Roger's Blog

Chariots of Fire July 20, 2011

2011-07-20T10:02:00.001-07:00

Chariots of Fire was an Oscar nominated film from 1981 that I found both overrated and terribly boring. Fortunately for me (or unfortunately), today's workout was neither overrated nor boring.

The weather here is incredibly hot and muggy. Today was supposed to be the worst of the week so far. Temperatures were supposed to reach 100 degrees and with the heat index, it was supposed to feel like 115. At 5:30 in the morning, though, it wasn't too bad. Only about 78 and, when I got out of the car, there was a slight breeze.
This should be doable.

I knew things would be tough today when I noticed that Dustin had the tubing out which is never good. Then he told us part of our warm-up would be taking all of our things to the hill. Not only to the hill but to the top of the hill. Our weights, mats, water and whatever else we had. That was going to be quite the workout in itself. So I lugged my stuff all the way up. As an added bonus, I was trying to work through some serious shin splints. I was quite winded when I got to the top but, I must admit, I was warmed up. That wasn't enough though. Ashton had to do some additional warming up with us. Finally we were ready to go and we were split into 2 groups. The first group went down to the bottom of the hill with Dustin. The rest of us stayed at the top with Ashton.

We did 8 sets of exercises with Ashton, 4 on the mat, 4 standing with weights. Then we would repeat. I started with the standing weight exercises. We did walking lunges, squat jumps, walking lunges with a chop, and planks with upright rows. The 20 lb weights really do get heavy and my glasses kept getting steamed up. I also had a pesky mosquito bothering me so maybe it is time to break out the Off. Once on the mat I did v-sit ups, mountain climbers, sit-ups with the weights over our head, and lying on our backs while we did scissor legs.

Now during our exercises I was pretty curious as to what was happening at the bottom of the hill. From our angle I couldn't really see what was going on. So maybe they weren't running up the hill. Maybe chariots at the bottom. Or some kind of sprints. Still I kept an eye out. Finally I did notice the top of a head. It was there and then it was gone. I kept watching and soon I was rewarded. Here the second group came, running chariots up the hill! Oh, you have got to be kidding, I thought. Looking at the faces of the chariot runners, they weren't kidding. Oh, this should be fun, NOT! I could hardly wait for my turn to be in Dustin's group.

Well, my time came soon enough. Dustin told us that chariots was a good exercise for us, and running up the hill was a good exercise for us, so the combination of the two should be really good for us. Dang. I hate chariots, and I hate the hill so the combination of the two should be something I really hate. Now, let me explain that all exercises that are really difficult and good for me I hate. But I know how much benefit there is to doing these exercises so I willingly accept the challenge for my health, dang it. We started by running a couple 7 minute sprints to warm up. Then we would run chariots for a designated amount of time and switch places. At the end we had to run all the way up the top of the hill. The chariots weren't as bad as I thought as the longest run was 45 seconds. They were tough though. The last part, the final run up the hill, was not a good showing for me. My shin splints were hurting badly and I didn't quite make it up all the way. But a combination of running and walking did get me done and our workout was finished for the day. I did take a really long time coming down and getting back to the shelter. I think I was the last one. The humidity was really getting stifling and I was so glad it was over for the day.

Have a good one.

Heat Wave July 18, 2011

2011-07-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

At 4:30 this morning the temperature was already 82 degrees. I wasn't sure I wanted to go to bootcamp. To be honest I wasn't sure that it was the smartest or even healthiest thing to do. However, since the rest of the week isn't supposed to be any better I decided to go ahead and give it a try. That way I could judge whether or not to go the rest of the week. I did decide not to use my ac as I drove to my workout so that my system wouldn't go from the cold to the heat.

The first part of the workout wasn't too bad. Ashton had us work with partners. One of us did wall sits while the other did weighted lunge walks or half moons. Then we used our mats. On the mats we did side planks with a dip, skull crushers which is a tricep exercise, and one other exercise that slips my mind. While not on the mat we did lunges with a chop, squats with biceps, squats with deltoid work, and rows. We finished by working with our partner, doing 60 pushups between two people. My partner and I each did 30. Then it was time for cardio with Dustin.

Dustin said this heat and humidity was perfect for sprints. So that's what we did. Sprint. Over and over again. First we ran across the tennis court and rested. Then back and the same. Then we got to run across and back, then rest. Next we got to run across and back, twice. Then we did that again but we had to do push-ups as we reached the fence each time. We did get to take a water break between which was, of course, very important in the heat. We next chose a line and had to jump over it, side to side and then forward and back. We finished by shadowing another person.

When we were finished I was drenched and stinky. I had to walk a little bit and take my time catching my breath. Overall, it wasn't too bad and I got my workout done early. I think I'll try it again on Wednesday.

Have a good one.

Roger

Watch the Skies Monday, July 11

2011-07-11T08:24:00.001-07:00

This morning I was greeted with an amazing light show. When I got out of bed at 4:30 am and went downstairs, I saw a flash of light through the window. I wasn't sure at first what I was seeing so I went over to the patio window and looked out. The flashes came so quickly I wasn't sure if it was lightning. There were light flashes but no thunder. Maybe it was some kind of alien invasion like War of the Worlds. Nah couldn't be. These weren't lightning bolts. Dang. Then came the low rumble. Ok. So it was lightning and thunder. Briefly I thought about going back to bed. After all, you can't go to bootcamp in a thunderstorm. However I noticed there was no rain. Okay. What to do? I was already up so I might as well stay up. I decided to check out the bootcamp web site. Dustin said he would post by a 1/2 hour before class whether or not it was cancelled due to severe weather. When no such announcement came, off I went across town.

The parking lot was already crowded when I got there. I had to hurry as I was pulling in at the last minute and I really did not want to do push-ups. I tried to move quickly but it still looked like I was going to be the last one. Luckily as I was walking to our usual shelter Dustin was checking the weather on his cell phone. Even though the lightning had stopped it looked like rain was coming our way so he told me to go over to the other shelter. The rest of the class jogged over as part of the warm-up. Once we were all there we were in for a pretty tough workout.

The temperature was about 78 degrees with high humidity when we started. There was no breeze to speak of. To be honest, I can't even remember everything we did today. Dustin and Ashton had to make up the workout on the fly since the plan for today was scrapped due to weather. We chose partners to work with and then we separated. For core we did weighted crunches, side planks with a weighted twist, side dips with weights, and oblique work with weights. For early cardio we used the picnic table and did a kind of jogging toe tap, a side lunge with one foot on the bench and then repeated. We also sat on the bench and then stood using only one leg. After switching legs we had to sit on the bench and then jump up. Not as easy as it sounds.

Ashton had us do additional upper body work. We did push ups, tricep work while lying on our backs, upright rows, and tricep extensions. We also did 1 minute wall sits with bicep curls. I was absolutely drenched in sweat from the heat as were the other bootcampers. But we weren't done yet. Time for more cardio so out we went to the parking lot for sprints. I am happy to say that I really did go all out on my sprints but boy was I winded afterwards. Finally, to finish, we did an exercise where we mirrored what our partner was doing. I told my partner that if I vomited she didn't have to mirror that. We did this for about 3 minutes and we were done. As we left I was so glad I did the early class. I would have been so sad to just be arriving while seeing all these people soaked with sweat, looking exhausted, leaving. Still, it left me with a real sense of accomplishment. And some really wobbly legs.

Have a good one.

Back To It

2011-07-08T19:44:00.001-07:00

Friday, July 8, 2011

Hey everyone. I've had a couple people ask me about where my bootcamp blog has gone so I guess somebody has been reading it after all. So without further ado, I'm back to share with you the further grueling adventures of Roger, bootcamp sweathog.

After a nice vacation of relaxing and eating way too much I returned to bootcamp this morning. I should have returned Wednesday but only had a couple of hours of sleep Tuesday night so I wasn't quite ready to go back that morning. But today, that alarm went off and I jumped right out of bed, a smile on my face and a spring in my step. Sure. I knew it was going to be rough going today because Smilin' Ryan would be our instructor and he always challenges us way beyond what we think are our limits. And that, of course, is what we are there for.

Before beginning I doused myself with a generous amount of Deep Woods Off. Even when not bothering anyone else, those mosquitoes love me so I was going to be prepared. I saw a great commercial for this insect repellent so I knew it would be all I needed. I was careful to keep it away from my lips, though, because my brother-in-law accidentally got some on his lips and he got Angelina Jolie lips. But, I digress. After spraying myself I gathered my weights and mat and headed over. I got there just in time to hear Ryan tell us to grab our stuff and our water and head over to the hill. See, he wastes no time.

Once we got to the hill Ryan told us it was time to warm up. We needed to grab one dumbbell and follow him. I knew it was not a good sign when he told us to choose our weight carefully. We started by jogging with the weight held our in front of us. Then we did side shuffles, again with the weight held out at arms length. When Ryan told us to switch we would change direction. As we continued I noticed that my arms length kept getting shorter. After the shuffles we did some semi circles with the weight over our head and coming down to the ground, followed by an explosive jump up, all the time moving over to the side. When we finished we next did push ups for 25 seconds followed by star jumps, repeating each a couple times. Then we ran over to the shelter for some wall sits, again holding our weights out in front of us. I was breathing pretty hard already, with sweat coming down my forehead and this was the warm-up?!?

On to the hill. First we did deltoid presses, one arm for 25 seconds then the other for 25 seconds. Then we sprinted up the hill for 19 seconds. We came down and then sprinted up backwards for 18 seconds. Then forward, backward and more deltoid presses. I must admit I was pleased with myself in that I actually went all out on the sprints for once. At least forwards. I'm a little more hesitant going backwards. I don't want to fall. We did this combination 3 times with a water break thrown in. I was so happy when Ryan told up we were on our last sprint as my legs were pretty tired.

When we finished we got into groups of 3 and moved away to where Ryan had set up some cones. One of us had to get a mat, the other some dumbbells, and the 3rd a tube. One person had to do a kettle move, and the other 2 had to do chariots. What?! Chariots?! With my exhausted legs?! I didn't think I possibly had this in me but I got through it. My legs, of course, were like jello but I did get through it. We finished with 3 minutes of core work. I don't think the plank has ever been so hard, because my legs had no strength left. We also did Russian twists and V-sits, alternating between the two. I was so spent when we were finished but also had a nice feeling of accomplishment. Now, I just gotta keep at it.

Have a good one.

Outdoors Again

2011-05-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

Well, the outdoor season is upon me and I've gone through 4 classes already. I've documented the first class on Dustin Maher's website so check it out here.

I survived the first day and returned for the second. Dustin and Ashton were there to guide us through this workout. We did our warm up with Ashton and she took us out into the grass. It was a good warm up and I always kind of hang out in the back during this.

When we got to our workout it went really quickly today. We partnered up and 1/2 of us went with Ashton and 1/2 went with Dustin. Sharon and I went with Ashton. We got into groups of 4 for this part of the workout. Each participant did a different exercise. One person did a lunge walk with 6 bicep curls at the end, another did squats while holding weights followed by some squat jumps, another did planks, and another did push-ups. I must confess that I waited a while to write this blog so I can't remember what we did next. But after we did it, we rotated to the next exercise in the rotation. Then we repeated everything we did. The thing I do remember. It was a tough workout and my legs were tired when we moved over to Dustin.

Dustin took us through Sharon's favorite exercise, the Chariots. She was my partner again. The first time I was running it suddenly got really tough. I thought, wow, Sharon has really gotten stronger. Then I looked back and Dustin was holding me back with Sharon. Ouch! No wonder it was so hard. So I really started pushing and suddenly, I was almost stumbling forward! I guessed it. Dustin had let go. We did a variety of chariots across the tennis court. Once we had to stop because Sharon's glasses fell off. Sharon also snapped me in the butt with one of the tubes. She said it was because she thought her glasses were falling off again and she stopped to grab them, but I think it was because I pulled her too hard. This class ended really quickly and no hill! Awesome.

On Friday, I went alone to boot camp. Sharon had to sleep in because we stayed out too late the night before. I was tired but last year I only missed outdoor boot camps when we were out of town so I'm trying to commit myself to that again.

Dustin told us as he rounded us up that we were going to have an intense hill workout that day. Oh joy! Plus we would get an additional intense core workout with 2 visiting trainers from Michigan. Sharon suddenly looked like one extremely smart cookie! Ashton again warmed us up, this time on the tennis court. I had a new partner today. Penny. And she is in great shape so I knew it was going to take my all to keep up with her. In the warm up we did some lunge walks, jumping jacks, and jogs. But then we did some sprints. I took my time the first time across and back but Penny went pretty fast so I made myself go faster the 2nd and 3rd time across so I didn't slow her down. We finished by jogging over to the hill. And, as usual, the hill was there waiting for me.

We began by running sprints up the hill. We'd run for 30 seconds and then have 1 1/2 minutes to get back down and recover. I didn't do as well as I'd like but it was for a kind of strange reason. I couldn't seem to get any traction. Have you ever seen the Flintstones or Scooby Doo where they kind of run in place for a few seconds before they take off? That's what happened to me. The grass was still kind of frosty and I just seemed to run in place for a bit before going anywhere. No one else seemed to having this problem. Still, while my feet were slow in starting, my quads wasted no time in letting me know they were working! After the sprints we did some red light/green light activity. Like when we were kids. We'd run up the hill backwards on green light, stop on red light and then go again on green light. I knew there was a reason I always liked being the one getting to call out red light/green light when I was a kid. Paid for that today. We finished by doing side shuffles up the hill, facing our partner. We were supposed to keep up with them as best we could. I did fine on one side but kind of faded on the second. But, to my complete relief, the hill was done for the day. So back to the shelter we went.

We got some good deltoid work here. We sat on the mats and did deltoid presses while our partner pushed down on our weights. I think Penny and I did pretty well here but boy can those 20 lb weights get heavy. We also did wall sits. I hate these too! We held out weights while our partner ran around the shelter 3 times. Poor Penny. Took me a while to get around but she kept shouting encouragement. I listened to Dustin and kept to the outside of the track each time but I sure did want to take a short cut by running a little closer to the inside when I got tired. But that wouldn't really benefit anyone so I didn't do it.

We finished with the trainers from Michigan. We did some different ab work and my core was already tired. The tricky one was an exercise in which we clasped hands and pulled each other off the ground. One would sit and the other would pull the other up. It was okay on one side but when we switched sides it was almost impossible. It was kind of comical though. Luckily, by then the next class was there so time to go!

My fourth class of the week was the opening Saturday class. There were about 90 people there and the weather was good. I especially looked forward to this since Elijah, my son, would be participating. Ashton once again warmed us up. It was nice to start the warm up when it was actually warm outside. Our first task of the day, run all the way up Elver Hill and back. There was no way I thought my legs would cooperate but that was ok. I would run with Elijah to encourage him. Plus, I thought, Dustin said we would divide into two groups. The first 40 would be in the fast group and the second group would be the not as fast group. Kind of sounds like the "almost winners" they used to have on Bozo's Big Top doesn't it? Anyways, off we went and I did run with the boy. We kind of jogged over and, as I predicted, we were pretty far back. But then Elijah betrayed me. He said he was fine running by himself and he wanted me to go on without him. I asked him if he was sure, and he was, so I had to push on. I thought maybe it wouldn't be too bad knowing I only had to do it once. So I just did the best I could to get through it. As I neared the top I saw some people walking. You didn't read my first blog! I thought. I warned you! I cautiously came down, knowing I was losing speed but I really did not want to fall, I then did what I could when I was back on flat ground. Dustin and Ashton both gave me encouragement as I kind of sprinted to the end. However, I was not happy to hear Dustin call to me "22" as I passed. Dang, the fast group. Still, when I was finished and kind of jogging in place to not come down too fast my heart leaped. There was Elijah coming down the hill, running! I was so proud of him at that moment. The kid didn't give up. Sharon finished up and I pointed out to her that he was still going. We shouted out encouragement to him and some of our fellow boot campers shouted out to him too! He liked that. He told me later he heard people calling out to him to keep going. He did make it to the end too!

After everyone was finished Dustin divided us up. One group went to the shelter and the next group, off to the hill. The hill! Seriously? And who was waiting at the hill? Ryan. Smiling Ryan. I went back for my water bottle and over to the hill. Luckily we were divided again into groups and I was in the core group first. We did planks, side planks, bicycles, and V-sits. Then off to the hill. It was not encouraging when a younger guy who looked to be in pretty good shape told me "good luck" when we passed. I tried to pace myself on the hill. We did sprints again. When Ryan said this was the last sprint so push ourselves I did. My quads burned but I was determined to give a good shot. But then, what did I see when I was walking back down? The core people were lining up at the hill again. This had to be a mistake. No mistake. Back for more core. I did it but I kept an eye out to see how much more we were gonna have to do on the hill. It was tough. Some backward running this time in addition to the sprints but for some dang reason, when we got to that last spring, dang if I didn't push myself.

Off we went back to the shelter. We did more strength training here. I did mostly 20 lbs but did have to drop to 12-15 on some. At one point we did something where we turned and I could see my son on the hill. He was working at it. I saw him going up and then running down. However, later I was laughing as I looked and he was rolling down! That's my kid!

Saturday was really fun. We worked very hard. No mistake about it. But we got to see some people from the other camps and I got to see some of the instructors I had never met before. And it was great for Elijah. He was encouraged and wants to attend more Saturdays.

Have a good one!

Roger

December 20, 2010-This Week's Bootcamp. Ouch!

2010-12-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

Wow. What a workout yesterday. Can barely move my arms today. So glad that the snow we had to shovel was so light. Dustin told us we would be doing an intense upper body workout and that we did.

There were three stations yesterday. We used the barbell, the stage, and the TRX straps. Sharon and I used the barbells first. We did barbell rows, bicep curls, up right rows and then more curls. Everything was to be done very slowly, The first time through this station wasn't too bad because we only used about 44 pounds and I usually have to do more. So felt pretty good after this one.

The second station was the stage with dumb bells (the equipment, not the people). We did tricep presses and deltoid presses. Not too bad again.

Finally, the TRX straps. Very bad. Ouch. We did pulls ups using the straps. We also did push ups. Even just holding yourself up on the straps was very hard. After we went through all 3 stations we took a water break and then did them again. Nothing was so easy this time. But I didn't feel especially tired, then.

After 2 rotations we went on to the tread mill. Yes, I hate the tread mill. An incline of 15 with 20 seconds on and 20 seconds off with the speed of 8.5 mph. By the time we were done my chest was about to burst and my throat was raw. I was so glad we were done. I did have to grab the handle a few times to make sure I didn't fall off. Dustin told me to try and not hold on, just like I was on the hill. But on the hill I probably would have been walking! In any event, we were done. Great work out but left me feeling sick. And today I'm really sore.

Last week was similar only we worked on lower body. I wasn't as sore though the next day though. We intend to go to bootcamp 2 more times this week. Hopefully we'll work just as hard but not be quite as sore.

Have a good one.
Roger

Back to It-Thursday, December 9, 2010

2010-12-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

Well, this week I got back to boot camp after a week off due to illness. Ugh, it's hard to get back even after 1 week.

On Monday, we did the bar workout. Ouch. The bar workout is really tough. As I've said before, 60 lbs can get really heavy when you have to lift it repeatedly! At least the push ups were easier. My arms and legs were extremely weak when we were done and I felt nauseous. It was a pretty great workout!

