Two or three of our readers are interested in my "boot camp" activities and progress because it is informative about how trainers approach middle-age fitness these days. It's not much different from how they deal with young athletes.
Fridays are my day for general fitness and muscle endurance. Here's what he had me do this morning:
- 3 minutes of elliptical warm-up (and wake-up), then
- 1 minute elbow plank
- high-rep chest press machine
- high steps
- heavy ball smashes
- rope slams
- low-rep heavy bench press
- pull-ups to failure
- basic burpees
- heavy-hand (kettlebell) farmer's walks to grip failure
- dips to muscle failure
(Repeat the circuit of italicized sets 5 times with only 15-25 seconds between)
- cool down (?) with a couple of minutes on stair machine
That's a tough hour or so for me even without the usual squats with light military presses. I keep trying to remind myself that my breaking point is not what I think it is. I think I'll be able to do my end-of-week general fitness hour without his babysitting soon - but without the heavy bench work.
Tomorrow, he encourages me to begin to add stair machine (I call it stairway to heaven because you can die on that thing) to my cardio day routine to intensify it. It's intense already, but I do what I'm told.
