Ill too

Think I am getting sick as well as being injured now! My wife and son have been sick all week and I think that I am slowly coming down with it too.

I woke up at 11am this morning and only woke up then because my son was off school and feeling better so he woke me up.

Because my son was home and he was ill I didn't want to take him too far from home so I didn't pick up my bike from Crucial.

We did head out a bit later and went shopping and too a quick look at the track which still isn't rideable as the weather was too wet to finish the last straight this week.

On a more positive note my knee is feeling much better although it is still swollen and a bit sore still.

I have decided that I am going to take this week off and then start at the gym next week first thing on Monday morning (5am). 

Gym wise I am planning to do Upper Body Weights on Monday and Thursday's And for the time being I am going to do light aerobic exercises (mainly exercise bike and recumbant bike for the next couple of weeks) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday's until my knee is better. Once my Knee is better I plan to do Upper Body on Monday and Thursdays, Lower Body on Tuesday and Fridays and Aerobic on Wednesdays. 

I am going to hold off on doing too much BMX Sprint training until the new year once I have done a month or so of Weight training to strengthen my knee back up. 

I plan to start doing Manual training as soon as my knee is able to straighten properly (hopefully in a week or so).

My main priority at the moment is getting the knee healthy followed by dropping weight followed by improving my manuals followed by getting into race shape for next season.

No Riding Today

Went to Crucial BMX this morning and picked up my Yess 24" and dropped off the 20" to get dialled in and get the new Rennen chain ring put on it.

I then went to the track from Crucial but as I got to the Junction to go to the track it started throwing it down so I aborted the mission for the Day.

When I got home I decided to wash the Dialled and get it on ebay to sell.

The bike looked amazing after its wash. Here are the Photo's I used for the ebay add:

I am not too worried about training today as it is probably better that I rest up as I have a basketball tournament tomorrow so I will have to play 2 full games of basketball.

I have just found out that there is a 24 hour gym opening in town next week so I am going to go there on Monday and sign up then I can do 5am workouts when I am working earlies before work and either 11pm or 2am workouts when I am working nights. Hopefully after a month or so of working out my knee pain will go away again like it usually does.

Cross Training - 01/11/17

Did a bit of cross training tonight and played a Basketball Match for an hour.

I am going to do more of this as Basketball is a really good way to drop weight and strengthen the legs at the same time.

I am going to start training every Sunday at 5pm for 1.5 hours and then on my weeks that I work earlies I am going to train at a local school on Thursday nights for an hour and a half and also play Matches with my team on Wednesday nights.

Hopefully all of this will mean that I drop weight and also get back into some kind of Basketball form so that I can play at a higher level again.

I went to see the track this afternoon too as it is being reformed at the moment and it is looking good the third straight is really big but there is loads of places to improve and the 4th looks like it will be really good to practice pumping and manuals as it is filled with deep rollers. Cant wait to be able to ride it this time next week.

Because of the track maintenance I will have to go to Bristol more next week to get my track time in which isn't a bad thing as the Bristol track is much longer than the Bath track. I will be doing my normal Monday full laps on Monday and Tuesday I will be doing pump laps and then probably some jumping and maybe some flat manual practice as well.

Rest Day - 30-10-17

After waking up and not being able to walk I have decided to take the day off to rest up my legs.

I has to use a load of Voltarol cream this morning after my show just to walk the 5 minutes into work!

I am going to buy some ibuprofen in a bit and start taking it for the next couple of days to get rid of the Doms faster as tomorrow is going to be even worse than today if I don't!!!

Bit of a pain but the good thing is that the Basketball is building my lege up which will help with the BMX anyway so I am kind of cross-training which is good and the muscle built doing basketball will all be fast twitch so it will all help racing.

I am going to leave sprints until next week now so that my legs can recover from the shock of Basketball. Also I have a basketball match on Wednesday night that I want to be ready for.

