Flo Gets Fit Week 3: Burpees and Calf Strains

It's a bit of a cliche, but nobody said this was going to be easy! This week I've had my first real setback: straining my soleus (the muscle from your calf to your achilles). This, coupled with a busy weekend involving a fair amount of eating and drinking exactly what I shouldn't be, has made me feel like I've really fallen off the wagon.

All that being said, I have still managed to fit in 2 1/2 training sessions! The first this week was another circuits and resistance session. After warming up and stretching, I started with a circuit of 5 exercises; doing each for 45 seconds. The circuit included kettlebell swings, kettlebell squats, mountain climbers, press-ups and burpees. In the same session the week before, my circuits had only included 4 exercises, so this represented a step-up in the exercise I'm doing. I completed that circuit twice before moving on to some pyramid training. This involved kettlebell swings and burpees, starting with 2 of each and moving up incrementally to 10 of each, then reducing the numbers after reaching 10.

I probably mention burpees quite frequently, as to my great dislike, they feature quite often in my workouts with Martin! A burpee is a four-stage, full body exercise, so although it's really hard work, it works loads of different muscle groups and is therefore a great fat burner. You begin in a standing position, then squat down and jump into a plank position, then jump back to a squat and jump again when you stand up. The picture of me is mid-burpee in the plank position!

Anyway, the last part of my circuits and resistance session was an accumulator. An accumulator is a bit like the song 'the 12 Days of Christmas': I was given 5 exercises (power squats, mountain climbers, walkouts, burpees and jump lunges) and had to do 10 power squats, then 10 power squats and 10 mountain climbers, then 10 power squats, 10 mountain climbers and 10 walkouts.. .etc etc! This was TOUGH! By the time I'd got to the third round and had to include walkouts, I was really struggling. Walkouts are another full body exercise, where from standing you walk your hands out to a plank position and then back to a standing. I needed a lot of encouragement from Martin to keep going by this point, but he made sure I finished! And now have a time to beat when I do it again.

We were back to the quay for Friday's session, this time to do sprint intervals. We started off with a jog towards the Double Locks, before beginning with 10 second sprints, with 10 second rests in between, then moving up to 20 seconds until we got to a minute. I'm not sure if I landed funny at some point or just hadn't warmed up enough, but it was during this that my calf started to hurt. I didn't complete the session as I was a bit scared of doing more damage. I'm absolutely gutted as I haven't been able to do any exercise to the level I had been since.

I've had some Fascial Stretch Therapy™ (find out more here!) on my leg in the hope that it will speed up the recovery, so fingers crossed I'll be back on it over the next few days!

To find out more about what Martin does, like his Facebook page here.