Hmmm wonder what happened to Fridays video??
I’m still working down in London full time for my new client and will for the foreseeable future, so I’ve been flat / room hunting, which is turning out to be much more of a pain than I’d anticipated. Seen good flats in bad locations, bad flats in great locations, bad flats in bad locations, and a great flat in a good location, but the guy doesn’t know when the room will be free and is going away on holiday for 3 weeks from next week!
I may end up just taking the closest one to work and be done with it. I went to see one yesterday that is 8 mins walk from work but is like going back to university halls of residence, 16 individual rooms across 4 floors each with communal kitchen, showers, toilets, and lounging space. As long as it’s not full of students (which is unlikely considering the exorbitant rent!) as the land lord attests to, it should be ok.
In other news, I tried out British Military Fitness last night. Not quite Crossfit, but I figured as close as I am going to get. The format is pretty basic, about 60 people all in Finsbury Park running around doing circuit training in the great British summer…. that’s right, a thunderstorm parked itself above us for about half an hour and we all got soaked!
The group is split up into bib colours: blue (for beginners), red (for intermediates), green (for advanced). As a first timer I was put in the blue group. I’ll see if I can remember the exercise routine, or some approximation to it:
Run, press ups (push ups for the Americans reading), run, sit ups, run, star jumps, run, burpees, run, touch 2 trees, run, “sawing” whilst holding a partners hands, jumping to change feet position, more sawing, run, partner leg locked sit ups, push up hand shaking with a partner, run, sit up to “high 10” with a partner, run….
That was about the first 20 minutes there was another 30 minutes of the above basically lots of short runs interspersed with more press ups, sit ups, burpees, some tuck jumps, some lunge walks, a tiny bit of sprinting, some plank holds etc etc. There was a 2 minute water break half way through and the instructor asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the red team there and then ? Which was nice, seems Crossfit has equipped me reasonably well, but I figured I’d stick out my first session in the blues, only to get a good comparison between the 2 of course! 😉 I am however promoted to red for next time apparently.
But how did I find it? Well it lacks the intensity of Crossfit. At no point did I feel as tired as I do after any normal day at a Crossfit gym workout. Whilst it had been raining, I didn’t even feel particularly sweaty at the end. Yes I was tired but issues during the hours workout were general muscle strength failure. No matter how I do them, once I get over 50 press ups, they will only subsequently come in 2s and 3s. I reckon it’s not an exaggeration to say I did 100-150 press ups, and yes (karl :p) they were all full depth chest to floor, probably the same with sit ups, running was probably 2-3 miles in total (in lots and lots and lots of short stints).
Interestingly though, I don’t feel sore at all this morning. Typically after Crossfit’s Angie say, I would feel my pecks and abs for days afterwards. What does that say about BMF considering I think I did more press ups and more sit ups than Angie’s 100 of each? I guess it comes back to that intensity thing. Spreading the load over a longer time period means less power output and less of an impact on your body.
I will think about it today, but I suspect I’ll go back, given that I’m down in London and don’t have a Crossfit facility I can go to. I have to say though, gve me Crossfit any day. 😉
All together a perfec