This week I am going to focus on Manuals and bunny hops as I should be OK to do this even with sore legs.

Busy day

Had a really busy day today. Got up early and went to Bath track and played on the 3rd and 4th straights as they are being rebuilt Tomorrow so wanted to ride them as they are before they are changed. I am sure that they will be changed for the better but it is sad that they are changing as I have been riding them pretty much every day for the last year and a half.

This evening I played basketball for an hour and a half which was good but my legs are hanging now 😂

I have just had to put some Voltarol cream on to take some of the pain away so that I can sleep tonight.

I am going to sleep in tomorrow morning and rest up and then do sprints tomorrow night instead as I don't think sprints would be very productive tomorrow morning.

My son is going to do the sprints with me so that will be more fun than doing them on my own.

We will also do some manuals and bunny hop training too after the sprints.

Gate Broke - 28/10/17

Went to gates in Bath today but the gate Broke before anyone could get any gates so I did a few pump laps and a few first straights and then went home as we were going out in the afternoon.

Will go to the track tomorrow morning and do some laps to make up for the lack of training g today.

Sprint Training

I have been looking online and found this article about box sprint training:

https://bmxtalk.com/news/get-box-sprints.html

It basically says to do 2 sets of 5 sprints with 2-3 minutes rest between reps and 10 minutes between sets and a length of 12 peddles. They say to do this 2-3 times a week.

I am going to try and start doing this tomorrow to see how it goes and then start for real on Monday night. I can use the space in between reps and sets to practice Manuals as well.

We have an office block behind our house that has a flat car park that is empty at night so I will use this as it means that there is no traffic and there is also undercover areas for when it is really raining.

Tomorrow I am planning to go to Bristol Track to do laps so I can do the sprints at the track.

I also found another article on the same site about endurance training:

https://bmxtalk.com/news/thurs-training-tips-pedals-2-medals.html

This article says that you should take 2 days and do 1/4 mile sprints which is basically sprinting as hard as you can for 400m then take 5-7 minutes rest while peddling in a sitting position and repeat until you can't do any more. He says to expect to only be able to do 2 or 3 at first and to be prepared to throw up which is a good sign that you are working hard.

These will be perfect to do in the mornings when I can go to the 2 tunnels and sprint through the tunnels a few times before work. I am going to try and do these sprints on Tuesday and Thursdays to see if I can get some stamina back.

These sprints will also help me to shift all of the extra weight that I am carrying really quickly. Fitness has been my weakness for most of the season until maybe the last couple of races where I was actually fit enough to race the whole length of the track so it would be good to start next season fit enough to race the whole track at full speed.

I am now planning to do the following:

Monday - Box Sprints
Tuesdays - 400m Sprints
Wednesdays - Downhill Sprints
Thursdays - 400m Sprints
Fridays - Box Sprints
Saturdays - Gates
Sundays - Track Session

On top of the Sprints I need to work my manuals and bunny hops as well as track skills such as pumping, manuals and jumping.

When I am working Nights I will do the following track training:

Mondays - 5 pump laps followed by 6 full speed laps with 3 minutes rest.
Tuesdays - 10 pump laps followed by Jumping and manual practice.
Wednesdays - 5 pump laps followed by 6 full speed laps with 3 minutes rest.
Thursdays - 10 pump laps followed by Jumping and manual practice.
Fridays - Rest
Saturdays - Gates
Sunday - Track Session or Bristol Winter Series.

When I am working Days I want to try and do:

Tuesdays - Gates at Burnham
Thursdays - Gates at Burnham
Saturdays - Gates Bath
Sundays - Track Session or Bristol Winter Series.

While I am at the Bristol track tomorrow I am going to time a couple of full laps so that I can get a baseline measurement ready to log the progress of my training over the next couple of months to see by how much I improve. Hopefully this will help me to stay motivated over the winter to keep focussed on my training so that I get maximum gains before the start of next season.