If a person feels unsafe then they should stay away. I have no issue with Arnolds decision and no problem with the gym policy. Both have made their choice and that's how it should be. I will continue my gym attendance so long as there is no significant and sustained spike in my area. What happens elsewhere is of no concern to me unless I would be traveling to a particular area which was experiencing a spike. It that case, no gym for me. Unlikely I would travel at all to a hot spot.
This morning, after doing my bodyweight squat ~cardio, I decided to see what I looked like a bit pumped up on an empty stomach. And so, I did a few reps of each exercise just to get the blood going, and I was surprised how little time it took -- barely a handful of minutes. This got me thinking. Perhaps on my "official" cardio day, rather than do double the bodyweight squats than I normally do on the other days, and after the ab exercises, perhaps I could do a quick set of all of my upper body exercises, but this time falling short of failure by a few reps, rather than going past failure as I do on my "official" lifting day. Just to keep things oiled and running, so to speak. When I go all out, I take as much as 5 minutes between exercises, but this morning, I just went from one exercise to the next in well under under 30 seconds. And it felt good. It would never replace my lifting workout, but it might be an interesting adjunct. I wouldn't do calves, because that would take too much time, but I would do a few slow reps of split squats for upper legs. (The pistols would remain at once a week.) Although the split squat cadence would be slow, the upper body sets would be at a more conventional cadence of about 3-4 seconds per rep. I know that, a while back, Ellington Darden had recommended an NTF (Not To Failure) workout along with a full failure workout, but I didn't really buy into it. Perhaps it's time to give it a try for a few weeks to see how it goes. After completing the NTF "workout" I did a quick search on the subject matter to see what my HIT brethren had to say about it. Feelings are mixed, but I did come across a reference to an article written by Doug McGuff which he wrote in 1999 on the matter. I found it on Ellington Darden's website: http://www.drdarden.com/readTopic.do?id=399857&pageNo=0 Interestingly, McGuff never mentioned this NTF workout in his book Body By Science, which he wrote years later. So I guess it didn't take. But he reportedly stopped just short of failure whereas I'm thinking at least 3 or so reps. I'd have to play it by ear and see. The idea is not to build muscle with this NTF workout, but to help maintain metabolic conditioning and maybe use up some more glycogen stores. Any thoughts?
I guess not. Well, in any event, this morning would normally have been my day for double the cardio work I did on my lifting day two days earlier. So rather than spending the 11-12 minutes doing that routine, I only did half that for about ~6 minutes and then, having warmed up, I did my lifting routine to almost failure, spacing each set just over 30 or so seconds apart. I was done in just over 20 minutes, all in. It felt pretty good. The cadence was not of the 6-second per rep variety, but what you would normally see in the gym -- about 3 seconds or so. I'll give this workout a go for the remainder of July as my second ~lifting workout for the week and see how I feel at the end of the month. If it doesn't have a notable cumulative fatigue effect, I'll keep at it. I should point out that the cadence was about 6 seconds per rep for the split squats, of which I did 2 per leg. I find that an ordinary split squat, without elevating the rear foot on a bench, is actually better. It's even better than a skater squat. Better because it offers a greater range of motion. I was pleased that I could get a fair amount of intensity using the same light dumbbells that I normally use for pistol squats, by leaning the upper body forward (nose above toes; in fact, a bit beyond the toes to make the rep harder and minimize any assistance from the non-working leg) and not locking the knee of the working leg at the top of the movement. I had been wondering what will happen when I'm in my 80s and can't do pistol squats anymore. I think I have my answer.
First thing this morning was my second "adjunct" lifting workout (described in the last 2 posts), following Monday's "essential" workout. Again, it only took about 20 minutes, which included about 5-6 minutes of HIIT. Rather than going NTF, as I did the first time last Wednesday, I decided to go to simple MMF, without a static hold trying to force further movement at the end of the last rep. NTF just doesn't do it for me. To offset, I decided to drop the forced reps from my principal workout. What I like about this workout combo is that I take longer rest (up to 5 minutes) between exercises in the principal workout and then really drill the muscles worked, whereas the secondary workout's rest between sets are a bit over 30 seconds but well less that 45 seconds. There are proponents of longer rest periods between sets and proponents for shorter rest periods. Although I side with the former and have never taken such short rests before, there's no harm in hedging my bets. And who knows, maybe it'll work the fibers in different ways or combinations. Plus, this secondary workout also serves as great cardio. I expect great things although I don't think I'll be quite ready to compete in this year's Mr. Olympia. ( (._)(_.) ) ( )\___/( )
What are you doing for your HIIT? Body squats? I just started up again in the last week or so doing some shadow boxing at the end of my workout. A couple two minute rounds with 30 second rests ramps up my HR bigtime. A nice finisher for me. Got to be careful when my HR gets up too high, too fast. Having this stupid Afib always spooks me.
I refer to it more as ~HIIT than HIIT. I do 200 body weight squats at speed (between 0.75-0.80 seconds per rep) immediately followed by two ab exercises for 50 reps each. Apart from the 2 lifting workouts, I do 4 other days of just the 200 body weight squats (again, at speed) first thing in the morning to get the blood pumping. It's not much, but I figure that, along with the lifting work, it gets the job done. Yes, I'd be careful with the AFib. Does your doctor give you full clearance for the type of workouts you do?
Yes, my cardiologist knows exactly what my routine is. He is also a gym rat himself and is a strong advocate of an active lifestyle. I'm one of his, "cooperative and compliant patients". Don't smoke, drink alcohol, proper diet, exercise regularly which seems like common sense things to do to help yourself, but according to him most people just won't make the effort. Everyone wants a magic pill and what he tells me is the medication is only one part of the equation and works a hell of alot better used in conjunction with fitness and nutrition. We are a nation of the fat and lazy.
I moved my 2 workout days a day earlier. So I did my principal workout on Sunday, and my secondary workout this morning. I decided to reduce the rest between sets in the principal workout from 5 minutes to 2-3 minutes. I averaged about 2.5 minutes on Sunday. The workout took only 32 minutes excluding ~HIIT cardio but including calves, which take about 7 minutes as I do them individually, with about 10-15 seconds rest between them. So the compounds took only 25 minutes. Challenging, but it felt good. Today's secondary workout took only 18 minutes, which included front-end ~HIIT cardio of about 5 minutes. Rest between sets was near 40 seconds, but I did go to full static MMF. That means the resistance component took only 13 minutes! (No direct calf work.) I was breathing like a horse during and after the workout. I love this stuff.