Fitness....as in, lack of.

I am looking at fitness as more then just having the strength to survive, but as a means of injury prevention.  Since getting so far out of shape, it doesn't take much for me to get sore, or cause muscular injuries.  I want to be able to take the beating, fight off injuries, and if an injury does occur, a higher level of fitness will be beneficial in the healing and recovery process. 

So for my fitness strategy to conquer I will dive back into my military training.  I was never the fastest, or the strongest, but I could hang on for days.  My level of endurance and high threshold for pain and misery carried me for years.  Since getting out, almost 4 years ago, I have not got back into any sort of physical training routine.  It was'n required to earn a college degree, I had no time or extra money to become involved in anything that demanded physical training, so it all just slipped away.  The days where I could wake up, goto the gym, have a 2 hour lunch to goto the pool, get off at 4 and got for a 5 mile run are behind me now.  Free time is a scarce thing these days.  So whatever I do I will have to make it work in short intervals.

Between the typical military physical beat downs and body hardening I did a few months training with a crossfit gym and at one point followed more of a body building type regiment.  I think for this I am going to to a little of everything.  I don't have access to a pool, so that will be cut out, even though the pool was one of the best exercises I got involved in.  My schedule allows for about 45 minutes in a typical corporate gym, 3 treadmills, a smith machine, a bike, and an elliptical, and a bit of time after work after my son goes to sleep and between whatever home projects I am working on.

At the gym I use at work I want to focus on cardio.  I've got 45 minutes to use, and figure sprinting until my lungs burn and riding hills on the bike is a good use of this time.  At home I will reacquaint myself with the pull up bar and my old friend the kettle bell.  I will have to see if I can modify some interval training schedules to accommodate what equipment I have access to.  Ultimately if I can come across a used rower, this would be a huge help.

Shortly I will have some sort of baseline recorded.  I know where I stood at the peak of my military career, so I will compare to that as best I can.  As of now, I am 220 lbs, and slow.  At my best I was 190 lbs and nothing on earth could have made me give up whatever task was placed in front of me.  Now, I am pretty sure my past self would have slapped my present self into a bloody mess if we met.

This fitness portion will be ever evolving and I will record the baseline I create to show progress over time.