A New Direction for this BLOG!!

Welcome to "Pickleball in Kagoshima and Beyond"!  A new direction for this blog.

Last year, tragedy struck my family and I was unable to post anything much less function in the world for a very long time.  Combine that tragedy with what the whole world was experiencing with COVID-19, and it was just a terrible time for me and my family.  The grief, sadness, stress, and all those feelings had no outlet.  I had no way of dealing with them in a positive manner.  That is, except for Pickleball.  

Playing Pickleball and growing the sport of Pickleball in the city and prefecture of Kagoshima was the only thing outside of Christ, family, and work that kept me sane. I needed something to occupy my mind or I would fall into a dark place that was oftentimes very difficult to escape.  Pickleball literally saved my life.  Physically, I was in freefall during the lockdowns.  But somehow, the Pickleball community that I was able to start came together to find time and open locations to play and through it all, we never went more than 9 days without having a place to play Pickleball.

Because of all those different circumstances, I had ZERO motivation to do anything with resistance training or weight training.  So, it was pretty natural that I  transitioned from working out with weights and resistance training to mainly playing Pickleball and Tennis.  But one day, I hope to balance my sports training with weight training and do them both during each week.  Until then...

Let's talk Pickleball!

January 25, 2020 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Almost a month late!

The new year and the couple of months leading up to it were filled with a lot of bad experiences that I am not at liberty to talk about here.  But suffice it to say that I was very limited in my workout days and especially in December, I did literally no workouts at home.  The only thing I was able to do in the area of exercise was two Pickleball practices in December.

However, going through that experience of stopping all resistance workouts cold turkey had some adverse effects on my physical body and my mental state.  It was extremely weird to experience that.  After about two weeks of no resistance training, my body started to twitch.  Only a little at the beginning, but in the last week of December, it became more frequent.  I couldn't feel comfortable and I was always feeling restless.  So, the intention of not working out, I was to be of service and use my time to support and be with one who I thought needed my attention.  But I realized that in order for me to be my best and strongest to help others, I need to take care of myself.  So, from January 1, 2020, I started back with resistance workouts at home with BeachBody programs.

I started off with a great program, probably one of my all-time favorites, ChaLEAN Extreme.  On January 1, I started with Burn Circuit 1.  But my schedule was extremely erratic so I don't keep a regular calendar, rather I workout when I can.  I also stopped going to my tennis club from December, and I was planning to go back in January, but I wasn't able to.  I am tentatively planning to go back in February, but that seems unlikely.  Fingers crossed, though.

Anyway, I kept my record sheet digitally and saved them all so I could post them in one big shot.  So, here they are, all my record sheets for the ChaLEAN Extreme Burn Circuit!

My progression week-by-week can be seen as the weight got heavier.  Compare week ones to week fours and you can see a little rise in weight.  I stress the word "little".

Today, I started the next Phase of ChaLEAN Extreme, which is the Push Circuit.  Heavier weights, with fewer reps.  For example, if you look at the Bicep Curl weight in week four of Burn Circuit 2.  On the final week, week four, I was curling 10kgs at 12-3 reps.  But for the Push Circuit, I started week one at 12 kgs at 8 reps.  I also added a small set of Pull-Ups for some added work and the desire to get my Pull-Up strength back up to where I can do at least 20 Pull-Ups in one set.

The big thing though was my move to push for spreading Pickleball in Kagoshima.  I'll write about that in my next post.

Until next post, I hope it is not another 3+ months.

October 1, As we enter the month of Halloween...

Here we go!

October is pretty much known for being the month of Halloween, and another "King of the Hill" Challenge is upon me and my Beachbody Coaches Group.  As a warm-up for the KotH Challenge, my coach sent out a "Spooky Routine" to all the members to do at least once before October started.  So I actually did this routine on Sunday, the 29th, but I held off on reporting it because it was so cool. Here is it:

I thought I could power through this in 25 minutes or so.  It ended up taking me close to an hour to get through the three rounds of this monster!  A couple adjustments and an additional move at the end brought it to that long.  Here's what I did:  I did all the timed moves as noted, but I ended up going overtime on most of them because I didn't want to stop at like 33 reps, so I kept going a few extra seconds to get to 35 or 40 reps on the fast moves like Mountain Climbers or Speed Skaters.  But on the bodyweight moves like Push-Ups, I did 20 instead of 15.  Instead of Walking Lunges (First Move), I did Alternating Jumping Lunges, 2 moves equaled 1 rep.  For the weighted moves, Curls and Rows, I did them as a Combo move instead of individually.  I used 10kgx2 for the first two rounds then went down to 7.5kgsx2 for the last round.  I was just fried.  Then, in the end, after the Plank move, I added 5 reps of Pull-Ups.  Just to start getting back into it.

