You Can't Do It All

The Catskills were relaxing--two nights and three days of quiet at a friend's cottage in a wooded area. Theme song for the trip: Heavenly Day, by Patty Griffin.

One thing did on the trip was to review the workout suggestions in Ultimate Boxing, also consider the suggestions in a couple of kickboxing books I've read, and try to come up with a workout schedule. The things I wanted to include are:

Core karate class
Distance cardio training
Interval cardio training (sprints)
Physical Therapy for the knee
Resistance Training

After thinking about it for an hour, I concluded: I just can't do all of it every week.

Even though I know when I'm getting home now--unlike my prior job--it's still a long workday, plus about three hours and 15 or 20 minutes a day commuting. I can't realistically plan more than two days a week at the gym while I'm working--too much work to do. I can do some workouts at home in the evening, but some nights I'll be going to my martial arts school, and I want to see my family as well. And part of my training is to get eight hours of sleep at night.

So I have to prioritize. Once I return to martial arts, I want to shoot for three classes a week (no contact until January, just the core class). For the next couple of months, I need to be sure to get a couple of do-it-myself physical therapy sessions in each week (I just did one at home today). And the cardio is absolutely key--I get some of that in the karate class, but I need to do two or three more per week. I can't do sprints quite yet for interval training, which I found in the past is EXTREMELY valuable. But I can simulate them a bit on the elliptical machine at the gym; I'll be able to start up the sprints about the same time as I can stop the PT.

The resistance training comes up last at this point. Sit-ups and push-ups are crucial since I'll need those in the Black Belt test. I'm going to focus on other core work for the abdominals, and some tricep work, but I just don't think I have time to do extensive weight training.