Day 73 - Max Cardio Conditioning

Today was supposed to be Max Cardio Conditioning & Cardio Abs, but there was a traffic incident, so I had to cut Cardio Abs so I could spend time driving very slowly to work.........

I struggled to get my heart rate up this morning.  Hopefully it's just tiredness, and I'm not coming down with something.

I'm hoping to have a bit more energy for tomorrow's Back To Core & Ab Shredder.

Day 72 - Strength & Relief

Today's Strength and Relief were fairly tough.  I awoke this morning with very sore shoulders.  Now sure why, as yesterday's workout shouldn't have affected them too much.  Whatever it was, it made the overhead presses more difficult than normal.

I matched my personal best of eight in the pyramid row push-ups, which I'm happy with.  Not sure that I'll ever get to nine, as I'm pretty close to running out of time for the eight.

The rest of the workout went ok.  Once again, my efforts in the pyramid row completely wiped out my arms, and I was unable to complete the following set of hip flies.

It's back to Insanity tomorrow for some Max Cardio Conditioning and Cardio Abs.

Day 71 - Max Interval Circuit & Fit Test

This morning was proper work!  90 minutes of Insanity should wipe anyone out, and it certainly did.

Today was a repeat of Day 8 - Which held my record for calories burned in a day.  Did I beat it's 1345 calorie burn?  No.

  

 Am I upset about it?  Again, no, and I'll explain why.

Firstly, let's look at today's measurements;

No real difference to last week, but you'll see that since day 8, I've lost 2.5Kg.

Now the important numbers - The fit test results.  Today's fit tests went pretty well if I do say so myself;

I didn't just obliterate my Day 8/Week 2 numbers - Apart from the Globe Jumps, I either matched or beat my personal bests set back in March.  Combined I improved by a smidge over 5% on my personal bests, and 25% better than my Week 1 numbers.  I'm fitter than I've been in years!

So, I'm lighter, and fitter.  That means that my calorie burn has to drop.  It's a bit of a pain, as I'll have to get fatter if I want to beat that Day 8 calorie burn.

I'm obviously fairly chuffed.  Hopefully I'll nail that 11th Globe Jump next week and have improvement across all my scores.

It's Strength & Relief tomorrow.  For now, I'll leave you with today's time lapse;

Day 70 - Rest Day & Week 10 Analysis

There's just two weeks till this is finished, three weeks till The Force Awakens, and four weeks till Christmas!  Things are looking good!

I've enjoyed this last week.  Even though I failed to complete week 8, those previous three weeks were a slog, and I needed this downtime.

I'm not going to go too mad with the data, but for those who are interested;

That's 2888 calories burned in just over 4.6 hours this week.  It's strange to think of that as relaxing, as it wasn't that long ago that I wasn't doing any form of exercise.  It'll do for this week.

That's 10 weeks done!  The final two weeks are going to be tough, but I know I can do it!

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's Fit Test - It has been 8 weeks since the last one, and I'm hoping to see some improvements.  The rest of next week is a repeat of week 2, which is a little daunting, as that holds the record for both calories burned in a week, and calories burned in a single day.  Sounds like a challenge :)

It has been a few weeks since I included a third party video, but this has to be shared;

Day 69 - Relief

The child in me couldn't miss day 69, so I forwent my Friday morning lay in for some relief.

All went well, until I noticed that my GoPro had stopped recording.  I'm hoping it's just a dodgy SD card, and will be testing some spares to make sure it's ready for tomorrow.  If not, then I may have to look at other cameras, which would be a bit of a pain.

Here's what I did manage to capture;

So that's the final stretch before the final stretch.  Just two weeks left to go!

Day 68 - Max Recovery

Yay! More recovery!  I'm ready for a workout now.

I've still got a session of relief that I should squeeze in at some point, but I think I'm done for this week.

Day 67 - Core Cardio & Balance

Better late than never!  I ran out of time yesterday to complete my workout, so will be shuffling things around a bit.  I plan to either do a double one day, or simply switch my day off from Friday to Tuesday.  It's not a hardship, as it's a very light week, an simply a case of squeezing Relief in somewhere........

Today's Core Cardio & Balance went great.  I feel really good after completing it.

It's Max Recovery next............

Day 66 - Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs

It was freezing this morning, but a return to Insanity warmed me up nicely.  I've missed the Insanity workouts, and Pure Cardio is a good one - Just the right length, nicely paced, and a good variety of upper and lower body work.

