Date: 12/6/21
Training Day: 1 (hopefully my last time starting over for a while)
Activity: Strength – Foundation

How It Felt: It felt so fucking good to do strength training again! The workout was just right for post-COVID and not working out for two weeks.

Commentary: Since I’m no longer doing a 50k in April and my next big race is the first week of July, I have a looooong time to prepare. And if I’m being honest, I’m pretty grateful that COVID forced me to defer my April race. Would I have gotten myself ready by then? Sure. But I felt like I wasn’t starting with a good foundation, like I was playing catch up from fucking off most of the summer.

Now I have the chance to do it “right”. And by right, I mean doing strength training before I start run training to give myself a good, strong body to work with. This will not only help my running but also prevent injuries. I’ll also have plenty of time to slowly build up my weekly mileage to get ready for the 55k.

Even though my personal trainer annoyed the crap out of me, mainly because I felt like I was paying way more than I got in return, I’m confident his workouts set me up for success. This time around I didn’t want to pay out the ass for a personal trainer, but I still wanted a quality program. Yes, I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too.

A few years back I used the BodBot app for my workouts. I was able to select the equipment I had access to, set the amount of time I had, and what muscle groups I wanted to focus. Then the app spit out a workout for the day. It worked well enough, but I decided to do some research before choosing it again and committing to the annual subscription fee.

During my search I stumbled across Volt Athletics. Their “sales pitch” pulled me in: “Unlike other fitness apps that randomly generate unconnected workouts, Volt takes a long-term, science-based approach to fitness. Designed by CSCS-certified strength and conditioning coaches, and powered by Cortex®, the AI that adjusts your program in real time, each Volt workout builds on the last to intentionally progress you toward your goals.”

Sounds pretty impressive if you as me.

After further research I discovered Volt lets you pick a specific sport that you want to train for, and it tailors your workouts for that sport. Training is done in blocks for focused muscle adaptation. You tell it when your sports season starts, and it adjusts your schedule so that you peak at the start of your season. The workouts during the season focus on maintaining fitness without sapping energy from your sports performance.

This is everything I ever wanted in a workout app! And the best part? Only $100 for a year subscription! That’s a third of what I paid per month for my personal trainer. Needless to say, I’m pretty fucking excited about this app.

I chose obstacle course racing for sport because I want to focus on overall full body strength as well as running. My “season” starts two weeks before my race, which is when I plan to start tapering my running. The season ends two weeks after my race since I plan to take two weeks to recover. Then I start all over again to get ready for my November 50k.

Since I haven’t been doing strength training on the regular, I chose to start my program off with four weeks of foundation training. The workouts are high rep and light load to get me ready for the real strength training. Today’s workout was pretty damn good, and I even stuck with the recommended rest periods between sets.

My post-COVID body did well during the workout. My heart rate didn’t get too high, and I never felt so fatigued that I wanted to stop. Here’s to hoping my body is slowly bouncing back!

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