Easy Week Workout 3 - Hotel Room Improvisation

Headstand x 2 - slowly moving into and out of position
Handstand Push Ups - 2 x 3 - partial - head a few inches away from the ground
Reverse Hyperextension - 2 x 10 - using hotel furniture to stabilise my torso
Inverted Under-Table Pull Ups - 2, each with a 15 second hold
Box Jumps - 3 x 20 - using the same piece of furniture you see in the Hotel room back raises video.

There was a great gym downstairs at the hotel I was staying at but unfortunately I had forgotton my sports gear. I literally had only my work clothes and there would have been no dignified way to do a workout! So I improvised, which gave rise to two new vidoes, which Mrs M kindly took.

I did the sets in an almost random order, but obviously roughly like a circuit. Again, I was focusing on avoiding fatigue and staying away from too much effort. I wanted to give my muscles a chance to do some repair work. ... Read more

Easy Week Workout 2 - Dumbell Snatch, Abs and a 25-Rep Finisher

Dumbbell Snatch - 5 x 5 with 28kg, using legs as little as possible to protect the knee.
Ab rollouts from the knees (with dumbells) - 3 x 10, middle set with 10kg weight vest

Finisher - 25 reps of the Sandbag Lift, Squat and Press Combo with an added press up after each rep. ... Read more

Easy Week Workout 1 - Random Upper Body Gymnastics

Frog Stand (30 seconds x 2)
Headstand - controlling my body into and out of the position (x 2)
Handstand Push Ups (partial, 3 reps then later 2)
Inverted press-ups with feet on bed and10 kg weight vest (1 x 10)
Inverted Under-Table Pull Ups 2, each with a 10 second hold
Ab rollouts from the Knees (using dumbbells) with 10kg weight vest (10 x 2)

I am between gyms this week and having an easy week to let my body recover from several weeks of effort. The list seems like a lot but you will see I never did 3 sets of anything. I did it in a random way, avoided working too hard and rested when I felt like it. I came away feeling relatively fresh. ... Read more

Deadlifts and Pull-Ups with an Upper Circuit Finisher

Frog Stand - 60 seconds, arms nearly straight, form becoming poor towards the end.
Pull Ups - 5 x 5
Stiff-Legged Deadlift - 2 x 5 @ 110kg, 1 x 10 @ 100kg, 1 x 1 @ 120kg
Kneeling Rope Crunches - 3 x 20 @ 37.5kg

Finisher: 400 Upper Body Blaster - 10 minutes 5 seconds

In spite of what I thought would be a crippling knee injury on Wednesday, today's workout went surprisingly smoothly.

My research suggests I sprained my Medial Collateral Ligament. I was so tired coming to the end of a set of 15 that I positioned my foot lazily on the first part of the movement and had insufficient momentum to pull myself forward, which caused my left leg to bend too much and at an angle. Ouch.

I have been taking serrapeptase to reduce what little inflammation there is and avoiding unneccessary walking and stairs, and it seems to be healing well. The Web sites say 3 weeks before doing anything with the leg but I am quite sure I'll be carefully doing something by the end of next week. I presume that timeframe is aimed at someone with the average diet. ... Read more

Bicep Curls

I am not a big fan of muscle-isolation exercises like bicep curls. Why would you bother with this when you can do chins ups? But sometimes it's handy for circuits to have an extra exercise to throw in, especially when you are too tired to be able to do many chin ups. There are many varieties of bicep curl - straight bar, z-bar, dumbbell, hammer, seated, standing, 'preacher' curls - so for now I will just post videos of the one I have recently done, then add others when I have time.

My own experience is that using a straight bar is not good and can cause injuries over time - the ez-bar seems to offer a more natural angle for the wrists. Others say that you need a straight bar to fully engage the biceps. I'd rather have smaller biceps and be injury free. Dumbbells, of course, allow your arms to move through a range of motion that suits their geometry, so I would favour these.

Hammer Curls

You can do these standing up or sitting down. This video talks about slowly lowering and strict form - I tend to just do these fast as part of a circuit and not worry about form too much.

Barbell Curls

It's only practical to do these standing up. This guy does not have perfect form - but then I rarely do either - as I said above, for circuit work there's little point. I prefer to avoid burnout by cheating - it's a lot more convenient than running off to get a lighter bar. Note: there are some aspects of form that are important - such as a good stance and straight back - I am not advocating the abandonment of all aspects of good form!

... Read more

Pistols (One-Legged Squats)

This can be a difficult one to master, but it's likely to be much more valuable than two-legged, weighted squats as a training tool for sports because it forces you to maintain stability and balance. Couple of videos here showing how it's done and some tips for progressing. For most people it's going to be a while before they are easy enough that you need more than your own body weight, so the beauty of pistols is you can do them anywhere. This is my favourite hotel-room exercise.

Basic Pistols

Here's a video of Steve Maxwell making it look easy.

Assisted Pistols

There are a couple of ways you can do this - putting something under your behind...



...or holding onto something with your hands. Steve Maxwell is using something he rigged up here, but you could equally use any stable object at waist height to steady yourself, such as a bed.

Weighted Pistols

If you get good at pistols, maybe you would want to make things harder to bring the reps down. I think the best way is to use a weighted vest (or chains round your neck) - but you can also hold dumbbells or kettle bells in your hands. I am not good enough to have tried any - but here's someone who is...

... Read more

Sandbag Lift, Squat and Press Combo

I have no video of this yet - but it's an easy movement. You pick up a sandbag from the floor, then press it above your head. Then bring it back down to your chest and hold it there, resting it on your pecks. Do a squat. Then put the sandbag back down. That is one rep. ... Read more