Prior to leaving on vacation in India, I'd downloaded a book to my Kindle titled, "Relentless Forward Progress: a Guide to Running Ultramarathons," by Bryon Powell and Eric Grossman. Prior to purchasing this book on my Kindle, I'd read the book "Run!" by Dean Karnazes, a well known author and ultramarathon runner. Having read Karnazes' previous books, I had developed a keen interest in running and specifically running marathons and ultra distance races. Thus, leading to my injuring my knees. I tried to take on way too much, way too soon, without enough training time.
After reading "Run!" my interest in running was piqued once again, but having been tempered by experience, I know better than to jump in head first without significant work up and conditioning. Reading "Relentless Forward Progress" further helped strengthen my resolve to start running again, but this time with more consideration for my health and the health of my joints and limbs. Thinking about how to ease back into running, I remembered my days in high school. Back then, a friend and I had been so interested in applying to the Naval academy at Annapolis and becoming Navy SEALs, that we were constantly doing research on-line about them and their physical preparation.
One such search brought me to a page that had a well structured and well written, preparatory workout for prospective SEALs. There were two workouts, one for those people that have never truly followed any particular PT routine, and a second for those with a solid athletic base (ie. swimmers, runners, wrestlers, etc.). Doing a secondary search for this routine in the past few days, I've come to see that this workout has been written and re-written numerous times by various authors and webmasters. The structure of the running workouts is very simple, 3-4 days of running every week for 9 weeks (I write the workout below). The PT routine (push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups), on the other hand is extremely difficult and demanding, which is what I love the most about it. Eat right, and rest well, and I think you will see huge results.
Anyway, so after finding the workout in high school, I never really had the opportunity to pursue it fully due to my rigorous swimming workouts, and school work. I always vowed to begin it again, and I feel like this might be the perfect time to do it.
Running Workout: (goal pace is 8:30/mi.)
Week 1: 2 miles/day, M/W/F
Week 2: 2 miles/day, M/W/F
Week 3: rest, high risk for stress fractures
Week 4: 3 miles/day, M/W/F
Week 5: 2/3/4/2, M/Tu/Th/F
Week 6: 2/3/4/2, M/Tu/Th/F
Week 7: 4/4/5/3, M/Tu/Th/F
Week 8: 4/4/5/3, M/Tu/Th/F
Week 9: 4/4/5/3, M/Tu/Th/F
Physical Training:
Week 1: 4x15 pushups
4x20 situps
3x3 pullups
Week 2: 5x20 pushups
5x20 situps
3x3 pullups
Week 3: 5x25 pushups
5x25 situps
3x4 pullups
Week 4: 5x25 pushups
5x25 situps
3x4 pullups
Week 5: 6x25 pushups
6x25 situps
2x8 pullups
Week 6: 6x25 pushups
6x25 situps
2x8 pullups
Week 7: 6x30 pushups
6x30 situps
2x10 pullups
Week 8: 6x30 pushups
6x30 situps
2x10 pullups
Week 9: 6x30 pushups
6x30 situps
3x10 pullups
So there you have it, 9 weeks of working out, 3-4 times per week. I wrote in a previous post, that cardio is a non-essential exercise for karate-ka, specifically because we don't receive cardiovascular benefit from running complimentary to our karate training. The only way to find physical benefit for your karate is to make all of you running high intensity interval training (which is extremely demanding, and dangerous to do more than twice in a week), or to use the fartlek method. Fartleks generally take any given set distance and break them up into a number of higher and lower intensity intervals without stopping in between. The high level intensity can be determined by simply looking to run fast to the next tree or the next sign, and then dial back the pace to recover and then do it again. I'm going to attempt to mix the two methods together to acquire maximum benefit from the running.
Day 1 was yesterday, I ran the 2 miles in 18 minutes, at approximately a 9 min/mile average pace. Not bad for my first day back in the saddle. I'll keep you updated as I continue with the running. I need to do the PT workout today as I forgot to do it yesterday.
Let's see how much this helps me, and how long my knees hold up. Wish me luck!
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