Power

As expected I have started a new challenge for myself.  It seems like I go through these on a regular basis and why change now?

My challenge for myself over the next 6 weeks is to stick to 100% IF Paleo food and Tabata protocol on the rower 5x/week for the 6 weeks.

Today started the first official day, Sunday was a recovery day from the festivities the night before.

My food schedule will be a 18/6, meaning I will fast for 18 hours and eat for 6 with my workouts in the middle of my feeding window.  I have heard of people doing a 20/4 or 19/5 is popular too, but I have also heard that it's too difficult to get a good workout in with the window so small.  With 6 hours to eat, I have 3 hours to eat before and roughly 2 afterwards.  The food quantity is unlimited, but the quality must be paleo.  Pretty simple on that front.  At the end of the day, meat, veggies, little fruit, some nuts and you're good to go.  18 hours should be just enough of a fast to do the trick too, so this 18/6 seems like it is going to work.

The goal is 12 pounds of fat and with the tabata rowing, Intermittent Fasting and the normal workout schedule I have planned for myself, this should be well within reason.

After doing some math with a new calculator I found online, I figured out what my tabata row should be on each interval.  See post below for more details.  I hopped on the rower thinking this was going to be very, very tough but to my surprise the first 2 were...I wont say easy, but not what I was expecting.  The 3rd round I lost focus and slipped out of range up to 1:35 pace, but got back on track on round 4.  I finished the set with an avg. of 1:33.3 or 431 watts (about).  So it looked like this:
1. 108m - 1:32.5 - 30spm
2. 108m - 1:32.5 - 33spm (sloppy stroke here too)
3. 105m - 1:35.2 - 30spm (see what I mean)
4. 107m - 1:33.4 - 30spm
5. 108m - 1:32.5 - 30spm
6. 107m - 1:33.4 - 30spm
7. 108m - 1:32.5 - 33 spm (This was desperation here, stoke went to shit, just pulling to save my life)

Someone may notice it's "only" 7 rounds.  When I decided to do this challenge I decided I was going to try and replicate Dr. Tabata's experiment and read that it was 7-8 round sets 5x/week for 6 weeks at 170% vO2max pace on a bike erg.  I am going to do 7 round sets for the first week, then bump them up to 8 round sets starting in week 2 at 170% vO2max on a concept 2 modal D indoor rower. (how's that for specifics?)

Then:
Snatch
5x3 at 90%

The cycle has shifted to Power.  I use a definition for power that for the most part can be broken up into two or three sub-categories.  I only use 2 of the three as I don't really see the point of the 3rd yet.
1. Cardio power - less than 90 sec. all out sprinting, either on a rower or running.
2. explosive power - jumping, oly lifting, etc.  I usually use oly lifting for these since they are so transferable and what not.
3. Litvinov conversions (these happen in IWT's so I don't see the point doing them here).  This is where you do a strength lift like front squats, or OHS, or power clean and do about 8 reps, ditch the bar and sprint immediately for anywhere from 50m to 400m.  I tend to stick to the lower end of that, since a 400m sprint in itself is pretty darn horrible.  If and when I do these, 8 reps of power cleans and 50m sprints for about 6 rounds works pretty well for me.  I see this as a little icing after a workout to play around with.  A party trick if you will.

When I do oly lifting, I try to stay above 85% of my max.  I haven't retested since June but I suspect my max on pretty much everything has gone up at this point.  I hesitate to do a max effort again until after the new year just to give my back more time to heal up.  Every now and again, I feel a twinge and it freaks me out.

My previous max was 135 on the snatch.  That's actually real pathetic, but that's where I am.  90% is 120 and change, I rounded down to 120 for the workout and hit 5 sets of 3 at 120.

Thats it, Tabata row for 7 sets, then 5 sets of 3 snatches at 120.  Doesn't seem like much, and it's not really.  During the power cycle there is quite a bit of rest since there is so much stress happening on the systems at high intensities.

All of my attributes of fitness have improved since sticking to this protocol, so I continue to trust in it.

Tomorrow we are looking at a little test run on Angie, so we shall see how my fitness really is doing. Until then.