Let me tell you, this little routine was a lot harder than I had initially thought.  But it was a good full-body workout.

I burned over 800kcals on this routine, so I was happy about that.  From October 1, today, I'm going to kick it into high gear and do something every day so I can keep my "Crown".

The US Trip and the resulting Workouts through September

     I left for the US on August 29.  It was a long trip but there was no outstanding incident.  Everything went smoothly and it was probably the fastest trip in the sense of security checks and immigration that I have ever experienced.  I didn't get asked more than one or two questions all the way through.  As for the trip, I was able to do all my scheduled work duties so that part was fine.  I wasn't even that effected by the jet lag that much which made me happy.

     I was hoping to play Pickleball every day in the evening, but in the end, I ended up only being able to play twice the whole trip.  The first time the weather was hot, but the second time, it was almost cold near the end of play.  I didn't bring my HRM but I only played doubles so I didn't really need it.  But it was still a good workout each time.  During the first day, I won all my matches.  The second was much the same, winning all my matches except one.  But the difference was that I played with a variety of players.  It was just fun all around both days.

     On the trip back, I got the news that a typhoon was heading to Tokyo and might cause some delay for my flight.  But eventually, it was reported that there were no delays of incoming flights to Narita.  Again, all the security checks were fast and problem-free.  The only little nervousness I had was waiting to see if the seat next to me would be open or not.  Fortunately, it was open, so I could stretch out a little more this time.   Since I got the ticket there was only one thing I was even remotely worried about, and that was the transit time between Narita and Haneda.  I knew I was going to cut it close, but if everything went as smoothly as it had been, I was going to make it.  But Mother Nature had other plans.  When I arrived at Narita (a few minutes earlier than scheduled),  I was hopeful that I would make it on time.  I went through customs, immigration, and security with no hitches got my bags and headed to the shipping counter.  On my way there, I noticed that the lines for the bus ticket counter were "snakingly" long.  That is when I got my first hint that something was not right.  I shipped my three large bags and head back to buy my bus ticket to Haneda.  Unfortunately, the line was even longer now.  I went out to the bus stop to see if I could just ride the bus and pay cash.  But there was a notice that stated that the bus service was not running.  Looking up and down the line, tons of people were just waiting and no buses or even taxis were running.  At this point, I still had over two hours to get to Haneda.  Well, it ended up that because of the typhoon, there was flooding all over the city and no transportation services were running at all in or around Narita, but planes were still arriving.  Totally, an estimated 17,000 were stranded at Narita that night.

That whole experience just totally screwed up my internal clock and even three weeks later, I'm still feeling the effects of the jet lag.

I didn't do any workout the first week back.  The next week, I just did a week of X3 Yoga.  Then I started doing some resistance last week along with the Yoga.  Below is my worksheet for the routine.

This routine offically completes my Hammer and Chisel run through.  From October I will start a normal workout schedule.  Here we go!

Ups and Downs during the past three months

Here I'm going to talk about some of the big ups and downs I experienced during the past three months.

1.  Pull-Up Strength.  I love doing Pull-Ups, but this is one move that if I stop doing then for an extended period of time, I will go down in strength... A LOT and QUICKLY.  During the two weeks of inactivity, I was literally doing no strength exercises.  Not because I couldn't, but I think I was mentally afraid of injuring myself again.  But as my ankle got stronger, my desire to workout again became stronger.  But after two weeks, I could barely do 8 reps.  But after a couple of day, I was able to get back to about 10 reps and that was one plateau.  About a month later, I got up to 15 reps and plateaued again.  Last week, I got back to 20 reps in a row.  I've done that three times since then.  I'm very happy.

