2012 has been rolling on and school’s now started for myself and the girlfriend. Right now, my training schedule is a little off but starting next week, I’ll be running with some friends again, while training one of them for an upcoming 5k they’re registered for, exciting! I’ve also enrolled in a new class that, according to the professor, will be more difficult than normal: PET3361 Nutrition in Health and Exercise. Basically, it’s just an intermediary class on sports nutrition so I get to learn all those fun things that I thought I knew 12 years ago (when I was last interested in taking classes on nutrition): metabolism, food chemical interactions, how RDAs/DRIs are calculated for age groups and activity levels, and so on. I think our textbook serves two purposes, one to educate us, but the other is to make us physically stronger. It’s one of the heaviest paperback books I’ve ever owned, I was pretty much curling it last night while flipping the pages. I’m so glad this is an online class, otherwise I could substitute this book inside my backpack for wearing a weighted vest…or for use as a kettlebell.
Now that we’re well into January, I’ve been developing and integrating a new training plan into my life. This new training has included an expansion of my kettlebell workouts and I am now going to be including sledgehammer work and I want to integrate some strongman-type work such as tire flipping, farmer’s walks, and I want to add in some rope climbing work. I’m still shying away from the craziness of CrossFit, especially after seeing more videos from CrossFit gyms like this one (h/t to Conditioning Research) where all the CFers are visibly struggling with their workouts and are clearly setting themselves up to get seriously injured, without any worry from the trainers; in fact, they’re encouraging these people to lift weights they can’t handle or do movements they can’t complete. This gym should be ashamed of themselves for simply taking these people’s money without any concern for their well-being, just watch the video to see what I mean. I’m generally more interested in improving my GPP than just relegating myself to gaining fitness through running only or working to prepare just for races or events.
So far, this has worked to help improve the injury in my hip from last September although it does still hurt on and off, I’ve now realized part of the issue is my office chair so I’ll be getting that replaced as soon as possible as well. I’m not 100% sure if these changes along with ART will get that pesky ITB fixed or if it’s going to make it worse, but we’ll see what happens.
I’ve also moved into adding music back into my workouts only because it’s pretty boring listening to myself breath in and out while jumping rope, so I’m going through Bluetooth headsets like you wouldn’t believe. Since December, I’m on my third pair for evaluation. I’ve only returned one pair because they were just incredibly terrible and poorly thought-out, the Motorola S10-HDs. I don’t know how anyone can wear those things and say they’re comfortable. When I got them in the mail and plunked them on my head, I got a massive headache within 30 minutes from the neckband simply squeezing my head to death. I never actually got to test them during a workout because I couldn’t even wear them. I’ve since returned the Jaybird JF3 Freedoms as well, the wire connecting both earbuds would get caught on everything and that was just unbearable, so now I’m trying out the Arriva Leo headset. My first impressions are:
Incredibly light, you hardly notice them
Getting them to fit is the hardest part
Using the included Acoustibuds, they have great sound
They’re sweat resistant but we’ll see how long that lasts, I’m expecting a few months at most, if that. The worst part about them is getting them adjusted to fit your head since they use stiff-but-adjustable arms that need to be slightly molded to your head and ear shape. Once they’re adjusted, you’re good to go. Just be careful when removing the earbud tips, you may pull off the speaker mesh.
Now, I gotta get back to work, although I really don’t want to.
