Day 3 – First Legs Day
Warm up
5 min Walk
Main Set
3 x 8 One Leg leg press
Super set
3 x 8 Leg Extensions
3 x8 Walking Lunges
3 x 8 Hamstring Curls
3 x 8 Calf Raises
Cool Down:
Walk up and down the length of the pool while coaching for 3 hours.
4:36. That number will be burnt in to my brain for the next few days. 4:36 am. That’s what time the clock had on it when I rolled over this morning with a cramp in my leg. I went from a deep sleep, that even a Australian politician would love during question time, to a mind splitting sharp stabbing pain in my hamstring.
As I drove away from work yesterday, my foot couldn’t help but twitch as I pressed down on the accelerator. Holy crap on a cracker what have I got myself in to.
I have to make the time
In between my two jobs, I had just enough time to fit in a small leg workout. Considering I haven’t done a workout on my legs in quite some time I think it’s going to be quite a large work out by tomorrow morning.
So in case you didn’t guess already running and legs aren’t really my strong suits. But unfortunately if you want to swim you’ve got to have a
decent kick. Which means I’ve gotta do running and leg workouts. It was a pretty easy workout for someone who hasn’t done much for quite some time. I started off with a nice easy 5 minute walk. Seems pretty basic right, because it was. Now don’t get me wrong I do believe in hard work. I’m going to do the hard work, however at this stage for my 3rd training session I don’t think there’s much point flogging myself to the point where I can’t walk. As I mentioned I drove away from the gym and my foot was twitching on the accelerator as I tried to pull out of the car park. So I’m thinking i did enough.
Legs Ugh!
When I got down to the pool I was lucky enough to have a session of coaching where I just had to walk up and down the pool deck. This was a great way to let my muscles unwind.
After the five minute wal
k I went on to do one legged leg presses. Sounds pretty easy? Because it is, you just put one foot on the plate and push. So that was it, just 3 sets of 8. Everything I’m doing to start with is just going to be 3 sets of 8. Like I said I’m still just easing in and I don’t want to come up with an injury or over do it too soon. Another thing that’s been weighing on my mind is that I need to find a carnival to try and qualify.
Classification S16
Having a kidney transplant means I can’t actually swim in a masters category, or to put it another way I don’t want to swim in a masters category. Transplant swimmers are classified on the disabled spectrum and my classification is S16. And if I’m going to be training for the world transplant games then I need to work under the banner of S16.
Anyway back to qualifying the carnival I was planning to use was one in my home town of Bathurst. Problem is it’s now full so I can’t get in. Qualifying closes 2 weeks before Country Championships which is going to be held on the 22nd of February. So it looks like I might have to drive. With any luck there could be a carnival in Orange beforehand. I’m hoping part of my swim squad or most of my swim squad will make Country Championships and if that happens that’s great it’s just a bonus that I will get to swim as well. I have to say my swim squad are an awesome group of young swimmers. Plus watching them train provides great motivation.
Super set
So after leg press was leg extensions and this was 
combined with walking lunges. After every set of 8 leg tensions I would then go and do 8 lunges. When you combine 1 exercise with another, it’s called a super set. I’ve got to say even though those 2 exercises were using different muscles, my legs were super tired and I was struggling to stand after lunge. Then I then moved on to hamstrings again 3 sets of 8 followed by calf raises which was again 3 sets of 8.
That was yesterday’s workout like I said nothing special, nothing major, just something to ease myself in. The best part, I remembered my drink bottle.
For the rest of my blogs click here.