June Link Round-up

Oy! The summer semester was intense. But awesome. And after that I had to move. Thankfully, this was followed by short vacation.

But I'm finally back to posting. This post is the stuff I had put together for the June Link Round-up, but apparently had been left as a draft for two whole months. Honestly, the program was so intense that I didn't even realize that I'd missed posting for that long.

So, what have we got this time?

Tracking your Progress

Jefit is smart phone app for tracking your workout. I've tried a few others and settled on this one.
The advantages of this app, as I see it:

• Can program in any exercise, if it's not in the database you can add your own
• Can set-up rest times, sets and reps - makes it easy to create a complete design
• Can super-set exercises - that is pair them so that you alternate from one exercise and back to another
• Tracks your progress

Tracking your workouts is incredibly important. If you aren't tracking then you are just working out. Just passing time and burning calories.

But what we want is strength training. We need to be able to check that we are making progress. To set goals and challenge ourselves. This all means you need to be tracking your numbers.

You can also just use a notebook. I did initially. But it's 2014 and I know most of you would rather an app on your phone.

If you have another favorite app, then please share in the comments.

Pell and Bag Work for Power & Speed

This article from Ross Enamait talks about additional approaches to heavy bag training. I feel the advice applies to pell work as well. 

The short version is to include periods of pell/bag work done at maximum intensity, with simple actions, shorter periods. Typical bag work is done on the same timer as a boxing match 3:00 on and 1:00 off. Or a variation thereof. But this never gives you a stimulus to go higher - in encourages you to pace yourself. Sometimes you need to push it though, and this will develop different characteristics than regular bag and pell work.

On Intensity

This blog post from my friend J. Forrest Conway talks about intensity in workouts. It's allure and the dangers therein. I know I've had this problem myself. And I think anyone who gets serious about their training has a high risk of 'addiction' to training and then overtraining.


Cheers,