Wednesday was a fun circuit. We had about 32 people at bootcamp that day. We were divided into 5 or 6 circuits including one using the TRX straps. Every station challenged us in a different way. We used the stability ball for core and the dumb bells for triceps, deltoids, back, glutes, and hamstrings. The TRX worked on our core, chest and balance. It was a workout that truly encompassed all areas. After the stations we found a partner and passed the stability ball around in a variety of ways. We also held the plank position on the ball while our partner tried to push us off. Sharon and I both talked about what a good yet challenging time we had doing this workout.

Have a good one.

Roger

Challenges and Obstacles-December 4, 2010

2010-12-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. Haven't been to bootcamp since November 24th. Here is a blog I posted on another site about that experience.

Have a good one.

Roger

Tuesday Musings November 23, 2010

2010-11-23T19:35:00.000-08:00

Was a very difficult morning yesterday. Hard to get up and get going after an exhausting weekend. But, get up I did. What a surprise to arrive and find that Ryan was our leader for bootcamp. As usual he gave us a very tough workout. He makes it all look so easy but it never is! We did a couple different rotations. Lots of push ups as usual. I had a hard time with the jump rope. It wasn't that it was exhausting me but I kept tripping. One jump rope was much too long and the other too short. I wound up using the short one and just kind of bending my head over so that I could keep going. The long rope just didn't work for me! We did a great deal of core and upper body work. I didn't even realize how hard we were working until we were almost done and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to finish. When we left I felt I had no strength left in my arms. It was a great workout.

Today we worked out at the Princeton Club. The gym we usually use was unfortunately double booked so we go the boot out of boot camp. Sharon and I were so disappointed that we worked out at the club and then forced ourselves to go out for breakfast. Not a great decision but it was pretty tasty.

Have a good one.

Roger

Another 2fer Sunday, November 21, 2010

2010-11-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

Went to 2 bootcamps last week. We went out of town for a professional visitation day for me so missed on Friday. Don't like missing Ryan's classes since he is so enthusiastic and motivational. Won't see him this week either. Oh well.

We had a great couple workouts. Unfortunately just a tad under the weather this week so they seemed really hard. Did some TRX training and some tough cardio on the stair master. We also did some core work on the stability ball. Overall just some good old fashioned hard work.

Have a good one.

Roger

Thursday, Nov 11, 2010 To the Core

2010-11-11T10:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a strong core workout. We got a relief from too much arm work because so many people were still sort from the bar workout on Monday.

When we started class I noticed there was not too much equipment out so I thought, "Oh, no, the treadmill." Luckily I was in a for a nice surprise when Dustin said he wanted to take advantage of the nice weather while we had it and took us outside for some cardio. We broke off into groups of three and ran a kind of relay. We weren't racing each other but just needed to push ourselves the best we could. While you were running you were supposed to carry a 15 lb. weight over your head. Had to be careful not to drop it or carry it to low or you would get a nice little bump on your head! It was still somewhat dark outside too so also wanted to be careful not to fall. That would hurt and be kind of embarassing. After the relays we did some regular sprinting. I find that I really enjoy that as long as I'm not tackling some huge incline!

Inside we worked with partners. We did some things alone like one person doing a leg pendulum with the stability ball while the other did crunches with weights. We also did some cool partner things like one person staying in the plank position while the other did pushups off their back. Unfortunately Sharon had a really sore back yesterday so I had to do this off the stability ball. That can be pretty challenging though. I've done it as an instructor though so I was able to push myself. We also did side planks where our partner held us up by both legs and then by one leg while we had to hold the other up. That was very hard. I had to use one hand to help support though. I really wanted to be careful of Sharon's back.

It was a very good workout. I laughed because Dustin said it probably wasn't as intense a workout as we usually do and we probably weren't as sweaty...but I was drenched and Sharon was sweatier than usual so I think it was pretty darn good!

Have a good one.

Roger

November 8, 2010 Fit Fun Boot Camp-You Are There

2010-11-08T21:39:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. Instead of telling you about boot camp today I thought I would show you. This video was taken over a couple days using the Sony "Bloggie" which is like a Flip camera. It has very limited internal memory though. I didn't know that and ran out of memory right away on the first day. I got a memory card and added some more to it. That's why in one clip I'm all sweaty and in the next I'm dry. Anyways, I've blogged so much about it I thought I'd give you a brief look at a workout. Oh, and sorry about any Blair Witch shaking to the video quality!

Have a good one!

Roger

Wednesday, November 3 2010 2 for 1

2010-11-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. Posting about my workouts on Monday, November 1 and Wednesday, November 3. Trying to keep a good record for myself of what I've done so don't want to leave any workouts out.

Monday was not my finest hour. The workout was good and challenging but I was under the weather a bit. Hadn't been feeling well all weekend but would not let myself use that as an excuse. We did a great deal of core using the stability ball, used the tread mill, worked with weights. Sharon said she could tell I wasn't myself. But I did work hard. And I got my workout.

Today was an extensive cardio workout. Dustin warned us of that in advance. We did a nice workout to get the blood flowing and the muscles warmed up and then BAM! Started on the treadmill, 30 seconds on 45 seconds off so that we could do 10 pushups in between. Dustin wanted me to have a nice sprint so he set my treadmill at 9.5. Boy does that belt move fast at 9.5! I had to walk for a couple of seconds before doing my push ups to catch my breath.

Back in the exercise studio we used the stability ball. One person did planks on it while the other person tried to knock them off with their arms the first time and their legs the second time. We also threw the ball to each other while sitting in a V and then catching it with our legs. Then we threw it pushing out at chest level while in a lunge position. Finally one partner sat in a bridge position while the other did tricep dips of their legs. That was tricky! While still in the room we also did wheelbarrows across. Dustin was my partner for this because Sharon's back is still sore. He pushed me hard so I get across the floor pretty fast.

We finished with more treadmill. 15 seconds on, 30 seconds off at a 15% incline. This time, due to the incline I guess, I only had to run at an 8.0. When we were finished today I was really whipped. Sharon was incredibly happy because she loves cardio.

That's it for today. Have a good one.

Roger

Friday, October 29, 2010 Fun Times

2010-10-30T20:54:00.002-07:00

We had a smaller group for boot camp on Friday. Maybe some people decided to sleep in. It was my first work out as a 49 year old man. Jeez, fifty is right around the corner.

I had such a good time in class today. Ryan's choice of activities were varied and they were things that generally I'm pretty good doing. We did a couple different kinds of sprints with push ups at either end. Since Ryan called attention to the fact that most of us weren't getting low enough I've really tried to focus on form and getting lower. I'm happy to say it's getting easier. Not easy, mind you, just easier. Unfortunately for me though we went from sprints to ab work on the stability ball. Made me a little dizzy when I got to the ball so not sure I did my best ab work but pretty sure my form was good. I really enjoyed doing the box jump which added a burpee each time you jumped. That, my friends, was a challenge. Later we also did a rotation where we all lined up in plank position side by side. Then the person at the head of the line ran to the end while the rest of us stayed in the plank position. I, of course, didn't know we were going to be doing this so I was at the end of the line. So I got to be in that position the longest. Oh, well, good for the abs. Ryan also decided to add push ups at the end of every station and pretty much every chance he got. It was a challenging work out but everyone's enthusiasm combined with Ryan's energy just made for a really great, entertaining class. I was so glad I got up for it Friday morning.

Have a good one!

Roger

October 27, 2010 Running Fast

2010-10-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

It was very windy this morning. We could hear the wind when we woke up this morning but it didn't sound as bad as I thought it might. I hesitated a minute to decide whether or not to go to boot camp this morning. I wasn't sure that I wanted to put Brenna, my new driver, on the Beltline in those winds. Since it didn't sound too bad I figured we would go for it. Once the decision was made to go, Sharon really kept me moving. She definitely doesn't want to do extra push-ups.

We got there pretty early. In fact, we were the first ones there. Dustin told us that we were going to do a barbell workout today. He also told us exactly how many plates he wanted us to put on our barbell. He also had us change up partners today because my weights were going to be heavier than the ones Sharon used.

Again, I've said this before, but what starts our not feeling too bad sure does get heavy after a while. I used 40lbs worth of plates. We started with bench presses. First a set of 12, then 10, and then 8. My partner was Rod. I started without having him add any additional pressure as I lifted. I did have him add it for me for the other two sets though.

Next we split up. One partner went to the stage to do some leg and upper body work. The other stayed with the barbells. We started with what seemed like a dead lift and then snapped that up to a curl. I liked to call it the bend and snap. Boy did that barbell start to get heavy. By the last one of my second set it was all I could do to lift that sucker.

The second time we went through the barbell station we did the bend and snap but we then added an overhead deltoid press. Yikes, I was scared to death I would lose my balance on this. But I didn't. Dustin told me I could do it so I pushed myself through it. I missed one where I just could not lift the weight but I shook out my arms a bit and then did do it. We did some swimmers after.

We finished off with the treadmill. 30 seconds off and 3o seconds on. We had a 10% incline. Rod and I started off pretty well I thought. Dustin apparently didn't think so. He came over and set our speed at 7.8. We were only at a 6. Oh my goodness was this hard. At one point I accidentally shut the machine down using the emergency stop. And it really was an accident. Well, I couldn't figure out how to turn it back on so I had to call Dustin back over to restart it for us. When he did, he reset it to 8.2! Yikes! I had to grab on to the bar after about 20 seconds. Still we both did it. Luckily then it was time to go home.

One last note. Sharon is starting to do non-modified push-ups. She isn't going low enough yet (but she knows that) but she keeps working her way to the correct down position. Keep going Sharon!

Have a good one!

Roger

Monday, October 25, 2010 Packers/Vikings? I'll take the Lions

2010-10-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

Stayed up late watching the Vikings/Packer game. I must admit I didn't really have much at stake in the outcome. I cheered mainly for the Packers for Sharon's sake. And, during the final suspense filled quarter, I kept switching back and forth to Viva Las Vegas with Elvis and Ann-Margret. I cheer for the Lions. How can one not love a team that selflessly makes fans of different teams happy every week? And this week they made their own fans happy. They had a bye. But you just wait until next year...or the next...or the next...

Sharon was very tired after watching the game and then staying up to watch the press coverage. I actually fell asleep first which is very rare. This morning she told me she was glad I got up because if I had suggested we go back to sleep, she would have willingly gone back to sleep. However, once up she made she we hurried because she didn't want to be late and have to do extra push ups!

We wondered if Dustin would make it today since he was at the game last night. Had to be a late night for him. But he told us he was committed to being there and he was. It was, as usual, an excellent work out. We started with core work on the ball, leg work off the stage, and upper body work using the TRX equipment. Unfortunately I tweaked my hamstring during the leg work which hindered me a bit.

After the strength portion we did some intense cardio intervals on the tread mill. I couldn't run as fast as I should have but I had to cut myself a little slack with my stupid hamstring. Luckily, it does feel better now so I'm not sure what I did at the time.

We finished with some more core work on the ball, some strength training and some more core with the TRX straps. By the time we were done I was drenched. I love when my workouts leave me that way. Not so sure the people around me feel the same way.

Have a good one.

Roger

Friday, October 22, 2010 Smilin' Ryan

2010-10-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hard getting up this morning. At about 3:15 am my son woke me up to ask me not to go to boot camp today. On the days Sharon and I go to boot camp his sister drives him to school. He likes when we do it better I guess. Later in the morning he called and I told him I did give him a kiss before I left. He said he knew. He felt it. However, it was 4:45 am, and I suppose he didn't want me to wake him up after all.

We started with a general warm up with Ryan and then switched to the card game warmup. Yikes! I couldn't believe it. Catching eye contact with a couple other members I think they agreed with me. In case you don't remember how the card game works, someone takes a card off the top of the deck. Each exercise is assigned a suit. Whatever suit comes up, you have to do that exercise. Today we did push ups with a twist, swimmers, low quad jumping jacks, and scissors. It did indeed warm us up a great deal.

For our stations it seemed like we did many exercises that affected the quads. Through the course of the workout we did sprints, one legged glute lifts on the ball, lifting the ball about 6" off the ground with our legs and holding, bent over flys, more push ups with a twist, bulgarian lunges, low walks with weights, squat jumps, one legged hops in a square plus some partner work. My legs, particularly my quads, were indeed screaming. Perfect season for it!

In all of the boot camp classes we go through many exercises. I have a love/hate relationship with them. Love them when I'm done, but hate them when I'm doing them :) I don't think I could have ever been an athlete. You read about how they love working through the pain and pushing themselves beyond that threshold. I try to push myself, but I don't love it. Again, just love it when I'm done and have that feeling of accomplisment. But, one thing for sure about boot camp, I definitely get my money's worth!

Have a good one.

Roger

Thursday, October 21 Will's Workout

2010-10-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Had Will for an instructor this week. This was only our second time having him. The last time we chatted with him after class about Michigan Stadium and the renovations as well as the team. When he saw us Wednesday he said, "I remember you two." So I guess he remembered our conversation.

I liked Will's workout. It was every bit as intense as Dustin and Ryan's yet it was different. We basically did the same exercises but he seemed to teach a little more like I teach my body sculpting classes. I was still a sweaty mess at the end though. He is very much like Ryan and Dustin in that he is very encouraging and pushes you to do your best. I remembered what Ryan told us about our class push ups last week so I really worked at keeping my head straight and lowering myself down closer to the ground. I certainly could feel it. Sharon did a great job keeping herself on her toes while we did rows from the plank position. She also tried to do a few push ups in the regular position, not the modified one! Woo hoo!

Well, Ryan again tomorrow. I'm tired already!

Have a good one.

Roger

Monday October 18, 2010 Day After

2010-10-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

This morning would have been a very good morning to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep. While I was still a little sore from Ryan's Push Up Fest on Friday, I was really sore from my own body sculpt class. My legs in particular. But that was a very convenient excuse so I made myself get up and go.

I have to admit that my body made my work out very difficult today. When we were doing squat jumps in the warm up I knew, "Ok. This is going to be a challenge!" I didn't completely meet the challenge but I know I did the best I could. Push ups were a challenge. The first one we did I found I couldn't do. I couldn't bring myself up. But I did the second and went from there. I tried to do as many as I could on my toes. Now and then I'd go down on the knees and stretch and then get back up and try again.

The other stations weren't so bad. Anything involving the quads and keeping low were hard. We did many things for the legs in my class yesterday so working those again today...ouch! We also did side leg lifts which we did yesterday with bands so I was really paying for that today. Serves me right as I love having my class do those. Luckily we didn't do anything that had the inner thigh as the primary focus because the inner thighs are truly one of the weak spots.

In any event, glad I came and worked out and pushed myself through my soreness to get a good workout. I thought maybe the soreness would lessen as I became more warmed up but no such luck. So now a little rest, no weight training tomorrow, and back to it on Wednesday!

Have a good one.

Roger

Sunday October 17, 2010 Push Up Exhaustion

2010-10-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

It is now Sunday and my chest still has not recovered from all the push ups we did in boot camp on Friday. All told Ryan said we did over 200 push ups by the end of class.

Friday was a high energy, intense workout as Ryan's always seem to be. I was tired before we even finished the warm up. We did many different stations that involved front and side planks, box jumps, sprints, deltoid presses, dead lifts using the plates, lifts across the body, and walking lunges. We also did push ups with a fly lift. Then we did more push ups. Then we had to start doing 10 push ups at the end of every station. It started to seem like endless push ups. We also had to do the card game. There is a pile of cards and each suit represents an exercise. You either did 5 burpees, 10 push ups (of course), 20 V-sit ups or 15 of something else. I'm still so exhausted I can't remember what the 15 things were. Also, if you pulled a joker you had to run in place for 30 seconds with high knees. After class, my arms were shaking. It must have been 9 am before I felt like I had any strength back in them. It was a great workout. Loved it!

I taught body sculpt today. We did some exercises for the chest but I didn't do push ups. Still, my chest is now more sore than ever. We don't do our exercises at the same rate that we do in boot camp since we are not looking at the cardio component but I do try to incorporate some of the same exercises into my classes. Hopefully I gave my class a workout that left them feeling as great as I did after mine on Friday.

Have a good one.

Roger

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Balancing Act

2010-10-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Today's boot camp had a lot of core work that helped us with balance. Maybe not the best day for it.

Sharon and I got up at the usual time and drove to the health club. It was unusual in that I drove. I'm usually pretty tired in the morning but I've been worse after school so I had to drive. We arrived on time (no extra push-ups) and went in. Sharon, unfortunately, tripped on a step leading to the exercise room and fell down. Ouch! Sore knee to start class.

We broke into two groups for strength training and core work. The strength training was good, even though I had to keep adjusting so I would jump from the floor to the stage with both feet instead of leading with one. The core work was hard. We did push ups on the ball with our toes resting on the top, side planks with our feet resting on the ball and our body on the floor, more push ups, and then more side planks with our body on the ball. I did okay. The push ups were especially difficult, trying to remain on my toes while I tried to balance and do a push up. The side planks were not easy either and I know I had to get back on the ball a couple times. I did notice that Sharon was having an even harder time and finally just did the exercises on the floor.

Later we played catch with the stability balls. We would V-sit and toss the ball to the other person who would then try to catch it with their feet. This was a bit tricky. Once I tossed the ball to Sharon and she missed it. It kept bouncing and went and bounced on someone's head! Other times after I caught the ball I would fall back.

Next we stayed in the V-sit but rotated our torsos and threw the ball to our partner. This time Dustin was bouncing a ball to someone and it bounced on Sharon's head! Finally we did the wall sit, standing back to back with the ball in between us. I'm not sure what Sharon was doing but she kept adjusting her legs of something so she kept falling down. At least 3 times. I kept managing to catch myself. Dustin was supposed to throw a stability ball at the one supporting us and try to knock it out but, we either ran out of time or he felt sorry for us because he never did do us. We also did something where one person did the plank on the ball while the other did swimmers while trying to knock the person off. Sharon is still having a harder time with balance so Dustin told me not to hit the ball too hard.

So a lot of balance work today. We both need it. I can do the stablity ball stuff ok but still have a difficult time doing things on one leg. The stability ball was tough for Sharon. She fell over so many times people probably thought she was drunk. Just kidding. Well, now we have something extra to work on.

Have a good one.

Roger

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 Monday Morning

2010-10-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was exhausted Monday morning. It was a long but fun weekend. Still, we managed to get up and get to boot camp as that is a great emotional outlet for us.

We had three different stations on Monday. We had one TRX station, one strength training station and one core station. Before we did any of them we had to go out on the exercise floor for some cardio. Sharon and I were too slow to get a treadmill so we had to use a stair master. 20 seconds on, 20 seconds off. While one person was using the stair master the other was supposed to apply pressure to their shoulders to make the exercise more difficult. Sharon said I applied too much and she couldn't do the work. When Dustin came by he told Sharon that she wasn't putting enough pressure on me so he showed her how to do it. It was much more difficult!

We had a great workout. Sharon worked very hard on the TRX suspension training, particularly on the side lunge exercises we did. She is still really sore today! Her inner thighs and glutes got quite the workout!

Really tired tonight but wanted to get this out. I've blogged every boot camp session as a way to keep myself accountable. Thanks to those of you who've read these and helped me keep myself going!

Have a good one.

Roger

October 6,2010 Trying TRX

2010-10-06T05:56:00.000-07:00

Went back to boot camp today incredibly sore. We were supposed to discuss what body part was sore but for me it was the whole upper body! My abs, in particular, are still crying out from the barbell ordeal.

