Early mornings

So the early mornings have begun.

I thought pushing my usual 7am start back an hour was going to be easy enough.

When the alarm burst into its early morning frenzy at 6am, the first thought to enter this drowsy mind was, 'not already'.

'Already' it was, and I dragged myself up to tackle the day with a visit to the gym.

There is now a separate more immediate reason to up the fitness levels, Tomaz Barada is returning to Ireland on November 7th and 8th for a series of sparring workshops. His sessions demand that you have a fairly decent level of fitness. Fitness for him comes as a given, the man walks around with a heart beat of 36 beats per minute. Similar to the folk who live on 'the roof of the world' in Tibet. He is probably the man I most admire in the field of Taekwon-Do and sport in general, he leads by example.

For training in the gym, it's easy to disregard cardio work. To say 'Ah sure I'll lift a few weights, that'll do me' is missing the point of training for a specific anaerobic sport like Taekwon-Do. Sure lifting weight is productive, lifting them functionally even more so, but skimping on cardio work will leave you gasping uncomfortably during a Taekwon-Do training session.

Fuelling me for the work out was 4 pineapple rings, 2 rice cakes and a mix of protein isolate. Nothing too heavy for that early in the morning, and that soon to a work out. As for energisers, Im a big fan of the amino acid citrulline malate and the natural stimulant caffeine. I did contemplate the Rocky approach to early morning workouts, a few raw eggs, a couple of chin ups and a dirty black hat, but I'm passed that stage already!

Caffeine is a really effective stimulant. However its over-use is non productive. The nervous system slowly gets used to the effect of caffeine, which in turn means the user has to up the dosage, of course addiction then ensues. The key is using it sensibly.

The workout itself was light. Some chest pressing with 25kg dumbbells, cable cross overs, dumbbell flys, and then into the triceps for a burn. Triceps are best hit with heavy compound lifts or pushes. Weighted dips are very effective.

As is good practice, the session was concluded with a good run. I'm not incorporating sprint work just yet, I'll wait until i'm a bit more at ease with the pace.

The session, just under an hour, finished up with some dynamic stretching. Those that suffer with stiff hips, dynamic stretching is a super way of loosening them out, here comes the caveat, you will have to stretch up to twice a day. It's worth it, or as the glamorous hair ladies might say...you're worth it!

The recovery meal is as important as the workout. No point in training your body to be a high performance sports car, then dousing it with green diesel. Only the best fuel should follow a session that is tiring. My recovery meal was as follows:

100g of raw oats, yup uncooked. Topped with blackberries and raspberries, soaked with rice milk.

4 Spirulina algae tablets and a sachet of a very powerful multi-vit and multi-mineral called Genesis by Universal.

That's me propped up for the day, and it's only 8.30am.