In February I gave up my gym membership because I thought what little I was doing in the gym I could do at home instead. Yeah, right! Since I stopped going to the gym, I rarely did anything at home and have become a mess.

Well, I paid for a whole year’s membership at my gym again and have just started going again. I go every lunchtime and I feel great. Not only am I getting the exercise I was missing – regularly, I’m doing something constructive and I’m also getting a break from the stresses of work. Win-win. Win.

Anyway, seeing as it’s been a while since I’ve done any proper exercise, I thought I’d break myself in gently. To this end, I do the following. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are “weights” days and Tuesday and Thursday are cardio days. This is the kind of setup I used to have and it worked well.

Weights Days

I don’t get much time in the gym because I go in my lunch “hour”. Much of that hour is spent getting there and back and showering (not in that order!). I probably get 30 minutes of exercise time, so this routine is streamlined for speed. You migh think this is mad, but I go from one exercise to another without a break. No time for breaks. There are six exercises in a cycle and I do one low weight cycle as a warm up followed by two full intensity cycles. The exercises are designed to work different muscles. Here are the muscles, along with the possible exercises that can be performed to work them. This is the order that the exercises are performed, too:

1. Pectorals – fly machine, dumbbell flyes.
2. Triceps – tricep extension machine, tricep extension using free weights.
3. Traps – wide grip rowing machine, narrow grip rowing machine, pullups.
4. Chest and triceps – bench press.
5. Quadriceps – leg press.
6. Biceps – bicep curls.

After performing those three cycles, I do two lots of abs exercises, either tummy crunches or full situps (old school!).

Cardio Days

Cardio days are simple days. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do 15 minutes on the stair machine and then 15 minutes on one of the cross trainers. I finish off with two sets of abs exercises (crunches or situps).

Now I’m first to admit that this isn’t going to turn me into Jay Cutler. But compared to what I’ve been doing for the last 10 months (zilch), I might feel like Jay Cutler! Plus, you have to work within your limitations. I only get 30 minutes exercise time, so teh routine I’ve knocked together is pretty good.

Exercise Routines To Come

I was browsing bodybuilding.com today and found the Ben Affleck workout program which I thought I might try. The routine on the page I linked to is pretty comprehensive, and I don’t think I have the time to do that, but there is a cut down routine in this video and that seems doable.

Doesn’t that make you want to put down that beer and start training?

Inevitably there have been some changes in my approach to my Wing Chun training since I decided to return to weight training. The extra demands on my time mean that some adjustments to my routine were necessary, but there are also changes taking place to my body.

The Effect Of Weight Training On Wing Chun

The first change is in how my body feels when I train Wing Chun. Previously I’d usually felt relaxed, straining and shaking Siu Lim Tau legs aside, but now my shoulders ache and get tired more. The weight training is doing that. When I, as a lot of weight trainers do, train in the gym, I do the exercise to failure so that the “gains” are greater. If your muscles ache the following day, this is a cause for rejoicing because then your muscles will grow more as they recover! The downside is that when I pull my elbow in during Siu Lim Tau the strain on my shoulders is more painful than before. This is not a show stopping problem, just something that causes discomfort.

Likewise, when I’m chi sauing for any length of time, my shoulder muscles suffer. I’m predicting that this is a temporary problem just from past experience of weight training. The next-day-aching is the goal but eventually your muscles get so used to the exercise that this aching disappears and you “plateaux”. This is why weight trainers vary the exercises and routines they do; so that they can get work their muscles in a slightly different way, and getting the next-day-ache is a signal that you’ve pushed yourself. I’m thinking that after a short while my body will have been conditioned enough that there won’t be any aches the following day and I won’t have such painful shoulders when I do my Wing Chun.

Optimising Your Wing Chun Time

The second change is a sad one really. In doing more exercise I’ve had to sacrifice Wing Chun time. Instead of doing  an hour of Wing Chun every morning, as I did for the first 6 months of this year, I’m now doing just 2 sessions per week of maybe 30 minutes each. This is just to fit 3 mornings of weight training and two mornings of cardio combined with Wing Chun (the cardio serves as a warm up before my Wing Chun practice). I’ve experimented with doing some Wing Chun after weight training, but that is just laughable! My muscles are so exhausted that there is no way I can do anything with precision! I never noticed that before.

Actually, this was a sad change as I’ve now found a room that I can practise in at work in my lunch hour. This is excellent news because it means that I can virtually reinstate that lost Wing Chun hour. It appears that you can have your cake and eat it. I can weight train and train Wing Chun. Even on my weight training days, my muscles have recovered sufficiently by lunchtime so I can then train. I’ve just done 20 minutes of Tsum Kiu in the Secret Room and boy do I feel better for it. Scared the **** out of the secretary when she came in for some paperclips though…

The last two weeks have been horrendous for training, with last week being especially bad. Problems at work have meant that instead of being in the gym doing Wing Chun at 7am, I’ve actually been in the office working at that time.  And this is working without a break until 6pm. I’ve only managed one class per week, which I suppose isn’t too bad, but I really felt the absence of the morning sessions.

However, the crisis is over (for now) and I was back in the gym this morning.

More Cardio!

With my routine getting back to normal again, I’ve decided to change the focus of my training. Instead of dedicating my gym time exclusively to Wing Chun, as I have been doing for the last 5 months, I’m going to compromise and include some “proper exercise” too. My Wing Chun training doesn’t include any aerobic exercise and I think that that’s an important component to consider. My job is sedentary in the extreme and so I need a structured approach to getting aerobic exercise, otherwise I just won’t get any. Therefore, in the 90 minutes or so I have in the gym before work, I’m going to balance things out by reducing my Wing Chun time and increasing (err… starting…) my cardio time.

This morning, for example, I did the following:

• 5 minutes walking on the treadmill as a warmup
• 15 minutes on the stair machine for aerobic exercise
• 5 minutes doing pressups and situps for brick-like pectorals
• 20 minutes siu lim tau

For the sake of vanity, I thought I’d do something about getting my pecs back, hence the pressups! Well, the holidays are coming, after all…

Provisional Training Timetable

Here are my thoughts on how I’m going to split my Wing Chun training with my conventional gym training. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be my cardio days, consisting of routines similar to that outlined above. As I get fitter, I’ll increase the stair machine time (or time spent on a similar aerobic machine). Tuesday and Thursday will be weights days. Yay!

The cardio exercise will be easier to combine with the Wing Chun because after 20 minutes of earobic exercise I’m merely out of breathe. In contrast, after a hard weight training session, my muscles are quivering like jelly and thoroughly exhausted. Imagine holding out your tan sau still after you’ve wreaked havoc on your biceps doing curls! This means that whatever Wing Chun I do on the weights days must come before the weight training. No problem.

Because I’m only doing two days of weight training, I’m going to do full body workouts on those days. Otherwise I’ll be training a particular body part only once per week.