Crunch: Hitting Our First Milestone

I was on the train home from work last Thursday night when my daughter texted me.

Thursday's texts

This was something of a milestone.  It was the first time that Hannah had ever pushed me to go to the gym.  After weeks of my pushing her, it seemed that we’d finally started a self-sustaining reaction.  She wanted to be there.  She actually wanted to get stronger.

I’ll be honest.  I wasn’t as excited as I might’ve been.

We usually lift Tuesdays and Sundays, adding twice-weekly weight training to a routine that includes bike commuting and swimming for me and gymnastics and dog-walking for Hannah.  But Hannah begged off on Tuesday, saying that she needed to study for her midterm exams.  I used the opportunity to do some outside-the-box exercises (reverse curls, for example), and I pushed the pace, getting through a standard workout in just forty-five minutes.  That gave me fifteen minutes for warm-ups and thirty minutes for actual weight training, made more intense by skipping downtime through the use of giant sets¹ that worked unrelated muscle groups in series.

For example, I did the following giant set three times:

Set 1:

 -- Reverse-grip pull-downs

 -- Forward lunges

 -- Quadriped arm/opposite leg extensions (aka: bird dogs)

The idea was to rest one muscle group while working something unrelated.  This cut overall workout time while maintaining my aerobic workload between sets.  I worked back then legs then core, allowing my back to recover during the lunges, etc., while keeping my heartrate above 100 beats-per-minute (bpm) throughout the workout.  You wouldn’t want to do it that way if you were trying to get #swole, but it’s great for balancing muscular strength with endurance in the context of sports like swimming or triathlon.

Reverse-grip pull-downs

The upshot, though, was that I was tired afterwards.  I hadn’t finished recovering from Tuesday’s workout when I got Hannah’s text, especially seeing as how I’d been on the bike all week after working legs on Tuesday.  Really, what I wanted on Thursday was a beer and some downtime on my couch.

But Hannah wanted to lift, and I knew that I need to encourage her.

This, I suppose, is the value of having a workout partner.

I decided to put Hannah through the same workout that I myself did on Tuesday—with a few modifications—and I came up with a stripped-down concept for myself involving dumbbell press and a few sets for my triceps.  I never felt like I had my best stuff, but as I always tell my daughter, “Any workout is better than no workout.  Even a bad workout is a victory over apathy.”

This didn't look nearly as badass as I was hoping it would.

Hannah said that she was inspired to lift after Wednesday’s gymnastics practice because she’d had a really good session on the mat.  She felt like she’s finally getting stronger, and that has her excited.  In a larger sense, I think she can finally see some of her goals becoming achievable realities, and that’s pushing her to push herself.

As her father, I think that’s great.  As her workout partner, well… I may have to find some more motivation myself, but I guess that’s a good problem to have.

At Crunch Fitness: Stratford.  Tell them I sent you.

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1. Weight training vocabulary:

-- Giant Sets work unrelated muscle groups to minimize downtime and maximize overall workload.

-- Super Sets work the same muscle groups with different exercises. For example, I used to super-set upright rows, military presses, and side-lateral raises to target my shoulders.