Monday, March 17, 2008

Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!

Today is St. Pats.
For those who are Catholic: Go ta Church ya bum, and stay out of the PUBS!
For those who are Irish: Stay at home! Read some history, sing some songs, and donate some money to Sinn Fein and stay out of the PUBS!
Ok, one caviat here. If you have a local and you go there every week to meet up with folks and have a couple, you are allowed to go to that pub only.
If you are not Irish, do what ever it is you do, or go go to TGIShenannigan's but stay out of my local. I am tired of trying to go down to one of the few pubs I go to to hang out with my old rugby teammates, and ending up packed to the gills with frat boys drinking green beer. I am tired of people turning a catholic holiday into an excuse to wear cheap crappy green garb, and get sh*thoused on budweiser and green food coloring. I think in order to go out and have too many on st. pats you should have to go to mass first. But then I'm a grumpy old man.

No computer this weekend as the wife was out of town. I have a laptop I've been trying to get up and rolling, but it was a big round-and-round of need drivers to operate the NIC, need to get drivers off the internet, need network connectivity to get drivers, need NIC to get to the internet.. and so on.
It was all quiet around the condo this weekend. I watched some movies (Sin City, Pumping Iron, Vision Quest, and lots of Firefly.. all of which I own) I did some drawing, which is not exactly stellar, but is good for my psyche. I plunked around on my banjo.. more of the same, and I generally spent some time to myself, which is good for me. I like hanging out with me.. I've been one of my best friends for years.

Workout posts:

Friday:
Whole Lotta Tabata:
ergometer
kb swings (44)
Renegade Man-makers (35lb dumbbell)
Suspended push-ups.
2min rest between exercises.
Tabatas on the erg are brutal. The rest weren't easy either.

Saturday:
Morn:
BJJ drills and open mat.

Evening:
tabata man-makers.
then
4x10 all @ 30

Sunday:
3x3min on 5 off
on power output: 150, 180 210
off: 80 watts.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here, here!!

Tonight I'll be drinking some Irish -Style Extra Stout on my front porch with Neighbor/Favorite Drinkin' Buddy/Work Our Partner, offering several toasts to "26 and 6".

He hangs an Irish Flag on his front porch year round. He probably went to Mass today.

I'm not sold on the "must go to Mass" rule, but I would propose:
If you didn't celebrate on 1 February and don't plan to celebrate on 9 June, you don't get to celebrate on 17 March.

If you don't know what there is to celebrate on 1 February or 9 June, you don't even get to wear green.

J.B. said...

gotta be something. It's crazy out there.

Ok, maybe forcing folks to go to mass is a bit much (and I ain't goin' so that's out) but it is a religious holiday.. so maybe they should have to go to service.. whatever their chosen.
I'll have to think on that one. Maybe yours is a more logical test.

You're referring to Texas session, and the battle of Toulouse, right?
Am I close?

I'm just waiting for people to catch on to St. David's day. Drinking red beer, wearing leeks and top hats. Why didn't that holiday catch on?

Jesse said...

JB, were those 3x3's on the hand bike or the erg?

I was thinking of adding some tabata style work into my trainer routine. Some people love doing microintervals of 30" on/30" off at very high output/rest output. Is there a big benefit in doing such intervals? Given the short rests intervals, it seems more likely that you're working on anaerobic endurance rather than maximal strength/power as you wouldn't have time to fully recover between work sets.

Am I close? Or is it just that it is a good way to get an intense workout in a very short amount of time and I'd be better off doing max power work with short intervals of 10-15" and long rests...and then doing sets of 3'-6' of sustained anaerobic work to boost Anaerobic Endurance?

Just curious to hear your take on benefits you'd get from a tabata workout that might be different from the conventional intervals I'm used to.

Also, the man makers seem aptly named.

J.B. said...

sorry, those were on the hand bike.
I'll edit the post in a sec.

You're right, in that they don't help your overall power output that much, intervals like this push your lactate threshold, and improve your ability to actively recover. So for you, you grind up a big hill can you recover and keep up with the pack on the other side. They have a huge benefit to folks who engage in activities (like grappling) that require repeated bursts.
Tabata training is unique in that it has been shown to improve the aerobic and anaerobic pathways at the same time.
With shorter intervals in general, the pathway you train depends on the intensity of the interval, the amount length of the rest relative to the interval, and the intensity of the rest. examples:

30 sec @ 250 watts
60 @80w
x10
Is very anaerobic. Intense work, long, light rest.

30 sec @ 180
60 @ 110
x10
Very aerobic. The rest intervals are fairly close to the work.

30sec @ all out
120 sec @ 30 watts.
x AMAP
would be ATP/PC (ish..it's hard to separate the anaerobic from ATP/PC)
I hope that helps.

Jesse said...

Very much so, thanks.

I'll see about mixing in a weekly tabata workout to push things on the anaerobic side as the ability to go as hard as possible and not be completely gassed would come in rather handy.

Again, much obliged.

Oh and for yesterday, despite my Catholic roots, I stayed out of the pub, out of the church, and went to the gym.