how about 3 times a week?

Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your "shovelglove." Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, and wood chopping motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays. Baffled? Intrigued? Charmed? Discuss here.
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guille
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how about 3 times a week?

Post by guille » Wed Jun 23, 2010 9:35 pm

hi

i want to do two different workouts, one is shovelglove and the other is a bodyweight workout that takes 14 min too, i find it interesting because its a perfect balance to shovelglove , it works the few muscles shovelglove doesnt, legs, neck, and an extra work in the core and spine.
so it may be great to prevent injury

if you are interested to know, the exercises are the bridge (on the hands and neck) , full squats and hindu squats, and an exercise im not sure its name, its like a moving side plank.

in the begining i thought of doing one workout in the morning and the other in the afternoon, but that would be doing 28 min of workouts per day and i want to follow the shovelglove philosophy , 14 min per day not more not less, so thinking in a way to solve this problem i came out with doing the work outs on non consecutive days, that is one day shovelglove next day bodyweight rutine, for 6 days(i know, its more than 5, but better than 2 times a week for 5 days)

so i will be doing each workout 3 times per week.
my only doubt is what results will i get of doing shovelglove 3 times instead of 5?

the muscle is supoced to have good results of resting one day and working the next so maybe this rutine will be ideal, i will let you know

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:30 pm

Hi guille,

My suggestion is to make the exercise habit that you commit to purely about time (say, 14 minutes every N-day), then leave the kind of exercise you do during that time up to your daily self. That way you can seamlessly incorporate shovelglove, this bodyweight thing, and whatever else seems appealing down the line into your routine without risking the habit of N-daily exercise that you're investing in.

More on that idea ("14 minutes of ANYTHING") here:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=38

In terms of "optimizing" the timing of your routine to something more complex than 14 minutes every N-day, I'd be very cautious.

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil." -- Donald Knuth

Is it really physiologically better to take a rest day between workout sessions? Possibly -- if you're a bodybuilder or professional athlete. But I doubt you're going to see discernible benefit at the ordinary human level, and psychologically you sacrifice a powerful, habit friendly simplicity when you move away from using the weekday-weekend dichotomy of the calendar as your ally. And the psychology is by far the more important part.

Did farmers and manual laborers take every second day off? And they only had one S-day a week till "the folks who brought you the weekend" did their bit. And they worked a hell of a lot more than 14 minutes at a stretch. So I wouldn't worry that you are going to kill yourself doing this amount of physical work five days straight.

Best of luck, whatever you decide,

Reinhard

guille
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Post by guille » Tue Jun 29, 2010 6:25 pm

very interesting
loved that podcast

in fact im sure that doing more than 14 min per day may be risky, in the sence of not doing anything in the long term

im not thinking in 3 times a week because of muscle performance, just as you mentioned 14 min of anything every normal day applies, its just that i have 2 types of exercices i like to do , one is shovelglove and the other are those specific bodyweight exercises, as you saw i didnt mention push ups , pull ups , crunches, etc. And thats because i dont like them

so in order to be able of doing both exercises i like on regular bases ,logic is to divide in in 2, one day shobelglobe , next day bridge rutine

but that would mean 3 times of shoveling instead of 5, and my worry is not getting the best results of shoveling if i do it 3 times instead of 5

was i clear? Or too confusing?

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david
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Post by david » Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:30 pm

I've done it the MWF Shovelglove and T/Th bodyweight exercise route and I've also done the M though F Shovelglove route. In either case, the work is every N-day and it goes 14 minutes. Both got me good, but slightly different results. These days I still do the 14 minutes every N day but exercise content is based on my mood when I wake up.

--David

guille
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Post by guille » Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:41 pm

thanks for your answer david

what do you mean by "slightly different results"

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david
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Post by david » Thu Jul 01, 2010 3:12 pm

You'll have to experiment on your own. In my experience, five SG days in a row is intense in a different way than interspersing SG with BW exercise days. Maybe try a month one way and then a month the other.


--David

larisa0001
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Post by larisa0001 » Sat Jul 24, 2010 5:26 am

I've been doing the "14 minutes of anything" - I tend to get overenthusiastic about weight training and get injured, and I'm trying to avoid that now. Shovelglove is very hard on the hands, and my hands are not in the best of condition, so I'm being careful. I intersperse my Shovelgloving with some yoga and a few other exercises that don't use the hands, to give them a chance to rest. I figure as long as I put in my 14 minutes, the habit is there, and this way I can vary the exercises enough so that I don't hurt myself.

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Post by larisa0001 » Sat Jul 24, 2010 5:28 am

By the way, when I did a harder workout (1 hour of weights at a gym), I used a different "system" that I think is simpler - every other day, without fail. I was in school at the time, so the weekday/weekend division wasn't very meaningful to me, and this way the only question I had to ask myself was "Did I work out yesterday?" If the answer was no, I went to the gym.

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