Cardio Abs on the other hand felt like a bit of a waste.  I need more of an ab workout that it could provide, but this is supposed to be a lighter week.

The week gets even lighter tomorrow with Core Cardio & Balance.

Day 65 - X Trainer & Relief

Today was X-Trainer, and I loved it!  I don't know why, but I felt good, Shaun T kept making me smile, and everything just came together for a really good workout.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs - Bring it on!

Day 64 - Cardio Recovery

It's recovery week!  I'm going to enjoy this one.

Today's cardio recovery was nice and short - Just half an hour.  That meant I got extra time in bed, did the workout after the heating had kicked in, and still had breakfast with my family.  Awesome stuff!

I also did my weekly weigh-in and measure;

There's only one number that significantly changed, and that's my weight - I lost a whole kilogram!  That's my biggest single week loss of the programme!  I'm happy with that.

There's a bit more work to do tomorrow in X-Trainer & Relief.  It's starting to get cold here in the UK, so I might wait for the house to warm up a bit before starting.

Day 63 - Rest Day & Week 9 Analysis

It has been a tough week, made tougher by the preceding two weeks.  If I had another week like this, then I might very well have thrown in the towel for good on this hybrid, but thankfully, it looks like I've reached the peak of this workout, and will get a bit of a rest before it picks up again towards the end.

That end is well and truly in sight - Just three weeks to go!  That's pretty exciting.

So how did I do this week?  I'm not expecting much, as I was still feeling the effects of a rubbish week 8.  As per normal, I pulled the data from my Polar H7 Bluetooth 4.0 Heart Rate Sensor and recorded totals for duration and calories burnt.

Firstly, lets look at the last nine weeks of this Hybrid.  We'll start with the total duration;

The difference in time between weeks 7 & 9 is due to me skipping Relief on day 59 (Back & 6-Pack).

Now we look at the calorie burn;

I burned just 4782 calories this week.  Whilst not terrible, it's almost a whole workouts worth less than week 7's 5302.

Now let's look at those two graphs combined;

It's not great, but this week was not about beating my personal bests - It was picking myself up after last week's fall.  I made it through, and will now hopefully make it through the rest of this Hybrid.

Purely out of interest, I thought I'd take a look at this week's individual workouts compared to week 7's to see where that difference was;

The Back & 6-Pack calorie drop is understandable, as it was 23 minutes shorter than week 7.  Otherwise, I was consistently worse in three of the five other workouts.  It wasn't all bad, and I did feel fitter in this week's Vertical Plyo - It may have just been my imagination, but I felt I was jumping higher and for longer.

To sum up this week, I didn't do great, but I'm feeling better.  I'm looking forward to a lighter week 10, and really looking forward to the final two weeks - I want to see how I've improved in the fit tests.

That'll do for this week.

Day 62 - Speed and Agility & Back To Core

I feel tired.  Constantly tired.  Three more weeks of this, and then I'm taking a few days off!

Today was a struggle.  There were many, many breaks, but I really don't care.  These last three weeks have been very tough, and I'm surprised that I managed to complete this week at all.

Today's calorie burn was lower than day 48's;

I'm not hugely surprised.  Most of my workouts this week have produced lower than expected calorie burns, but I don't think I could have pushed any harder.  I'm wiped out.

Next week I'm repeating week 6's recovery week.  I'm looking forward to a lighter week!

It's rest day tomorrow, and I'll be looking back at this week's numbers.

Day 61 - Max Recovery

That was tougher than expected.  It seems that 12 hours was not enough time for my arms to recover from yesterday's Overtime, so I struggled with what should have been a fairly light workout.

At least I'll have at least 22 hours before tackling tomorrow's Speed & Agility and Back To Core.

Day 60 - Vertical Plyo, Overtime & Relief

That's more like it!  Tonight's workout was a beast, but not only did I make it through, I also managed to improve on week 7's workout by 90 whole calories!  Not too shabby.

Overtime was as horrible as ever, but that's what it's for.

It's Max Recovery tomorrow.  Am looking forward to a slightly more chilled workout.

Day 59 - Back and Six Pack

I was running short on time this morning, so no Relief today.  If I start feeling creaky, I might do it after work.

Back and Six Pack went OK.  I was a bit annoyed, as I was pretty close to completing without a break.  The hip flies and those final flutter kicks are a real git.

It's Vertical Plyo, Overtime and Relief tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll be able to get them done before work, but need to be in early to setup some exams, so may have to postpone.