2. Yoga.  My flexibility has gone to pot.  Again, like Pull-Ups, if I stop doing it, I lose it.  Two and a half years ago, I joined a tennis club.  Sundays and Wednesdays are now Tennis days.  Previously, at least one of those days was a yoga day, and one was either a stretch or a Foam Roller Day.  Now, I do nothing for flexibility.  And it shows.  When I did a Yoga routine after about two months, in the middle of July, I couldn't even get close to doing the Yoga Wrap.  My Shoulders were just too tight.  A couple of times since, I barely was able to touch my tippy tips of my fingers together, but no clasp or hook.  But I kept doing it and just today, August 28, for the first time in over... I don't know, a long time, I actually was able to hook my fingers for a quick moment on both sides.  So my flexibility is slowly coming back.  I am also making it a part of my routine to stretch my Hip Flexors and do Shoulder Opening Yoga stretches.

Another thing in Yoga is my Half-Moon pose and my Warrior 3 pose.   The first time I got back to a yoga routine in June, I was falling all over myself.  I couldn't hold the Half-Moon pose for longer than a few seconds.  I was very unstable and my legs would just poop out.  But since I started doing the Chisel and Hammer program, the routines also work the legs and I could feel my legs getting stronger.  After a few of the Chisel and Hammer routines, I did a yoga routine, and my Half-Moon was solid as a rock.  My Warrior 3 pose was also extremely stable.  I could even do it with my arms forward, not back.  I thought that playing tennis would be enough leg work for me since I did a lot of "getting low" to the ball, but it wasn't nearly enough.  Now, I know I have to do Leg-specific training moves to keep up my leg strength.

3. Over all Strength.  The old saying is right, "If you don't use it, you lose it."  I am proof of that.  Whenever I take any type of break from working out, strength workouts, for longer than a few days, I start to lose strength.  It has taken over three months, but I am back in the habit and on my way to reaching my fitness goals.

After a three month absence...

Well, after a three month absence from writing about my workouts, I'm back... sort of.  I'm about to leave on a business trip so I will be absent again for a few weeks before I get back to regular posts.  But I will give a brief overview of what I have been doing.

Probably the biggest reason for my absence is my ankle injury.  For about two weeks I didn't do anything, but then I started to do mostly upper body workouts.  But then I just got busy and ended up not writing.  That is something I regret because I have made a lot of good progress in different areas of my fitness.

Here is a basic workout week.

Sunday - Tennis
Monday - Off Day, or Stretching
Tuesday - Resistance Training
Wednesday - Tennis
Thursday - Yoga or Stretching
Friday - Resistance Training
Saturday - Off Day, or Stretching

That was how a basic week went.  Then, in July I got back into Pickle-Ball with a different friend who came back from the United States.  So, I was able to make Monday Pickle-Ball day.  But there were days when tennis got rained out so I would do a resistance workout instead.  On all resistance days, I would of course do Abs after the main routine, and the Tai Cheng Flow.  But the Tai Chen Flow sort of got phased out in and Shoulder Opening Yoga took its place.

As far as programs, when I started back after my injury, I went with Body Beast, trying several of the Build and Bulk routines in a circuit.  Then I started the Hammer and Chisel Program.  I have done all of the full routines except for one, Chisel Power, which is in the deluxe section.  I haven't do the shorter routines like the 15 minute Cardio or the 15 minute Leg routines.  But I did the 10 Minute Ab Chisel just the other day.  That is one that I will be doing again.  Most of the ab routines I did where from the ChaLEAN Extreme Program:  Ab Burner, Extreme Abs, Extreme Core Circuit, and I've Got Abs are the ones I used the most.  But I did to the Ab routine from Body Beast and P90X3 once or twice.

From now, I will post the worksheets I filled in for most of the routines I did the past three months.  The dates are all over the place, but you can get the gist of what I did.

May 30, Back to Back Upper Body days, hope I don't pay to much for this decision.

May 30, 2019, Thursday - Sagi's BOD Exclusive: Chest and Triceps + Core + Shoulder Care Modified + TCF.

I was planning to play tennis again today, but as a result of an unexpected turn of events, I ended up no being able to go and so I stayed home and went with another round of Sagi's Beachbody on Demand Exclusive workout.  This time, Chest and Triceps.  There is a Leg routine in there, but I'm staying away from heavy leg work for now to protect my knees and ankles.  I want to stay in shape for tennis and not risk straining any tendons or other muscle injuries.