I had a great week off work, I visited my friends Luke and Lucy who live in Manchester and had a well earned rest. I did have one cheeky light training session half way through the week with my friend Luke at his house, just to keep ticking over. We did some weights on the bench, some core strength and abs exercises finished off with a 5k jog. Did the job.
I went to bed on the Sunday really hoping I could get some good sleep ready for my first day back at work and a good game of football. But I just couldn't seem to get to sleep on the Sunday night and in the end I managed only 2 hours. I was really tired Monday morning but still had full intentions of playing football.
CHARITY BIKE CHALLENGE
I got to work and after an hour or so I realised we were hosting a charity event at work where all staff were encouraged to ride on an exercise bike for 15 minutes. I didn't have any kit on me but I said I would still have a go on the bike, as it's for a great cause and I love exercise and I thought it would be a good warm up for football in the evening.
So, it was my turn to go on the bike and two other lads from work, both who are competitive lads had already been on the bike and told me I had to beat their distance covered over 15 minutes on the bike. The distances to beat were 7.2 miles and 7.4 miles respectively.
So, me being the competitive sports person I am, decided I would try and beat their times, but I was in my work uniform and I didn't want to sweat. Cut a long story short, I managed to beat them, 7.7 miles and I really pumped it hard. I had only had two hours sleep, but it didn't stop me putting in the effort to beat them but wow, I was sweating buckets after and my legs were like lead. I enjoyed it though and quite a few customers put money in the sponsor bucket while I was on so it was all good fun. It took my uniform ages to dry out though which was a bit embarrassing but thankfully we have aftershave testers so I still smelt good, haha. Later that day, I just felt so tired and drained from lack of sleep, I dropped out of football, something that I never do (unless I am injured), so I just decided to rest and get some much needed sleep and rehydrate my body.
My distance was the record for that day and it stood right until late on the second day of the event when one of the gym instructors who provided us with the bike managed to beat me with a distance of 7.8, very close one.
We also had a guest visit from the former WBU World Champion Cruiser-weight boxer Mark Hobson and our event made it into today's page 6 of the Yorkshire Evening Post (Leeds Edition).
See picture below:
Tuesday morning I woke up full of energy and back to my normal self and really eager to play some sport or train. I knew that it was the return of indoor football at Horsforth High School after a short break for the half term holidays so I contacted the football lads and said I was playing, which was also the first time I have played there for around 3 months.
The concept of Tuesday night indoor football is basically a group of competitive lads who love playing football get together almost weekly for a real good game for around an hour, we rent out the Horsforth High School sports hall during the winter months and in the summer we rent out an 11 a side pitch up at Lawnswood YMCA.
Many of the players are older than me and are what you would call 'veterans' in football terms, but I always enjoy playing with them as they are all super competitive, all used to play at a high amateur football standard, some at semi professional and they are all really intelligent players and I feel I can learn a lot from playing with and against them.
I started the game off in a pretty average way if I am being honest, for the first 10 minutes I was making runs but not getting much of the ball as it was quite scrappy. But once the game settled I began getting into my groove. I was making some trademark runs down the flanks and dribbling at defenders. I came close on several occasions but failed to score until late on in the game. During the match, I set up 5 of our goals and hit the post on several occasions. I didn't track back anywhere near as much as I usually do, but I was playing in attack most of the match as a lone attacker.
I made one notable error in the game, although it was unlucky in my opinion. The opposition ripped through our defence in the middle of the court, and I knew I had the pace to get back and attempt to retrieve possession and I had full confidence I would, I did get back and I over stretched to nudge the ball back to our goalkeeper but as due to me over stretching I didn't get full contact on the ball and it left us open for the opposition to score. I was disappointed but the effort and desire was there, I just felt I was a bit unlucky really as the bounce of the ball didn't go my way. Moments later I set up a great goal, so we got over it and so did I. All in all, I was pleased with how I played and I felt I got a good run out and some vital speed work and endurance out of the so called 'friendly game', I call it semi-competitive, as everyone plays their heart out and some players definitely don't take no prisoners.
Today was my first session back in the gym after nearly two weeks of resting my body and recovering. Despite feeling pretty tired mentally, as I had been up for work since 4:50am, I was really enthusiastic and excited about having a great training session, I sensed it would be hard at times but I definitely had the desire to push myself.
I decided I would do my regular routine of starting off on the small amount of weight training I do, which is bench pressing. I actually felt I performed really well on this and I was happy with my strength and energy.
Next up was the pull up bars and using my own body weight exercises. Some of these can be really hard and require a lot of desire but the results are really beneficial for my strength work for running and football. I decided to only do 6 reps of the pull ups, sometimes if you have had a rest, it can be hard to do the same reps as what you are used to so slightly reducing the reps gets your confidence back, it works for me anyway, you know the saying, 'don't run before you can walk'.
I then moved straight into my explosive work, so I did my jump box exercises, I then worked on my calves both strengthening then and conditioning them using the power vibration plates and the foam roller to massage my leg muscles.
Next up was my core strength work and this was tough but I really feel core strength is my main strength and I really hit this area hard, as usual. I moved on the shrugs for my upper back and shoulders with some weights on the dumbbell.
My workout plan was as follows:
BENCH PRESS WEIGHTS:
3 sets 10 - decline
3 sets 10 - bench level
3 sets 8 - incline
PULL UP BARS:
3 sets 6 - wide grip pull ups
3 sets 8 - inside pull ups
1 set 12 - dips
3 sets 15 - abs pull ups
EXPLOSIVE & CALF CONDITIONING:
calf stretches on power plate
30 box jumps
calf raises on power plate
foam roller massages
CORE STRENGTH:
20 gym balance ball leg raises
60 second gym balance ball plank
50 gym balance ball mountain climbs
30 gym ball sit ups
60 Russian twists with weighted gym ball
SHRUGS:
20 shrugs with weights on dumbbell
AMIR KHAN CORE BALANCE WORKOUT
see video at the bottom
Last but not least, I really wanted to try out a new workout that I came across on a video on You Tube, which was demonstrated and used by former two time world champion boxer Amir Khan.
I am a huge fan of Amir Khan as a boxer and I think his physique is unreal. I am very impressed in particular with some of the strength and conditioning work he does and his core strength is probably what impresses me the most.
I came across a work out which looks as dangerous to your joints and as much of a risk to injury as it looks tough, but I wanted to try it out and I did.
I went into the other gym room, which is usually quiet when no classes are on. I didn't really want people seeing me trying this bizarre and strange looking workout, especially as I have never tried it before.
So I went into this other gym room and there was just one other person in there so I got the equipment needed and gave it a go.
It was very difficult to keep my balance but that is what the exercise is all about. I felt I did well at it and I managed 2 sets of 10. One thing I will say for sure though is that it isn't very good for your wrist joints so I am not sure how often I will try this workout when having no one to assist me.
You can check out the Amir Khan workout on the video below, maybe try it yourself?
INSTAGRAM: @joycinho
TWITTER: @joycinho @rjsports1 @rjrugbyleague
Richard Kennedy-Joyce