Here we are… again. Yesterday, after taking four days off of intense training, I finally returned to the gym. My body was stiff from the lack of activity, even though we walked over 14 miles at Disney on Sunday. My (right) lower back was especially tight, to the point of constant pain, but that couldn’t be helped. I also couldn’t let it impact me.

You see… as many of us have, I’ve been on a roller coaster of health/wellness/fitness for as long as I can remember. Plagued by rare conditions and significant injuries, I’ve backed away from the intensity of being a high level athlete ever since the conveniences of being in the sports medicine office every day has extinguished.

After developing my own methods for training, that essentially include everything I’ve ever done, I need to finally find a way to seamlessly integrate that into my life. Mizuchido may be a well conceived lifestyle martial art, but I’m better at teaching it than practicing it.

I’m trying to change that with KING’s Quest, where I’ll attempt to track via a daily journal, my workouts and the changes we see. It’s off to a rough start, but here’s what happened yesterday.

I worked out at the Hollywood YCMA and went straight into rack pulls from the bottom safety. Starting at 135 for a 3×10, I moved up to 315 with different grips and avoided using a belt or chalk. Then I moved into reverse squats at the highest safety, avoiding any knee sleeves, working up to 495 for reps and 585 for a single… fail.

Next was a 4×20 for hack calves and finally the most important part of the workout… heavy bag kicks. I endured longer than I have in the past few months, although I clearly had a serious tightness in my right hip flexor. It popped out later that night, but the damage was done.

Today, we take some of the rust off of the upper body and see where we go from there.

I should also note that I had a solid post-workout meal, which is good since I’ve been doing poorly with that aspect lately. I also started the day with my normal routine and we even ended it with a walk down to the beach.

The element that we channeled yesterday…. Earth.

The quest begins.