Craig Constantine

6 months. 3,000 rep’s. →

Published January 20, 2016 · All posts on Jan 20

This entry is part 17 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

3,000 reps is in the bag, exactly 6 months into the challenge (on day #183.) Also, for the first time ever, all five activities match up exactly.

In a disucsion with some friends yesterday, the 70 pullups of today’s workout turned into a challenge: Do them in as few sets as possible. I only managed 7,5,6, 6,6,5, 7×5 — but that’s still the fewest-ever sets for 70 pullups for me. (I’ve been doing all sets-of-five, or trailing off to sets of 5.)

This week has another workout planned on Saturday. I’m watching the snow storm coming, and I might be going into NYC for some parkour events on Saturday. So I may pull that workout forward to Friday. If I do that, I’ll also pull the following workouts forward to keep the ‘work,rest,work,rest,rest’ pattern intact. (Which, by the way, feels like it’s working well for me.)

Beyond that, I have all the workouts sketched out, with various +5 steps in reps, to get to 4,000 reps in another 5 weeks. At that point, the workouts would be 85 reps of things hopefully in a 5×17 arrangement for pushups, squats, bar-precisions and who-knows-what the pullup sets will look like. I’m currently doing the 65 seconds of handstand in two parts so it would be cool if I could keep the handstand to just 2 stands to reach the time for each workout.

Feels like a lifetime ago that I started this craziness! :D

Motivated →

Published January 19, 2016 · All posts on Jan 19

This entry is part 16 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

I post this stuff partly in the hope that someone might find it inspirational, but mostly as way to keep myself accountable. I’ve been talking about this project for 6 months — tomorrow is literally the 6 month point — and there’s just no way I want to have to explain how/why I didn’t make the goal.

There are a number of people out there that I’m quietly using as inspiration. I’m going to try to take the time to thank them face-to-face in the coming weeks rather than name-drop them in a post. So moving on…

Here’s the status update from Monday’s workout. (I wrote this status update to my accountability partner on Tuesday[today].)

I did it. Monday was a whirlwind, so just now getting around to workbook updates and status.
Mega-crappy workout. Everything stacked against me; tired from lots of training and driving, 3 hours of sleep, my hands were super-sore from doing a ton of hanging/swinging/climbing on sunday… frickin’ cold outside… I taped up my hands and shoved ’em in leather work gloves (makes pullups even harder on the 1-1/4″ pipe because it’s slippery with gloves) and just went, “odometer numbers, forget everything else”… I broke into a zillion 6 and 7 rep sets of push, squat, bar-precision (to do 65 of each activity) and did a zillion sets of 3 pullups to get 70 reps of pullups. My grip was already sore and burnt-out from Sunday so it was all red-lining what my forearms would do.
BUT, I made my goal numbers of reps for the day.
Also, Tracy and I did our usual run this morning, very cold but managable. Now I need to sit around all day today and recover, I have like this head cold from being exhausted i think.
Anyway. I’m still on track for tomorrow’s workout for the 6 month mark and 3,000 reps.

Onward! →

Published January 10, 2016 · All posts on Jan 10

This entry is part 15 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

Planning is really paying off…

While I was in Boston, my schedule shifted and I did my planned-for-Saturday workout on Friday. When I got home to my desk and looked over the bigger picture, I realized that shift enables me to pull the “3,000 reps milestone” workout forward so it falls exactly in the middle of the year — on day 183.

Just-completed week is filled in, and next week is laid out. A few really neat things are coming up in the next two weeks:

Monday: I finally get the slightest back-down on pullup counts since I started really working on them over 3 months ago. 80, drops down to 75 :P At the same time, everything else goes up to 60 reps. 60 bar-precisions is going to be so nice after having to crank out 85 for a few days (to bank rep’s) before I went to Boston.

Saturday: Another increment of activities, and the final back-down of pullups.

All of which is working toward a very special milestone that’s coming up in two weeks. :D For next few months I’ll be settling into a regular pattern of ‘work, rest, work, rest, rest’ with a regular +5-reps across the board as I work to build up the total numbers. All across the board, the “running rate needed” numbers is about 40, or 80 every-other day; So I’m still behind the pace I need to finish on time, but now I’m really getting close. The medium term goal is to do 100 rep’s of everything, and run that out to the end of the challenge.

Onward!

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Force, dignite, partage →

Published January 8, 2016 · All posts on Jan 8 · Instaspam

This entry is part 14 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

Rep’ing #addquebec as I do my 10k project homework on #pkgenamericas awesome scaf at #brooklynboulders in Boston! So happy I had a workout plan for this trip… because Anton is trying to fatten us up like foie gras! Next, John and I are going get some climbing in. :)

Happy new year! Welcome to 2016… →

Published January 1, 2016 · All posts on Jan 1 · Parkour

This entry is part 13 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

Today was challenging: Up late for New Year’s Eve. Nothing major, but snacking late into the night, short on sleep, alcohol… all adds up on the negative side of the balance sheet. I did my usual warmup, started into things, and then had to stop for my back. I could just tell it wasn’t feeling 100% and that I would have been in pain before I was done. So I started over doing range-of-motion and a second, longer warmup — it took me forever to get up to speed. BUT, I’m very happy that I managed to pull out of the nose dive and get the workout done without injury!

So today’s workout is done as planned. Pushups, squats were 5×10 (numbers are creeping up, but this is still easy :), 2×25 handstands — even managed a few seconds free-standing at the end of each handstand, 85 bar precisions as 5×9 and 5×8, and a tedious 80 pullups as 5×12, and 4×5. I’m definitely stuck on a plateau with pullups! But with the holiday “weighted vest” currently holding me down, I’m hoping to move on in the coming weeks… Saturday and Sunday are rest days.

