forth get VERY tight. So tight that even attempting to jog on a treadmill was a no-go a few months ago. Usually do ellipticals for cardio, and I don't walk as much as I'd like.

Plus, the Boot Camp book always recommended static stretching (which I now finish up with, rather than do ahead of time)... so do a lot of exercise websites/experts.

I will admit to being hardcore about getting up early... 5:45 am when I'm being really consistent, let's me workout til about 7:30 am. Gets easier though when I actually feel GOOD all day after working out! (When I'm consistent... this month I've been sick and dealing with minor ouches so it's been two weeks mostly off. Bleah. I really felt the pushups this morning! I usually don't feel them that much if I've been doing them consistently.)

Plus, evenings are still only occasionally doable for workouts.

My Sep, Oct, and Nov were really good. Of course, our new daughter came November 1... so consistency's been a bit more challenging for some reason ;) ...

As far as excercise is concerned, I find that WHAT is done isn't necessarily as important as doing it every day - or most days, anyway.,.. it definitely doesn't hurt to have rest days!



As to no-S, yeah, mostly.

Sunday night through Friday (day) ... I try not to eat any processed foods with sugar (I do eat fruit and drink the occasional glass of OJ/pomegranite juice), although as I've mentioned on the no-S board, I make an exception for a (small!) bit of chocolate or 4 chocolate almonds per day. Major chocaholic. Friday night through Sunday day, S-days, but I'll either have dessert, or a couple donuts, or a soda and that's about the extent of it.

I'm trying to make my diet generally healthier... steel-cut oats a lot of mornings, for instance, and getting more veggies.

I pretty much keep to no snacks and no seconds all week. They're not really my big vices, unless we're at a buffet restaurant or something, which we do maybe once a year. OTOH - I have been known to have waffles with maple syrup on N-days. I consider that about like the (small amount) of sugar in my coffee, though... sweetener for the meal, not a 'violation'... but then, I'm not using a tracker, either.

Although I do typically have 3 solid meals and a "1/2 meal" most days (an apple + a few almonds + maybe a fiber one bar mid-afternoon).

I do want to add back more cardio, though, and a lot of other things to boot.

Exercise is a better hobby than the 4-5 hours of computer games I was doing a couple years ago... AND since there's really only so much exercise (at most 1-2 hours a day) I want to do... I still have time for family / games / etc (at least when my MBA's done in May!).

I went from 220 to 208 from August of last year through December, and managed to only gain 2 lbs Dec/Jan. I'm satisfied with it so far, I just have a ways I'd like to go.

SG's been a big hit for me, though. It's a fun and satisfying component of the big picture.

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