So, my body asks, what ordeal shall we go through today. Aha, the TRX ordeal, that's what! I had never actually seen the TRX straps in person before, let alone use them but 3 of our stations today involved them. The first was the body row which was pretty much what we did on the playground workout. I wasn't sure which straps to grab on this. The was a firm flat strap and a loose hanging strap. The first time we went this station I used the loose one. It was really hard. I wasn't quite able to pull myself up as high as I should. The second go round I used the firm strap which worked much better. I was able to get the necessary height. Not sure which was the right way but definitey liked the second way better.

The second station was for the hamstrings. We put our heels into the straps and then brought our legs in. I had my feet positioned correctly the first time but my body wasn't in the right place. Dustin grabbed me below the shoulders while I was lying down and pulled me to the correct position. It reminded me of being a kid and someone pulls you along and you yell, "Whee!" Like the little piggy in the Geico commercial. Some people hate that commercial but I love it. I think it is hilarious. Anyways, it became much tougher once I was moved.

The third station we held on to the firm straps, feet on the ground and did push-ups using the straps. Very hard. Just trying to hold myself in place had my upper body shaking. "This is tricky," I told Sharon. I wanted to make sure my feet weren't in too far either. I didn't want to make it easier on myself. I didn't. It was hard.

Another new station for me was the Bosu ball station. We attempted to balance ourselves while throwing the medicine ball back and forth to a partner. Sharon wasn't able to balance the 1st timed so she just threw it to me while she was on the floor. The second time she balanced very well but I didn't. Every time I caught the ball I fell off the Bosu! Every time!

We did many different stations today and also ran in the parking lot for a little cardio. My heart rate gets up plenty just doing the different stations. It was an excellent workout and my arms were shaking after class from the TRX push ups. They don't seem to have a whole lot of strength to them now. Glad I have a day to recover before Ryan or Dustin on Friday.

Have a good one.

Roger

October 4, 2010 Dustin on my Mind

2010-10-04T13:34:00.001-07:00

My wife Sharon once told Dustin about a boot camp dream she had. He told her he was starting to get into her mind. Guess what? He does that. He gets in your mind and pushes you to really give what you can.

Sunday was sunny and a little cold. Sharon and I decided to go ahead and do our cardio test. Elijah timed for us. When I started off I told myself Dustin says only to go about 70-80% of my maximum here. Then I really tried to push myself on the hill. Dang that Ryan for his leg busters. I could really feel it on the legs. Still I kept pushing. I tried to remember what Dustin said about leaning into the hill, use my arms, and don't walk. That last part didn't work, and much to my surprise, I walked. Not long though. I was just about where the hill flattened out. Dang those leg busters! Then there's Dustin telling me, Don't walk. Keep moving. So I started moving again. I got to the fence and started down. Scary but I said, "Don't hold back. Keep going." Then I reached the flat end and really tried to kick it. I kept going, pushing myself as fast as I could. I beat my last time by 32 seconds. If only I hadn't walked!

Today was our first indoor boot camp. It was held at Supreme Health and Fitness. We did a barbell heavy workout. When we set up we were told to put either 2 or 3 weights on each end of the barbell. I was only going to put on two. Then I said to myself, "Dustin will never let you get away with that." So I added the third. Later, as part of a rotation, we had to jump up onto a step lifted on risers. I picked a medium height. I didn't go for the lowest, or the highest because it seemed to me my legs were too short. Again, Dustin didn't let me get away with that. He told me that was too easy and moved me over to the highest one. I really didn't think I could hop up there but I did. The second part of that rotation was sitting on the step and moving to a standing position using only one leg. I was ready to start and Dustin moved me again. This time I had to go to the lower step because the higher step was too easy! I guess whatever Dustin challenges us with I might as well try the hardest level because he's going to probably move me there anyways! Except I cannot do a plank on the ball with one leg up in the air. My balance isn't there yet. I also will continue to be careful with weight because I know you should never sacrifice form to increase weight.

Our first indoor workout was really challenging. I know I'll be sore tomorrow because of those barbell roll outs we did for our abs. I've done those before and it always leaves me sore.

On my non-boot camp workout days I'm going to try and keep Dustin's challenges on my mind so I continue to push myself to get better. At the end of October I'm going to be 49 even though I know I look nowhere near that :) And you know the saying, "You're not getting older, you're getting better."

Have a good one.

Roger

October 3, 2010 Chariots of Fire-The Season Finale

2010-10-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

On Friday, October 1, 2010 Sharon and I attended our last outdoor boot camp for the season. Ryan was our instructor. I really wanted to turn over and go back to sleep but I got up at 4:30 and away we went.

It was cold Friday morning but not nearly as cold as it had been recently. I wore my sweats over my workout shorts just in case. Our warm up took place in the parking lot. It was short and sweet. Then we gathered outside the shelter for what Ryan called his “leg busters”. We did a couple rotations of wall sits, star jumps, and hopping on one foot. Then we went inside and did these skiiers, tube pulls across the body, deltoid lifts and then some squat pulses with medicine ball throws.

After a couple of rotations with these we did some one legged squats with some goofy jumping jacks. They did indeed look really silly but they did work you out.

Finally we went outside for chariots or, as Ryan calls them, “Chariots of Fire”.

We went into groups of 3. The first person in line ran, the second pulled, and the third did burpees. Then we would switch. I had to check with the person I was holding to make sure I didn't pull too hard. Sharon was the partner that had to hold on when I ran. Unfortunately, she said I was too strong for her and she couldn't pull me back enough to challenge me. So, just to be helpful, she called Ryan over and he became the person that pulled me back. He didn't pull as hard as he could so I was still able to run somewhat.

To finish our workout we did 5 tricep presses followed by 5 push ups. We did as many as we could within the given time frame. Sharon said it was a really good workout, and it was, but my legs felt really good after.

Fast forward to today. Ouch, I could still really feel the leg busters. My hamstrings were especially sore but quads hurt too. Unfortunately we also had to do our final cardio test today. Lessons learned from that: running with a group definitely helps, the hill looks much harder to run in the midst of morning, definitely warm up before starting and when Ryan says leg busters, he's serious.

Sharon and I did run the hill and we both improved. Sharon improved by 35 seconds and I improved by 32. That means I finished in under 4 minutes. That was my goal so good for me!

Well, tomorrow we start indoor boot camp. Excited to see what new challenges has in store for us.

Have a good one.

Roger

September 30, 2010 Lighter Than Air

2010-09-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

Okay. I'm trying this again. I had this blog all finished and ready to publish last night and somehow it got accidentally erased. I saved the darn thing as I went along but when I tried to reopen it all I got was a picture. Hopefully I can remember some of what I wrote!

It was actually a beautiful early morning yesterday. The temperature was quite pleasant and I regretted the sweat pants I had worn. Our entire workout was at the hill. We began by walking across the field to where the hill began. Now I must admit I love horror movies. Not the grisly, gory, torture as entertainment kind of horror movies, but more the ghosts, supernatural, zombies kind of horror. And walking at the back of the group, across the field in the dark, with everyone just kind of silhouetted against the still moonlit sky, I told Sharon this looked just like a scene from Night of the Living Dead. "They're coming to get you Barbra!" Yikes!

After the warm-up we did the hill workout. We started by running up the hill for 20 seconds and then taking a minute to come back down. Then we did it again, trying to beat our distance. We did this a few times and then finished with a 25 second run. I felt really good during this. My legs felt strong and my breathing was all right. I beat my distance each time and came back down relatively quickly. My legs felt lighter than air. Just like Ramona the Pest when she ran around the playground. Also, I knew this would be the last hill workout with Dustin this outdoor boot camp season so all was good!

Once at the bottom of the hill we did an upper body workout. Some deltoid presses, bicep curls, and push-ups. We did this rotation twice, trying to do the push-ups where you explode off the ground and try to clap in between each one. I laughed though because my hands kept sticking to my mat! Made it kind of hard to get my hands off to clap and you come down really quickly.

We returned to the hill for our second go round. We ran up the hill for 10 seconds and then walked back down for 10 seconds. We would do this until we reached the fence at the top. As we got closer to the top, that 10 second walk certainly became much slower. At one point the people at the lower end of the group didn't have to walk back down while those at the higher end continued to walk down. Well, that was good and bad. The good was that I was in the group that had to continue walking. The bad was that I was in the group that continued walking!
After that we walked almost, but not quite, to the bottom of the hill. Now we ran for 5 seconds. Stopped. Then ran for another 5 seconds. Stopped. And on and on until we reached the top. I had a hard time just stopping. I had to shake my legs out or walk in place. It was hard for me to just stand still. Again, when we were done, I felt great. My legs still felt strong.

We continued our upper body workout with partners. We worked the deltoids more and did some partner pushups. At one point Sharon seemed to be applying more pressure on my wrists while I was doing deltoid work. I told her I was really starting to feel it and she said I would probably feel it still more since Dustin was helping her put the pressure on. Ouch!

For our last run up the hill, we had to carry our weights while we ran. That took the wind out of my sails. That was 40 lbs of extra weight I had to carry. I tried to run, even slowly, but I only made it about a third of the way up. I kept moving the weights around trying to find the position I could run best with but that would have been the position of weights on the ground so that wouldn't work. I walked for about the next third and then Dustin came over and encouraged me to run for 15 seconds. He counted it for me while I ran (if you could call it a run but I tried!) and I kept that pace back up to the fence. At one point I thought of just dropping one weight but I knew that I couldn't drop 20 lbs of weight that quickly in reality so I made myself continue to hold onto both. I asked myself what a 48 year old man, only 4 weeks away from being a 49 year old man was trying to prove. Nothing I told myself. I'm not proving anything. I'm just trying to stay in shape for my health, my kids, my life. Good enough reasons to keep on pushing.
However, when we finished my legs certainly didn't feel lighter than air or strong. They were beat!

Our last section was core work. It was getting increasingly foggy now. The mist was surrounding us. Who knows what could be in the mist. Could be unknown creatures or cursed pirates. I wasn't in possession of ill gotten gold so I knew i had nothing to worry about. Except for the core work. Managed to get through it though. The swimmers were the toughest for me for some reason. Oh well.

Now. One more outdoor boot camp this season and then we move indoors. From Dustin's description it should be fun and challenging. Very much looking forward to it!

Have a good one.

Roger

September 27, 2010 Double Duty

2010-09-27T06:22:00.001-07:00

This morning was cold. Really cold! I decided to wear sweat pants as well as my hoodie to boot camp. Got off to a rough start though. After locking the door I couldn't find my keys. We finally had to leave with me keyless. I was not a happy camper. We had to leave so we wouldn't be late. We did not want to do extra push-ups this morning for tardiness. Luckily, when we got to camp I found my keys. They had dropped into my lunch bag.

We did a parking lot workout today so we could exercise where it was lit. There seemed to be a lot of people this morning. People were lined up along the curb and the line seemed to go on a ways. We put our mats down at one end of the parking lot but had to move them so that we were all closer together.

After our warm up Dustin told us we would break into 2 groups. One group would do core work with mild strength training while the other did chariots. Chariots! I didn't mind but Sharon said "We just did these on Friday!" Sharon is not a fan of chariot races. Our group got to do core first and then we would do the chariots. I noticed someone pull into the lot late and thought, "Uh-oh, extra push-ups for someone." Well, someone got a little something extra all right but little did I know it would be me. While we started our core, Dustin discovered that someone had indeed arrived late. He had already divided the group evenly so everyone had a partner and now he had one extra. While I was doing my sit-ups with a dumb bell press across the body, Dustin told me that I would be doing 2 people. Yikes. Extra cardio I thought. 2 trips down and back. First with Sharon and then the other person. I thought that was kind of odd since there were 3 of us I thought maybe we could just do a rotation but I figured I'd just do what he wanted. Well, when it came time for us to do our chariot racing I learned I had figured it all wrong! I put the tubing around 2 different people while they ran across. Then on the way back they both held the tubing while I ran across! That was quite the challenge for me. But, yay, I did it. However when we went back to the core work I found it to be extremely difficult now. Then we had to do the tubing again, but backwards. We finished with a run across backward, and then came back forward. I was almost done, turned to Sharon and said, "At least we won't have to do the hill now."

"When you are done, take a water break, and then sprint across the field and up to the top of the hill," Dustin said. I literally almost stopped in my tracks! After the tubing I didn't know if I could walk, let alone run to the top of the hill. My sprint became a walk across the field and then I tried to run when I got there. I made it about 1/3 of the way and then had to walk the next 1/3. When I was almost to where Dustin was standing I started to sprint. He encouraged me and even ran with me so I kept pushing. The people at the top were also calling to me and encouraging me so I did make it finally. I didn't care that I was second to the last. I just wanted to get there. We walked back down and slowly sprinted across the field and back to the shelter. We were finished.

I found that on our way to the Princeton Club to shower my legs were shaking. They did this all the way down the stairs and to the locker room. I also felt like I had no strength in my arms. The shower helped a great deal and I'm feeling pretty good now.

That was quite the workout for me but I liked the challenge. I was disappointed that I walked a third of the hill but my legs wouldn't listen to me. Got so much more to work on I guess. Always a work in progress.

Have a good one.

Roger

September 26, 2010 The Blustery Day

2010-09-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

Had to get up extra early on Friday and really move. Didn't get my stuff ready the night before plus had to get Elijah's stuff ready too. Moved so fast we wound up leaving earlier than usual and arriving at boot camp really early.

The wind was really howling that morning. I couldn't believe how windy it was. Ryan had us work out in the bigger, lit shelter. We did warm up in the parking lot. Glad I had on my hoodie because that wind made it a little chilly. For our workout we did several stations. Jumping rope was hard but I wasn't sure if it was because I did it outside of the shelter and the wind made it a little more difficult or I'm just clumsy at it. We also spelled our names with the medicine ball held in extended arms, deltoid work, and jumps. Later we did chariot runs. Sharon was my partner and she held on for dear life. We only did one band and I really pulled her across the grass. We also did tricep presses and pyramid push ups. That was quite the challenge. We finished with core.

Our last week of outside boot camp is coming up. The mornings should be cold and the grass wet. We will be so happy to throw away those old shoes on Friday.

Have a good one.

Roger

September 23, 2010 The Results Are In...

2010-09-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's boot camp was a retest day and a hill workout day. Both went pretty well.

I was very happy with my results. I improved in all areas. I increased my push-ups, going from 32 to 50. When I count my push ups I have to count in groups of 10. Just seems easier if I'm only doing ten rather than thinking I'm on number 49. I can tell today that I did 50 push-ups. My chest is sore.

I did better in my wall sit as well. This was the first time I used any weight while I sat. I held a 20 lb weight. I improved a minute and a half. The last time I sat only a minute but this time I got through 2:45. To help me this time I used my ipod shuffle. I do much better if I take the concentration away from my legs and sing along in my mind to the music. It worked.

Finally the burpees. Went from 19 to 22. I was cruising but around 16 I started to tucker out. Must have been the push-ups because my arms felt really tired as I lowered myself down and got back up. Still, improvement is improvement. We still have to do our cardio test. Sharon and I are planning on doing that on Sunday. I want to try and improve by 12 seconds so that I do it in under 4 minutes but we'll see.

For most of the rest of the time we did a hill workout. It really is getting easier. Except for running backwards. I ran on the path but it was slippery and my foot slid off a little bit. Avoided a fall. Sharon wasn't so lucky and over she went. I told her she was just really trying to become one with the hill, and was trying to merge into it. She told me she also fell after the wall sit. Poor Sharon. Sometimes physical grace is not one of her strong points. But I love her anyways!

Off to bed now for early boot camp again tomorrow.
Have a good one.

Roger

September 20, 2010 Playground Fun

2010-09-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

The outdoor workouts are quickly coming to an end and we will soon be moving inside. Today we did one of my favorites, the playground workout.

There were quite a few people at boot camp today. Dustin has a special 14 day plan going and it looks as if many people are taking him up on the offer (I think we are going to try the food plan that goes with this but we will wait until October when pay day finally comes). Since there were so many people we had a lot of stations to cover. Each station lasted 45 seconds. My favorites today were the medicine ball, the body row (I'm getting so much better on this), the pull ups (I still am really bad here but I'll eventually get it), and the knee tuck for the abs. All the exercises were effective but those ones I particularly like. When we finished one full rotation of the stations we had to run a lap around the parking lot. This is actually getting much easier so my endurance must be getting better. We did a second rotation but each station was only 30 seconds. Then we sprinted again and I still did pretty well. My motivation was that the faster I went, the faster I could be finished and get some water. We finished with some exercises to start bringing our heart rate down. We did some burpees (which we will be tested on this coming up Wednesday) and mine still were not great. Dustin told us to aim for 12 and I did 14 so that wasn't too bad.

I'm looking forward to moving indoors. I'm very curious as to what kind of workouts we will do there. This whole boot camp has been quite the adventure and I can't wait to see what the journey holds next.

Have a good one.

Roger

Friday, September 17, 2010 A New Discovery!

2010-09-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

Late night last night. Stayed up late trying to finish laundry, reburn some CD's, and do some dishes. Then Elijah woke me up at 2:30 am! Everything got accomplished but paying the price for it this morning.

Morning did come way too early and almost skipped my workout. I have a long drive tonight and really didn't want to be too tired but Sharon had a conference this morning that she couldn't be late for so we decided to just go to camp. I was so out of it that when we got there I was a little confused. The shelter we usually use for rain was lit up. I thought it was our regular one so when Sharon moved to park I couldn't figure out why she was parking so far away. Finally I figured it out.

Smilin' Ryan was our instuctor today. He had us take our weights with us on our warm ups. We did some lunge walks and then ran some. We then used the weights and rotated them over our heads and then touched down bt the opposiet leg. This was the exercise we were doing when Sharon hurt her back last time. She was very careful this time and all was should. We also did some squats "under the rope" and jumps "over the rope", some push ups, and some side steps. All these really got the heart rate going and warmed up the muscles.

We went back to the shelter for our stations. We did an agility drill using the picnic table benches, some 180 degree jump turns, medicine ball work against the wall and then some deltoid presses. We had a break and then did it all again. When we finished the second time we didn't get a break. We had to go into tricep dips, slow count pushups, and more tricep dips. Then a water break.

The rest of the workout took place outdoors. Core work. We started with planks, then moved to swimmers. We then turned over and did penguins where we shifted side to side trying to touch our feet. Then we did side planks with a twist. Finally we performed russian twists and then V-sits. But we had to keep doing this. Russian twists, switch to V-sits, russian twists, v-sits, russian twists, v-steps! I didn't think this would ever end!

We finished with some cardio. Again we used the medicine ball. We didn't actually thow it but we quickly took the ball out and in (keeping it at chest level). We also used the jump ropes and ran through the ladder, lifting one knee high and then switching to the other. Yay. The End.

My new discovery for myself, which was very encouraging, is that I find I am now trying to get those extra reps at the end of a count. In the past, when the instructor would start counting down I would slow way down so I wasn't quitting but I wasn't doing as many. Now, when they start counting down I try to push myself harder so that I can fit in a few more before we change.
Another example was today when we were doing penguins. For a penguin we just lie on our backs with our legs in the air. Then we shift at the waist bringing down our arms towards our feet. Ryan told us to try and touch the sides of our foot as we did this. I could do it but I thought, "Maybe I should just bring my knees in a bit. My feet would be closer and this would be easier!" Tempting thought but I didn't do it. So, to me, all this is progress. I am becoming more willing to exert a little more pressure to myself in order to improve my fitness level.

Have a good one and Go Blue!

Have a good day.

