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Ok, so. I've been slacking. A lot. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but enough is enough. Time to get serious. Again. To maintain my qualifications for the police, I have to retake the physical test every 6 months (I can do it as early as 4 months). Which means that I'll have to retake the test by the beginning of March, at the latest, and I plan to do it some time in February to give myself some wiggle room on the off chance I fail it. So this challenge is centred around getting myself ready for that, while still having some fun. For anyone who has looked at my challenges before, this will seem very familiar. Until I'm officially hired by the police, I'm mostly staying in a holding pattern with respect to my exercise, partly because I've had success with what I was doing and so want to continue to do it so I continue to have success, and partly because new things take willpower that's being directed elsewhere at the moment. Goal #1 - Run This is the thing I've been slacking with the most, since it's the thing I hate the most (as Aeryn said so eloquently, I hate it with the buring fire of a thousand suns). Anyway, my goal is to run 3x per week. I'm going to let myself replace a run with hockey every now and then, but it can't be a regular thing. With it being winter, if there's a windchill of -35C or the world turns into a skating rink again, then maybe I'll skip the run and let hockey replace it, but other than that, no excuses. It's only 2 km (10 minutes) so I have no real reason to say no. Goal #2 - Strength I'm keeping up with the climbing 2-3x per week, since I love it (I might have even conned a friend into coming with me. We're doing the lesson on the first day of the challenge, and she gets a free month membership as part of the deal, we'll have to see how she likes it). But I also need to add in some more strength stuff to maintain/improve certain areas. So, I shall do the following 3x per week (doesn't necessarily have to be on the same day as climbing): Note: I plan to do only 1 of each type of exercise, so when there's a list of possibilities it's there to let me choose what I want to do, to hopefully keep me more interested Squats of some sort, 3 sets of 10 (I'll probably do some jump squats and maybe some split squats, though I don't like those as well. I might also do something crazy like 3 sets of high reps, or 50 or 100 in a row or something, since working on endurance in my quads will be helpful for the pull machine and the body drag in the test) Pushups, working up to 3 sets of 10 (I think I'm going to try doing them with a narrow grip, as I have been doing, and doing 3 sets of as many as I can, then finishing it off with 1 set of wide grip onces to work my chest a bit more, and just do them to failure) Core stuff, 3 sets of however long I can hold for if it's static, or 3 sets of 10 if it's dynamic (these will include hollow body planks and side planks off my paralettes, tuck L-sits on my paralettes and hanging tuck L-sits on my pull-up bar, knees to elbows on my pull-up bar) If I don't get to the climbing gym for the 3rd time in a week, I'll add in some band assisted pull-ups and some flex hangs, but I don't want to overdo it and hurt myself. I probably won't be able to resist doing a bit of this when I'm doing knees to elbows or L-sits, but it'll be a bit more structured when I miss a climbing day. Rice bucket, as per video. Thanks to Lillith for reminding me this was a thing! I will say, this is hard on my wrists (as it should be), so if I find it's impacting negatively on the pain there, I'll adjust/eliminate this. Goal #3 - Stretch This is actually the thing I've been slacking with the most. I don't know why I can't make myself do this regularly, I always feel 83% better when I do it, and 117% better when I do it regularly. A full-body thing is probably asking too much of me and my laziness, so these are the areas of focus, to be done daily: Neck/shoulders Hamstrings Quads Calves/Soleus Wrists (physio stretches, I've actually been fairly good with these) Goal #4-A - Get My Shit Sorted Out This one should be accomplished by the end of week 1/middle of week 2, depending on how long it takes for people to get back to me. For this I need to book a retest date with the testing company, and sign up for some practice sessions with the college I went to before, as well as with Toronto Police. Goal #4-B - Write Shit Down I'm usually pretty good at recording stuff here, but I don't ever have a thing I can glace at to see where I am. So I'm taking a page from Nyxy's last challenge and writing my stuff down on a calendar. I have one that hangs on my wall anyway, with pictures of foxes on it. At the moment, it's just decoration, but now I'm gonna use it for actual useful things and write down each day what I do. I won't record detail, necessarily, that's what this thread is for, but I'll write down 'Run' if I run, 'Strength' if I do strength other than climbing, 'Climb' if I climb, 'Stretch' if I stretch, and 'Rest' if it's a rest day. So. There ya have it. More of the same, but still moving foward. Ish...