Spring Fever
Spring is definitely here, and I am very pumped up for my training so far. From February to March, I’ve been increasing the intensity of how I’ve been training. High volume training of calisthenics sessions really challenges my mental drive to stick to a plan and finish strong. I wanted to push myself to get my back muscles stronger so I had to do more than ten sets to get to that point. I would be in the gym or park and I will tell myself during the training that I have to continue to get to the goal set/reps and keep going until I reach there. It definitely all starts in the mind in which thoughts create reality and so far this is how I’ve noticed that if I just believe that I can do it then the body will follow. There will be times that it will not happen right away but with more training and time put in, eventually, you will see results. Work with the repetitions you can for now but you will need to increase the sets and repetitions over time if you want to grow.
I noticed this when I did two different sessions. One was doing five hundred repetitions of deep squats and a training session that was to be just two hundred and fifty repetitions in push-ups which turned into five hundred and ten repetitions of push-ups (More on this coming up). When I was doing my squat session on a cold February evening, I did ten sets of fifty repetitions. When I was at my seventh set, I definitely felt my legs getting heavy on me but I kept telling my mind that I would get to the last set and that I would complete the session. There will be times that yes you definitely want to give up, happened to me at times in the past but it is also a great feeling well you actually finish training. You would be in awe and even say out loud to yourself that “Damn I really just finished this workout”. Yes, that is very likely to happen a lot, but it’s a great feeling to have once you develop a new level of mental toughness and work ethic.
Doing five hundred and ten total repetitions of push-ups was a mental push for me in March. I was mentally okay with doing two hundred push-ups, but I’ve always told myself that I will at some point do five hundred push-ups in a training session. That goal came this year. Once I reached two hundred and fifty repetitions, I told myself “Ehh I can do fifty more” then I reached three hundred. Then three hundred and fifty and on and on until I got to five hundred and ten repetitions. I was definitely sore for the new few days close to a week, but I pushed myself as far as I can go and even gained more muscular endurance and strength. I’ve also put more volume into pull-up training. The most I’ve done so far in a session was a hundred and twenty repetitions which were tough. It did improve my pulling strength and helped out with me doing back bridges daily.
In the last two months, I was able to do a lot more volume in my sessions plus my mobility definitely improved. Twice per week, I would do a mobility session and a flexibility session. Compared to last year to this year, there are many changes and improvements. I remembered last year I could not do much due to my elbow tendonitis limiting my potential, but I kept believing in myself that I will be able to do a lot more movement and it came into reality. I am not 100% but I am definitely not zero percent. Small goals lead to bigger movements in the long term.
Originally published at https://amufits.com on May 12, 2022.
