Fitness from the Road: The Systematic Approach or "Plan".

Walkabout picture in Petra

In the last Road Fitness blogpost, I discussed my score on an at-home fitness test. My goal is to improve on those scores six or so weeks from now - the week of August 11th. Wilson and I will be back in the Bay Area that week and I figure that it will be a perfect time to re-test.

 

My systematic approach or plan will be to use a point system rather than a planned daily workout program. As I found out during our last extended travel, specific plans for exercise on a daily basis can be easily frustrated by the vagaries of travel. While we were travelling in Africa last winter, I was supposed to train for a half-marathon with friends in March. The training (with its daily programs) did not go very well. The run went fine. As it turned out, the friends, Jan, Emily, and Anna, didn't have too much time to train so we happily hobbled through it together.

So instead of a daily planned approach, I am trying a "point system" in the hopes that will work better in the chaos of travel. The "point system" is a modification of a health points competition that my sister, Catherine, has with her friends. Catherine's friendly point system competition gives each participant points for what they do in a day. For example, they get a point for drinking 8 glasses of water or 2 points for a spin class etc. My point plan is slightly different. It is modified to the goals that I want to achieve: core strength, push ups, injury free, and running/cardiovascular fitness.

The Plan:

I have 10 different activities to get points. I am shooting for 70 points per week or 10 points per day on average. I have weighted activities in accordance with their difficulty and the value placed on the activity.

The difficulty is measured in two ways: (1) physical difficulty (how hard is it to perform?); and (2) location difficulty (how hard is it find a location to perform the activity?). Location difficulty is most directly applicable to yoga. Wilson and I often stay in rooms that are not conducive to doing yoga. For example, we often find ourselves in economy rooms which are only as big as the bed. In these cases, it is difficult to find a common area or space to do yoga without being obnoxious.

Giving points for value is more subjective. However, I tend to value activities that have more than one purpose, such as push ups. Push-ups strengthen both the upper body and the core. Yoga also strengthens as well as prevents injury. And another activity "squats with kicks" provides the duofold purpose of strengthening glutes to insure correct biomechanics while running, as well as being another core strengthener.

The activities:

-Yoga = 5 pts

-Pushups = Each set of 12-20 push-ups equals 1 pt. Ideally, I'd like to do 5 sets of push-ups 3 days a week to maximize recovery time. So 15 out of my 70 points would come from push-ups. Also, as I get stronger, I hope to up the push-up set amount from 12-20 to 20-30. I've noticed that doing smaller sets does not make me as sore as when I maxed out on push-ups for the test.

-Plank = The program that I will use for the plank is the same as the at-home fitness test. However, right now I can only do 2 minutes of the 3 minute test. And if I am tired, it is hard for me to do more than 1 minute 30 seconds. Therefore points are awarded according to time in the following manner:

1:30 = 1 pt, 2:00 = 2 pts, 2:15 = 3 pts, 2:30 = 4 pts, 2:45 = 5 pts, and 3 minutes = 6pts.

-Hiking/walk-abouts= In our travels, Wilson and I are often on our feet for most of the day. In places where we want to see a lot of sites, like Barcelona or Petra, we do "walkabouts" where we are quickly walking from site to site to see as much as possible. We have also hiked a fair amount in South America.

Therefore, the point system for hikes/walkabouts is as follows:

-After 4 hours, a walkabout equals 4 points.

-For hikes, I accrue one point per hour, for a maximum of 10 points.

-One-legged squats= 1 pt for every 60 that I do (30 reps each side)

-Squat with kicks= 2 pts for every 60 (30 reps each side)

-Running= Points will be awarded on their own difficulty scale of 1 to 10 points. The difficulty will depend on both length of the run, as well as the intensity, e.g., are my lungs hurting? am I getting lightheaded at times? I probably won't do a 10 point run during this six week stint because it would likely induce injuries or vomiting or both. Most runs will probably average around 1 point per 10 minutes unless the run is more challenging and demands a greater point allocation.

I have limited the activities that count for points because we don't regularly have other activity options like biking or climbing available to us. I also tried to simplify how the points are allocated because I want to keep a point tally in my head. I will keep a spreadsheet as well but having the tally in head is useful because I can plan out how to get the points that I need from random places such as bus terminals. And even do some of those one legged squats or push-ups in said terminal.

 

 

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