Roger

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 The Hills Are Alive...

2010-09-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up not feeling particularly well today. Only into the third week of school and may have caught a little bug already. Oh well, I figured this bit of queasiness and sore throat certainly would not keep me from attending the Michigan game on Saturday so I would not let it keep me from boot camp either.

We got to Elver Park a few minutes before Dustin so we waited in the car. I wasn't sure where we should park because if it was going to be a parking lot workout we would have to move the car. Dustin pulled in and drove into the park and over to the hill. Oh no. I knew this meant a hill workout. I also knew this meant it would be really tough. I resigned myself to this fact when I realized Sharon was ecstatic. She really loves the hill workouts. I half expected her to run up the hill, belting out the words to "The Sound of Music." Only the hills would soon be alive with the sound of huffing and puffing, mainly mine. However, the hill was one of the main reasons we chose to go to the Elver Park boot camps to begin with. We both wanted to conquer it. We have taken different approaches though. Sharon has embraced the hill. It is her friend. She looks forward to the hill workouts and today was no exception. As for me, well, as my son once remarked to me as we passed the park, "That hill is your arch enemy isn't it Dad?" Dang straight. But maybe I need to take the other approach. Maybe I need to become one with the hill. Maybe I just need to go sit or lie on the hill, breathe in its scents, roll around and feel the texture. Can't really enjoy the view because it's too dark. Ah, maybe not. It's too wet in the morning.

But I digress. We went carefully over to the hill as it was still pretty dark. When we got there, carrying our mats, weights, and water with us, Dustin told us we needed to break into 2 groups. A faster group and a slower group. Sharon told me I had to go with the quicker group. I wasn't sure but all the other times we've done this I've had to go with the quicker group so I did again. We were going to do a 15 minute challenging hill workout. Challenging was a nice word for it.

The first time we ran all the way up the hill to the fence and then came back down. I made it up okay, not last so I guess I was in the right group, but coming down was slow. I don't know why but I continue to come down slowly for fear of falling. Especially in the dark. Unfortunately Dustin already gave the direction before I made it all the way down. We were to pick up a medicine ball and carry it up the hill all the way back to the fence. I missed the part where he said if we were one of the last ones we probably should go up without the ball! Darn it! By the time I got all the way down and picked up a ball, everyone else was already on their way up. This made it extra hard because now I was running by myself. Also, it was so dark, I didn't even know who was in my group! Still, Dustin was encouraging and kept me going. All the way to the fence. Even though everyone was on the way down, he told me to go all the way to the fence. So I did. And then came all the way down. Next, we went up the hill again, this time going sideways, switching sides, then moving backwards, and forwards. Again, I was behind but I do better with the side movements. Dustin looked over to tell me to try and catch up but then saw that I was. Going backwards was tougher though. It is hard on the quads but the real problem here is I don't want to fall. I'm not sure what the big deal about falling is since the hill can't be too hard but I don't want to do it. Maybe it's the Carrie Ingalls thing. You know, at the beginning of Little House on the Prairie when the girls are running down the hill and Carrie falls down. She pops back up though. I'll have to remember that if I fall down. Again, I digress. Finally we did the last part on the hill. We sprinted for 10 seconds, walked back down for 10, sprinted for 10, walked back for 10. I was really winded here but I did do it. Yay! Finally it was time to come down and switch.

It was time for the next group to go on the hill and we were going to do our strength training. Sharon probably had a hard time restraining herself as she was so eager to do the hill. She probably should have just been in the hill group both times. Stanley really worked us in the strength training. We did 4 kinds of push ups, tricep extensions, back lunges with bicep curls, deltoid lifts, squats with deltoid presses and then more deltoid work using palm presses. We finished with the medicine ball, lifting it over our heads, then reaching down across our body and touching the ground on the other side. We did this while standing on one leg. As usual I was last going over to get a medicine ball so that there weren't any more when I got there. I started to go back to my mat and was going to use my dumbbells when Stanley said, "Wait. We found one more." "Dang," I said out loud without realizing it. I only realized I said it when Stanley and others in my group started laughing. This exercise was a killer balance workout and I really need to work on my balance more. The people on the hill finished and came back to join us. Sharon said, "We didn't have to do that one, " meaning that last exercise. Hey! I want to join the slower group next time. When we break into these fast/slow groups we always seem to have to do something extra!

We finished with core exercises. Planks, side planks, russian twists, swimmers, and upper body squirms. Overall it was just an extremely challenging workout. It was a cool morning and I was again drenched. And as soon as just a little light started to come out so did those pesky mosquitoes!

Sharon said this was probably her favorite workout of the whole summer. See, so Maria Von Trapp-like. She probably put this workout right on her list with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. I was exhausted but it really is such an exhilirating exhaustion. Makes all the huffing and puffing worth it.

Have a good one.

Roger

Monday, September 13, 2010 Chariot Races

2010-09-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today was the workout Sharon said she had been dreading. With good reason too. It was really hard!
Even the warm up was hard.

We did our workout on the tennis court today. We started with slow sprints across the tennis courts that rapidly became faster sprints. We ran forward, did karaokes (the exercise, not the singing), and side shuffles. When we were finished we did the chariot workout.

We broke into two groups, partnered up and then took two sets of tubing. One person wrapped the tubing around their waist while the other pulled back as hard as they could, providing as much resistance as possible. The lead person then ran across the tennis court. Once there we switched and ran back and repeated. Not as easy as it sounds believe me! We also had to do this while doing frog hops, side shuffles, and running backwards. We also had a great deal of leg work built into our stations while the other group was taking their turn. We did quick squats, lunges with bicep curls, backward lunges with deltoid presses and one legged dead lifts . We also did push ups while our partner provided resistance, regular push-ups, russian twists with a chest press, swimmers, and held a crunch position while the bottom half did squirms. It was a great workout but it was a workout!

Dustin asked me if we went to the Michigan game this weekend. I said no be we watched it. He thought I said we lost. Boy did Sharon jump in quick to correct him on that. The other people in the class laughed and also corrected him, telling him I said I watched it!

Today was a real example of why I like boot camp. It was challenging but everyone was so enthusiastic and happy. So much effort and pushing each other and it was 5:30 in the morning! I hope it is as fun when we move inside.

Have a good one!

Roger

Sunday, September 12, 2010 Anniversary Workout

2010-09-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was my wedding anniversary. To start off the day on a positive we went to boot camp! Way to start!

Boy does it seem to be darker each morning we go. It is so dark that you have to be careful just walking to the shelter before starting. When Sharon and I were walking I noticed we couldn't even see the hill. "Look out," I said, "the hill has eyes!" Of course, we did a hill workout that day. It wasn't too bad actually. If you were on the hill, in the first rotation, you ran up for 30 seconds and then had 15 seconds to walk down. You did this four times. The second time you ran up 30 and came down in 60. Only 3 times this time. I was happy that I still had some left after so that was good. The weights were a combination of core and upper body. We also did some things for our legs. The fun part was the wheelbarrow. Sharon couldn't do this with me because of her back so Dustin was my partner. He really wanted to push me so he made me go very fast! I kept going as fast as I could and I'm sure it must have been very comical. The next time we did it we had to move sideways. Again I had to go pretty fast. It was funny to watch the other people around me doing this. We looked like a pretty uncoordinated bunch.

Today I taught body sculpt. It was the first time I had taught in a month. Why is this important? Because it was the first time I got a good look at myself in a month. Boot camp has really helped me tone. My legs have actually filled out a bit around the calves. Arms look decent too. Just more toned in the forearms. So that made me pretty happy. I incorporated some of the boot camp exercises and then, after class, made sure to remind the class to challenge themselves and not just stay where they were comfortable. It was a good class too.

Finally, good start to the football season. Wolverines beat Notre Dame and, as expected, Lions lost. Hate to see the Lions continue to lose but if only one could win I was glad it was my college team!

Have a good week!

Roger

September 9, 2010

2010-09-09T20:26:00.001-07:00

September 6, 2010 3-On-1 Workout

2010-09-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

Woke up to thunder and lightning again. I didn't believe Sharon when she said it was thundering outside. "Wishful thinking," I told her. Then I heard it too. We checked the boot camp website but there was no cancellation so we got dressed and off we went.

When we arrived Dustin was the only one in the parking lot. And he wasn't near the shelter either. It appeared as if the storm had passed so we were going to work out in the lot. Before we started a third person showed up, Mandy. But that was it. Looked like a day for alot of personal attention from Dustin.

We did alot of upper body work. Some of it was done with weights in the parking lot and then we moved to the playground for pull ups. Man these are hard. We actually kind of jumped up and then were supposed to hold ourselves up for 8-10 seconds. I tried to hold myself up but sometimes the rest of my body tried to pull me back down. Overall though I did okay. Poor Sharon had a harder time. She could get up but she couldn't hold herself up there. Dustin finally held her up. She has some upper body strength building to do.

Next we moved over to the parallel bars where we were supposed to do tricep dips. The bars were a little thicker and kind of slippery. I did what I could but then I heard Dustin kind of laughingly tell Sharon that she had to do something! I wasn't sure what happened. I guess poor Sharon couldn't really bend her elbows, dip herself, and then bring herself back up. So she had to kind of do the movement while standing on her toes. Then we went around the bars and did body rows. I did pretty well. At one point Dustin suspended me in the air while I lifted myself up. Yikes! Definitely made it harder.

For the last section we moved into the shelter because it was beginning to rain. We used the picnic tables for more tricep dips but this time we put our feet on the bench. Then we did push ups with the feet on the bench. We also did step ups and wall sits for the legs. The wall sits were my undoing again. I tried to use just one weight but Dustin busted me and told me I could use two.

This was a great workout today. With such a tiny group I felt like I gave much more effort because any sloughing off would be easily seen. This made me mad at myself because it made me question if I've been holding back at all. Hopefully not. I'll really make myself more accountable next time just in case.

Have a good one.

Roger

September 3, 2010 Star Jump

2010-09-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

Very tough waking up this morning. I had a difficult time sleeping even though I was exhausted. Not sure what that was about as I didn't really have any thing pressing on my mind. Finally fell asleep but getting up at 4:35 was not easy.

It was terribly dark at boot camp this morning. When we took off for our warm up Ryan told us to just follow his voice. He had stations set out but with the darkness he had us do something else. We did the usual warm up and then began doing different exercises. One exercise was called something like the skateboarder. We would squat down and then jump up and turn around and then repeat. We would do that for 15 seconds and then pushups for 15 seconds. We also did the star jump where we jumped up and spread the legs and arms. It looks pretty funny. We did a lot of leg work it seemed. Hoppers which really burn the quads after about 5 seconds, walking lunges, ran the hill (first time this week so not too bad) and jumping jacks. We did lots of core too. Burpees, planks front and side, russian twists (slow and the fast), more push ups, big circles in front of our bodies using weights while trying not to move the torso. All in all, a really hard legs and core workout. Ryan remained positive and happy throughout.

First football game this weekend. Don't know what to expect. Either way it is a little quiet time for Sharon and I so that's always a plus.

Have a good, safe holiday weekend.

Roger

September 1, 2010 Rainy Days and Wednesdays

2010-09-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

The first day of school with kids today. And I smilingly greeted them...with a very tired and sore core.

It was raining pretty heavily when we woke up this morning. Since it had been storming during the night we were sure to check Dustin's website before driving across town. Since there was no storm, boot camp was on.

Upon arrival Dustin had us set up our mats and weights in one place today. For the most part we would be just staying in place for our stations. Since people had felt we had been neglecting our core, today we would be doing a workout that consisted of about 80% core to 20% strength training. We did variations on planks, V-sit up, russian twists, swimmers, squirms, and other things. And all I can say is...Ouch! It was a work out! The abs did recover pretty quickly after each, but we kept pushing them. I think my worst performance was on an oblique sit-up while bringing our knees in toward my chest. I could not do it. I could do the oblique part but could not bring in the legs. I kind of laughed and Dustin came over to help by trying to push them in, but those legs did not want to cooperate! Even he laughed. Then he looked around at all the other participants struggling and said it looked like this was something we would need to work more on.

I also laughed when I misunderstood something else he meant. We were doing push downs. I laid on my back with my legs straight (sort of) up in the air. Sharon stood behind me and would push my legs down hard and I would try and control and stop them before they went all the way down to the ground. She could push them down the center or so they went down to the side. I put my hands underneath my back to support it so it wouldn't hurt. Dustin came over and told me I should grab the ankles. I thought for a minute and just kind of gave him a look of confusion. Then I tried to reach up and grab my ankles. He laughed (and Sharon did too) and said "No, grab Sharon's ankles!" I laughed then too because I was wondering how Sharon was going to push my legs down while I was hanging onto my ankles. All I could accomplish there was a kind of rocking motion. It was much easier his way.

The strength training was a lot of leg work. In one exercise we sat on top of a picnic table with our foot of the bench. Then we were supposed to stand on one foot and then sit down. The right leg was not too difficult but the left leg, forget it! Again Dustin came over to help. He told me to use my arms to help propel me. I got at least 1 good one. Most of the time I got some good exercise for my arms but barely got off my butt! I could do it if I sat on the bench and put my foot on the ground and sat up and down that way. I thought it was probably better for me to do it the other way though since it was much more challenging.

So in addition to the core workout Dustin gave us, I also got one for all the laughing I kept doing. I was very, very glad to see those 6:15 am campers arrive. Again, just like Monday, I was shaking some as I went to the Princeton Club to shower for school. Later, even though I was moving around, my core muscles were really sore. Dustin said we would be sore tomorrow, I was sore within a couple of hours. When I got home from school, I took some Ibuprofen for the soreness. Still it was a great "first day of school with the kids" workout!

Might be attending boot camp Thursday instead of Friday this week as it fits into my schedule better but might be too exhausted from the first day to get up at 4:45 am.

Have a good one!

Roger

August 30, 2010 Back to School

2010-08-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well summertime is over and back to school. This was the first time that I would have to go to work after morning boot camp. How appropriate that we did the playground workout today.

It was a humid morning. Very humid and, once again, buggy. Sharon and I arrived fairly early and brought over our weights and mats. Since we were so early we placed them for all to use during our different stations. No Stanley today so Dustin did our warmup. It was the standard warmup except that at one point we made a circle around Dustin. He would tell us what to do and we would work our way in towards him and then back out. It had to be a pretty scary sight to see all these people heading in toward you at 5:30 in the morning.

I really tried to push myself during the stations. One of the first stations for us (we were in groups of 3) was jumping over these little upside down U like shapes. One was higher than the other two and I got that one. I laughed because there was no way these short legs was going to make it over those very easily. I tried but it was extremely difficult to keep both legs together and jump over. It turned out Sharon couldn't do this one because of her back so I got to move to a lower one. I could handle this one pretty well so now I have to work my way back up to the higher stake.

At the pull up station I could still only do one so I worked really hard at holding myself up and lowering myself back down as slowly as I could. It was tough. Boy do I have a long way to go!
The first rotation wasn't so bad overall.

For cardio we went to the tennis courts. Using our birth dates as a guide one group did a wall sit while the other groups sprinted across the tennis court twice. I went all out on the sprint and made a pretty good showing for myself. Uh-oh. We had to do it again. Not so great on the sprint on the second try. Gotta work on that endurance. But I did go all out again, just didn't have that much left to give! But, on the plus side, no hill today!

This really showed in the next rotation around the playground. It was much harder this time. My legs were tired which made balancing on one foot difficult. My upper body was also tired. However, I kept telling myself to keep going. If I let myself rest for a second I told myself to get going again. Sharon said that was good. It showed my determination. I don't know about that but I want to keep improving.

After our workout we went to the Princeton Club to shower before school. I was glad to see that I worked so hard that my arms were still shaking while I was showering. Sharon said hers were too. So, we either worked out really hard or we're just old.

I did manage to stay awake all through school. Our in-service wasn't too bad and the afternoon was very entertaining and enlightening. Luckily I still had energy when I got home because Elijah (my 13 year old) wanted me to play the basketball game HORSE with him. Then we played a couple games where we each of us took 10 free throws to see who could hit the most, next we played 5 games of UNO, then I ushered him into the shower, and finally we watched the second half of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I also went on a drive with Brenna, my newly licensed daughter, to make sure she knew which route to take when she drove to school. We also drove to Stoughton (about 1/2 hour away) so that Kristan, my niece, could make me look not so old. Finally I came home and watched Dance Your Ass Off (yay, LaToya won!).

I have found that boot camp has increased my energy and I guess that's showing today. We'll see how things go once the students are actually here.

Have a good one!

Roger

Friday, August 27, 2010 The Stanley Workout

2010-08-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

For the last 5:30 am workout before starting back to work (rats!) we had a beautiful morning. It was nice and cool, with just a little breeze. It was so perfect I decided to forgo my OFF for the morning and just take my chances with the pesky mosquitoes. Oh, yeah, that was a smart move. NOT!

Stanley was our coach today. It was the first time he was our instructor for the entire session and not just for our warm up. He is another really positive guy, always giving encouragement while continuing to push us so I figured it would be a pretty good workout.

After our warm-up Stanley had us take our weights, mats, and water bottles over to the tennis court. That was nice because that would keep us off the grass for a while longer. However I did get a mosquito bite on the way. We were to pair up with another person that we didn't really know or hadn't worked with before. I was going to do that but Sharon insisted I stay with her. I figured since she had missed a little boot camp recently and had only started using the weights again today, it was kind of like working with a stranger so I agreed. Besides, since we've been going to boot camp we've met more of the people and there are very few we don't kind of know, even if we can't remember their names.

One person in the group was going to start with cardio and the other person was to start with strength training. Sharon really wanted to go on cardio first. I was dying to go also but she looked so sad (and almost knocked me down rushing to the starting line) that I agreed to let her have her way again. Man I'm a nice guy! Stanley described the cardio and said he would stay and instruct those of us doing weights.

We began our strength work with push ups combined with a row. I'm happy to say this is nowhere near as difficult as it was at the beginning of the summer. I try to go as quickly as I can but I also try to make sure everything is very controlled so I do not have an injury. I did the exercise until time was up so that was great as well. Then we did some upright rows. I switched from the 20 lb weights to the 10 lb weights because my physical therapist didn't really want me doing upright rows anymore. So I compromised by doing them with a lighter weight. We also did some deltoid presses, going from a squat to a jump (I just went up on my toes) which I did with the 20 lbs and then back to lateral raises and front raises, again using the 10 lb weights. We were ready to switch. But before that we did some line jumping. We did 45 seconds of front jumps over the line and then 45 seconds doing side jumps. You would not believe how long 45 seconds can take (other than at the end of a basketball or football game).

Now it was my turn to do cardio. We started with an all out sprint back and forth across the tennis court. That went pretty well although I'm still slow out of the gate. Maybe I'll just sing that Chariots of Fire song while I'm running so that even though I'm going slow, it'll be like I'm going fast, just in slow motion. The second time across the tennis court we had to run backwards. Now this is not like running up the hill backwards. This I can actually do! So I ran across and back. I kept looking behind me so that I wouldn't fall down or bump into someone when I realized I wasn't so far behind anymore. The next time across and back we did side shuffles. Woo hoo! One of my better events. I really was able to pick up some speed here. But I was also starting to breathe pretty heavy. This was getting harder but I knew it was much better than I did at the beginning of the summer. Next we bunny hopped to the second court line and back. Again, another good event for me. I'm a good hopper! I can change my music here from Vangelis to Bill Conti and the Theme from Rocky. Uh-oh. The last thing was bear crawls. I'm weak here but it was only to the first court line and back. It was nice to discover that this is easier on the court than on the hill. I moved pretty fast but I did have to keep stopping to take a couple extra breaths. Finally I could see the finish line. Blast that Rocky music! I should have jumped and down and pumped my fists in the air but instead I chose to walk, putting my hands down on my knees and taking some really deep breaths while looking for my water bottle. On a more shallow note, I did notice I finished first. It really helped that all our really fast people were in the first group. Oh, well, you take these small victories when you can get them.

