Beast Mode continues, and you need a GymBoss!

So much for daily posts! The Beast Mode daily workouts have been continuing, though, and they're apparently going well enough because I've got a classic overtraining symptom: nearly constantly elevated body temperature. Here's some of the stuff I've been up to over the last few days.
The general structure of Beast Mode is that I do turning, standing strengthening, and grip conditioning of some sort early in the day, train forms or strikes sometime later when work permits (usually mid-to-late afternoon), and then do a killer conditioning workout in the evening. Other than Monday (yesterday), this has been the structure every day. The departure on Monday removed the evening conditioning in favor of our weekly study group training session, which was a forms bonanza this week.

To make a long story short, I'm still dividing my circle turning and standing strengthening practices essentially down the middle between Lion and Phoenix Systems, focusing mostly on Shocking (Lion) and Extending (Phoenix), although I did Sweeping/Dodging due to their gross similarities a couple of days ago.

Grip training varies by the day. On every second or third day, I'm keen to hit up some actual grippers, which are a bit like weight lifting for your hands. I use the "Heavy Gripper" models, usually the 250 lb and 200 lb models, the latter far more than the former. Usually I do about a half a dozen sets to failure or near failure with those. On the other days, I try to do old-fashioned things like carrying around heavy crap with a wide grip, like a 20 lb hex dumbbell by its end or like concrete blocks with a pinch grip. I also finish every grip workout with at least one of (Lion) Seizing or Grasping palm standing strengthening posture.

The afternoon workouts (strikes/forms) have been centered around experimenting with the Gymboss interval timer mentioned in my previous post. It's decidedly just about the best tool for creating structured strikes and forms workouts that simulate what's going on at seminars and intensives with He Jinbao without having someone there to call out for your to do more techniques than you really want to. It's merciless and impartial. Once you test it out a few times to find your limits and how much rest you need, it's very easy to change those parameters so that your workout pushes you without destroying you.

Striking continued as described in the previous post: set the GymBoss for three-minute strike sessions followed by one minute of rest. I could push myself by cutting 10-15 seconds off of the rest time, but for now, this formula is working. Typically, I try to do ten sets like this, drilling a single palm, although that could easily be expanded or contracted at need. What's been "fun" so far has been to do the three basics, standing in place method, then each strike in the box step in just one direction for the entire three minutes (going the other way in the next three minutes), and finally a 1-2-3 combination of those three strikes (Lion) or a 1-2 combo (Phoenix). It would be manly and will therefore soon be done to do more combos at the end and increase the focused training time that way.

Strike drilling has been playing second fiddle lately, though, to forms drilling, also utilizing the GymBoss. That's because one of our own here in Knoxville made the very late decision to attend the Beijing Intensive this year, and needs to learn a boatload of forms in a freaking hurry. The seminars teach us the best way to learn the forms: go through them a couple of times until you have the idea, and then drill the hell out of them until you can't forget them. So we put the GymBoss on five minutes of action and one minute of rest and drill each one a couple, a few, or several times following that protocol. It's relatively hard, particularly when you're getting near your last sets. I did this for an hour today and yesterday on my own, and we did it together for about two and a half hours last night in our group training.

Conditioning has been intense as usual. There was another instance of the so-called Real Ultimate Power workout (see previous post), this time only going through four times because I was sore as hell from the first time. I also did the following two workouts courtesy of my favorite conditioning workout blog that my wife and I follow (and do the workouts together!), BodyRock.tv. Don't let the cute Czech girl fool you... those workouts are freaking hard, and she's a superwoman. Anyway... the workouts I mentioned:

1. (Sunday) http://www.bodyrock.tv/2011/03/18/red-hot-workout-beating-my-personal-record/ This sucked.
2. (today) http://www.bodyrock.tv/2011/01/03/burpee-fusion-workout/ This sucked far more, especially since I took out the sandbag (kettlebell) swing and replaced it with 5 pull-ups, using changing grips. It turns out that 155 burpees and 50 pullups in minimum time is hard. I did this after I thought life was going to screw me out of a chance to do my workout tonight, a miscalculation that resulted in doing five sets of 30 squats followed by 5 power pull-ups each. I literally had to mop my floor after finishing this (in about 26 minutes, it turns out) from the flood of sweat.

Oh... I forgot to mention that our weather here in East Tennessee is fantastic, and my wife and I are modest gardeners, so it's been mulch- and dirt-shoveling season in the yard for a couple of hours a day every day this weekend and into the week too. I've been drinking lots of water (and Gatorade) to keep up.

How's your training? I want to know!