...having stopped by my appartment to change I headed straight to the gym yeatsrday. The plan was to do an hour of cardio on the elyptical and then head down to fencing and work on some technical stuff. To those of you who have been reading my previous entries - yes I'm fencing again.
Have been doing a lot of rehab, and although I don't think I'll be able to get away without having a surgery (still unscheduled at this point), I'm able to put it 2-3 practices a wek with fairly solid footwork but almost no lunges and not nearly the same quality of fleches. Still, better than nothing. I also notice that the elyptical and the core work I've been doing at teh gym while I couldn't fence at all, have had some benefits in terms of balance and incremental explosiveness. Going to need to continue it, knee injury or not.
Throughout my hiatus I've been taking 1-2 stationary lessons with Igor and I and they worked my better than I thought. It's good to have an experienced and imaginative coach, who loves coming up with new excercises. The hand feels a bit stronger and faster as well. However, I'm not nearly as exhausted physically after the lessons now that the footwork part has been temporarily taken out of them [d'uh!].
On Igor's suggestion, I'm also trying to switch to a different type of a grip - from my Visconti (which I love) to the one with a full-sized trigger between the middle and ring fingers. Not loving it so far (and not only b/c of a huge open sore on teh ring finger, whcih will hopefully turn intoa blister someday)... I just don't feel the same finger control and my fingers don't seem as relaxed. Regardless, I'm going to trust Igor on that one for now and see where it takes me. I have no reason doubting his advice, and besides, one can always switch.
So now back to my original story... showing up at the practice after a pretty intense one hour cardio workout. While it's not a whole lot, I was nevertheless impressed with myself. Igor walks into the dressing room just as I am taking off my T-shirt and says: "oh wow! you are even fatter zen me!"... hahahaha
I don't believe that I am in fact fatter than him (he;s not fat at all, but has a bit of a beer gut) but I guess he's right. I did put on some weight while I was unable to do cardio, and have a bit of a belly. After such a comment (rather common for Soviet coaches) I'm naturally motivated to drop a good 10 pounds or so. I'm at about 205 lbs right now, which is not too bad considering I'm almost 6'5 and do have a decent amount of muscle mass on my upper body, but the gut should really go. Will probably make it easier on the knee as well. So right now, instead of heading off to the regular Friday-after-work watering hole with my co-workers, I'm going to the gym for some more cardio. And maybe fencing afterwards. Stupid Russians.
P.S.
Igor just called me and I told him about my decision to abstain from beer, to which he replied: "Oh, I'm not shuur iz good idea... beer iz wery good for self-confidens!".... now I'm totally confused.
Stupid Russians
07-10-2009 05:13 PM