Next we did wall/fence runs. Stanley was really giving us an intense cardio workout. We did this 3 times and he kept encouraging us to bring our knees up and move our feet faster. I tried and did manage to run the whole amount of time.

Now, time for the hill. I really would not be disappointed if our coaches decided to leave out the hill once in a while. I really wouldn't mind at all. But, not the case today. We first sprinted up 30 seconds and then came back down. Just once. Michelle, another participant, really rocked the hill today. She really got up there quick. Then we ran up backwards and came back down. Just once. Then we side shuffled up, switched sides, and came back down. Wait! Did I hear that right? We were done with the hill. Awesome! I was even able to sprint back to the tennis court. Good thing because those darn mosquitoes seemed to be chasing me all the way back, catching me and getting my elbow.

We finished with core work. Bicycles, swimmers, planks with opposite leg/arm lift, v-sits with a weighted lift, russian twists, and an exercise where we started with our legs in a six inch lift and then did whatever ab work Stanley told us to do. By this time my abs were saying "Can't you go back to the hill?" Those stupid mosquitoes also liked us in this position. As Emilie said, "I think they all followed us back from the hill!" Finally we were done. It was a great workout and Stanley encouraged us to stay, cool down and stretch. Sharon and I had some nice conversation with some other members. We talked with Michelle and complimented her on her performance on the hill. We also talked about how awesome these workouts that Dustin and company have given us this summer. They've really helped shape our bodies. I've lost about 10 pounds now, but have lost fat and become leaner. I feel really good too! I've got a ways to go but if I just keep working hard I'm sure the results will come.

Now comes the really hard part. Can I go back to work and get up for these 5:30 am workouts. Time will tell I guess.

Have a good one.

Roger

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 Boot Camp Baseball

2010-08-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

This morning was perfect for a workout. Actually, it was perfect for sleeping in as well. Weighing the two, and really weighing myself, working out was the better option, darn it.

It was a cool, crisp, dark morning. Roads were pretty clear and the construction near our house was pushed aside so that made things easier. It seemed like an easy drive but I can't be sure since Sharon drove and my eyes were closed most of the way. Sharon and I chatted about our dreams so I totally missed the Sean Hannity minute. Thank goodness because I can't stand that jerk. He's way too negative. I laughed telling Sharon about mine because it was about indoor boot camp! It's funny how dreams seem to start about one thing and then move into another. Mine went from boot camp to being mad at Sharon and my daughter not cleaning up at the club, leaving me to do it, to some kind of Greek Odyssey through what used to the area behind my garage when I was growing up. Who knows where that came from?

Boy it was plenty dark at the park shelter. I sprayed myself down with OFF (just in case) and wore my hoodie through the warm up. I like to stay in back during the warm up. I figure it is just a warm up and I don't want to use all my energy trying to keep up in front. I just want to get the blood flowing and muscles warmed up. But as it is staying darker, longer in the morning I might have to move up a bit. I can't see what the leader is doing and I'm so far in back I sometimes can't hear him either!

We did boot camp baseball today. It was pretty basic. We started at home base in a plank position moving to the push-up position. Then we bunny hopped to first base and did front lifts using 2 weights. Next we did a side shuffle to second base where we did burpees with a push-up (dang this was hard) and finally, we side shuffled to third base where we did deltoid raises and lateral raises. Then we sprinted back to home base. We did 15 at each station and just took off to the next station when we finished. When time was up, water break.

After this first circuit we faced my old nemesis, the hill. This shouldn't be so bad though, I thought. We just had to sprint over to the hill, run up to the fence, jog or walk quickly back down, and then back to the tennis court to begin our next circuit. I actually did okay getting up the hill. I, of course, was breathing heavily but was able to rest a little at the top while we cheered for the others who weren't there yet. I still have problems coming back down though. Just a little more cautious than I need to be but it takes me a while to get back. I also was talking to another member and finding out more about her goals and things on my way back. I took a little to long though and had to quick sprint at the end because the directions were being given before I got there.

The second rotation was V-sit ups, squats with a deltoid press, one legged hip lifts, and deltoid lifts and lateral raises again. We ran between stations. Again we did as many sets as we could in the alloted time. Then back to the hill again. Not so easy this time. I was wondering if people could hear me talking to myself as we ran up. I kept saying stuff like "a few more steps, a few more steps" and "it's almost flat, it's almost flat", finally it was "there's the fence, there's the fence...no walking, no walking" and I made it! I ran all the way up two times. Woo hoo! Good for me. But then, more work on the hill. This time we ran backwards (another psychological block for some reason I guess I just don't want to fall), and turned around and sprinted to the fence. I made it to the fence. I sure couldn't call it a sprint but at least it wasn't a walk (almost though). Then we went back down a little bit and bear crawled back to the fence. This was my weakest event by far. First of all I looked around and saw I was doing it totally wrong. After I corrected myself I did better but my back was somewhat uncomfortable. Lack of flexibility and weak core were the likely culprits. But at least we were done. We gathered around and shared something we were proud of. There were some real accomplishments here. Mine was running the hill twice without walking. I walked down the hill after chatting with Sharon. We did get to see Dustin run up the hill some and down some today and that was a first for us. Man I wish I had long legs like that!

Have a good one.

Roger

Monday, August 23, 2010 The Mist

2010-08-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

I went to Michigan for 4 days last week. I knew my greatest challenge would be the food. Unfortunately it was. 2 cookouts, a family dinner, my niece's birthday with my favorite pizza in the world. A recipe for disaster in the eating department. On the plus side, a lot of time was spent at the beach or at the pool. I didn't do laps or anything but having 6 kids along, ranging from ages 3 to 13 made for a great workout. Plus, Lake Michigan was nothing but waves the 2 days we spent there. I was chasing the Frisbee against the waves, pulling children, lifting children, trying to toss children into the waves, and it all gets pretty heavy after a while. And the legs got a great workout too. Running in the water against the waves really was a challenge. So I got somewhat of a workout. The pool wasn't as much of a challenge but definitely got a workout. Those 3-4 year olds love to be lifted, spun, pushed, and whatever else they can think of in the water. They are pretty light but the repetition did give a nice upper body workout.

Today we had our workout in the early morning mist. The grass was soaking wet but luckily we were able to put off going into the field until the end. Ryan was our coach today. I like Ryan a great deal. He is always full of enthusiasm and has a smile on his face. He makes everything look easy but I know better.

We started with a warm-up jog through the parking lot. Then we stopped and did a circuit that primarily worked lower body. We did some push ups there too. Then we jogged back to the shelter and did a circuit that focused on both upper body and lower body. We did push ups with tricep dips, deltoid presses, wall sits, lunges with a twist while holding the medicine ball, and some jumps. Then we did a 3 minute deltoid workout. Palm presses up, down, backward, and forward. Stanley did this with us as well and was fun to watch as he groaned with the rest of us. Then we repeated our circuit.

Our final phase was the cardio on the hill. We took our water bottles with us and ran into the mist, immediately getting our feet drenched. Spooky movie time. I wondered if Ryan had ever seen The Mist or The Fog. If he had he would have known that sometimes there are creatures in the mist. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything except us so we had to run the hill. We ran up the hill for about 30 seconds, dropped our water bottles and jogged back down. The next time we tried to beat our distance and then jogged down again. We did it again a third time. When Ryan told us to switch we turned around and ran backwards. I was able to beat my distance each time which was very satisfying. I hate the running backwards though. That is a real weak spot for me. The last run was not good for me. We were supposed to run as far up as we could towards the fence at the top. The first person there came back down and collected the rest of us. I didn't make it all the way up and let myself walk towards the top. The worst part was I did it after the toughest part of the hill. Ugh. Gotta keep working at this. I'll never get under the 4 minute mark if I don't push myself harder!

Sharon came back today and did pretty much everything. She didn't take it as easy as the chiropractor said but I guess she is the one who knows how her body feels.

Have a good one.

Roger

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 Am I Unbalanced?

2010-08-18T08:43:00.001-07:00

Another hard time sleeping last night but for a different reason. I didn't want to be unbalanced. Let me explain.

Last week Sharon went to the chiropractor. In helping her, he discovered that her legs were unbalanced. One of the factors could have been the way she slept. It seems that sleeping on your stomach is the worst, but you also have to be careful about your form when you are sleeping on your side. You shouldn't have one leg bent while the other is straight. Sleeping with a pillow between your legs would help this. So, my problem was that I couldn't sleep on my stomach which is my number one position when I can't sleep. When I was on my side I kept moving my legs to make sure they were both bent and not one straight, one bent. Sleeping on my back isn't really an option as that just isn't comfortable. I finally did fall asleep but have no idea at what time and I still had to get up at 4:45.

Unfortunately for Sharon still no boot camp and it is driving her crazy. She is not used to having her exercise cut off. She can start walking for exercise, 15 minutes at a time. Then she can progress to 30. If she is ready she can try boot camp on Monday but only walking up the hill and with little use of weights or resistance. My guess is that there is no way she will not be at camp on Monday.

Back to the playground workout today. I really do like this one. It is pretty intense and gets me moving and this morning was great for it. Pretty cool temperatures and the light breeze kept the mosquitoes away (although one did get me, the dang bug!). It didn't start promising for me though. My first station was a jump over a U-shaped stake with a 180 degree turn, landing on the other side and repeating. That area around my achilles tendon was still very sore at this point so I couldn't land the jump! Just like the Olympics. Low scores all around but certainly some extra points for artistic interpretation. I tried several different ways to get over that stake and they all must have looked ridiculous. I was even laughing at myself. Finally I realized that the best option was to do a jump with a 180 degree turn without going over the stake. That way the jump wasn't so high and the pain wasn't so great. Of course by the time I figured this out the 45 seconds was over and it was time to switch.

Next we moved to pull ups. I'm glad it was early so I wasn't tired in the upper body yet. Well, you wouldn't have guessed that as I still can't do pull ups. I did manage 1 1/2 which definitely is an improvement. That great technique that one often uses, the one where you kick your feet all over the place as if that would help, didn't work here. Neither did loud grunts. We were too close to the ground. So I spent the time jumping to the up position, holding myself up and slowly lowering myself down. This is getting better. I need to do this more on my own.

We followed this with body rows. Oh no, I thought. I worked on these last night at the health club so I knew I wasn't going to do real well. I did discover that bar we used here is about the same height as what I used at the club. You are supposed to touch your chest to the bar as you lifted and I felt like I was more touching my stomach but I was getting up there. And I did get slower at the end but I did at least keep going.

Other stations were tricep dips, glute raises off the medicine ball, planks off the swing with the legs pulling into the chest to work the lower abs, bunny hops (which I love), a tricep/ab exercise, chest work with tubing, step ups and dead weight lifts while standing on one foot. These last two exercises again tested my balance. I would step up and have to come all the way down on the other foot before repeating as I kept losing my balance and would lean all over the place. I did the same thing on the deadlift but that was extra hard. That sore heel made it hard to stand on just that leg. I kept wobbling just like a Weeble (you know, Weebles wobble but they don't fall down). Interestingly enough, though, after the water break it felt better and I was able to do the hop over the stake with no problem. Still the balance problems though.

Next we had to run the hill but only up. I think something I learned here was sometimes it is easier to go a little faster. I started in the back as usual so I got to the hill a little late. I was being a little fussy and didn't want to get my shoes soaking wet so I decided to try and stay on the path. However some of the people in front of me were a bit slower so I went at their pace so as to stay behind them on the path. I think this almost made it harder. I finally gave up and went around them. My feet did get soaking wet but I made it to the top of the hill without stopping. I was huffing and puffing though. We waited for the others to finish and then went back down to the tennis courts. We ended camp today by running across the tennis court. We went a little ways, dropped and did seven push ups, ran some more, more push ups. We continued to do this across and back. I really thought I was gonna make it but on the last 2 sets I had to go modified for one on one set and 2 on the last. Something more to work toward.

Joe finished with some inspirational words. Things about working through the pain and exhaustion. I added to myself working through the nausea. But I did work through it as best I could and once again felt I gave about all I had to give, with the exception of the first stake jumps.

Well, off from boot camp on Friday and then back on Monday. Hopefully Sharon will be there as well.

Have a good one.

Roger

Monday, August 16, 2010 Boot Camp Monday

2010-08-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

No boot camp for poor Sharon today. The doctor said no working out at all until 100% pain free. She has another appointment with the chiropractor tomorrow so maybe all will be well and she can get back to it. She did say she had sympathy pains though and woke up at 5:45.

We went to the casino last night. I won 30 bucks. Not much but it's better than coming home broke! Unfortunately when we subtracted the $20.00 that Sharon lost we only cleared $10.00. We treated my sister Mary Ann and niece Kristan to ice cream on the way home so there went all the profits. To make matters worse, when I got to boot camp this morning I realized I owed Dustin $30.00 for his DVD. Yikes, there went everything! Easy come, easy go I guess.

We did the parking lot workout today. The stations were upright rows, medicine ball throws and slam downs, jumping rope, side planks with a twist, swimmers, push ups with bands, back lunges with bicep curls to overhead presses, and a sprint across the parking lot and back. Everything was good and I really pushed myself during the sprint. Unfortunately, this was not the end. There was the hill.

The hill was very hard today. We had to run up for 20 seconds carrying our weights. Then we sprinted up for another 20 seconds. I momentarily thought of switching my weights for Sharon's which would have a difference of 20 lbs but I thought I would remain honest and push myself to become better. Plus, I was sure I'd get busted.

I was pretty slow on that hill today but I did keep moving. Dustin had to keep reminding me to go faster, to move, no walking, etc. but I did keep moving. We did this twice and then we had to do it backwards. I was very happy when we finally got to sprint to the fence. Then we walked back to the parking lot to finish with bicycles and some more work for the deltoids and core.

It was a good workout but I did miss Sharon. She really pushes herself which makes me push myself as well. And she usually drives at least one way! Hopefully she will be able to return on Wednesday.

Have a good one.

Roger

Friday, August 13-Injury at Boot Camp

2010-08-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Well, as expected if you are superstitious, Friday the 13th brought us some good luck, some bad luck, and the sort of bizarre.

The good luck was that the morning wasn't overly hot and humid. There was a nice little breeze that really did help keep the mosquitoes away at boot camp. Sharon and I woke up earlier than usual so we got to Elver Park before anyone except Ryan today. We had time to get our stuff together, douse ourselves in OFF and visit with other participants and Ryan before class started. So every thing was going well. Ryan told us we needed one dumbbell to use during the warm up. We jogged with our weight to an area near the water and did some of our exercises. This is where the bad luck comes in.

Do you remember the part in the Wizard of Oz where the Tim Woodman is talking about how he happened to be rusted there in the forest? He was chopping wood when it started to rain and he was rusted and stuck there. Well that's the kind of thing that happened to Sharon. We were lifting a weight across our body in kind of a chopping motion. Suddenly poor Sharon was moving away in pain. She hurt her back somehow. Ryan our instructor reacted immediately. He came over and helped her and gave her instruction as to what to do. Needless to say poor Sharon was done for the day. She could barely walk back to the shelter. I, being the selfless good Samaritan that I am, offered to take her home immediately and forgo my workout for the day. Dang that Sharon. She was even more selfless and insisted I stay. What a gal! So she sat and waved at me while I did push ups, ran up and down the hill, did high knee lifts, V-sit ups, in and outs, shoulder presses, tricep dips, etc., etc., and generally became a sweaty, smelly mess. In all honesty I know she wanted to be out there with me becoming a sweaty mess but it wasn't to be. Sharon will be out of commission for a little while. The chiropractor said she cannot come back to boot camp until she is totally pain free. Unfortunately, if that was me, it would mean I could not come back until the kids moved out :)

Finally, I found it just a little bizarre that I was driving around today with the heat in the car on. It was pouring out when I went to pick up Elijah from camp. I drove into the parking lot and could see that the kids were in the shelter. I was debating what to do. There isn't a real path up to the shelter to drive on but I could see a parking lot for the Hoyt Building that wasa nearer to the shelter. I also had a poncho that we use for rainy football games in the back that I thought might help. But, before I had a chance to do any of these things I saw Elijah coming down the hill, gym bag in one hand, pillow in the other, and his sleeping bag hanging around his neck. He just walked down calmly like it was the most pleasant day of the week. I got out to help him and he just yells, "Hi Dad!" Since he seemed totally in control I just put up the hatch and waited underneath it until he reached me. We loaded everything into the back and then he got in to go home. On our way, he seemed pretty chilled since he was soaking wet so I turned on the heat for him. Elijah said that it felt really good so we drove home that way. I just thought how weird it was, that after this terribly uncomfortable hot, humid week I was driving around with the heat on.

Oh, well, hope you have a more uneventful Friday the 13th than we did
Have a good one.

Roger

August 11, 2010 The Swarm

2010-08-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, and more mosquitoes. I hate them. Really, I do. This summer has been the worst for them. They eat right through the Off. I don't know how much longer our Cutter's Back Yard will hold them off and Brenna only reapplied it last week. It has made boot camp uncomfortable too. The boot camp in McFarland has been moved indoors because those dang bugs are even worse there! We are still outside. I'll come back to that though.

I bought my Blu-ray copy of What's Up, Doc? yesterday and watched it last night. I love this movie. It has been called the Barbra Streisand movie for people who don't like Streisand (which is not me, of course). It has a great cast of character actors in supporting roles with standout performances from Madeline Kahn and Mabel Anderson. There are so many quotable lines, which I do often. I showed this movie to Brenna when she was in third grade and she loved it then and now. We often watch it together and just laugh over and over. She especially likes when "Eunice" counts to 5. If you haven't ever watched this movie give it a chance. I think you'll like it.

Ok back to boot camp. Sharon and I were really tired this morning. For some reason, neither of us slept well and got only about 3 hours of sleep. So it was hard to get up and going but we did. Yuck it was very humid also which we knew would make working out even harder. We sprayed ourselves down with insect repellent and made sure to take our water with us. Dustin helped our group deal with the mosquitoes by making sure we were moving as much as possible. And, to be sure our cardio work wasn't going downhill, we spent time running up the hill.

After conquering the hill I wasn't too worried. I was pretty sure I could get up and work on improving my time. Then we got the new wrinkle. We had to run up the hill while carrying a medicine ball over our heads. As luck would have it, we had to partner up with someone who was near our speed and I had an excellent partner. I felt bad for her as her endurance was much better than mine so she probably didn't get as good a work out as she might have. While one ran up the hill the other ran backwards nearby. Then we would switch. I was very happy when we got to the top and got to walk back down.

For our strength training we did some leg work. It was good except that because I was in the faster group, we had to do bonus exercises while we waited for the other group to finish! I had some major league sore legs.

The next time up the hill with our partner we played fetch! One person had to throw the medicine ball as far as he could and the other person would run the distance to where the ball landed. Then the other would throw the ball and the other would chase it. Again, this got really hard on the legs. At the end my partner got off a great throw and it landed near the fence. So that finished us up. Again a nice walk down to catch our breath.

