Wow, quite a workout

[johnridley]

Tom and I went to TKD for only about the 2nd time in a month last night. Master Brunner was teaching. I've only been in one of her classes once before, and she was working on people's forms the last time, so that was not physically challenging.

Last night was drills. Lots of running, lots of kicking, lots of upper body work, very fast, no breaks except every 20 minutes to guzzle down some water. I slipped and kicked the bottom of a wavemaster early in the class and had to bandage up a bleeding toe, and go with a sock on to keep the bandage from being torn off.

After the third upper body set (high/low punch, high/low block, combos), she said "Drop, ten!" - I dropped down, went down for a pushup, and found that I couldn't lift myself anymore. Not even if I switched to knees instead of feet. That's as close to hitting the wall that I've ever gotten.

One of the kids in my line when I was holding a body shield for round kicks is about 16 or 17 I'd guess, and he has really strong kicks. I had an 8" thick body shield, holding it up against me (I discovered that it's worse to try to hold it away from you, same as trying to hold a gun stock away from your shoulder) and it felt like my fist was bruising my abs every time he kicked. Very cool.

Several times during class I didn't think I could keep going, I couldn't get enough breath, but I made it through each time. I don't like hitting limits, so now I want to work on pushing them back.

When we got out of the building, I wrung out my T shirt and probably got a cup of sweat out of it; it couldn't have been any wetter if I'd jumped in a lake.

I really enjoyed it. I told Tom I wouldn't mind at all doing that once every 2 or 3 weeks. He said "Fine, and I'll do it once a year." He's not so hot on working himself to exhaustion as I am I guess.

Comments

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

If your into that sort of thing, google up interval training.

And get a cardiac stress test. Sucks to push your heart rate to 100%, only to find out the cardiac vascular system can only handle 85%.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

According to every "target/max heart rate" guide formula I've ever seen, I push my heart rate to well over 100% max every time I hit the treadmill or push hard up a hill on the bike. On the treadmill or when the stairmaster is really kicking my ass my HR is usually around 185 to 195.

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Step one of interval training is "Throw the damn charts away."

The only way to truly find out your max heart rate is empirically. At our age, the only *safe* way to do that is hooked up to an ECG on a treadmill, but I suspect calling yours 200-210 is probably reasonable. For most people, they won't push hard enough to know if they're hitting max rate without a coach, but you're one of the few who probably does so without thinking.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, all I've ever used the charts for was entertainment value. "160 max? Yeah, right. This isn't step aerobics class with Buffy."