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

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a harder workout than many of my Karate classes, or even some of the kick boxing classes I take (at the same school) when I miss a karate class.

I am familiar with the situation with holding the pads for kicks. In my class last night, when we broke up to do the pad kicks -- which include a thrust kick and two other fairly strong kicks, as well as round kicks -- it looked like I was going to be pared with a small 13-year-old, and another adult was going to be paired with a not quite as small 16-year-old. I suggested that we switch, and was glad that we did when I kept kicking my partner almost into the mirror, and then got kicked almost into the mirror a few times. If we'd been partnered with anyone much lighter, either they would have flown, or we would have had to pull our kicks.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Master Brunner has won the TKD national championship. She was an alternate for the olympic team. Her ex, who owns the studio, was an olympic wrestler and also went to nationals for TKD. She also teaches kickboxing. She's a very nice person who also happens to be a hardcore drill sergeant; she takes TKD very seriously, and believes if we don't get 100% as much as possible out of the class, it damn well isn't going to be her fault.

I'm happy to be in her class. Her dad teaches the classes we usually go to. He's a lot easier on us, he's a lot more interested in teaching technique and form, but I think we need both. Tom would rather go to the easier classes.

This was probably twice as much work as any class I've had there previously. I'm going to have to start getting to her classes more often, though I'll probably have to leave Tom behind; I don't want him to quit, and if I take him to classes like that more than once every few months I think he will.

[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."