First workout of the year

Here is my first workout of the year, I'm recovering from a lower back injury I suffered in training (taking a hard fall) at the end of last year so the aim of the game is to get my lower back, legs and core back up on form and then go from there. Core and rehabilitation are my first key goals. I also have a cardio program, but more on that another time!

Warmup

5km walk with wife in Greenwich followed by 1km jog

Main

Legs back and core

Squats 5 sets of 12 reps 40kg

Dead-lift 5 sets of 20 reps at 80kg

Chest

Dumbbell bench-press 3 sets of 12 reps at 2 x 22kg

Core

12kg Turkish get up (3 each side)

Core Superset (x2)

24 kg kettlebell swing 12 reps

24kg kettlebell low halos 10 reps both sides

24kg kettlebell sqauts 12 reps

Finisher superset (x2)

2 x 12kg kettlebell squat 12 reps

2 x 12kg kettlebell clean and press 12 reps

Cooldown

Tai Chi 24 form (1x)

Full body stretch

So there you go, I got through it but only just. I really wanted to do three of each of the supersets and I could barely wobble out my 24 posture form by the end of it (and getting up the stairs to the changing room was hard!!). There was a heavy emphasis on squats, which I really think are the king of exercises. I’m naturally much better at dead-lift, but I feel the squats really help the core, back and posture if done properly (doing lots of big dead-lifts is cool, but isn’t what I want for my back right now).

I threw the benchpress in there as a one off, next time I will leave it for another day. I was very unhappy with the Turkish getups. My form was a bit wobbly and I really wanted to do 3 to 5 reps. The Turkish getup is the king of core exercises, it is a technical beast but worth the effort to learn how to do. I think I will be dropping the weight down and getting my form spot on over the next week (maybe with a shoe balancing on my fist to keep the wobbles down). It's an exercise that really highlights your weaknesses, and I could feel the lower back injury causing me to loose strength in the middle part of the move.

All in all a pretty good first session back with a few specific things to address.

Mark