Next week has three workouts, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. That’s planned to work around my Tuesday and Sunday travelling days to/from Boston. Monday I’ll finish banking bar-precision reps so that I don’t have to do any while in Boston (since I can’t be 100% sure I can find a handy bar precision.) So the two workouts while I’m away are just pushups, squats, pullups and handstands… I know I can get those in. I’m thiking of going to Brooklyn Boulders (a huge climbing gym where the parkour group has scaffolding setup for indoor classes) on Wednesday; that would let me use the scaff for pullups and get my workout in. Saturday I’ll see what’s happening.

Here’s next week filled in:

Tough week. That’s why planning leads to success. →

Published December 27, 2015 · All posts on Dec 27 · Parkour

This entry is part 12 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

This past week is filled in. Everything went as planned. Today was an exact copy of Friday.

Oof! My forearms are starting to get sore… the part where the grip tendon(s) attach at the elbow. I must make sure that doesn’t develop into tendonitis. I’m HEAVY from holiday eating, tired from messed-up sleep, etc. so this week’s workouts were tough. BUT, this was all expected and planned for, so I’m treating it like an expected plateau, smiling proudly and moving onward.

This coming week has several big changes…

I’m switching to a “workout, rest day, workout, rest, rest” pattern to give me a two-days-in-a-row recurring break. All the way into MARCH I’m going to have to be ramping up all the excercises so I’m going to need that double-day recovery break in the pattern. This week, Monday/Tuesday are MUCH-needed rests, and that makes Saturday/Sunday rest days too — so this week is going to be an easy week.

The following week I have January 5 thru 9 marked red because I’ll be in Boston. After a bit of juggling, I’ve arranged for the Tuesday/Sunday travelling days to NOT be workout days to avoid having to do 80 pullups in a train. I’ve two workouts planned while in Boston. I’m not 100% sure I can find a suitable bar-precision I want. So, to be 100% sure I can get the reps in, I’m going to take the 110 bar-pre’s that would be in those two workouts, and bank in the next three workouts. Thus the inflated 85,85,85 count on the bar-pre’s coming up. They’re not physically hard any more (just technically challenging) so there’s no probably cranking out those reps to ensure I don’t fall behind in the Jan 5-9 week.

Finally, if I stick to the plan, on day 184 — just a smidge after the mid-way point of the challenge — I hit 3,000 on the final rep in the workouts, AND sync-up all the activities. That will be a red-letter-day :D

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Merry Christmas everyone! →

Published December 25, 2015 · All posts on Dec 25 · Instaspam

This entry is part 11 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

Glorious weather (ignoring the fog) for working on long term goals. Doing my homework before Christmas day with the family. (Yes, the “40’s” for push-ups, squats and bar-precisions are small-ish numbers, but I have a lot of pull-ups to catch up on.)

2,000 pullups →

Published December 21, 2015 · All posts on Dec 21 · Parkour

This entry is part 10 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

As I mentioned in the previous post, today’s workout included 80 pullups, and the last pullup was number 2,000. What a milestone! They’re not the greatest pullups – there’s some kipping and flailing at the end – but, build it, lather, rinse, repeat. 16 sets of five pullups is a LOT of pullups. I now have to do that, every other day for a couple weeks to finishing digging pullups out of the hole to catch up with the number of rep’s on the other exercises.

One step at a time →

Published December 19, 2015 · All posts on Dec 19 · Parkour

This entry is part 9 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

Last night I thought there was no way. But I didn’t want to push things back a day. The 24th would then be another push-back (there’s no time to train on the 24h.) So I just got started… dress, start the fitbit tracking, saw some firewood, finish warming-up and start hauling my ass up and down…

60 minutes from start to finish (including the warmup). Pullups were 12×5,4,4,4,4,3… I was at 40 reps of pullups and thought I’d never make it to 75. I just kept saying, “anything over 40 doesn’t dig a hole. Just do one more set of pullups.” The plan was to do 75, and I had it in the back of my head (I don’t know why) that I needed +6 sprinkled in over a few weeks; So instead of 12×5,4,4,4,3 for exactly 75, I made the last set a 4, and then an extra set of 3. The last rep was a stall and kip/struggle. I could not have done a fourth rep in that last set.

BAM!

Seventy. Nine. pullups . . .
…and then updating the spreadsheet back at my desk I see that on Monday, if I do a tidy 80 — ie, NO INCREASE :)))) – the 80th rep will be number 2,000!

So here’s next week planned out. It’s a four training days week, and it’ll be interesting to just do the same number of reps of everything on each workout. The 24th is a “rest” day involving 2 two-hour drives, and 3 (THREE!?) separate stops for Tracy/Stacy’s birthdays. So I’ll be trying to remind myself to keep the eating under control so I can get the workout in on the morning of the 25th.

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2,000 →

Published December 7, 2015 · All posts on Dec 7

This entry is part 8 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

Today’s checkin for the 10k project. It will now be a long road to 3,000… so I suspect it will be a while before there’s anything interesting to report.

pushups, pullups, squats and handstand-seconds just passed 2,000 reps !
This is the first day I’ve ever done more pullups than any other activity !!
(granted all the other activities were way too easy ;)
Today’s workout is completely as planned. WOOT!
Did excellent for being tired from a good 2hr parkour workout yesterday that involved pushups and handstands…
(Thanks Adam :P
I did pushups, squats and precisions in 5×8 sets, and 2×25 handstands — all super easy.
and the 9×5 pullups were all emminently doable
I’ll see how I feel on Wednesday morning: Since this is now a numbers race about pullups, I may stick with sets of 5 pullups, and just add an extra set more often than every fourth workout.

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