The Attack of QuadZilla (12/18)

I’m not feeling it too much right now, but I’m pretty sure that by tomorrow my legs will be jello-ized.

It was sunny and blue skies today so I thought I would take my new bike out on its maiden voyage to wushu class.  Of course, since it had been so long since I had riden a bike, my legs weren’t quite used that sort of motion and by the time I got there I was already feeling it in my quads.  In fact, the folding bikes in general aren’t really meant for long-distance travel, so biking the 6km to the wushu guan was not the most comfortable thing in the world.

But, I suppose that is a good thing, as it will force my body to adapt and get stronger.  This sort of thing happened when I got my bike in Berkeley too, so it should be okay in a week or so.

By the time I got to class I was already sweating.  Good thing too, since they ended up playing some really strange game for warm ups that I wasn’t familiar with.  I’m going to call it Palindrome Tag since the name Xin Rui told me was about 10 characters long.

After warm ups was stretching and after that we shuffled in to the weight room for some power training.  We did different exercises today.  Instead of the bar-behind-the-neck “pop up” squats, we did bar-in-front-of-the-neck deep squats.  Slow down, faster up, with our heels propped on the edge of a weight.  We did about 4 sets of these at around 40kg (not including the bar).

Then it was time for conditioning.  And it was pretty brutal.

First were calf raises up on a raised bar.  First we did 3 sets of 20 on each leg.  In between sets we would jump around.  I’m used to stretching out my muscles after doing strength training, but here they quickly use them with some plyometric exercises.  Then we did one more set of calf raises.  Starting with our heel below the bar, the coach would have us go up and down on each count.  Then after 10 we would do 5 quick ones and hold it on top.  Then the other leg.  Then both legs.  Then calves were done.

Then we did frog leaps.  He broke us in to two groups for rotations, one group right after the other.  We would go down and back the long side of the carpet and then switch.  3 laps, then a walk back and forth.  Then another 3 laps and a walk.  Then one more set of 3 laps.  So, 18 lengths of carpet for frog leaps.  I think I was able to do about 10 all together.  I would do squats if I couldn’t do frog leaps.

Then it was relays.  3 groups of 5 people each.  At one end of the carpet you would do a combination of movements, then run down and do another set of something on the other side, then back and another one, etc.  Here is the combinations:

1. 10 continuous slap kicks -> then run down the carpet

2. 10 continuous right side inside kicks -> then run back

3. 10 continuous right side outside kicks -> then run down the carpet again

4. 5 kip ups -> then come back.

So instead of all that I would do 3-5 burpies at the ends of the carpet between my runs, but it was still pretty exhausting.

Then they did the same thing but along the short length of the carpet.

Then they did another short-length relay but this time with the following combinations:

1. 15 pushups -> run down

2. 25 v-ups -> run back

3. 10 whirling arms, slap the ground -> run down and back

I did the pushups and v-ups but instead of the wheeling arms I did burpies again.

Then we did about 6 runs across the room (2 carpets – short sides) with walks in between.

Then it was time for core training.  They brought out the big bouncy yoga balls and we did a bunch of exercises with those.  I can’t really explain them so I’m not going to try.  It wasn’t easy though, I’ll say that much.

Finally it was done.  And for some reason I even feel like I might have left something out.

And to top it all off, I had to ride my bike back home too.

So yeah … QuadZilla has attacked and the town of Thigh-ville is going to be paying some heavy taxes to the Bureau of Lactic Acid tomorrow.

Oh!  And one good thing that happened today was that I was able to talk with Zhang Laoshi about training next week in the mornings instead.  So, 9AM class, here I come.  Next week is Monday, Wednesday, Friday since I have a lot of work right to get done before the end of the year.  I’ll bump up my schedule to 4 or 5 times a week once my work load lightens up a bit.

No related posts.