Swing Batta Batta Batta Swing!

So on Sunday I went to Game On, a bar in Fenway Park for a batting cage event. I had thought we would be hitting balls in Fenway Park (must've totally misunderstood their post), so I was a little disappointed when it was just a batting cage in the bar. But it was still fun. I got two turns up at the batting cage and they served us lunch too.

And let me tell you, I'm seriously sore now. My forearms feels like I held something in vise grip for hours, rather than just taking a swing at 20 balls (and connecting maybe 10-12). And my obliques are on fire every time I turn the least bit through my core.

Now, thing is, I cand understand the forearm pain, since I don't work them that often (except to support things like pushups). But the obliques shocked the hell out of me. I can normally do abs until the cows come home, whether it's crunches on the ball, bicycle crunches, planks, or what have you. Granted, I don't do as many abs as I used to since I'm now teaching boot camp. But still.

Regardless, it was fun, and I feel like I got some exercise out of it!

Update: My Abs/Pushups Program

So the first week of my new abs/pushup program was for working out the kinks. So here's a bit of a revision. I didn't feel like I was doing enough pushups, and I wasn't feeling my abs much either after the 2 sets. So I'm revising it a little bit, adding some planks to hit the abs even more. And because the back to back exercises are different muscle groups, you don't need a rest in between (but you can take one if you want).

Some tips:

Bicycle crunches - make sure your shoulder comes up off the ground as you're bringing your elbow towards your opposite knee. It's better to do a couple full crunches (shoulder/back up off floor) and take a rest than it is to do a bunch of crunches that are barely going to hit your abs). A 4 count bicycle crunch is going slowly from one side to the other (and back), counting to 4. 2 count crunches are a little faster.

Plank - make sure your body is completely straight (think plank/board). Don't let your hips sink down or you can put a lot of stress on your back (in a bad way). Pull your abs in (belly button to spine) and hold. For the counting, I don't use a stopwatch because that's a pain in the ass. I just count slowly.

Pushups - I'm doing them on my knees because my wrists don't like me otherwise. Keep your hands out wider than your shoulders so then when you go down, your elbows are over your wrists. Your goal is to bring your chest down to the floor (without resting on it). If you're not quite there to start with, that's quite all right - it takes time to build up the chest muscles. Just try to come down a little further every day you do your pushups, until you can come all the way to the floor.

Week 1 - 2 sets (what's listed below is one set)

Day 1
Bicycle crunch - 3x 4count, 6x 2count
Pushups - 6
Plank - 20 seconds
Pushups - 6

Day 2
Bicycle crunch - 5x 4count, 8x 2count
Pushups - 8
Plank - 20 seconds
Pushups - 8

Day 3
Bicycle crunch - 7x 4count, 10x 2count
Pushups - 10
Plank - 20 seconds
Pushups - 10

Week 2 - 3 sets each

Day 1
Bicycle crunch - 3x 4count, 6x 2count
Pushups - 10
Plank - 25 seconds
Pushups - 10

Day 2
Bicycle crunch - 5x 4count, 8x 2count
Pushups - 12
Plank - 25 seconds
Pushups - 12

Day 3
Bicycle crunch - 7x 4count, 10x 2count
Pushups - 14
Plank - 25 seconds
Pushups - 14

My Six Week Abs/Pushup Program

(Since I'm not a man, and not likely to get 6-pack abs, this isn't the look I'm shooting for. But hey, any excuse to post a picture of some hot abs, right? ;)

So I fully intended to go back and complete the 100 Pushup Program. Really I did. Then, well, I didn't. Week 5 just seemed so daunting. And my wrists were so not loving me for doing so many pushups. So I stopped. And I still do have the cute little shoulder dimple which was the pleasing result of all those pushups. So I tell myself - maybe I should figure out a program for myself which does include some pushups, but not the crazy number of them from weeks 5 and 6.

Then I start thinking...hmmm...I should look up an ab program. And you know something? A six week ab program is a hard thing to find on the web (without paying for some kind of booklet or something). And most of the sites I came across require some kind of equipment (like a captain's chair, or a ball, or a bosu). While I love the ball crunches because of how wonderfully effective they are, they're problematic (just like captain's chair and bosu) because while some gyms have them, I don't have them at home). So I had to find a very effective exercise that will kick my butt without equipment. Check this site out for their top 10. And guess what? #1 is an exercise which requires no equipment, and not only uses abs but obliques. I think we have a winner!

The key to the bicycle crunch is doing them slowly. Singles will hurt your abs, but not quite the same burn as the slower ones. But because I'm always trying to mix things up, and fool my body into working hard, I'm going to do them at different speeds.

Because they're slower, each count is going to be going from one side to another (right elbow/left knee slowly moving on a count of 8 over to left elbow/right knee). So when I say 2x 8 count, this means counting out 8 (about 10 seconds) to one side, back, then repeat (so 1x 8 count is one time each side).

So here's my Week 1:

Day 1 - Tuesday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 2x 8 count, 4x 4 count, 8x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 6

Day 2 - Thursday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 3x 8 count, 5x 4 count, 10x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 8

Day 3 - Saturday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 4x 8 count, 6x 4 count, 12x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 10

Let's see how that goes. I've never done this before. Who knows whether that's too hard, too easy or whatever. I guess we'll see how it goes this week before I figure out how to tweak it. Maybe I should go buy a ball.