Staying the course

Today I did seven laps of the February strength circuit, then paddled my boat for 90 minutes.

As I move up to seven laps of the strength circuit in this final few days of the month,  I notice that I'm doing a better job of keeping the workout moving than I did earlier in the month, when I was doing only four laps or so.  Back then I would do a lap, do a quick e-mail check, do another lap, brush my teeth, and so on.  But with the tighter time constraint of doing more laps (I always do my strength work right before I head down to the river to paddle), I stay on task.

This is not really a major revelation for me; I've known for a long time that I am much more efficient during a really busy day than I am on a day with few pressing matters.  But one of my goals for this "circuit" format of strength work was to keep me moving constantly, and it's nice to see that really take effect late in each month.

Weight lifting and other strength work has never been my favorite thing to do.  In past years I have done it in a more traditional manner: in each set I strove to meet a goal for amount of weight or number of reps or both.  Doing things that way, there always seem to be moments I dread.  For example, if in my last workout I managed 15 pullups, today I am telling myself that I must get 16 or else... or else... well, I don't know what else, but I'm sure it will be just awful.

Since this whole business of canoe and kayak racing is supposed to be something I enjoy doing, I would like to eliminate moments like that wherever I can.  Sure, I suppose I enjoy the satisfaction anytime I conquer such mental challenges, or anytime I race well because I had the discipline to gut out those unpleasant moments.  But there's a balance in there somewhere, and I've decided it's time to try something new on the strength-building front.

The circuit format gives me a set number of reps per set to do, and the number of sets increases as the month goes along.  Since I've set the number of reps per set relatively low, I can concentrate on good form and technique in my movements without worrying whether I can make a certain rep goal, and I can move quickly to the next exercise.  Early in the month, when I'm doing only three or four laps through the circuit, the workout seems almost ridiculously easy; in fact, when I first started telling people about this blog, I was a little embarrassed about how little I seemed to be doing.  But by the end of the month I can tell I'm getting a good, meaningful workout, and I'm happy about that.