We finished with core work on the tennis court. Boy you can tell you are working your abs. The last exercise Joe called our grand finale on the 4th of July. We had to hold our legs six inches off the ground. Then, when Stanley called out the move, we had to do it. We did scissors, lifted the legs, opened the legs, lifted the legs, scissored, etc. You couldn't help but kind of laugh when you were doing this and it was fun but it did work you out.

I was very glad to be finished though. It was too humid and itchy but I got through it and now my workout is done for the day. I bought another DVD yesterday because it was on sale. A combo DVD of Old Yeller and it's sequel Savage Sam. I had read the sequel as a kid but didn't realize it had been made into a movie. Elijah is pretty excited to watch it but he's saving it for the weekend when he's not so tired from camp. We'll enjoy it though.

Have a good one.

Roger

August 9, 2010 Hot and Humid

2010-08-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Thunder rumbled across the sky around 3:30 this morning. I woke for a moment, wondering if maybe boot camp was going to be canceled again. I hoped it wasn't. Now that I've made it up that hill I want to keep working to try and beat my time. Luckily by the time 4:45 rolled around the thunder was long gone.

Sharon and I drove over to Elver Park through light rain. We figured things would go on as planned since there was no thunder or lightning. The shelter would be fine for our workout. Unfortunately we could also tell the humidity was already obnoxious.

When we arrived a few people there already. The other couple times we went to class when it rained attendance was small. By the time class started, though, there was a pretty good sized class. Maybe 20 people. We also had a different instructor. His name was Will. I'm not sure whether or not he had ever taught in the shelter before. He told us that instead of our usual circuits we would stay in one place today and do all our exercises there. We would devote 15 minutes to upper body, 15 minutes to legs, and 15 minutes to core. First, though, we had to warm up. In this heat and humidity that sounds odd, but we had to get the blood flowing and the muscles ready for what was to come. What came, though, was mosquitoes. Many of us had our insect repellent on today and those pesky insects went right through it. Even Will asked if anybody had any bug spray. I hate mosquitoes!

The workout was quite a bit like what I teach at Princeton Club. Still, it was tough. We concentrated first on the upper body. I'm still amazed how heavy those 20 lb weights can get after a while. And the push-ups are still quite the challenge. But, I am happy to say, I stayed on my toes and continued to do them all through the alloted time. Woo hoo for me! My biceps are sore as I'm sitting here though so I know we did some awesome upper body today.

As part of our leg workout we did some side hops. Those really worked the calves. We also added a high jump at the end of it. I realized I could not jump very high. Definitely need some work on that. I need to find more reasons to jump for joy. Maybe that will help.

Our core was last and we did some "around the world" work as Will called it. We were in the plank position and then would alternately hold up one arm, then the other and then the same with the legs. We also did some russian twists and elbow to knee crunches. When Will told us we were done I couldn't believe it! Class flew by today.

Will said he wouldn't hold it against me that I was wearing one of my Wolverine shirts. We talked about the renovations to the stadium and how I felt that the improvements would really help the sound levels in Michigan Stadium. I'm excited for football season as I just love going to the games in Ann Arbor. But that's a different post I guess.

Have a good one.

Roger

August 6, 2010 Friday Musings

2010-08-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful morning today. Not humid at all and pretty cool temperatures. It was perfect weather for our morning workout. Unfortunately, I talked Sharon into working out yesterday later than we usually would so it was less than 12 hours since we had last worked out. Ouch.

Ryan started us out with a jog across the grass and then suicides. What is with all these suicide drills lately? Actually they really get you going and can be kind of fun. We run forward to a designated cone and then did a star jump. Then we'd run back to the beginning and do it again, only going to a cone a little further out, doing our jump and then back to the beginning. We did the same thing doing side shuffles as well and I did really well on those so I enjoyed that.

After the suicide drills we worked the hill. We did 30 second runs up the hill, jogged (walked really) back down and then did some kind of exercise on the mat like planks or sitting russian twists. We did this a few times and finally did something that I think will be a great benefit to me. Ryan would tell us to go and we would sprint up the hill, then on his signal we would switch to a very slow walk, then when he signaled we would go back to the sprint and so on. This was to help improve our take off. I need this because I pick up speed pretty well but my take off is weak. However, by this time I could really feel yesterdays workout.

After the cardio we went back for water and then our circuit. I liked the stations in our circuit today. I'm not good at jumping rope though. I'm just trying not to trip over the darn thing. Could use a nice little jump rope ditty here too. We also did one with the medicine ball where we took it up and over our body and then jumped over it (we set the ball down for this). That was fun even when I was tired. I think there were about 6 stations in all.

I thought we would repeat the circuit after our water break but we did a different circuit. Wall sits, squat hops, and then hopping on one foot going forward, back, right and left. That one was really hard to balance. I had to keep putting one foot down so I wouldn't fall. I laughed during the squat hops because everyone else seemed to be hopping in place and I kept traveling. I didn't think we were supposed to be moving but I was and wound up pretty far from my starting point. Just like a frog. I hate wall sits but they weren't too long so that turned out okay.

Ryan said our last thing would be push ups. So I went down for my minute and a half of push ups, going as fast as I could and really trying to push them out there. When we were done my arms were very tired and I was ready to call it a day. But that was only one set of the push ups, we had to do another where we went down and held the push up in various positions. Ow, ow ow! Then partner push ups but Ryan told us that was the last thing. 10 partner push ups so I tried to crank those out as fast as I could while still staying in my toe position. I really could see the end and it would be time to go home. But then, even though we were done, we had to do jumping jacks until everyone was finished so Ryan could see when everyone was done. Dang, I thought if the people who were done just left, you could figure out the ones on the ground were not. Of course, Ryan's way was much more effective for the body.

Another really great workout and I left very tired but happy. Not only did I know I was keeping my promise to myself to keep going and working as hard as I could, but I was also done with my workout for the day!

Have a good weekend.

Roger

August 5, 2010 Retest

2010-08-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our first retest since joining boot camp. It was our chance to see how much improvement we had made since we started camp 8 weeks ago.

When I started on June 14, my goal was to master the hill. Upon attending the free session in May I realized the hill was gonna kick my butt, so I made that my goal. I had to get all the way up and down without walking. This past Monday was my first successful attempt and just in time. Wednesday was the test. Before we started Dustin asked if I had set a goal for the run. I admitted I hadn't as my goal was to just finish without walking.
So he gave me a goal. Finish 30 seconds faster than last time. Yikes! Not sure how I was going to do that but I figured I'd accomplish my goal first and then worry about the timing. Well, when he told us to go I started off, remembering to only use about 70% of my speed so that I would have some for the ascent. When I got to the bottom of the hill I started to push it more. I leaned forward, kept my arms pumping, and just pushed my legs as hard as I could. I talked to myself too. I said, "You can do this. You did it on Monday when you were much more sore." I wondered if anyone could hear me. Probably sounded like a nut. Oh well. It was very humid and breathing was kind of hard but I made sure to really breathe as I went up. When I got to the top and everything flattened out, I thought it would be easier now. But it wasn't.Still hard. I ran to the fence and then back down. The hill was more dry than usual and for once I just went with the decline, not holding back as much as I usually do. It didn't feel too bad but I really wanted to feel in control so I did hold back some. Finally I got to the bottom and took off. I gave it as much as I could, really trying to kick it some, but I didn't have as much left as I hoped. I was also running now to get the best possible time as I could since I felt I had already achieved my goal of making it all the way and down, running the whole time. When I was done, my time was 4:12. That was 35 seconds faster than my original test! Woo hoo! Of course, I felt I would enjoy it much more once I could breathe normally again.

The rest of my testing wasn't as good as I hoped. I added 6 more pushups, 3 more burpees, and lost 30 seconds on the wall sit. So now I have new goals. To improve in the pushups and wall-sit. I have about a month to work on this so I better get to work.

Have a good one.

Roger

August 2, 2010 I Did It!

2010-08-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

"Yo, Adrian, I did it!" After feeling like I hit the wall on Friday, I made it all the way up the hill without stopping today. Felt just like Rocky, except didn't have the energy to jump up and down at the top like he did. Would have liked a little musical montage to accompany me as well but you can't have everything.

I taught at Princeton East yesterday and thought it went pretty well. Later Sharon told me that we did a lot of legs which I hadn't realized. I realized it today though. Must have done a great deal with the upper body too because my chest has been very sore all day.

Today at boot camp we did a group of exercises designed to help us for the test we will do on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll do better then than I did today because it was exhausting and I kind of sucked. My upper body wasn't really too bad but the darn legs were tired. Usually I like to have a day off between strength type training but no such luck here. Since I had to teach yesterday, and I don't want to cheat the members who come to my class, I went full out which left me a less than 100% today.

Yay! Our first practice was the hill. We sprinted across the field to the bottom of the hill and then went back to the beginning and did it again. Each time we were only supposed to go about 70% and that's what I did. I knew I would need all my energy to get to the top. When we started up the hill I just tried to remember what I'd been told. "Lean in to the hill, use the arms, keep breathing," and I did all those things. I kept closely behind this woman named Jane because she is an inspiration to me. She gets all the way to the top of the hill, can go down and do it again. We were partners previously and were pretty evenly matched so I figured if I could stay close to her maybe I could finish. I could not believe when I got to the flat part of the hill near the fence. I wanted to walk now that I was there but wouldn't let myself. I just kept telling myself that I could finish and I did. I did it! I did it! By the way, there was no problem with the "keep breathing" part. I think Dustin could probably hear me breathing from way at the bottom of the hill.

Next we broke into two groups, one that did wall sits while the other did things like push ups, push up holds, front and side planks. The legs got me here. Even on the push ups, I usually have more problems with the arms but today it was all about the legs. The wall sit killed. At one point we were sitting when Dustin shouted "halfway there" when I thought we were done. I said "S**t!" and the people next to me started to laugh. And that was only the first time through. We had to do it 4 times. I laughed too when, during the 4th time, Dustin announced "15 more seconds" and the lady next to meet let go with the F-bomb. The wall sit seems easy but no way. A couple people next to me were so encouraging. When they could see I was getting tired they would tell me, "you can do it" which is great to hear. And I learned that it doesn't help at all to stand up and stretch out the legs for a couple seconds. Only makes it worst.

To finish, we broke down the burpees and then had to do some suicides and strength training. Quite honestly I did not think I would be able to do more. But we did. I ran all the way through my suicides, did it all the way. The only bad part was at the end, when we got to run to the fence and then walk back I took so long that I didn't get to walk! I had to sprint it on in. The strength training part was not too bad but I was glad when we were done with deltoid work. That's always hard.

Well, on Wednesday I've gotta go all out and see if I have improved over where I was seven weeks ago. Hopefully I have some good progress to show!

Have a good one.

Roger

July 30, 2010 Hitting the Wall and Other Thoughts

2010-07-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

"Whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes, ..." Just like the Grinch I looked for a reason why I gave such a poor showing of myself today at boot camp. Of course, I know the only one I really disappointed was myself and disappoint myself I did. Could it have been that I have been feeling pretty lousy the last couple days and haven't quite recovered from that? Maybe it was a lack of sleep last night. Or maybe I just didn't have it in me today. I'm not sure. Just felt like I hit the wall.

I woke up the same way I always do on the morning of camp. Although tired, I really looked forward to the challenges I knew Dustin or Ryan would have for us and whether or not I would feel like I've made some progress. Ryan was our instructor today and he put us to work immediately. His suicide drills got us going fast but I liked those a lot. Quick, intense, and fun. The fun didn't last long though because we moved to the hill. Eight minutes of running up and down the hill, and seeing how many times we could make it up to where the hill kind of plateaud out. For whatever reason, I could not motivate myself here. I was on the very edge with no one to my right, and no one real near me on the left. Probably should have moved in closer so I wasn't so isolated. Might have gotten my competitive fires going a little bit. The strange part was that my legs really didn't bother me that much, and actually felt pretty good at points. It just seemed like I was out of breath and having to breathe really heavily. I made it up and down 3 times during that time but feel I could have done so much better. I kept telling myself "you can do it" and "keep going" but just couldn't do it.

Our circuit was good. I did better than on the hill. It's amazing how long 45 seconds can be or how short it can seem. So I figure I either do better on some things or our timer isn't being as accurate on some rotations. Luckily I didn't feel overly disappointed here. I feel like I was able to push myself more. Still, I tried to go all out on the agility drill with the medicine ball and on the box hop but know it wasn't nearly as well as I've done on other days.

On the final group of core exercises I really floundered today. Again the breathing seemed to be more of a factor than anything else. I kept pulling back to take breaths. The russian twists and v-ups bothered my back a little more today too. At least I didn't quit though. I kept at it. I did as much as I could until the end. Ashamed to admit that I did modified push-ups for my partner push ups at the end. Again, I tried, but couldn't keep myself up. I was really glad when we were done because I don't think I could have done much more. Hoping I'll be ready to go again on Monday.

I must say though that being at boot camp is so inspirational. I love watching all the people in various stages of fitness continually push themselves to get better. At the end of our session, when Ryan was pushing us to our limit, there was no quit in these people. People jokingly whined or complained but they kept going. Everybody wants to be there. We've also been taking more time in the shelter after class to stretch and Sharon and I have been getting to know people better. It has been a real opportunity to learn about the personal and physical challenges other people face and to see that we're not alone using boot camp as a stress reliever.

Finally, just a quick address to how we are doing as a married couple working out together. Prior to starting boot camp I had a few people tell me that we were lucky we can work out together because they can't with their spouse. Some say they can't keep up with each other or too much competition arises between them and they get angry. Luckily, we've never had this problem. We actually met in a very stereotyped aerobic instructor, participant scenario. Only I was the instructor and Sharon was the participant. So exercise has always been a strong part of our relationship. When we work out at the health club we are pretty independent of each other but help each other out when necessary.

We decided to do boot camp together both to challenge ourselves in a new way and to help relieve the stress in our lives. We have a high, special needs child and a teenage daughter
(can there be anything more stress inducing than that?). By attending together we can understand what the other is going through physically and we know how we can best encourage the other. We are able to support each other, especially in those early mornings when it would be so easy to turn over and go back to sleep. It gives us a common point of conversation so that we don't spend all our time talking about our kids, but rather some time to focus on ourselves. And, luckily for us, we just like each other! We need some time independent of each other too but exercise is such a common interest for us, that this has worked out great!

Have a good weekend!

Roger

July 28 No Boot Camp, No Problem

2010-07-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning, I looked out the window and asked Sharon, "Dang, where's the rain?" I was actually kidding although it was so early and dark, the prospect of a second rain day looked kind of inviting. But, I figured it was not to be, so I got ready for boot camp and off we went. As we were headed out the door I asked, "Was that thunder?" I figured I imagined it since Sharon didn't think she heard it. Sharon drove as I was the most tired this morning. I rested my eyes on the drive but I think my wife did comment on seeing some lightning. However, last week we had a similar scenario and there was camp so we just continued on our way.

Upon arriving we thought maybe something was wrong. There were other people there but they weren't at the shelter we usually go to when there is adverse weather. I wanted to wait a little bit in the car, more out of laziness than anything else, but we got our stuff together and went down to the shelter. People were wondering whether or not there would be class because there hadn't been anything on the bootcamp page when they left home. Finally someone checked facebook on their phone and discovered that class was, indeed, cancelled. Some brave people decided to run a bit anyway, but, being deathly afraid of lightning and wet shoes we decided to just go to our health club to workout.

However, we got kind of tired driving home so after a heated 30 second debate we decided to go back to sleep and then go to the health club later. I am proud to say that we did make it to the club and got our workout in.

For my workout I decided to create my own boot camp in the weight room. We were at the club when it wasn't particularly busy so it didn't really get in anyone's way. I started by doing lunges with a bicep curl, switched to rows, then did some bunny hops forwards and backwards (which I'm sure looked amazing to anyone walking by), used a step bench for some lateral hops, proceeded with some deltoid presses, and did some russian twists on a stability ball. I did each station for 45 seconds, then took a water break and did my rotations again for 30 seconds. After another water break I then did my core work. I did some push-ups on the medicine ball, some front and side planks with a twist, some back extensions and swimmers. Again did each exercise twice. Finally I did some cardio on the stationary bike. Yesterday I used the treadmill at a high incline and practiced walking backwards. Backward exercises kill my quads so I was trying to get some extra practice in. I did have to hold on to the bar though. I'm gonna keep trying it and let go of the bar but I was a little nervous about doing that this first time. Anyways, I was glad there was air conditioning in the club because I wound up working pretty hard.

Well, tomorrow we are taking a rest day. We've already worked out 4 days this week and will get a fifth at boot camp on Friday. Elijah goes to overnight camp so we'll just relax with Brenna and hopefully get some stuff done around the house.

Have a good one.

Roger

July 26 Brenna's Birthday and Hill Workout

2010-07-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

A nice break in the humidity today. We turned off the air conditioning and we were able to air out the house a bit. Very nice temperature for our outdoor workout this morning.

Before talking about the workout just wanted a quick shout out to my daughter. She turned 17 on Friday, July 23rd. In her honor I wrote a little poem. It's actually a song that should be sung to the tune of "16 Going on 17" from the Sound of Music.

You are 17, going on 18
Princess, you're on the brink.
Lots of temptation, for your generation
Brenna, be sure to think.

You are 17, going on 18
It's time to get a job.
All of your spending, it's never ending
A bank you'll have to rob.

Probably unprepared are you
to face the world out there.
Lots of decisions you'll have to make
besides who's straightening your hair.

You'll need someone
older and wiser
Helping with what to do-oo
I'm your daddy, Sharon's your mother
We'll always be there for you!

Brenna had a good birthday with lunch at Red Lobster. Not a good eating day for me though.

It was beautiful weather for our boot camp workout today. Wish it would go back to being light in the morning so it wasn't so hard to get up but we know that's not going to happen. Today was a hill workout. We paired up and then divided into two groups. One group ran the hill first, the other did strength training. We decided to do the strength training first. Hill running is so much fun that we thought we'd save that for last.

The strength exercises weren't too bad. We did some lunges with knee lifts, deltoid presses while standing on one leg, some rows for the back. Boy those 20 lb weights get heavy after continually using them. They get a little harder to hold up with each exercise. Using them has really helped my rotator cuff injury though. Seems to have strengthened them and I don't feel the pain I felt for so long.

Alternating with the strength exercises were the cardio on the hill. Our first section on the hill we would run 30 seconds as far up as we could and then have 90 seconds to walk back down. I'm surprised that I was able to run all 3 times. Slower each time but still did it.

The next time was much harder. One partner would walk up the hill doing lunges while the other ran up the hill backwards. The backwards running just killed my quads. That, of course, made things so much harder. We did that a couple times and then we went back to running. The other person bunny hopped up the hill while holding a weight. You had to keep hopping until the other person walked back down to you. Sharon hurried back down to me so I wouldn't have to hop too long. I, on the other hand, came down pretty slowly. Sharon had to keep hopping away. It was really to her benefit that I came down slowly.

After the hill we did some core exercises. We did the front plank, the side plank with a twist, russian twists with the weights, front planks again with alternate leg and arm raise, and then some crunches with the weights. These core exercises at the end are brutal! I'm increasing in length though, holding them a little longer each time. A couple of them I held the whole time. My balance isn't good though. Was hard to do the overhead presses on one leg and the alternating lifts on the planks. Just something else to keep working at I guess.

Have a good one.
Roger

July 23, 2010 Storms Aplenty

2010-07-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning and it seemed especially dark. It's been staying darker longer so that makes it harder to get up at 4:45 am but I'm still getting up.

Lots of storms last night. I was worried about Elijah because he was camping overnight during all this. He called before he went to bed though and he was fine. So when I woke up this morning I was wondering if there would be boot camp or not. It wasn't raining or anything anymore so Sharon and I got up and went. On the way it started to rain and then suddenly the sky was lit up by lightning. We questioned whether or not to continue but pushed on. Then it did it again, really big. Scary big. We really should have turned around, but since we were up, we decided to at least go to the park shelter and see if anyone else would come to class.

When we got to the shelter, sure enough, other people were there as well as the instructor. The rain had slowed down to a drizzle now, and the lightning stopped. I was glad there was camp so that I wouldn't have to go back to the club to exercise later.

The shelter workout was tough. What else is new? I'm still amazed at how easy the exercises look but they are far from easy. There were about 8 different stations. One of the hardest was for the quads. It was constant, brought up your heart rate, and killed the legs. We also did work for our biceps, abs, triceps, speed and agility, lats, and deltoids. Somehow we managed to miss 2 stations though. And not on purpose! Then we had to run a sprint around the parking lot. Dustin told me to take longer strides. I laughed to myself because with these short legs, my stride wasn't getting any longer. I remember having to take four steps to other guys two steps when racing in school. But I made it around in okay time, and then did all the stations again, this time doing all of them.

To finish, we got to choose our favorite 5 stations to do one more time. Once it was ruled out that water break was not one of the stations it was so hard to choose a favorite among all of those stations. I thought about not doing any so as not to play favorites but we did manage to choose 5. Then we did some stretching and it was time to go home! Poor Sharon. When the humidity gets bad I get so sweaty and stinky. Really stinky. I think Sharon is tempted to go in 2 cars on these days. But as gross as I am, I love it! It's awesome! I love really feeling and showing how hard I've worked.

Once home Sharon immediately started working on making a trifle cake for Brenna's 17th birthday. I wanted to get in the shower but Brenna was in there so I changed shirts and started sorting the laundry for the day.

Later, when we picked up Elijah, he told us camping in the rain was great and much more fun than camping when it wasn't raining. He also asked if we couldn't somehow put a mud slide in our yard.

Have a good weekend.

Roger

July 21, 2010 Inspiration

2010-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

I slept fitfully last night.

I tried to go to bed early. About 10:00. I know boot camp comes early and the more rested I am, the better I can perform. Unfortunately, I had a couple of things kind of collide that had me thinking too much in the night and did not make for a restful sleep.

The first was the news that my great nephew has ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy) . This has been a disease that has been in my family for years. Unfortunately, it has resulted in the death of 2 of my brothers and my nephew. My first brother passed from this disease in the mid '70's. My second in 1997. Both were misdiagnosed as having died from MS. Only when my nephew passed in 2001 was the diagnosis of ALD given. It also became the diagnosis for my 2 brothers. This is a disease that is only passed from mother to sons. I had to have a type of blood test given that showed I did not have the disease. Every time one of my nieces has a son, the baby has to be tested. So far 4 of my great nephews has been diagnosed. The oldest of the 4 was progressing to fully developing the disease when he received a bone marrow transplant. While the transplant was unable to undo any damage the disease caused, it won't progress any further. The other two are a 10 week old baby, a 3 year old, and an older one. All will need a lot of medical attention, keep on special diets, but at least there is more hope for them, especially with Jordi, the bone marrow transplant recipient, around to always show a positive outcome is possible.

The second was reading the book Not Without Hope. This was the true story of Nick Schuyler and 3 other guys in Florida who went fishing one day in February. While out to sea they managed to capsize their boat, with eventually only 1 person surviving. It was such a tragic story. All the guys were in terrific shape, 2 being NFL players and Mr. Schuyler was a personal trainer. Reading not only their story but what he has to go through emotionally now really moved me. Especially the part about "survivor's guilt". I think I often wondered why didn't I get that horrible disease? Why was I spared? There must be a purpose. Fortunately I'm pretty sure I have discovered my reason.

Both of these things kept me thinking into the night. They made me sad for my nephews and really sad for my brothers. I guess you never really stop grieving. Both of my brothers were older. One was only about a year older. He was 16 when he died and I was 14. My other brother died when I was 35. He was about 44. Although both were hard, the one in 1997 was particularly hard. He was such a bright, witty guy and a great deal of fun. Both brothers had a love for wrestling and Larry (the older of the 2) was always teaching Joe wrestling moves. If he had made it to high school he would have been a great wrestler. Larry also left behind 5 children. Sometimes I still think to myself that I need to call Larry to talk to him about the Wolverines, or a book I read, or something that struck me funny. I think about my brothers everyday.

But theses two events also kept me up because they served as inspiration. I thought about those guys on the boat, how they gave everything their body had to give to try and survive. I also thought about how my brothers and nephew wanted to give their all but after awhile they couldn't. I told myself I'm going to continue to push to give what I can.

So, back to boot camp. Today was so, so hard! We started out warming up by jogging on the field Then we had to run a sprint across the field and back so that we could put ourselves into 2 groups based on speed. I wound up in the fast group again, not having learned my lesson from the last time. We had two different workouts today. One was an obstacle course, the other was strength training. Our group got to do strength work first and I was glad. After that sprint I didn't think I could go to cardio right away. Little did I realize how cardio intense the strength work was. Push ups on the weights with tricep kickbacks, abs with weights, side planks with a side dip while a weight rested on our side, and then we did it again. I got tired and wanted to stop but I kept thinking about those guys from the book and my brothers and thought push yourself, keep going, even if I rested a second, I made myself go again as quickly as possible.

When we did the obstacle course it was the same thing. I got tired but I kept trying to push myself. Even if my sprint became a really slow jog I kept moving. We did push ups on the medicine ball, bunny hops, crab walks, side shuffles, sprints, a side to side agility move and again it left me a sweaty mess. But I kept going. If I had to go to a modified push-up I did and then tried to get on my toes again. My goal is to get my mind to overcome that "I can't" mentality but it will take some work!

The whole class again went very quickly and we had to group up with people we didn't know at the end to do a slow jog while discussing what we hoped to achieve exercise-wise in the future as well as what might happen if we stop exercising. I hope I don't find that out!

Oh, yeah, tonight I found another inspirational story:
http://detnews.com/article/20100720/SPORTS0201/7200317/1131/SPORTS/U-M-coaches-helping-player-s-brother-to-walk-again

Check it out if you get the chance!

Roger

July 19, 2010 22 Years and Counting...

2010-07-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

I often have people ask me if I still teach at Princeton East. These are colleagues, friends, or members of the club that remember that instructing was a big part of my life. My answer to that question is yes. Over 22 years now and I'm still going. I only teach on a rotational basis now. It became much harder to find time once the kids started getting older. I actually thought it would get easier once they got older. Silly me! It is nice though to have members tell me they wish I taught more or how much they enjoyed the class. The exercise in the picture is a stability ball roll in for the lower abs. Looks like we were just starting to roll the ball in. I like this exercise a great deal for abs and upper body.

I taught Sunday and was interested to see how this would affect my fit camp workout on Monday. Well, it did I think.

When I woke up on Monday my legs felt pretty good. I attribute this to fit camp and all the quad work we've done. Usually my quads are killing me after a day I teach but not today. More progress. Unfortunately the inner thighs were sore. I don't exercise those enough so I can always tell when I do. When we got to the park I thought "Oh no!" because we could see Dustin's car by the hill. I was relieved when he pulled it back to the shelter. Unfortunately when the group formed by the shelter he told us that much of our workout would be on the hill. Dang the luck.

The first part of the workout was killer as well. Looking at these exercises it doesn't look hard, but once you start doing them the heart rate really gets going and they work the muscles. We warmed up on the tennis courts. We had a couple sprints at the end that got the heart going good. Then we went back to the shelter and divided up. For half the circuit we used the picnic bench. We did one legged step ups with weights. I started with my 20 pound weights and did as many as I could but started wearing out pretty quickly. But I did it for the full time, both legs. Unfortunately, I didn't reach the 20 reps we were supposed to. Then we had to do it again! I started with the 20 but had to switch to the 10. I was figuring that all that leg work we did in my class yesterday was not helping me any now. When we finally switched we went over to the mats. We had to do front planks with a partner that we kept slapping hands with, and then we did back extensions with hand slaps as well. We had to do each twice. Man this was hard. The time goes really slow during these although the class goes quickly!

When we went back in the shelter we sat on the benches and did these one legged squats. We sat and had to get up on only one leg. My balance was bad but I was able to do it okay. There was no way I was going to be able to do this with weights though. Finally we did one more rotation on the mats, swimmers and one-legged side planks, and then we were ready (for better or worse) for the hill.

We sprinted over to the hill and then chose a partner that was in our speed range. We ran up the hill for 30 seconds, trying to beat our partner up the hill. Then we would walk back down. We continued this going for a shorter time each time. Then we went up the hill backwards. Then we hopped up the hill. The we combined the two. My legs were not happy campers at this point. I pushed what I could but still had to walk some. Finally we got back down and sprinted back to the shelter. I cheated just a bit at the end because I wanted to check in with someone from my group last week and she was a little slower. However, it was the end anyways. I, as usual, was a sweaty mess. Luckily my deodorant has been working better but now I smell like OFF because I don't want those mosquitoes bothering me.

Have a good one.
Roger

Friday, July 16, 2010 Ouch!

2010-07-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

I was the most sore I have been since my very first day at fitness boot camp. Unfortunately, this was before today's boot camp even started. On Wednesday we did the playground workout and I really pushed myself to see if I had made progress. My arms were a little shaky after but I didn't think much of it. Thursday and today my arms and chest were more sore than they have been in ages. The body rows and pull-ups, I think, were the main culprits. It's the good kind of sore though. The kind you get from working muscles harder than you are used to. As I'm typing, they are still pretty sore.

We did the picnic table workout today. Our first task was to push the picnic table up to the post that was situated at the other side of the field. The difficult part was we had to do it while someone was on top of the table doing push-ups. My poor team started with me on top of the table. I'm sure I was the heaviest in my group so it couldn't have been easy. After they went about as far as they could go we switched people so that someone else finished the ride. Our group was too weak so we had to have our person on the table get off so we could get all the way to the post. Now we had to pull the table back to the starting point and the other 2 people got to do the push-ups. The second time we used the table we carried it to the post and brought it back but this time we had to do 10 pushups and 10 tricep dips at either end. The third time we had to extend our arms so that the table was over our heads and then we brought it back. It wasn't really that heavy but my arms were pretty tired by this point. In between our trips to the wooden post, we did circuits that worked the quads, glutes, deltoids, and biceps. Good workout but tough with sore muscles already.

Our cardio was fun but really pushed my endurance. We had to sprint across the field and then group ourselves according to speed. There were 6 in a group. I pushed myself and ran as hard and fast as I could. Unfortunately, this put me in the fastest group. Now we ran in a line, one behind the other, at about 60-70 percent of our peak speed. When the person at the front of the line called out the name of their favorite food or drink, the person at the end of the line sprinted to the front of the line. So we kept rotating being at the front of the line. Of course, I messed up. After I called out the name of my favorite food, pizza, I started to run to the back of the line. So my whole line followed me and we made a little circle. The other person did come to the front of the line eventually and again I started to run to the back. I have no idea what I was thinking! Oh, well, I finally got it right and was just hoping I didn't have to lead again because I was about spent. Right before it was to be my turn again it was time to sprint to the finish. I was glad because I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go much further. Sharon and I did take the time after camp to do more stretching. Hopefully this well help to prevent future injury.

After boot camp we went to Woodman's grocery store. This was still before 7 am so the store was still shiny and really clean. Sharon started laughing when she noticed I was leaving a trail of grass from my shoes all down the aisle. I started stamping my feet as we walked so I was leaving grass everywhere. We separated to get some different items and I told Sharon she could just follow my trail to find me after.

On Sunday I'm teaching my first body sculpt class since starting boot camp. It will be interesting to see how I hold up as often my legs are pretty sore after I teach.
Have a good weekend.

Roger

July 14, 2010 Playground Workout, Revisited

2010-07-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

Yes I did my Happy Dance today. A really tough, challenging workout and I didn't have to run the hill! Plus, we did this great workout and I finished with dry feet! Awesome.

We did the playground workout today which was the same workout we did on my first day of fitness boot camp. It was really a nice way to gauge the progress I have made so far. I know I have made progress in terms of weight because my clothes that were tighter at the beginning of the summer now not only fit but are becoming loose and too big. That is real incentive, I tell you. But I wanted to see what kind of progress I have made physically.

We did many, but not all, of the same stations. And I am so happy to report that I did better on all of them than I did the first time. The pull ups are still difficult and I still did the modified version, but I did more of them and held myself up longer than I did previously. These pull ups, by the way are done on the rings from the swing set. I keep adding to my tricep dips off the park benches and did pretty well on the side planks with the twists while holding a weight. I really like how Dustin announces how much time is left for each exercise so that just when I feel like I can't possibly do more, I hear how many seconds are left and realize that I can. Honestly, I sometimes still have to break for a second but I still keep trying to push myself to get back up and do more.

There seemed to be many stations today. It was exhausting but really gave for a well rounded workout. We also had to sprint around the tennis court between our first and second circuits. Dustin told me I could run faster and, you know, he was right. I pushed myself to go faster. It was hard because of the problem I've been having with my achilles tendon, but I've added some support in my shoe and it seems to be making a real difference. So Dustin continues to personally challenge me which is what I said I really needed.

The people in fit camp are very inspirational. Everybody seems to be at a different level and yet we are all jointly working toward the same goals. People are so encouraging to each other, accepting of the challenges we all face and there is no spirit of competition. I think that is why I've always preferred groups exercise. There is such a spirit of camaraderie that exists among the members. Fit camp has been such a great addition to my summer so far. The only downside is that it has made my summer break go too fast!

Roger

July 12, 2010 Morning Dew

2010-07-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read poetry about the beauty of the morning dew? It is so beautiful. It is nature's tears. Like little crystals from heaven...blah, blah, blah? All I can say is try running through it in your athletic shoes and socks, at 5:30 in the morning. It's not so great! Your feet squish around in your shoes until you can finally get those shoes and socks off. Yuck. Oh, well, back to the beginning.

It was actually a really nice day for working out outside today. The temperature was comfortable and humidity was low. Ryan was our instructor. Things started out great. We went for our warm-up jog in the parking lot. Cool. Dry feet. We did some other things like jumping jacks and walking lunges to get the cardio going.

Our circuit was really effective. Lots for the quads but other stuff too. Squats with shoulder presses, wall sits, jumping rope, rows using the tubing, and tricep dips were just some of our stations. Then we had a water break and I was ready to go through the circuit again but, yikes, we weren't doing it again. Time for the hill! Now we got to run through that wet grass, getting our feet nice and wet. Oh well, I guess they won't get overly sweaty. Then we had 5 minutes to run up and down the hill as many times as we could. We didn't have to get all the way to the top, just to where the hill plateaued. This was much further than I thought. I kept saying to myself, "I thought we didn't have to go all the way to the top" but it sure seemed like it. Unfortunately, up to this point my sore achilles area had felt pretty good but for some reason the motion my foot goes through when running upwards really bothers me. It does the same thing when I climb stairs. So I didn't do as well as I hoped, only made it up and down twice but at least I did it.

Then we went back to the shelter for another water break and a different circuit. Just two stations this time. One legged leg dips off the picnic benches at one station, planks and seated russian twists at the other. My russian twists went well and I was able to keep my feet off the ground the whole time with no back pain. Yay. More progress. The leg dips were a little scary because my darn wet shoe kept slipping. But I got through it without falling.

Another water break and then two more stations. More wall sits (ouch!) and some little hops back and forth while in a squat position. Burning quads now! Then another water break and, Ryan said, one last thing. Thank goodness. These 45 minutes go really fast but they are hard. Anyways, the one last thing was partner push ups. We did our fifteen and I jumped up full of energy because we were done for the day. Oops, wasn't really the last thing after all and my energy was zapped from my body. Still the last thing was jumping jacks again and I was able to do them for the required amount of time. Now it was really thank goodness. Great workout but poor Sharon had to put up with my stinkiness again because these workouts eat right through the deoderant. And some very nice soul lent me some "Off" which was so kind because those mosquitoes continue to love me.

Dustin will be back on Wednesday and I'm sure he'll put us through our paces. Looking forward to it.

Roger

July 10, 2010 Missed Friday :(

2010-07-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Okay. Didn't go to fitness boot camp on Friday. Hate making excuses, should have gone. But here is my excuse. I still have that sore area around my achilles tendon. I think that's part of the soleus but unsure. Anyways, looked up that injury online and it said to ice it and let it rest. I haven't been letting it rest so I thought I better before it gets worse and I can't go to boot camp at all. So just took it easy on the foot.

I did get a different kind of workout though. Yard work. Spent a couple of hours weeding and clearing up all the sides of the house as well as lugging branches and other debris from the tree that had been sawed off. We used some kind of Cutter's Backyard Bug Killer stuff that really took care of the mosquitoes. It was awesome! We had not even been able to step outside without getting eaten alive and this let us spend almost the whole day outside, back or front yard without bug spray. Even better, Brenna, my daughter, sprayed the Cutter's. When she heard we were going to try it she said "I want to spray it", so we let her. She said the mosquitoes tried to get her when she was doing it but it worked pretty quickly. So now, at least for a couple weeks, we can go outside into the yard again. It's supposed to work for 6 weeks, but as bad as the bugs have been, we're going to spray again in two.

So, tomorrow a regular workout at the Princeton Club. I'll do some weight training because it is either weight training or weight gaining, and just ride the stationary bike. The bike is real impact and feels better on the heel.

On a final note, saw Despicable Me today with Brenna and Elijah. It was very good and quite funny. IT'S SO FLUFFY! We saw it in 2-D so have no idea whether or not the 3-D is any good.

Have a nice weekend.

Roger

July 7, 2010 Humid and Buggy

2010-07-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

First let me say I hate mosquitoes. Hate them, hate them, hate them. Unfortunately they seem to love me. This morning was again very humid but for the first time (for me anyways) the darn mosquitoes really seemed to be out. I stopped a few times to either try to swat them away or to itch. As much as I don't like doing it I'm going to have to start wearing some insect repellent in the morning, just in case.

Today was another killer day on the hill. We first ran up the hill for about 20 seconds, dropped our cone, and then came back down. After that the amount of time was changed and we were supposed to try to reach or pass our cone. Finally we took a few turns running up the hill backwards. Man does that work the quads! By the way, this boot camp is really working the quads. I cannot believe how toned they are getting and they really didn't seem in bad shape before.

We returned to the shelter for our strength training. We worked in groups of three. We did one station for abs, one station weights, and one station cardio. We did things like side planks with a twist, swimmers, alternating deltoid presses, squat thrusts, rows, and more. When you are watching these things, it really doesn't look too hard. When you actually do them, with the addition of the energy you just expended on the hill, it is really hard. Then we had to sprint one last time over to the fence by the hill and back. I was tired but I made it all the way there and back without walking. Yay for me! We were done. I thought. Nope. Now we had to partner up for some push downs for the abs and some partner push ups. I had to bed my knees a bit for the push downs because my back was bugging me (how appropriate) some and by the time we got to the push ups I just did what I could. Again, though, I feel like I left everything I had out there. But then there was some more. We had to do some one legged hip lifts. That however really was the end.

We finished in a circle where people shared their successes so far. It was really impressive to hear what people are accomplishing. I'm surprised that I've been able to get myself up and there. People who know me know that I am not a morning person (unless getting up to go to a football game in Ann Arbor) so this is quite the feat. And I'm enjoying it too. It has been a great way to start off the day. Oooh but on Friday, Ryan.

Roger

July 5, 2010 Man Was I Stinky!

2010-07-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh! That was a workout this morning. My arms were a little shaky when I left for home. It was great. My shirt was pretty much drenched and I even cut right through my deodorant! Poor Sharon, we drove home with the windows open so the breeze probably didn't make things too pleasant. She had no problem with me taking my shower first.

Back to the workout. It was raining on and off this morning and pretty humid. Traffic was almost nonexistent since this is the end of the holiday weekend. When we arrived, I thought maybe we didn't read that camp was canceled due to the weather because there weren't any other cars there. Then someone else pulled up, and then someone else so all was good. There were only 6 of us in class today, probably due to the 4th of July but that was good. 6 people and 2 instructors meant plenty of individual attention. We did a circuit today in the shelter. No hill. We weren't going to have to run in that soaking wet grass which I really appreciated. There were several stations. We had to do russian twists while passing the medicine ball off, leg lifts with a roundhouse lift, push-ups with a side lift, rows using the tubes, squats with a lift using dumbbells, dumbbell lunges, side to side hops touching a cone on each side, wall sits with a medicine ball chest press, a squat jump throwing up the medicine ball as high as we could, some high knee lift jogs in place, and some squat thrusts. Yikes. And we had to do this circuit 3 times!

I was so surprised that I could do the push-ups with the fly twist. I wasn't able to do it before when I tried. Woo hoo making progress! The other stuff I was pretty familiar with so it was more of a matter of just pushing myself to do the most I could. That can be very difficult but I make myself go until I really need to rest.Then I try to make myself go again as soon as I can. It's getting better. After the stations I thought we were done but we had to do more. We ran in place with high knees while holding the medicine ball over our head. My knees weren't terribly high but they were as high as they were going to go. I laughed because I had just told my group that I couldn't get my knees any higher when Dustin called over to me to get my knees higher. Next we got to take the medicine ball and slam it into the ground as hard as we could. That was fun. At the next station we did bicycles and then front planks. I thought I was doing pretty well on the front plank until I realized I wasn't on my forearms but still on my hands. Had to quick drop onto my forearms. Whew! Finally finished. Nope. Had to run one sprint around the parking lot and then we were finished. With the humidity and all this turned out to be a really intense workout but, as I stated before, it was great!

Oh, yeah, did manage to lose another pound but, more importantly, I notice the change in the way my clothes fit. It still wouldn't be noticeable to anyone else but I can tell. Things are going in the right direction!

Roger

July 2, 2010

2010-07-02T07:49:00.000-07:00

The hill! The hill! What a workout! Our cardio portion of boot camp took place on the hill. Well I wanted a challenge. This was really meeting it head on. We warmed up first with a jog to the hill and then running around the garbage cans that were set out for the fireworks at Elver Park. Sharon said something to me that I can't remember but for some reason it made me think of a line from Golden Girls. It was the episode where Rose wants Miles to be more exciting. She signs them up for skydiving. She liked the idea of dropping down towards the field, watching the cows grow larger and larger. Miles asks her if he can't just run towards her and Moo? Guess you had to be there but that really cracked me up.

Anyways, back to class. We started by running up the hill for 30 seconds and then resting 15. The we would do it again. I didn't mind this because, surprisingly, I did pretty well. By the time we finished I almost made it to the top. Then we jogged back down. Next we did the same thing but for a shorter time. 15 and 5. The problem for me was that I couldn't just stop. I had to slow to a walk and then stop, but by the time I stopped we were running again. Still I got pretty high on the hill, which didn't seem so great since we were supposed to jog back down again. My jog became a walk back down. I was glad to see so many other campers had the same definition of jog. Next we shuffled sideways up the hill, switching sides when Dustin yelled "Switch" (as if you couldn't figure that out). Then the jog (walk) back down. One final exercise. We had to run to the top of the hill and down, and then back to the shelter for water. This was really hard now! I went as far as I could, but finally had to walk part of the way. It was interesting to me that it usually is my quads that get tired and make me start to walk but they were up to the challenge. This time it was my hamstrings that got the best of me. Maybe that is a sign of progress that my quads are getting stronger. Sharon, of course, with her great endurance jogged the whole way! She says that her jog is her sprint.

We moved next to the strength training. We had to grab out mats and some weights. Since the weights were for abs ( I thought) we just used Sharon's 10 lbs. We were in partners with 1partner using the mat and the other doing calf raises. Sharon insisted on doing the mat first so I did the calf raises. Anybody actually believe that? We did sixty calf raises, 10 slow and then 10 fast. I don't do this one very frequently so my calves burned pretty easily but I managed it. With the mat we did a crunch up, weights held against our shoulders and then pressed up with the weights once we reached the top of the crunch. Unfortunately I couldn't crunch all the way up. So once I got in the up position I stayed there for the presses :( but the next time we went through the rotation and I was on crunches again I was able to do it better. I was trying to keep my heels on the ground and we were supposed to have them off the ground. Dang I guess I didn't listen very well. But I got it better the second time.

We finished with core strengthening exercises. Seated russian twists, swimmers, and finally a front plank. By the time we got to the 90 second front plank I had nothing left. But I didn't give up. Mind over muscle. I held it as long as I could, dropped down for a second and then made myself get back up. Even if I couldn't hold it long I kept getting back up. That was a really looong 90 seconds!

On the ride home Sharon and I talked about how much we are enjoying camp. It is motivating, challenging and everyone is so nice and supportive. We also realize that in this economy money is tight for everyone, but the money spent on this boot camp has been worth every penny!

Have a great and safe 4th of July!

Roger

Thursday, July 1, 2010

2010-07-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

As stated before, Wednesday was an exhausting day. It actually all started Monday night.

A few weeks ago I took a class on Elluminate, which was basically a tool that could be used for creating virtual classrooms. The Madison School District was offering this class to teachers interested in using technology and those trained would receive a certificate that would allow them to train other teachers. Upon completion of the course it was expected that you fulfill other outside requirements. One of these requirements was to prepare a lesson that was to include various components. No problem. You would then present this lesson, online, to the instructor. A virtual observation. No problem again. I preplanned what I would do and stored it in my memory bank, figuring I would put this together a couple days before my observation as it really didn't seem that complicated. That is, unless, something goes wrong with your computer. Which, of course is what happened. I sat down to put all my ideas together Monday night. Unfortunately, I couldn't access the internet which is where my virtual classroom was located. Usually it comes back up, so I waited but when it didn't come back I decided I better check to see what was the matter. Well, turns out the router was shot. Would not power up at all. And it was too late to go pick up another one. Okay, still, not a big problem. I would just pick one up Tuesday, reinstall it, and finish my project. Not that simple after all. We had an appointment for my son in McFarland that lasted an hour and a half. Then we had to take him to Stoughton for camp. It was already noon by then and we had to pick up my daughter. We went home, had lunch, relaxed for about a half hour and then went to get the router. They really are not that hard to install. Unless, you have a really old desktop that takes about 45 minutes to boot up. I tried first installing it on one of the laptops but kept receiving errors on both. Then I tried installing it on the desk top. It said a file was missing. I clicked on the ok button and it totally shut down the computer. After 45 minutes of waiting for it to boot up and access my CD drive, it shut it down again! Now what? Okay, still not too panicked, I would just go out and pick up and external Ethernet adapter. No luck. Nobody had one. They could order it for me online but I did not have time for that. So I ate my dinner and went to the other side of town (after picking up my daughter from driver's training), but still no luck. Then I realize there is the option of installing without the CD by using the Internet options. Ok. So back to the old Dell desktop, another 45 minutes for booting up, and finally accessing the Internet. Then a long, long setup as the computer took forever to load each necessary page. To make a long story short, still did not work. I worked until 11:00 pm switching cables and adjusting settings, returning to the internet set up until finally it worked. But, now, it is 11:00 pm, I haven't started my assignment, and my observation is scheduled for 10:00 am the next morning. So I stayed up until 1:00 am getting it as ready as I could and hoping for the best.

4:45 am came really early! Off to boot camp. Dustin was our leader today. We did the picnic table workout. We were in groups of 5 and lifted the picnic table over our heads and carried it to a designated cone. Then we set it down, did 10 pushups, 10 tricep dips, and carried the picnic table back to our starting point. I laughed to myself as I thought, "This must be what the Hebrews in The Ten Commandments must have felt like when they carried Nefretiri's barge to the mudpits to see Moses!" We did jumping jacks then until it was our turn to do the circuit. To be honest, I was still so tired from the previous night that I can't remember what was all in the circuit. We did some lunges with overhead dumbell presses, we did some rows, and some other strength training exercises. Dustin kept us motivated so I didn't just go through the motions, I gave it wall I had. After we carried the picnic table a couple of times and did the circuit a couple of times, we focused on more core exercises. We used the weights and did V ups, russian twists, and various types of planks. It was a good, intense workout. It amazes me that we do so much that it never seems like it is early in the morning. We are just up and going and not thinking about the time of the day it is. However, again, I'm always glad to see those six-fifteen people arriving.

After class, went home and got the boy child ready for camp again. Dropped him off and went straight to school for my virtual observation. I could have done it at home but was not willing to take the chance that something would happen again with the router. I arrived at school early so that I had about an hour and a half to refine and test my presentation. The observation went well, the teacher actually said she was impressed with my lesson and now that part is done. I still have an online quiz to do but it is open book so shouldn't be too bad. Of course, I'll probably wait until the last minute to do that too!

Week Three

2010-06-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

Today I am exhausted. It is from a couple of things, including the reason I didn't blog about Monday's class. However, as Sophia Petrillo would say, I digress. Let's get to Monday's class first.

Ryan led Monday's class. I knew right when we got there that we were in for a workout. We started by warming up, running around the field. Just like last time when we wound up at the hill so I was a little leery. We had to hop on one foot part of the way. I have some soreness surrounding my achilles tendon on one foot so that was a little uncomfortable and I had to go slowly on that. We stopped midway and did some burpees. I did better this time than the last time. I went a little quicker, tried to get up a little faster, so some progress. Then we ran some more and I thought, Oh no, the hill! But we didn't go to the hill. Yay! We did some running, some sprints and then some slow. Kind of like red light, green light. I liked this exercise because this was something I could do already pretty well. Then we ran back in for our circuit. We had to do push-ups on the weights and then lift out the weight. Yikes. That was a challenge. Another challenge to meet. We also did the wall sit, did a fast run around a cone, hopped around in the shape of a box, and did some lunges with the medicine ball.

We had a water break and I was ready for a second go at the circuit. But we didn't do the circuit again. We took our mats, made a circle and played a card game. Hearts were high knees running in place, clubs were partner push-ups (more push-ups, ouch), spades was doing some in and out squats, and V-situps. Someone would pick a card and whatever suit it was we had to do that. Someone said, "Pull a joker", which I thought was a joke. We had to do the high knee runs twice in a row, partner push-ups, and the squats. Somehow Sharon hurt her hamstring doing this. She had to take it easy the rest of the time, but she still did pretty much everything. Finally, someone really did pull a joker. But it wasn't a joke. It meant run the hill! So off to the hill we went.
I regretted those dang sprints now. I ran up most of the hill but did have to walk some here and there. Sharon jogged all the way up! What endurance, even with a sore hamstring. Again, on the way down, I ran hesitantly. Don't know what's going on there but some kind of psychological hurdle there to jump. Finally, got to the bottom. I was thinking I'm getting closer to meeting my challenge of running all the way up the hill and down. But not quite there yet. I waited at the bottom with the others, encouraging others to finish and thinking that at least this part was done. But then the bad news. We had to do the hill some more! This time we had to run up the hill to where cones were placed, do 10 pushups (still more push-ups!), and then run to the next cone. I was beat but when I got to the last cone and was doing my last set of push ups I thought, Wow. I did it. I made it to all the cones and did all the push-ups on my toes. Awesome. Then we ran back down and when we got to the field I still had enough in my legs to run back to the shelter. That felt really good. Of course, we still had core exercises to do which didn't feel really good but hey, got through it. This was made especially easier when I saw people arriving for the next class. Monday was a workout! But when I was done, what a great feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. At least it was for me. Poor Sharon kind of hobbled back to the car with her sore hamstring but it's feeling better now.

This blog is kind of long so I'll post about Wednesday's workout tomorrow.

Roger

Friday, June 25

2010-06-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

Wow. Nice surprise on Wednesday. Very stormy in the morning and boot camp was cancelled. Just like a snow day! Sharon and I did go to the health club though and put together our own mini boot camp using exercises we already knew and some things from camp. We probably looked very silly but the club was pretty empty so who cares?

Back to fit camp today. Was really tough. Did some running on the hill but only within a selected area so not too bad. Still up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill...and then backwards. We warmed up by running around the wet field and having to do the plank ab exercise in the middle of it. As we got closer to the hill I said to someone "I think this is a trick" and it sure was. It just got us to the hill! After the hill, we went into our circuit. Lots of arms today and I felt it. I figured that I was getting what I deserved for making people in my body sculpt class do many of these same exercises. It's much different when you are teaching and the adrenaline carries you through. Here I kept telling myself mind over muscle, mind over muscle...but the muscle wasn't having any of that. We got to throw the medicine ball to each other and I kind of like the different hopping exercises. There was a rope ladder on the ground and we hop in and out of the rungs. We've done some others with rings the size of hula hoops that we hop through as well. That's fun. I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow though.

It's the end of our second week and we both find we are enjoying it. 4:30 comes really early but we can relax when we get home. It is very challenging but that is what I wanted. Gotta keep these 48 year old muscles working! Have to admit, though, that I like going to the 5:30 class because I know when I see the 6:15 people coming we are almost finished.

Saw Toy Story 3 yesterday. We all liked it. Was excellent, funny, suspenseful, and sad. Adults will enjoy it as much as kids. And, the tickets were only $5.00 which I enjoy as well. Have a good one.

Roger

Week Two

2010-06-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Started a new week of fit camp. Started with the cardio portion of our test which meant we had to run the hill. I ran the hill in 4:47 seconds. Not great but I know it is better than it was last week. My quads weren't sore like they were prior to our first day of camp last week. Unfortunately on my way up the hill I noticed my shoe string was untied. Didn't want to stop to tie it but really didn't want to fall either. I get really nervous on the way down too so I find myself stepping on the brakes a little bit. But I had a lot of energy at the end of the hill so was able to kick it a little there. Gives me something to work on. Sharon did well. She came in slower but she jogged all the way up and down the hill. She has good endurance. While we were waiting for people to finish we had to do push-ups. Good reason to finish a little slower.

The circuit was tough. Worked all areas of the body. That reminds me, my 17 burpees must have been over 3 minutes, not over 1:30. We had to do them again today, not a test though, and I was thinking no way was I able to do 17 of these! I was a sweaty mess by the end of the workout but it felt really good. The saddest part was when we got back to the car and I realized I left my mat behind and had to go get it! I think Sharon should have gotten it for me because she has such great endurance but no go. Oh well. No fit camp tomorrow so Wednesday we'll go at it again.

Oh, yeah, lost 2 pounds last week. Unfortunately bad weekend of eating but how could I pass up all that great food in Michigan? At least the meat was all grilled. And I had to keep dragging Erica around in the pool and lifting her up so maybe that counts for a little exercise.

Roger

Fitness Camp Day 2

2010-06-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

Fitness camp was pretty good today but tough. I wasn't as sore as I thought I would still be (but I was pretty sore yesterday). We had to do some fitness tests and I didn't do so well :(. I won't tell you what I weighed in at but it's not good! I could only do 26 push-ups, wall sit for a minute and a 1/2, and do 17 burpees in a minute and a 1/2 so I guess I have lots of room for improvement. Sharon was one of the best wall sitters. She sat 3 minutes and 1o seconds. Unfortunately it took a couple of us to help straighten her back up into position after. We didn't do the cardio test because the hill was too wet but we have to do it Monday.

After the tests we had to do our workout. We did the chariot run which meant our partner put two tubings around us and pulled back while we ran across the tennis court. It was hard to move. My partner was nice and very encouraging. The participants next to us gave me some pointers to use my arms to help my momentum and it really made a difference. After we went across and pack we switched positions but then we had to switch back and do it again. The second time was really difficult. I got to watch Sharon with her partner and her partner was really strong. I tried not to laugh as I saw her racing across the court and Sharon holding of for dear life! I got to glance when Sharon was running to and she did pretty well. Only later I found out that they only used one of the tubes instead of 2!

When we weren't doing the chariot run we had to do squats into overhead presses, 15 push-ups, side lunges, back lunges with bicep curls and then we had to do them again. This all reminded me of junior high school. I remember when spring would arrive and we would have to go outside to start training for our mile run. The first couple of times I would be terribly nauseous after but then I'd get used to it and would start to get better. That's how I'm feeling after the 2nd day of camp. I wasn't nearly as nauseous as I was Monday so I'm hoping to start getting better. Unfortunately we're going to camp tomorrow instead of Friday which means no day of rest. Luckily it's because I'm going for alone time to visit my family in Michigan and very much looking forward to it.

Roger

Boot Camp Day 1

2010-06-14T19:55:00.001-07:00

Okay. Went to my first real fitness fun boot camp today. Definitely a fitness boot camp, but I don't know about the fun. That workout kicked my butt! We almost didn't make it through the warm up in the parking lot.

This is what I looked like when I got home!

Been walking very slowly the rest of the day. Sharon did really well. This camp showed me I really need to get in shape.

We did what was called the playground workout. We really worked our core while also working legs, arms, chest, butt, and we had to run that sledding hill at Elver Park again. Even though I was thinking "I got up at 4:30 am for this!" I also realized that this was really presenting me a challenge that I am determined to meet. And Sharon will be there meeting it with me so that is good. Sharon says "Ouch" which we have both been saying all day! Don't know whether I'll get my Tuesday workout in at the club. We're being tested on Wednesday which I'm guessing is to establish a baseline. Then we'll be able to chart our progress better. I hope they don't time me on that dang hill! Maybe I'll just roll down to increase my speed! Wish me luck on this.

Watching Dance Your A** Off. I love this show. Very inspiring to see. And for the most part these people can move!

Oh, well, I survived to get fit another day. Have a good one.

Roger

Sunday, June 13

2010-06-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the beginning of Fun Fitness Boot Camp. Sharon and I will be taking the 5:30 am class. Yikes. Hopefully I can get myself up for that. I'm a little worried because I'm already sore from teaching Body Sculpt this morning. Boot Camp should be quite the challenge but need some kind of jump start to get me working out again. It will be good to have someone else planning out my workout for a while. Then I just have to worry about my eating!

Got to actually go out to dinner with Sharon last night. We went to Granite City. It's nice atmosphere there but kind of expensive. We went to a couple of bookstores after. I saw a couple books I wanted but didn't buy them. One was the true story of that boat that went down with 3 football players and a personal trainer. Only the personal trainer survived. I read part of it in the store but it was so sad wasn't sure I could read the whole book right now. I just took 3 books out of the library so I should really read those first anyways.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to blog my journey through boot camp this summer. I hope somebody will check out this blog and see how I'm doing.