What's Your Cardio?

I am convinced that half to two-thirds of the getting in shape battle is disciplining oneself to get up off the couch and go do something. We can probably all come up with various reasons for why this seemingly simple act is so difficult for us sometimes. But if you can get in the habit of incorporating exercise in your day, I believe the other pieces (basically whatever you need to be exercising the "right" way and maximizing your time/energy spent) will fall into place much more easily.

With that in mind, I'm finding that my cardio workouts have sort of taken a back seat to weight training. This trend is actually sort of surprising to me- I usually hate weight training. But I guess now I'm paying more attention to it and realizing that, suddenly, I've spent an hour on legs and hips and I'm hungry and my cat is getting very lonely at home alone and I should probably go now.

I think my weight training time will start to go down a little as I get more comfortable with the levers and pulleys and incline benches and the meatheads perpetually attached to them, so maybe I'll be able to squeeze in some more cardio in the near future. Also, once the weather warms up, I can definitely do some morning track workouts like I did with Quisty last year.

BUT- all this to say that I'm still having trouble planning weekly cardio. I have access to everything I could possibly need at this point, but I'm just not sure how to make efficient use of my time. So I'm curious as to what others are doing/would recommend in terms of what to do, how often to do it, for how long, etc. I know Erin was sort of looking at the following after meeting with her trainer:

Do cardio 3-4 times a week – 2-3 times do intervals before or after strength, plus 1 long run/other cross-training activity such as running, jump ropes (3 sets of 100, 1-leg 2 sets of 50), spin class, racquetball. Make sure that you have at least 4-7 intervals of whatever intensity/speed you are doing.

What do you guys consider "long"? Longer than 30 minutes? Longer than an hour? Do you really think the jumping program is enough cardio (whatever that means)? I have questions! Who has answers?

VB Alert Week 3?

Just after finishing week 2 of VB Alert, I sprained my big toe (Note: big toes are surprising important for jumping/running) so I had to take some time off. The toe still hurts some, but I've been able to play and resume working out. One of the week 1-2 exercises (square jumping) aggravates the toe and may be why I injured it to begin with. Luckily, there are several exercises to choose from, so I've avoided that one.

I started over with VB Alert, and yesterday finally got to move on to week 3 which has new exercises. For weeks 3 and 4, you continue doing 2 exercises from weeks 1 and 2, and you add 2 new exercises. Yesterday, Fox and I did jump rope and jump and reach from week 1-2 and added no arm jumps and laundry jumps. According to VB Alert, no arm jumps will make you puke, but we didn't find them to be that bad, I wonder if we're doing them wrong. The laundry jumps (jump back and forth over object, perhaps a laundry basket) hurt my toe a little, but overall the workout was not as bad as I feared, though my hams and calves are quite sore today. For the laundry jumps, VB Alert suggests using a "very collapsible" object to jump over. We didn't have a laundry basket, so we stacked up some of those blue yoga bricks. Fox completely wiped out on the first set and almost took me out with him (even though we set up about 6 feet apart). It was hilarious, I don't know how the 4 other random people in the room kept a straight face.

We've also gotten several other Rivalers doing VB Alert at the Saturday track workouts. The jumping rope is a big hit. One thing I like about the program is that it is very easy to do anywhere really, you just need a jump rope and enough room to jump up. That, and it doesn't take very long, so there is really no excuse for not doing it 3 times a week. Unless you have a bad toe. Seriously, it's debilitating, who da thunk?

Last thing, I re-measured my vertical prior to my second week 2. I've gained about 1-1.5 inches. However, I had done nothing for about a month before the first time I measured, so doing any workout probably would have shown some improvement.

Speed

I know several players have already talked to me about wanting to be faster. I followed a link from Lean and Hungry to this article about sprinting form. Strengthening is important, but improving your sprinting form will probably show more improvement in overall speed.

VB Alert Week 1

After hurting myself doing Air Alert, I decided to try the Volley Ball Alert (not it's real name). I started on Sunday doing the jumping rope and square jumping exercises. Jumping rope sucks, it's very hard, the square jumping was fairly easy, I wonder about doing it one-legged. I was a little sore the next day, mostly butt, groin, and hamstring. All Air Alert ever did was make my calves sore. Jumping rope and square jumping both seem pretty calf intensive, but the one-legged jumping rope definitely works the whole leg.

I did the same exercises on Tuesday, when Fox joined me, giving up on Air Alert as well. He looks like Vanilla Ice when he does the one legged jumping rope. On Thursday, we went to the gym and did the jump and reach and pool jumps. The jump and reaches are fairly tough, and I think they worked my abs. Weird. The pool jumps make you look like a complete idiot. They're fun though. For the first set of exercises, I would rank their difficulty from hardest to easiest as: Jumping rope, jump and reach, pool jumping, square jumping.

Again, I like that the total reps are lower, and that the intensity is higher (particularly for the one legged jumping rope). There is still a fair amount of endurance involved, 5x15 jump and reaches will make you tired.

Well, I Did It

And I did it in December, thanks, NOT January, so you can stop with your "let's see where you are in March" jokes right now, thanks.

I joined a gym. I actually used to be a member of a gym, but it was close to my house. After a while, I realized part of the reason I rarely went was because I felt most inclined to work out in the middle of the day. Thus, I need to join a gym close to work. As it turns out, LA Fitness (gah!) is close to work. AND close to home (you can go to multiple locations, yo!).

I'm actually excited about the one near me because it has a lap pool, so I've already been a-swimmin' in it. I'm not sure swimming is really going to improve my Ultimate game, but it sure does wear me out.

I also tried out the StairMaster Stair Mill (that's just an awful name, isn't it?) today. EQC and Wood were talking about this recently- it really is brutal! It's not the traditional StairMaster but the moving staircase one. HARD. I'm pretty psyched to try this out for intervals and possibly even for working on speed. Wood (or anyone else), what do you think? Could that be an adequate substitute for running stadiums/hills as fast as possible?