Azimuth-san,

Thank you for the suggestion. I really don't like long distance running due to the monotony of it all. That and I don't want to lose muscle. I don't want the endurance of a marathon runner, but that of a boxer. Explosive edurance instead of a gradually increasing endurance.

OSU! again thank you for the suggestions.

09/18/2006

Class finally starts today after a 2.5 month long hiatus. The dojo was scheduled to be re-opened in mid-August but it's now mid-september. I feel that i've accomplished a lot during that break though and i've been practicing a lot of kihon (not as much kata though ) to supplement with my weight training exercises.

Some things that i've worked on during the hiatus were to get my left arm as strong as my right arm. I feel that my left arm has DEFINITELY come a long way and am surprised by the rate at which the body reacts to stresses. I did dumbbell bench presses so that each arm and chest muscle had to compensate for an equal amount of weight instead of the bench press with a bar that one arm can compensate for another arm's weakness.

I combined that with heavy bag and muy thai bag training.

Start off with practicing kihon on the bags. One kick, set down. 10 reps per leg. Then work in combinations.

To build up stamina, I started with 1 minute rounds. Twelve of them. I would switch bags every round so that I could keep track of rounds without having to count them. I'd just count the bags that i've been on. (Total of 5 bags at my gym). I've worked up to 1:30 rounds with 1 minute rests. I feel that i'm ready to move to 2:00 rounds though. My goal is 3:00 rounds with 1 minute rests.

To burn fat, i've recently added HIIT training. High Intensity Interval Training. HIIT is great for people that want to burn fat but not the muscle. The way it works is

30 seconds medium pace speed
30 seconds "As fast as you can. As if your life depended on it" speed

alternating between the two you can really start to feel the burn around the 3 - 4 minute mark. Right now i'm doing 4 - 5 minutes of that with a goal of 15 minutes.

I'm now down to 195.

Lately, i've been having a complex with the amount of time that I have to train due to full time work AND full time school. My days are something along the lines of 15 hour days on my hard days, and 12 hour days on my "easy" days. During the first week of this new schedule, I was dragging the whole time. Bitching, Whining, Complaining, about the fact that I hate having days this long etc etc. That's when I realized two things.

1. Attitude is everything
2. Your body compensates VERY quickly to stresses if you allow it too.

My attitude was negative and therefore my body felt the aftermath of that. Dragging, Drudging, Hating, waking up. Hating the fact that I only got 6 hours of sleep somedays and 5 hours on others. But your attitude will dictate a lot of things in life, especially hard situations. Instead of looking at whether or not the glass was half empty or half full, I appreciated the fact that I actually HAD water.

Currently, my body has adjusted to this new schedule. I'm no longer as tired as I used to be.... although I wish I had more time for homework. My workout schedule is coming along quite nicely. The only problem now is finding work outs that allow me to maximize the amount of time (or lackthereof) I have to spare for that. Lately it's been just a lot of bag work, kihon, and HIIT. That and core work, lower back and abs.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings......