Off Season Day 38 - Back on Track.

Aug 5   - Arms, Legs
Aug 6   - Knights Training
Aug 7   - Legs, arms

By the morning of 5 August I was feeling reasonably confident about my right arm again.  It'd been four days since I had slightly strained the lower bicep and there was only a slight sensation of 'difference' so, after deciding that I hadn't had enough sleep and therefore wouldn't go to Vikings Training in the evening, it was a fairly straight forward choice to pick up the weights again.

My session lasted a full fifty minutes and was moderate to high density.  I worked my way through my entire weights circuit, peforming each set twice before moving to the next, allowing two minutes minimum between sets, all sets now of nine reps (except the overhead and chair lifts, which are ten reps).  I found myself fatiguing on the last lift of each set, though not totally.

It will be interesting to see what ten reps per set achieves, which should be by this time next week.  After that I start to shift emphasis from power to endurance, reducing recovery periods and increasing the tempo as I head into pre-season training and a maintenance schedule for the strength.

In between sets of weights I performed a complement of core exercises that worked primarily on the legs (sumos, squats, lunges, high lunges, single led balances, hamstring suspensions, sideways lying leg lifts).  I did two sets of each or on each leg, as appropriate (one during each weight recover period).  This usually left less than a minute for complete rest between the end of a drill and the start of a weights set.  Thus the 'high density' for the session overall.

At the end of it I notice that my right arm was a little more tired than the left and that my legs have returned to what passes for their normal state ('normal' since I did my PCL last year, that is), in that the right leg is more challenged than the left by most of the activities.

On August 6 I limited my exercise to a training session at the Ice Arena with fellow Knights and friends.  From a strength and conditioning perspective I coped with it much better than I have to date, most recently about a month ago.  My core feels exercised but not under done, and my leg strength was not the limiting factor to my skating.  Aerobically, I stayed within the zone, muscle fatigue was more of a challenge than running out of breath.  Anaerobically, my recovery time was 2-3 times that spent in the battle zone.  It was deficiencies in skill and technique which let me down the most.

Note to self: Progress!

August 7 was originally going to be a rest day.  This had been an easy decision as I was feeling a little stiff and sore from the night before and had a dinner engagement in the evening.  I did however manage a short twenty minute leg session in the morning (squats, high lunges, single leg balances, hamstring suspensions, side lying leg raises, sumo squats).  I did twin sets of all exercises, of each leg where appropriate.  For the leg raises, I did ten raises of ten seconds each on each leg.  And then I got home from work a bit early and so managed to do a full arms workout (10 reps in first set of each lift, 9 in the second, hitting fatigue on most) before going out for dinner.