FredMcKinnon.Com

FreePlay Friday (temporarily discontinued – to resume soon)

Hey Everybody,

Today I’m doing “Fitness Friday” – a blog carnival hosted by my friend Bryan Patrick over at PursuingYahweh.Net.  I met Bryan at the re:create conference in Franklin, TN in February.

In light of my recent commitment to fitness plan, I thought I’d take a break from “FreePlay Friday” and jump in with Patrick here.  Don’t worry – you can always post your own random comments here, and I’ll throw in the family, life stuff in “Fitness Fridays” anyway!

Island Regimen Training

I first talked about this last week in my post “I Almost Died This Morning“.  I’ve started a new training program called “Regimen Training” with a great group of men and women.  It’s led by a guy named Eric Taylor who delights in kicking our butts twice a week.  Eric just started a new blog called “The Fitness Forum”.  If you’re interested in health and fitness, check it out.

We meet at 6:00 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Our 6:00 AM warmups include stuff like:

* bunny hops back and forth across the workout area
* slow lunges
* faster lunge walks
* high knee kicks
* some kind of sideways shuffle thing
* quick sprints
* vertical leaps

Then, we move to any number of classic outdoor exercises like pushups, squats, lunges, dips, to some more “unique” exercises I can’t begin to describe.  We’re doing some running, too.  For example on Tuesday, we jogged to a nature trail that is 1/2 mile long, and loops all through the woods.  (very few straightaways)  We had to sprint through it, then rest a minute or so, then sprint through it again.  Yesterday, we hit the same track but this time we ran and stopped at every stretch station along the way and did pushups or various exercises.  We’re doing things like “bear crawls” and “crab walks” where you get down on your hands and toes (no knees on the ground) and crawl around, low to the ground.  Man, that hurts.

So I’m starting this brutal nonsense in horrific shape.  Topping the scales around 235 lbs (approx 6 ft tall), horrible eating habits, horrible resting habits, and no desire to exercise.  I’m weak all over – I can barely do 10 pushups.  I’m one of the youngest in the class, and definitely the most out of shape.  You can see from the picture above – who looks the sweatiest?  (I’m the guy in the grey Georgia Bulldog T-Shirt!).

I’ll be talking about it more … but the bottom line is that I have to make a change.  Truth is, if I only do this 2 days a week, and I only have 6 more weeks to go … it won’t have the greatest impact.  I will need to supplement this and change a lot of things.  But I know God is telling me I have to do this.  If I continue living the way I was living, I’m living in disobedience and rebellion.  Not a good place.

If you’re interested in posting about your journey in Fitness (or if you’re inspired to START), join Bryan’s new “Fitness Fridays” blog carnival.