cesimpson

The first part of the title is a reference to an article at Gym Jones. Read it. It is good.

As I began my fitness focus in February (a lot of alliteration there…hmmm) I wondered how true that article would be. I haven’t been doing any typical cardio work. I’ve done some rowing - all 500m or less - and some running - all 800m or less. By almost all definitions, sprints.

Today’s workout was a 5k treadmill run immediately followed by 100x 16kg KB TGUs.

I completed the entire work in just less than 45 minutes.

As a point of comparison, 8 months ago I would not have been able to run 5k in ANY amount of time. Not even a light jog. A mile? Maybe. 5k. No flippin’ way.

24 minutes is not even close to world class 5k performance but it’s enough to prove to me that one does not need to do hour after hour of slow-pace jogging to “get fit”. 6×800m at 1:2 work/rest ratio or 200x KB Snatches or 30x Clean & Jerks @ 80% BW does a lot of good for one’s abilities to use oxygen efficiently.

I’m not talking about running a marathon or biking the Tour de France. Obviously, those extreme distances require some sport-specific training. Same with squating 1000# or snatching 200% bodyweight.

My (perhaps premature) conclusion, considering such a small population sample (me!) - for general fitness, one can be plenty heart-healthy with anaerobic activity.

Any comments for or against my early conclusion are well appreciated.

Pixy Sticks

Somebody brought into work today a basket full of candy - I presume it is leftover from Halloween. S/He set it in the little break/coffee room on my floor with a note inviting all to partake.

I noticed it at 8:00. It was full of all manners of sweets - chocolate, taffy, hard candy, chewing gum, etc.

When I went back for another cup of coffee around 10:00 or so, the basket was almost completely empty. The one thing I noticed was that the ONLY type of candy left was pixy sticks. How lonely they looked - about 3 dozen pixy sticks, all alone.

I suppose pixy sticks aren’t really an “adult” candy. Chocolate, sure. Hard candy, sure. Even taffy? Maybe. But not pixy sticks. No man in a white shirt and business suit wants to be seen tossing down a paper tube of sugar at 9 o’clock in the morning.

Still, they did seem lonely. I hope nobody here has a spouse in the pixy stick business. How depressing that must be to know that an entire floor of office workers gobbled up every other kind of candy…but yours.