The training plan

Warning: lists below!

Sunday is planning day, and what better way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon than creating a suite of new spreadsheets?

Sometimes my geekdom just goes into overdrive.

Having lost so much of my hard-won gym fitness, I'm treating this as a new start. So, rather than bring out the very challenging "bus programme" my trainer wrote for me before we ran away, I'm taking a back to basics approach.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a fitness test. This involves:

• weight
• 1km time test (which I'll do on Tuesday as part of the first Up & Running day)
• number of push-ups per minute (I'm going to allow myself the girly version. Mainly because I suck at push-up. Particularly since the whole "cartwheel your bike and smash your shoulder" incident)
• how long I can hold a wall sit
• how long I can hold a plank (or bridge, or whatever you call it)
• my sit-and-reach distance in cm

I'll put the results on here and then repeat the test every four weeks. Should be interesting to compare the start, half-way and finish points of the eight week Up & Running course.

My training for the next eight weeks will look like this:

• Up and Running training: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
• resistance training: Monday, Wednesday and Friday
• rest: Sunday

I have a nice set of gym equipment that travels with me in the bus. It consists of hand weights (the cool dial-up ones so you only have one set gives you different weights), a skipping rope, a yoga mat, a Swiss ball and a BOSU.

For resistance training I'll do a sort of "whole body" routine that I can vary as my fitness increase by adding extra weight or more challenging variations. The basic workout entails:

• tricep dip
• bent row
• military press
• chest press
• squat
• reverse crunch
• Romanian deadlift
• alternating Superwoman
• toe raise

Feels nice to have a plan again.