Such a belated update as this is most unsatisfactory and I will cast at least a fair portion of the blame to China completely blocking any access to this blog and almost any other western blog available.
Moving on, although this time of the year is around the coldest and most sofa-enducing season, the spirit of a new year provides a decent off-set from lethargy, at least for the first portion. After this, a goal-focused, motivated mindset is needed to persevere and see the fruits of any labours, a consderable amount of time and focus needed to achieve much that is of real change or value.
With this in mind, my own training goals and motiations remain largely unchanged or affected despite different circumstances. At the moment I am living in a village in the east part of China in close to a city called Yangzhou. Unfortunately there is a distinct lack of any gyms or much 'equipment' for training, but the job can always get done in different ways. The body will adapt to any new or progressive stimulus, regardless of whether it is a barbell or a stone, a treadmill or a dirt track. The body doesn't register the differences in aesthetics of an object or surroundings. All thats needed is to be challenged, the nervous system and the muscles and bones and tissues all need the appropriate stimulus to achieve the desired goal, something that can be achieved in any surroundings.
Fortunately for me I had the foresight to take a pair of gymnastic rings with me which are a really effective and versatile tool to have if travelling. I would highly recommend them to anyone who travels much, all thats needed is something to hang them off like a goal post or a tree branch.
So now the small courtyard of the house I am staying in has become my training area, my equipment being a pair of gymnastic rings and a 45 kilo bag of rice, borrowed from the family stock-pile which weighs around 1 tonne in total. With these I have been able to get full body sessions working on upper body pulling and pushing movemens, as well as squatting and bending with the lower body and mid-section. A sample workout from few days ago:
Over head rice bag presses: 5 sets
Ring Dips: 5 sets
Bulgarian split squats with rice bag: 5 sets
Ring Pushups: 5 sets
Hanging Leg raises: 5 sets
Post-training nutrition: 10 spring onion and toufu dumplings. Happy days.
At the moment I am keeping it simple, training once every two days alternating between upper body pushing/squatting, and upper body pulling/lower body bending, such as good mornings or romanian deadlifts. Due to an inability to vary the weight of the rice bag without making a lot of mess and hassle, I am using a simple template of 5 sets for every exercise, going to or near failure for every set. So although I know I won't improve in some areas with such training and equipment, I can at least progress if not certainly maintain other aspects. With the rice bag so far I have been training bear-hug squats, over head press, split squats, lunges, good mornings, romanian deadlifts and bent-over rows.
The other major aspect is a change in diet, a typical Chinese household diet involving frying 95% of the time, with rice or noodles eaten with every meal. While the use of cooking oils and salt may er on the heavy side, at least this type of energy-dense diet which has grown dramatically in the last 10 years provides enough calories and nutrition to cover almost any training one does. Each meal usually consists of a bowl of rice each, and about 4 dishes in the centre of the table all picked at and shared by the family. Although fried fairly heavily, the varity of vegetables consumed each day would exceed the UK average many many times over. This being said, meat is still central to meals and seen by most as the most desirable and nutritious food group, the more the better. Being a vegetarian of the stubborn kind has lead to some puzzled and concerned responses, and a doubling of the portion of eggs, toufu and vegetables, which is never a bad thing. The abbundance, variety, home-grown origin, and low price of foods like vegetables and toufu seems to account for the difference in consumption levels between the UK and China, most people in more rural areas such as my host family growing their own rice and vegetables which are eaten on a meal-to-meal basis.
As for the gym, predictably the formalities and legal proceedings are taking a good while, but as some of you may have noticed, the 'To Let' sign outside the building has re-assuredly been replaced by a 'Let' sign. Any news will get posted swiftly on here now that means for posting from China have been established.
Keep enjoying the process!
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