It will do for now

Wednesday shinny is over now. The league regular season is over, too; all that is left is playoffs. (Are playoffs? Is playoffs plural?) We are playing in a tournament at the end of April, and I think my team is organizing some spring shinny, and I might do another puck skills camp in June. But right now I am looking at a few weeks with no hockey. Oh, no!



So I'm back to doing Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint strength workout. Of course, I've ignored strength training all season, being busy with hockey, which absolutely priority, and family, which is about equal with hockey in terms of priority. ;) Today I just wanted to match my numbers from the last workout, which, according to my notes, was March 1, 2013. Which I did do. I'm sure I'm actually stronger than last time - hockey will do that - but I didn't feel like pushing myself this morning.

Mark Sisson's basic approach to fitness is divided into three components: 

1. Strength. The strength component uses bodyweight (compound) exercises. You generally don't do long boring sets of light weight but rather short, intense sets of challenging exercises. You do a set test exercises in the beginning to figure out where to place yourself in the exercise sequences, and then as you get stronger you do harder versions of the same basic exercises. My husband's been following this program pretty faithfully for about six weeks now and he has definitely put on muscle.
2. Sprints. I've never done sprints explicitly because I count hockey and shinny as sprint conditioning. Skate hard, rest. Repeat. It fits the sprint pattern than Mark describes in his fitness routine. And is infinitely more fun!
3. Long but low-intensity movement every day, like walking. Since it's been winter, I've also completely ignored this component. Sidewalks are icy (where there are sidewalks) and we live on a steep hill. Most mornings I would look out at the road, think about the stroller, the deadly wind, and decide, nah, I'm not freezing myself and baby this morning. Maybe when I go back to work I will walk one way, about 50 minutes.

Now I'm not some kind of Primal Blueprint evangelist - I think there are flaky things in some of the blog posts, though Mark's books seem more substantial. But the fitness program is appealing because it does have scientific backing and it's not too time-consuming. (And it's free!) It gives you functional strength - who doesn't want to be able to go on long walks, play hockey, and lug a 15-lb baby around with ease? I know it's not hockey, but it will do for now.