Home  News & Press News Why try new things?
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Why try new things? |
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Written by Brian Downer
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Saturday, 26 December 2009 |
I was humbled today. I consider myself in fairly good physical condition.
But I did a workout which almost made me throw up. Here’s what happened.
I moved house recently and have just discovered a great outdoor gym in one
of the local parks. The run to the park is about 3.5km. I had done a recky
of the park a few weekends earlier and discovered the gym, complete with 10
different training stations – chin up bars, sit up bench, vault, parallel
bars etc.
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A very athletic looking guy was finishing a set of chin ups. I went over to
have a chat and he explained that a group trained there regularly on
Saturdays.
Anyhow, today I made my way back to the outdoor gym. I started chatting to
one of the guys limbering up. As no one else from the regular group had
arrived we decided to start a workout. We did 1 round of the workout I
normally do at the park near my old house. We went round to each of the 10
stations and completed the following circuit:
- Muscle – ups x 10
- Dips x 10
- Plyometric jumps x 15
- Press ups x 10
- Sit ups x 10
- Pull ups x 10
- Lateral raises x 10 (same station as pull ups)
- Vault x 10
- Hurdle step over x 10 on each leg
- Push ups x 10
- Dips x 10
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Normally I’ll do three rotations of these exercises before running back
home. As we were starting on the 2nd round, a few more guys from the
regular training group turned up. We all decided to do the workout they
normally do. We worked in pairs and started on the parallel bars doing dips
with a target of 100 reps. We did 20 reps per set. While one pair worked
the other pair rested. I managed 80 reps before reaching failure.
We then moved on to lateral bar twists. Gripping the lateral bars from
underneath with arms locked at 90 degrees and legs extended out in front,
the legs rotate from the hips out to the left and then out to the right.
This is a great abdominal exercise and also works the lower back, the quads
and the obliques. We did 3 sets of 20 reps.
We then moved onto lower back extensions bending forward over one of the
parallel bars and hooking the calves underneath the second bar. These were
a bit tricky. Let’s just say it’s vital you make sure your body weight is
resting on the upper thigh as opposed to your groin area – especially if
you’re a guy. We did 10 reps before moving onto the chin up bar.
By this stage, I was beginning to feel a bit queasy. But a sense of pride
combined with my competitive spirit kept me going. However on my third set
of chin ups, a rush of nausea hit me hard. I spent the next 15 minutes on
the floor in the recovery position, feeling like I was going to throw up.
Fortunately I managed to hold it down. The guys moved onto their next
exercise – elevated press ups from suspended gymnastic rings. They kindly
made sure I was OK though, occasionally coming over to make sure I hadn’t
expired.
Thinking back, another time I had felt that bad was when I first tried
fartlake interval training. This was part of my athletics squad winter
training schedule. We would run 4 x 800 meters, sprinting the straights and
jogging the bends with a 2 minute break between each 800 meter run.
I think the main reason I struggled in this session was that my body was
not used to the workout. Although I’m used to doing similar exercises, I was
not used to doing so many reps on the same body part to failure.
This was definitely a humbling experience. I felt like a bit of a
lightweight sprawled out on the floor with the other guys carrying on with
their workout. However, it reminded me that occasionally we have to push
ourselves to try different things. If we expose our body to the same thing
every single training session, the body soon gets used to that exercise and
the benefits of each session can diminish. Our muscle memory helps the body
to achieve an action if we repeat that same action many times.
No doubt repeating the same thing session after session has its place.
Doing the same thing many times makes it easy to measure improvement.
Repetition also has its benefits if you’re trying to master a specific
technical skill such as an Olympic lift like the clean and jerk.
However, it’s also good to train in new environments and with new groups of
people so you can learn new techniques and push your body to new limits.
It’s good to shock the body sometimes. Having a friendly training partner
pushing you to complete just one more rep can also make a big difference.
The principle of trying new things and working in groups does not only
apply to exercise. By trying new things we discover how to cope in
different situations. By trying new things we may also discover something
that we never knew we were good at. And of course working with other people
in groups can have great synergies. You can share ideas on how to solve
problems and motivate each other to reach new heights.
I’ll be heading back to the park next week for some more chin ups and dips.
The workout will be different but no doubt I’ll be a little better prepared
to go the distance.
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