Monday, October 13, 2025

l'haltérophilie while on the trail

I'm bringing along a resistance band for use at the end of the day after I've finished a segment of the Nakdong River walk. Today, I finally created a list of exercises to do while on the walk. It's something of a combination of the exercises I do during a regular week, and it includes exercises that have been "converted," e.g. a heavy-club front press that's been converted into a resistance-band front press. The idea isn't so much to continue the next ten weeks of my ongoing weightlifting/resistance program (I've written my newest ten-week calendar to reflect the skip) as it is to just keep my muscles from atrophying over three weeks. Here's that list (the abbreviation "RB" means "resistance band"; "BW" means "bodyweight"):

☐ RB lateral raises 1 x 15
 RB biceps curl 1 x 15 each arm
 RB antirotational press 1 x 15 each side
 RB triceps extension 1 x 15
 RB lat pulldown 1 x 15
 RB rows 1 x 15
 RB gorilla rows 1 x 20
 RB over-shoulder triceps (throwing) 1 x 15
 RB standing chest press 1 x 15
 RB "deadlift"¹ 1 x 15
 RB "plank"² 30 sec
 RB club-style front press 1 x 15
 RB triceps extension 40 sec 
 BW glute kickbacks 1 x 15
 BW wall sit 30 sec
 BW wall push-ups 1 x 15
 BW dead bug 2 x 15
 BW bedside squats 1 x 15

¹ This is an unbowing exercise from the front for the lower back.
² Unbowing exercise from the side for the obliques.

I tried to keep the program short, given that I'll be exhausted at the end of a walking day, wanting more to flop into bed, blog the day, and just do nothing as opposed to engaging in two hours of exercise. So as you see above, I'm not doing three sets of anything—it's just going to be a single set (except for the dead bugs) of 15-20 reps for most exercises, plus 30-40 seconds of "static" exercises (e.g., planks, wall-sits). Just enough to allow my muscles to remember what it feels like to be under tension. I should be able to bang out the entire program in around half an hour, which ought to leave me with plenty of time (if not energy*) for blogging.

I know there are experts who advise you to separate your exercises into "days": push day, pull day, and leg day. I think the above eclectic mix can all be done in one session, pretty much every weekday, thus mirroring what I'm currently doing. My only real dilemma right now is whether to take only one resistance band or two on my walk. Two might be better.**

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*On past walks, I've staggered into my motel room, showered, flopped onto my bed or into a chair, started blogging, and dozed off in mid-sentence or while I waited for photos to upload.

**Resistance bands have the advantage of being light and portable, but they don't really offer much in the way of tension throughout most of a movement. It's only when you're at around the 80% point of your movement that the band starts to get tense, so when doing reps, you get the most effect if you hold the band in tension and pause for three seconds. I'm never so insane as to go for a feel the burn kind of moment, but I do make an effort to add a few seconds' pause. Bands aren't worth much without taking them to a nearly full stretch. And there's little risk that they'll snap unless you insist on abusing them by wrapping them around sharp edges, etc., without using a towel as padding. Take care of your resistance bands.


4 comments:

  1. Have you thought about Tai Chi as well?

    I think I will try and start myself. Hopefully, the meditative aspects of it will help improve my current health issues.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not once, and there's no way I'd learn it in time for the walk. I'm not against it, but it's just not a path I've seriously considered.

      Sorry to hear about health issues. Time and entropy always grind ever forward.

      Delete
  2. Many of the health issues are due to getting older and Father Time. My elders never told my younger self just how rough and brutal aging really is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, take care of yourself, dude. You're one of my five readers, part of this blog's inner circle.

      Delete

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