Tag: arnold dumbbell presses

Divisible by Five: A Weird Guy Works Out

If my blog subjects boil down to history, murder and fitness, I guess that’s okay. Whatever, here’s a switch-up from the previous post. This is about how I sometimes like to do workouts designed to be entirely divisible by the number five.

This is called making  my weirdness work for me. I’d stop short of saying I’m obsessed with the number 5. I think I just like the neatness of dividing and multiplying with it.

Anyway, I’m a weirdo and here’s the workout I did tonight. This isn’t a suggested workout. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t try it, since I enjoyed it partly because I set up the whole weird divisible by 5 deal. All that said, I was bushed when I finished.

Equipment used:

THE RACK: Appropriately named after a torture device
THE RACK: Appropriately named after a torture device

I bought The Rack about a year ago. It spends a good part of the week holding up my and my wife’s “clothes not dirty enough to wash that we might wear again this week–in a pinch.” However, I use the damned thing every week for its intended purpose, and I love it for that. Go here to see non-semi-dirty clothes hanger uses for The Rack.

(Not so) Perfect weight vest
(Not so) Perfect weight vest

The Perfect Weighted Vest is not exactly perfect. I bought this to have maximum poundage (40 lbs when all slots are filled), but discovered pretty quickly the design of this vest is such that any kind of fast-moving, complex bodyweight move while wearing it is rendered tougher than it should be because the vest tends to fold and curl. The problem seems to be the flap below the velcro clasp. That said, it does its job, for the most part, which is simply to add weight to make bodyweight stuff even harder than it should be. I’ll probably get a less flappy vest in the future but this is fine for now.

Dumbbells.
Dumbbells.

What? They’re dumbbells. I used two, loaded with 35 lbs.

I set my phone’s timer app for 20 minutes. The vest was loaded with 20 lbs and I wore it for the whole workout. After a 2-minute warmup, I started the timer and did the following:

… Five times through.

I finished the last reps of the final set of Arnolds (named, yes, after Ah-nuld Schwarzenegger) as the timer beeped. This added up to 25 dips, 50 burpees, 25 curls, and 25 Arnolds. All while wearing the 20-lb. vest.

The vest combined with the enforced 20-minute limit made all the difference, I’m certain–especially with burpees. Once I managed to secure the velcro straps well enough that they wouldn’t come undone, every set of 5 felt progressively more brutal and taxing.

And it was all, including the enforced 20-minute time, divisible by five.

Because I’m weird, and I’m fine with that.

Daily Workout Post (that’s still not daily)

Since the first one went on a bit, let’s make today’s dumb workout post brief. I don’t pretend there’s any coherence to this one other than I’ve been in a day on/day off pattern and even though that’s 4 days a week, it feels like slacking, so I needed a whole body workout.

Part the First, in which our hero* addresses cardio, chest and arms:

  • Burpees x 5
  • Push-ups x 15
  • Burpees x 5
  • “Arnolds” with 2 25-lb dumbbells, x 10. (Link goes to a video demonstration of “Arnolds,” which are, believe it or not, not named after that football-headed cartoon character, but the former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

I did four of each set in a circuit, for a total 40 burpees, 60 push-ups and 40 Arnolds. Or Ah-nulds, if you prefer the old hacky nod to the gov’s Austrian brogue.

Part the Second, in which our hero** addresses the need for an all-over body burn:

I did the workout above, as demonstrated by one of my favorite online fitness folks, Daniel, who runs the awesome FitnessBlender.com with his lovely wife, Kelli. In the interest of full disclosure, I used a single 53-lb kettlebell (I’ve switched between the 53 and a 70 before) and added a minute’s pause at the middle of the tape, figuring I began the thing already pretty sweaty and tired. I love this FitnessBlender workout in particular because it’s a time-saver and it hits all the good stuff.

Parts 1 and 2 together timed out to 30 minutes.

Plug I give every time I mention them–I can’t recommend Fitness Blender strongly enough if you, like me, have personal and budgetary constraints that make you wary of the gym. I prefer to run 2-5 times a week if I can but winter in New England can make that a tough sell–a resource like the one provided by these guys is invaluable in that situation, as well.

The usual disclaimer: I’m essentially using blog posts like this as notes for an ongoing project. This isn’t meant to be instructional and before you try any of it, you should eat a candy bar and think about your life and know that I’m just some Internet idiot, and I like to eat donut holes and drink scotch in addition to working out. I won’t claim to tell you what to do fitness-wise but I can totally instruct you on those things. (Hey, this whole blog warns you about the “unreliable narrator” part of this deal, sparky.)

For real education on these kinds of things, you should park yourself at FitnessBlender.com for a day and absorb their videos and plans like they’re your Jedis of gym stuff.

[Fitness Blender]

*Village idiot

**Middle-aged dipstick desperately fleeing the Reaper’s scythe